22. Simon
TWENTY-TWO
SIMON
I'd been awake long before my morning alarm sounded.
I lay still in the dark a long while, staring at the ceiling and turning over what Violet had said in that hotel room.
She'd stood across from me with her shaking hands clenched at her sides and coldly told me I'd sent her away like it was an easy thing to do.
Like I didn't think our relationship was ever going to last.
Just like Mom didn't last. Olivia had said it to my face first. My father had called it cowardice.
Violet had stated it flatly, without heat, which was worse than if she'd shouted it.
All three of them had been right, the kind of consensus that's impossible to argue with, and I'd spent two miserable days not trying to.
I'd been afraid since long before Elena died.
I'd built an isolated life around not needing things, around not expecting fragile things to stay, because things did not stay.
Elena had died. The company she'd built with me was still running, the closest thing I had to proof that something lasts, and even that company wasn't mine alone.
I'd held Lara at a safe distance and called it honesty.
I'd sat across from Violet for two full years and said nothing.
I'd kissed her and then deflected every vulnerable conversation that might have made the relationship real.
And the second she'd finally given me a reason to leave, I'd taken it in both hands.
I wanted to unlearn it. I didn't know if that was even possible for me anymore. But I knew I wasn't interested in being the version of me that lay frozen in bed and just let it be over.
I got up, took a quick shower, and dressed in a sharp suit.
I marched down the hall and knocked on Olivia's bedroom door.
The night before, I'd come home late from the office, knocked on her closed door, and told her to dress properly tomorrow. She was coming with me to work. She hadn't even asked why. She'd just looked at me a long moment and said okay.
She opened the door now in a black dress, her dark hair loose and her bag slung over her shoulder. She looked at me. I looked back at her.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Yes."
We left the house.
Manuel was already waiting at the curb. We got into the town car and drove the whole way to Beckett Media without talking. Olivia looked out her window, and I looked out mine, and the heavy silence between us was contemplative, and neither of us needed to fill it.
When we got to the building, Alice from HR met me in the grand lobby.
She'd been covering the assistant desk for the past several days, quietly handling the schedule and the calls without complaint, without asking why the previous arrangement had so abruptly ended.
She told me the conference room was ready and the attendees were already inside waiting. All I needed to do was walk in.
I nodded and said okay.
I looked at Olivia. She looked back at me.
We rode the private elevator up.
The meeting was in the small, glass-walled conference room on the forty-seventh floor. When I pushed the heavy door open, I saw Violet at once.
She was already seated at the polished table, wearing slate slacks and an oatmeal blouse, her dark hair pulled into a severe knot at the back of her neck. The professional woman who'd sat outside my office door for two full years. I looked at her now. She looked back at me and said nothing.
Olivia took a seat in the far corner of the room.
I sat down at the head of the table.
Devika was already there, along with two senior members of the publishing team, and Marisol sat at the far end. One of the corporate lawyers had his papers laid open. They all looked at me, expectant.
"Thank you all for coming today," I addressed the room. I looked at Violet. "Before we proceed. Do you want to tell them yourself?"
She looked at me a long, tense moment. Then she looked around the room.
"I'm V.M. Ashby," she said.
The room went dead still.
"I've been V.M. Ashby for years. I kept it private because I wasn't ready for it to be otherwise." She held her chin level. "I'm here today to sign the publishing contract with Beckett Publishing. Under my real name."
Devika's mouth fell open, then closed. One of the senior publishing team members sat back in his chair. Marisol looked at the table, then the ceiling, then back at me in disbelief.
The corporate lawyer slid the thick contract forward across the wood.
Violet read it. Every page, front to back, unhurried, her left hand resting flat beside the dense text as she moved through it. When she finished, she picked up the silver pen and signed.
Violet Paige.
The second she set the pen down, the room erupted. Devika said something about the platform numbers. One of the publishing team members exclaimed they'd been trying to find her for months. Marisol started talking about accelerating the launch timeline.
I just waited.
When the room had finally settled, I stood up.
"It's been a good journey," I addressed the table. "I'm glad things turned out this way. It means a great deal to me that this company got to be part of it." I paused. "I have one more thing to address."
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit jacket and took out the manila folder.
For a second I let it sit in my hand. Across the room, Elena watched from her portrait the way she'd watched every meeting held in here for two years, half a smile on her face, like she already knew the ending and was waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
I'd built this company at her side. Her name sat on the spine of every book we had ever printed.
Handing it over should have felt like losing her a second time.
It didn't. I thought it might be the first decision I'd made since she died that she would have stood up out of her chair to applaud.
I found Olivia in the far corner. She was watching me, completely still, and she already knew.
Of course she knew. She'd called my father, she'd told me the truth in the kitchen, she'd seen me clearly long before I could see myself.
I held her eyes for a moment, and she gave me the smallest nod, like she'd been waiting to find out whether I would finally do the brave thing and was glad to be proven right.
I slid the folder across the polished table.
"This is my resignation from Beckett Media, effective immediately. It contains the legal transfer of my half of the company to Olivia Beckett Chien, who already holds her late mother's half through her trust." I looked at Marisol. "The company is hers now."
The conference room went silent.
Violet was staring at me. Her chin had shot up, and her hands were pressed flat on the table.
"Are you serious right now?" she demanded.
"Yes." I looked only at her. "I can't go back to how things were before. We both hurt each other, and I admit I was a coward, and I'm not willing to be a coward anymore. If you don't ever want to see me again, then this is the only way to make sure you don't have to."
I picked up a silver pen from the table.
"Simon."
She said my name once, not loud, but firm, and I stopped cold.
She was standing now. Her hands were planted on the table, and her dark eyes were locked on mine, and she didn't look away.
"Don't do this," she said. "This company is yours. Yours and Elena's. I'm not going to let you give it away because of me."
"Violet, it's the only way—"
She shook her head before I could finish, her knuckles white against the wood. Two days ago in that hotel room she'd been cold and final. Now her hands were shaking.
"I was wrong," she said.
I stared at her.
"In the hotel room. I was blindingly angry and I was hurt, and I said I never wanted to see you again, and I was wrong to say it.
" She took a shaky breath. "We both hurt each other.
That's true. And we both have huge things to work on.
That's true too. But we don't have to do that work separately.
We can do it together… if you still want to. "
I just looked at her.
"I can't imagine my life without you in it," she said, her voice thick.
"I know that's what I said in the hotel room, and then I took it back, and I'm not taking it back again.
I'm in love with you. I want to be with you.
And every time you start to doubt that, I'll tell you again, for as long as it takes, until you finally stop needing me to say it. "
The room was silent.
I looked at her across the long table on the forty-seventh floor, aware of Elena's portrait hanging on the wall behind the head of the table, with Olivia watching in the corner, and every person I worked with witnessing this.
"I love you," I said, my voice carrying in the quiet. "I've been terrified, and a coward, and wrong about things I should not have been wrong about. But I love you, Violet, and I'm so sorry it took me this long to be a man worth saying it to."
She came around the table.
I met her halfway.
When I kissed her, someone in the room cheered. Then someone else joined in. Marisol made a delighted sound that was unprofessional and sincere. From the far corner, Olivia made a noise I could only describe as triumphant.
I did not stop.
Violet kissed me back.