CHAPTER 15
Hitting Rock Bottom
Helen
Three days passed.
Three days of silence from Josh. Three days of Helen telling herself she didn't care. Three days of her lying.
The hotel was still standing. Barely. Richard had managed to calm the creditors, at least for now. The emergency funding from the bank had bought them another month. But everyone knew it was just kicking the can down the road.
The investors Josh had mentioned — the ones with "clean money" — had turned out to be real. Two of them had already reached out, interested in providing capital. No hostile intentions. No hidden agendas.
Helen didn't know how Josh had found them. Didn't know why he'd sent them her way. She told herself she didn't care.
But at night, alone in her penthouse, she couldn't stop thinking about him. The way he'd looked at her in the garden. The way he'd said "I don't want to be empty anymore." The way he'd sacrificed everything.
On the third day, Richard found her crying in her office. It was past midnight. The hotel was quiet. The city was quiet.
"Helen," Richard said gently, closing the door behind him. "What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"You've been different since that man left. The one in the Ambassador Suite."
Helen didn't answer.
Richard sat down across from her. He'd known her since she was twenty-four. He was the closest thing she had to family.
"I know about the takeover," he said quietly. "I know he stopped it. I know he resigned."
Helen looked up. "How?"
"Because he called me. Asked what he could do to help stabilize the company. No strings attached." Richard paused. "He also asked about you. Wanted to know if you were eating. If you were sleeping. If you were okay."
Helen pressed her hands to her face.
"I know," she whispered.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
She didn't have an answer. But that night, she didn't delete his voicemail. She listened to it three times. Then she saved it.