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Grant shrugged in that annoyingly nonchalant way he had, utterly unbothered by my outburst.
“I was just gonna say you should admit you loved her and that you want her back, but hell, all of that is pretty accurate, too.” He peered over at me with a smirk. “Was that really so hard to admit?”
No. It wasn’t. Or at least it hadn’t been the first time around. There was one thing I couldn’t understand though.
“I just… I don’t get why my father wanted me to do all of this. I feel worse after marrying her and divorcing her. I’ve got the company, but—fuck, it doesn’t feel like it was worth it.”
“What makes you think your father ever intended you to get married just so you could divorce to have your company? He and your mom were married for years, right? Why wouldn’t he have thought you’d do the same with whoever you chose to be your wife?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.
My father and mother had had a good marriage. It’d been very traditional—a little too much for my own taste—but it had been… good. Good in the sense that my mother had loved my father, and my father had loved my mother. I knew that because my mother had said it was so; my father rarely professed his love for her out loud, but according to her, it was a feeling she knew well from the man.
After she died, my father changed. He had been a hysterical mess the first few days and then locked himself away tighter than he had been even before she died. He had a penchant for drinking, something that would eventually land him in the grave he laid in now, and when he did, he took to pacing the halls. He would mumble about how it was too late…
Too late, Helena. That’s what he would say.
I didn’t know what it meant, when I was a teen who’d only just become a man. I resented him for being so cold and only showing emotion when he was three sheets to the fucking wind and it did no one any good. I hated how he never opened up like that with me.
Had his last will and testament been trying to do that? Had he been trying, in his own fucked up way from beyond the grave, to show me what really, truly mattered in life?
Wrapped up in my own tangled emotions and grief at his loss, I hadn’t seen any of that at the time. I’d only seen a giant pain in my ass, a flaming hoop of red tape to jump through. I hadn’t recognized it—what this dumb little requirement in his will was trying to show me.
He had found out too late, when it was too late to go back and change anything, what really mattered most. He and I had gotten along best in the last few years of his life, and I had always sensed that he was trying to make up for lost time. Was that how he had felt? That he’d wasted too many years on his company and not put enough time into his family?
Was that why he’d wanted me to be married before I accepted controlling share of Royal Tech? Because he hadn’t wanted the company to become my whole life, like it had been his?
“Jesus…”
The word fell from my lips on a whisper. I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me.
My father had given me the chance to rectify the mistake that he had made, a chance to do better with my life.
And just like him, I had squandered it. Foolishly, selfishly squandered it.
“Ah, there you go.” Grant tapped the side of my head. “Looks like somebody finally turned the light on in there.”
I chucked a balled up napkin his way, my mind still reeling.
“Shut up.” Then I groaned. “I’m an idiot.”
“You can say that again. Question is, what are you going to do about it, idiot?”
* * *
Being miserable sucked. Being miserable by myself was worse.
I felt better after talking to Grant, but I was still at a loss over what I should do about Mackenzie. It seemed like there was no real solution, no real answer. I could admit that I wanted her—that was something that I wouldn’t deny anymore or try to talk myself out of with some misguided need to honor my family legacy. My parents were both dead. My father’s dying wish seemed to have been for me to prioritize what made me happy over the expansion of our empire.
And Macks made me happy. So fucking happy.
The problem was, I had no damn idea how I was going to get her back. Or, not back. This whole marriage thing had been so bizarre, such a mess of intense feelings and mixed messages, that I wasn’t sure where we’d really stood, even before the divorce.
We hadn’t truly been together at any point during our marriage, had we? Not the way I could finally admit I wanted. I wanted her—no strings attached, no business arrangements, no favors to a friend. I wanted her. In my bed at night, in my kitchen in the morning, painting in her studio, walking the dog. I wanted all of it. Her life and my life intertwined.
And I wanted it to be real.
Truthfully, I was also fucking terrified. I couldn’t forget how things had ended for us the first time, and I had to remind myself there was the very real possibility that maybe she wouldn’t want me, not in the way that I wanted her.
