Chapter 29 Jeremy
JEREMY
I approach the Johnsons’ house in Denver for the second time in my life, and just like before, I have no idea what I’m going to say when the door opens. Only this time, I don’t have Avah at my side to make it all better.
Instead of sleeping, I spent most of last night wide awake on my thousand-plus thread count sheets, replaying every conversation I’ve had with the woman I love.
Somehow, the dark made it easier to see all the moments she tried to tell me who she was, but I was too wrapped up in my own wounds to hear it.
I called her last night as I poured a bowl of Cheerios for dinner, but she didn’t pick up. Two hours later, my phone pinged with an incoming text.
Avah: Long day. Going to bed. Good luck with your meeting.
Every single one of those ten words felt wrong.
Good luck with your meeting is what you text a colleague.
Avah tells me not to screw things up. She pokes and jabs and dares me to be better because she refuses to coddle me.
It’s one of the reasons I fell for her so hard that I can’t remember what it feels like to stand upright.
I skipped the board meeting, leaving Raina to explain to the chair that I have a personal emergency.
It’s technically true if you consider the fact that I can’t breathe properly.
I had my pilot file a flight plan first thing this morning and drove straight to the Johnsons’ house from the municipal airport.
Now I’m standing on this porch, my hand raised to knock, overcaffeinated but also certain that I can’t fix this situation from three states away.
The door swings open before my knuckles connect with the wood. Mariel stands in the doorway, her reading glasses pushed up on her head, looking at me with an expression that falls somewhere between shocked and amused.
“Jeremy Winslow on my doorstep.” She leans against the frame. “It’s a day for drop-ins.”
I massage a hand over the back of my neck. “My assistant told me you were down from camp for a few days, but I should have called first.”
“Probably.” She steps back and waves me inside. “You look like a man who would have come regardless.”
She’s not wrong.
The Johnsons’ living room is just as I remember—warm and cluttered in the best sense. Mariel settles into a wingback chair and gestures to the couch. I sit, the bottoms of my shoes rigidly planted on the floor, unable to make my spine relax against the cushions.
“How were the last few days of camp?” I start, feeling the need to warm up with small talk even though I’m vibrating out of my skin.
She tilts her head. “I thought you were in California.”
“I flew back this morning.”
The look she gives me says I’ve stepped in dog doo and then tracked it across the carpet. “You didn’t cut a trip short to ask about camp, Jeremy.”
Fair.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “I need to talk to you about Avah.”
“Okay.”
I exhale slowly, trying to separate what I know from how I feel about the information.
“Her father is a man named Robert Ramsey. He served fifteen years in federal prison for running an insurance fraud scheme. He’s out now, and he’s been making contact with people in my circle, dropping my name and mentioning The NorthStar Way.”
Mariel’s expression doesn’t shift, but her fingers tighten around the arm of her chair.
“Avah didn’t tell me about him. I found out yesterday from my assistant.” I run a hand over my jaw. “Her ex-fiancé is involved, too. He’s been using information about her father and her past to threaten her, and potentially my partnership with you and Joel.”
“And you’re here because—”
“Because I’m handling it. My people are going to deal with her father and her ex, so thoroughly that they won’t dare to come within a hundred miles of NorthStar or any of the families in your community.” I hold her gaze. “I wanted you to hear that from me directly.”
Mariel studies me for a long moment, displaying the calm self-assurance of someone who has listened to people in crisis for years. Then she removes her reading glasses from the top of her head and sets them on the side table.
“Avah Harris has a lot of baggage.”
I blink.
“Her father’s a criminal, and her ex is apparently not much better. She kept all of it from you, the man intent on being an active leader to a community built on trust.” Mariel tilts her head. “Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far, and it’s time to cut our losses. All of us.”
The words are so far from the response I expected that it takes a full three seconds for the fury to climb from my gut to my throat.
“Avah Harris is the reason you gave me a second look.” My voice is absolutely lethal. “She defended me on the beach in Bora Bora and showed up to your dinner and your retreat and made every person she talked to feel seen. She wasn’t working an angle. That’s who she is.”
Mariel holds my gaze, her eyes revealing nothing.
“Her father’s choices aren’t hers. Her ex’s slimy-ass behavior isn’t her fault. She’s carried that weight alone because people have spent her entire life telling her she’s too much or not enough—”
I pause, draw a breath through my nose, and notice my hands are shaking. “I came here as a courtesy, not to throw Avah under the bus. If you can’t see and appreciate the person she actually is, then maybe this partnership isn’t going to work. For either of us.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, my brain wants to backpedal.
I’ve spent the better part of a year courting the Johnsons.
Am I really willing to walk away from NorthStar?
I’ve wanted this partnership more than any deal I’ve ever closed.
It’s the purpose I’ve been chasing since Sloane’s diagnosis made me confront how hollow my life had become.
I force air in and out of my lungs as my mind reels, then suddenly settles, like a hummingbird landing on a branch after frenetically flying for too long.
Yeah, I’m willing to let NorthStar go. It feels less like a sacrifice and more like the clearest decision I’ve made in years.
Mariel watches me with an expression I still can’t read. Then the corner of her mouth curves slowly upward.
“Well done, Jeremy.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was testing you.” She smooths both hands over her linen slacks, unaware that she just knocked my careful composure sideways.
“I needed to know you weren’t going to be another man in an apparently long line of them who looked at that girl and saw someone to bend to his will instead of a person worth fighting for. ”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. “You—”
“Told her the same thing, by the way. She needs to stop carrying the weight of other people’s wrongdoings on her own shoulders.
We can’t measure our worth by the worst things that were done to us.
” Mariel sighs. “She’s too good for that, and I hope she’s starting to believe it.
You’ve helped her, although not quite as much as she seems to have helped you. ”
I’m still processing the whiplash when her first comment registers. “When did you talk to Avah?”
Mariel raises an eyebrow. “She stopped by this morning.”
“She—” I slump against the cushions as the room tilts. “She told you about her father?”
“Showed up at my door, just like you. Except she was crying, which you’re not, so congratulations on the composure.
” The older woman folds her hands in her lap.
“She wanted me to know that you had nothing to do with her father or his scheming and that whatever happens going forward, Joel and I should not let it affect the partnership. She said you can help NorthStar grow beyond what we ever imagined. But more than that—” Mariel pauses, and her voice softens.
“She said you need this kind of purpose in your life. That you have so much good in you, and our community would give you a place to put it.”
My chest is caving in on itself, the part of me that’s spent years staying guarded collapsing under the force of my love for a woman who came here to protect me, knowing it would expose every secret she’s worked so hard to keep hidden.
“It looks like the two of you are getting your wires crossed,” Mariel says, satisfaction settling into the fine lines on either side of her smile.
“But you’re also dead set on protecting the other.
Joel and I want people involved in NorthStar who have the backs of the people they love, especially when things get hard.
That matters more to us than a spotless past or bottomless bank accounts. ”
I nod because I don’t trust my voice.
“I just hope she figures out whatever she needs to in Florida and comes back soon. Colorado is a much better place with her in it.”
My entire body goes still. “Florida?”
Mariel’s smile falters. “She said she had to go to Florida to take care of some family—”
“She’s gone?” I practically shout. So much for that laudable composure.
“She was heading to the airport after she left here.” Mariel’s brow furrows. “She said you would understand.”
I’m on my feet before I’ve made the conscious decision to stand. “The fuck I understand.”
“Language, Jeremy.”
“Sorry. I—” I press both hands against the top of my head and pace the length of her living room, past the family photos and the cozy throws, my pulse hammering in my ears.
Avah is heading to Florida, on God knows what kind of self-destruct mission, because every person who was supposed to love her taught her that she’s the problem.
I won’t be another man who lets her think she has to carry the weight of the world alone.
“I have to go.”
“I assumed.” Mariel rises from her chair and follows me toward the door. “Jeremy.”
I turn, one hand on the doorknob.
“When I lost my daughter, I thought the grief would swallow me whole. It nearly did. But Joel pulled me back by refusing to let me disappear into it. He didn’t fix it.
No one could give me back what I lost. But he showed up and stood next to me while I figured out how to survive it.
” She holds my gaze with the intensity of a woman who has earned her wisdom by navigating the layers of grief that reshape a life.
“Avah doesn’t need rescuing. She needs someone to stand at her side, not in front of her. There’s a difference.”
“I know.” Yes, I want to slay every dragon circling Avah. But what I want more is for her to know she’s capable of slaying them herself. And that I’ll be there whether she needs me for the fight, or just to hold her after. “But I have to find her first.”
“I have a feeling you’ll manage.” Mariel opens the door with a teasing laugh. “Figuring things out is what billionaires do best.”
I’m dialing Sloane before I reach the car.
She picks up on the first ring. “We need to talk, Jeremy. Where are you?”
“On my way to DIA. Did you know Avah was going to Florida?”
“Oh.” A beat of silence and then a sigh that I’m pretty sure sounds relieved. “Yeah. She stopped by this morning but didn’t want—”
“I need you to find out where she’s flying to and what airline she’s on.”
“Jeremy—”
“Please, Sloane.”
“Give me five minutes.”
I merge onto the highway, my knuckles white against the steering wheel. DIA is thirty minutes if traffic cooperates, which it never does on this stretch of I-25. I’m prepared to test both the limits of Colorado’s speeding laws and my lawyer’s patience.
Avah believes she has to shrink herself to protect the people around her.
That her love comes with a price tag, and eventually, the bill will be too high for anyone to pay.
She’s been taught that by a father who used her, a mother who fled rather than protect her, and a man who raised his hands to her and called it love.
I’m done letting her believe it.
I’m not fool enough to think I can erase what they did. And I finally understand that neither money nor power gives me the right to try to bulldoze my way through her life. But I know what it’s like to build a kingdom out of loneliness and call it success. I believed that was enough.
Then Avah walked in with her sassy mouth and guarded heart, refusing to be impressed by the lonely fortress I call a life. She turned me inside out.
I don’t care about her past. Not when she’s so clearly the only future I can imagine.
My phone starts blaring my sister’s custom ringtone: “The Imperial March” from Star Wars.
“Did you get it?” I ask, answering the call hands-free.
“Yes, but I don’t think she’d want me to tell you.”
“Sloane.”
“You better not fuck this up, bro.”
“I’m not going to fuck it up, sis.” I drag in a breath. “I’m bringing our girl home.”