14. Vince #2
"I love you, Vince." The words came out broken, almost a whisper.
"I've loved you for two years, and you never even saw me.
I thought if she was gone, if she wasn't in the way anymore, you'd finally see what was right in front of you.
I thought you'd realize that I'm the one who actually understands you, who actually supports what you're trying to build?—"
"Get the fuck out."
The words came out flat and final, and I watched her flinch like I'd struck her. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and then turned on her heel and walked out. The door slammed behind her hard enough to rattle the frame, hard enough that I felt it in my chest.
I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, my hands still clenched into fists at my sides.
The fury was still burning in my chest, hot and tight and suffocating, and I wanted to throw something, wanted to break something, wanted to do anything that would make the pressure let up.
But I didn't. I just stood there until my pulse slowed and my breathing evened out and my hands finally unclenched, and then I sank back into my chair.
Gideon hadn't moved. He was still standing by the door, one hand resting on the handle, watching me with that steady, unreadable expression he wore when he was working something out in his head.
He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
I could see it in his face — he'd put the whole thing together.
He knew what Harlow had done. He knew what it meant.
After a long moment, he crossed the room and sat down in the chair Harlow had never taken. He folded his hands in his lap, looked at me, and waited.
"What," I said.
"How are you planning to fix this?"
I leaned back in my chair, dragging one hand over my face.
My skin felt hot. My eyes burned from lack of sleep, and my head was pounding.
"I'll buy her something. Something she's actually wanted.
She mentioned a building on her block a few months ago, said the owner was letting it fall apart and it was bringing the whole corner down with it.
I'll buy it, fix it up, hand her the deed.
Show her I was paying attention. Show her I care about what she cares about. "
Gideon didn't say anything for a moment. He just looked at me, his expression unchanging. Then he tilted his head slightly, and I saw his gaze sharpen. "That's your plan. Throw money at it."
"It's not throwing money at it." I sat forward, irritation flaring in my chest. "It's giving her something that actually matters to her. Something she's been worried about. I'm solving a problem she cares about."
"Vince." His voice was patient, measured, like he was explaining something to a child who wasn't quite getting it. "Money is what ruined your marriage in the first place."
I frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"You think the problem is that you didn't give her enough.
That if you'd just bought her the right things, made the right gestures, shown up with the right gifts, she'd have been happy.
" Gideon leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes locked on mine.
"That's not the problem. The problem is that you've spent nine years thinking everything can be solved with a transaction.
Everything has a price, everything can be fixed with the right amount of money or the right deal or the right property. That's how you see the world now."
"I don't?—"
"What did she fall in love with, Vince? The man or the money?"
The question stopped me cold. I opened my mouth to answer and found I didn't have one.
The words stuck in my throat, and my mind went somewhere I hadn't let it go in years.
I thought about the iron ring, the one I'd made in a machine shop when I was twenty-three and had nothing but the clothes on my back and a plan I wasn't even sure would work.
I'd heated the metal myself, shaped it with my own hands, spent three nights getting it right.
I'd given it to her on the corner where we both grew up, down on one knee in front of a chain-link fence and a cracked sidewalk, and she'd said yes before I'd even finished asking.
I'd thought the diamond I replaced it with years later was generous. I'd thought I was giving her something better, something worthy of what we'd become. I'd thought she'd understand that the iron ring was just a placeholder, something I'd given her when I had nothing else to offer.
I'd been wrong.
I didn't say any of that out loud.
Gideon waited, and when I didn't answer, he nodded slowly, like I'd just confirmed something he already knew.
"You've forgotten, Vince. Somewhere in the last nine years, you forgot what actually matters.
You turned everything into numbers. Revenue, permits, deals, square footage, property values.
You stopped seeing people and started seeing assets. Liabilities. Things to manage."
"That's not—" I stopped. The words died in my throat. My chest felt tight, like something was sitting on it, pressing down. "How do I fix it?"
"You're asking me?" Gideon's eyebrows went up, just slightly. "You're asking me how to fix your marriage?"
"I don't know what else to do." The admission came out harder than I'd meant it to, rougher.
I heard the desperation in my own voice and hated it.
"I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought if I built something big enough, something that mattered, she'd see that it was all for her. For us. I thought she'd understand."
"Did you ever ask her what she wanted?"
"She told me." My jaw tightened. "She's been telling me for nine years. She wants me to come back to the old neighborhood. Walk the streets with her. Spend time in the shop. Go to Rosa's restaurant, talk to Omar at the laundromat, pretend like nothing's changed."
"And you never did it."
"I didn't have time." The words sounded hollow even as I said them. "There was always something else. Another deal, another meeting, another problem that needed solving."
Gideon looked at me for a long moment, and I saw something in his expression I didn't like — something that looked a lot like pity. "If you don't know what she needed from you after nine years of her asking for it," he said quietly, "then maybe you never deserved her in the first place."
He stood up and walked out, leaving me alone in my office with the question I couldn't answer and the truth I didn't want to look at.
I sat there, staring at the desk, at the folder Harlow had left behind, at the empty chair across from me.
My chest ached, a dull, hollow feeling that wouldn't let up no matter how many times I tried to swallow it down.
I thought about Josie standing in the elevator last night, her face pale and tired and done with me, telling me she'd needed me to fight for her.
Just once. I thought about the iron ring, and the way her hands had trembled when I'd slipped it onto her finger.
I thought about the diamond I'd replaced it with, the one that was probably still sitting on the nightstand at the penthouse, and how she'd looked at it like it was something she was supposed to want but didn't.
I didn't know how to get back to that corner. I didn't know how to be the man who'd made that ring. I didn't even know if he still existed.