Page 211 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

He was nodding before I finished, his whole body leaning into the idea like a lifeline. “Yes. I will. I was already thinking about it. I was scared, but the guilt—” His face crumpled mid-sentence. “The guilt was killing me.”

He wiped his face with the back of his hand, breath still unsteady but something else taking shape behind his eyes. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“I have it. The meeting. I recorded it.”

He pulled up the video and handed me the phone.

Michael’s voice came through the small speaker, calm and measured, laying it out. The fryer. The sequence. The exit. No one will suspect you. You do this right, you walk out, no one even knows you were there.

I watched the whole thing. Michael’s face, clear in the frame. His instructions, unmistakable. His confidence that nothing could touch him.

A smile spread across my face.

“For a man with such deep trust issues,” Henry said quietly, “he didn’t think about all the places a camera can be hidden.”

No. He didn’t.

Henry did good.

Now it was my turn.

“Guess what happened—” I stopped myself when I saw Cassian wasn’t alone.

Liam sat in one chair, a folder open on his knee. Another man—older, someone I didn’t recognize—sat across from him. All three of them turned to look at me.

“Uh.” I took a step back. “Rohan didn’t stop me. I’ll leave—”

“No.” Cassian was already standing, a smile breaking across his face. “They were just leaving.”

The other man stood, reached across the desk, and clasped Cassian’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, quiet, sincere.

He passed me on his way out, offering a small smile. I returned it, stepping further into the room as the door clicked shut.

“You didn’t have to cut your meeting short for me.”

Cassian shook his head, already dismissing the idea. “We were done anyway.” He looked like he wanted to say something else, his gaze lingering on my face, but he held back.

Liam looked between us, then stood abruptly. “I have—there’s a thing—” He sighed, giving up. “I can’t think of a believable excuse. I’m just going to leave.” He waved a hand, already heading for the door, and was gone before either of us could respond.

I kept my eyes on Cassian. “What’s going on?”

“I wanted to tell you this before.” He took a breath. “I didn’t get the chance.”

I waited.

“I’m stepping down as CEO.”

I went still. “What?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, like he was confirming it to himself as much as to me. “I’m stepping down. I’ll run operations now. It’s not as stressful—”

“You built this company.” I heard my voice rise, confused, disbelieving. “You love it. Why would you do that?”

His eyes held mine. Unblinking. Unwavering. “I’m not a good fit for CEO, Alessia. We both know it. I can’t hold too many things at once. I lock onto one and the rest disappears. I feel it pressing on me all the time. The stress of it. The weight.” He looked down at his hands, then back up. “I’m trying to figure out the whole work-life balance thing. But I’m still struggling. And I don’t want to keep struggling. The company stays mine. I just found a way to still be in it without letting it consume me.”

I stared at him. Trying to understand. This man had nearly lost the company, actually lost his marriage, himself—and now he was stepping away from the very thing he’d sacrificed so much for?

Why?