Chapter Thirty-Two Distance Makes the Heart Grow Stupid
Chapter Thirty-Two
Distance Makes the Heart Grow Stupid
Hayes
I threw my clothes into the suitcase like the yacht was on fire. Which, metaphorically, it was.
Last night was . . . Damn it. I still can’t think about it without my chest doing this weird tight thing. The way she looked at me afterward, all soft and trusting. Like I was someone worth keeping.
That was the problem.
Charles knocked on my door right as I was zipping up my bag. His face when he walked in—disappointed but not surprised. Like he was expecting me to run.
“Running away?” he asked.
“I have work.”
“Bullshit.”
And when I finally admitted the truth—that I let it mean something—he gave me that look. The one that said I was breaking his heart along with my own.
But I couldn’t stay there, not now. Not after . . .
“Hayes.” His voice carried that authoritative tone that made him a billionaire. “I’m old, not stupid.”
I sank onto the bed, defeated. “I messed up.”
“How?”
“I let it mean something.”
Charles was quiet for a long moment. Then he asked, “And that’s bad because . . . ?”
I told him I didn’t have time for a relationship and that I didn’t do flings with women who worked for the family.
In my mind, it all made perfect sense.
“She won’t work for me forever,” he said quietly.
The words hit me like a punch. Right. This job has an end date. She’ll go back to New Jersey, find some normal guy who deserves her, and I’ll go back to my pristine, empty life.
Perfect.
“Since when has being scared of something ever stopped a Winthrop?” he asked.
Since never. But this felt different. This felt like it could destroy me.
Now, three days later, New York feels like a prison.
I’m back in my penthouse, surrounded by all my expensive things, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.
I had my entire life planned to a T.
A crisp Wall Street Journal on my desk.
A glass of whiskey in the evenings.
Golf on the weekends.
I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted out of life.
And now?
Now I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing.
My phone buzzes. Malachi.
Malachi: Drinks tonight? The usual spot?
I stare at the text. The usual spot. Where we go to pick up women whose names I’ll forget by morning. Where I used to feel at home.
Now the thought makes my skin crawl.
Rain check I type back.
Malachi: You okay?
No. I’m the furthest thing from okay.
Hayes: Fine. Just tired.
I toss my phone aside and pour myself a drink I don’t want.
The silence in my apartment is deafening. No sound of waves. No Charles reading the newspaper aloud. No Frankie humming off-key while she makes coffee.
God. I miss her humming.
I miss everything about her.
The way she calls me on my shit. The way she makes me laugh without trying. The way she looked at me that last morning like I hung the moon.
Before I ruined everything.
My phone rings. Charles.
I let it go to voicemail.
Then I listen to the message.
“Hayes. I know you’re screening my calls. Call me back. We need to talk.”
I delete it without calling back.
But an hour later, I’m still thinking about it. About him. About the disappointed look on his face when I said I was leaving.
About the hurt in Frankie’s eyes that she tried so hard to hide.
I pour another drink and try to forget.
It doesn’t work.
My assistant, Greta, knocks on my office door the next morning. She looks better—the dark circles under her eyes are fading, and she’s gained back some weight.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Better every day. The doctors are optimistic.” She sets a stack of papers on my desk. “But I’m more worried about you. You look like hell.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly what every boss wants to hear.”
She doesn’t laugh at my attempt at humor. “Hayes. What happened in France?”
I lean back in my chair. Greta’s known me for five years. She’s seen me through breakups, family drama, board meetings that went sideways. She’s never seen me like this.
“I screwed up.”
“How bad?”
“Nuclear-level bad.”
She settles into the chair across from my desk. “Tell me.”
So I do. I tell her about Frankie—her laugh, her kindness with Charles, the way she makes me feel like a human instead of a walking trust fund. I tell her about running away like a coward.
When I finish, Greta just stares at me.
“You’re an idiot,” she says finally.
“I’m aware.”
But she deserves better than me. She deserves someone who doesn’t run when things get complicated.
Which means it’s better this way.
I’ve been back in New York for two weeks, and nothing makes sense anymore. My coffee tastes like ash. My Egyptian cotton sheets feel like sandpaper. Even my view of Central Park—the one that cost me eight million dollars—looks gray and lifeless.
It’s like someone sucked all the color out of my world and left me with this black-and-white existence that I used to think was enough.
I’m standing in my kitchen, staring at the espresso machine like it might spontaneously combust, when my phone buzzes.
Mom: Need you at dinner tonight. Bringing someone I want you to meet.
Not this again.
Hayes: Can’t. Work.
Mom: 7 PM. Don’t be late.
The woman doesn’t take no for an answer. Never has.
Two hours later, I’m sitting in Le Bernardin across from Victoria Ashworth-Sterling, who’s everything my mother thinks I need. Blond. Beautiful. Trust fund. Harvard MBA.
She’s been talking for twenty minutes straight about her charity work, and I haven’t heard a single word.
“The thing about philanthropy,” she’s saying, cutting her fish into perfect little squares, “is that you have to maintain proper boundaries. You can’t get too emotionally invested.”
My brain stutters. “What?”
“Emotional distance. It’s crucial when you’re trying to help people. Otherwise you lose objectivity.”
I think about Frankie feeding Charles liverwurst at 6:00 a.m. because it made him happy. The way she’d sit with him during Jeopardy!, genuinely delighted when he got the answers right.
“Right,” I manage. “Boundaries.”
Victoria smiles. “Exactly. That’s why I prefer board positions to hands-on work. More efficient.”
More efficient.
My phone buzzes. Malachi.
Malachi: How’s the setup dinner going? Mom find you a wife yet?
I excuse myself to the bathroom and call him back.
“That bad?” he answers on the first ring.
“She just said helping people requires emotional distance.”
“Yikes.”
“I keep thinking about—” I stop myself.
“About Frankie?”
Her name hits me like a physical blow. “Don’t.”
“Dude, you’ve been miserable for two weeks. Maybe it’s time to—”
“Time to what?” Fly back to France and beg? “She’s better off without me.”
I lean against the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror. I look like hell. Dark circles under my eyes. Stubble because I can’t be bothered to shave properly.
“That’s not your call to make.”
When I get back to the table, Victoria’s ordering dessert for both of us. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty. The chocolate soufflé here is divine.”
I hate chocolate soufflé. Have since I was a kid.
But I smile and nod, because that’s what I do. Smile and nod and pretend everything’s fine while my chest feels like someone’s sitting on it.
“So,” Victoria continues, “any plans this weekend? It might be nice to get away to the Hamptons for the holiday.”
Before I can answer, my phone pings. It’s the invite for my mother’s annual Fourth of July party.
“Sorry, I can’t,” I tell Victoria, brain already working overtime. Charles always attends my mother’s party. And now I’m wondering if Frankie will be joining him.