He nodded without looking at me. “Yeah. Traffic was a nightmare, and the New York team keeps dragging their feet on deadlines. It’s exhausting.”
Just then my phone dinged. Meredith. I’d almost forgotten her promise to sleuth. She’d sent a photo of a beautiful, polished woman, Shannon.
I hadn’t expected her to look this manicured. Even her posture looked deliberate. She looked like someone who never ran late, who never lost her cool, unless it was over a million-dollar deal. She looked smart.
Was she someone who made the long days go by fast? Maybe she was someone he could talk to when everything gotoverwhelming, someone who didn’t come with backpacks and bedtime routines.
I turned my screen off, and dropped it on the counter.
“You and the kids had fun tonight,” I said, pushing my thoughts aside.
“They’re growing up too fast. His voice grew softer now. “I feel like I’m missing everything.”
The words hung heavy between us. I wanted to tell him hewasmissing something—us.But I didn’t.
After the kids were asleep, Jason and I climbed into bed ourselves and put on a movie. He chose some action thriller I didn’t care about, and within minutes, I was half-asleep, my head heavy with exhaustion. We lay there, side by side, like strangers who used to know each other. The distance didn’t show up all at once. But now that I saw it, I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 18
SLIPPING AWAY
JASON
I’d always been the guy who kept things moving. There was always something to get done, another deal, another meeting, another phone call. Life didn’t wait. I built this life, this perfect, seamless life, and I’d worked my ass off for it.
But now I could sense Natalie drifting, not from frustration, which I’d understand, I was frustrated, too. This was more like…detachment. Like she accepted I was constantly busy, always somewhere else. Could I even blame her? I was constantly chasing after bigger and better things, thinking providing was enough. But I knew it wasn’t. Not anymore.
I didn’t think she was angry with me. I am not sure she even noticed how much I’d pulled away from her, at least not in a way that would make her upset. She had her own distractions now, maybe more than I did.
My distraction was Shannon. One of the best hires we’d made in years.
Shannon was everything you could want in a team member. She was sharp, driven, and endlessly resourceful. She came heavily recommended, and those recommendations were fully justified.
I remembered the day Shannon walked into the office for her interview. From the moment she stepped in, she exuded confidence. Her handshake was firm, her eye contact unwavering, and she carried herself with an ease that made us sit up and pay attention. She wasn’t there to prove herself. She was there to show us what she could offer, and it was a lot.
“I’m not just here to do a job,” she said at one point in the interview, leaning forward slightly. “I’m here to make an impact. If you’re looking for someone to just keep things running, I’m not your person, but if you’re looking for growth, strategy, and results, then I’m all in.”
It wasn’t often we came across someone with Shannon’s level of confidence and capability. By the end of the meeting, everyone in the New York office agreed with me. We had to have her on the team.
Still, Shannon didn’t accept right away. “I need a day to think it over,” she said. “This is a big step, and I want to make sure it’s the right fit for both of us.” I respected her for that. She wasn’t just chasing the next opportunity.
When she called the next day to say she was in, I was thrilled. From the moment she started, Shannon proved she was every bit as good as she’d claimed, and then some. She threw herself into her work with a focus and energy that was contagious. This young, ambitious woman was here to excel. Youngest of two kids, a divorced household, she excelled at NYU, earned an MBA, landed a coveted role at KPMG as a consultant but got worn down by it.
She wanted more freedom to lead projects on her terms, she told me, during one of our late-night conversations. I told hershe could go home, I had the latest late-night emergency covered but she just smiled and told me what her stepdad had taught her. “He used to say, ‘Don’t just show up—show out.’ That stuck with me.”
I came to rely on her more than I probably should have. She wasn’t trying to prove herself; she knew her value, and so did everyone else around her.
Working with her was honestly exciting. I was preparing her to run the New York office so I could eventually take over the West Coast and focus on expanding the business there. And be home more. At least that was the plan.
Late nights with Shannon became a routine, ordering takeout, sometimes grabbing a drink or a bite to eat after hours.
Somewhere along the way, our conversations shifted. She started confiding in me about her personal life. “Dating is a waste of time. Most single guys are so…immature. Or uninspiring. There’s just not time to meet someone who is established. Confident. Sure of himself. That’s what I want, honestly. It’s what I deserve,” she said.
She held my gaze just a second too long. She didn’t say these words but I knew she meant them.Someone like you.The way she looked at me made it impossible to look away. And I didn’t want to. I was feeling something for her.
I’d go back to my hotel room after those late nights, thinking about her, and then I’d take care of those feelings on my own, all by myself. I wasn’t actually with her, but the guilt came creeping in afterward anyway. And even when I was home, she lingered in my mind, her sharp wit, those dark eyes that always seemed to be studying me, her sleek hair always perfectly blown out, and those suits…the way they fit, the way they highlighted everything. I tried to shake the thoughts away but they always came back.
She was just someone I worked with, a person I could talk to about things I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with Natalie. She understood me, and for the first time in a while, I felt like someone really saw me.
