First things first, though. I need to book an appointment with my gynecologist. I need to make sure I’m taking care of myself and this baby.
I grab my phone again and pull up my doctor's office website.
My doctor recently retired and recommended I see Dr. Byers going forward. The earliest appointment available for Dr. Byers is in three weeks.
I book it.
My finger hovers over the "confirm" button for a long moment. Once I click this, it becomes real. Official. The beginning of whatever comes next.
I click it.
The confirmation email arrives instantly, and I stare at it until the words blur.
Appointment confirmed for Thursday, May 4th at 10:00 a.m. with Dr. Shannon Byers.
Three weeks. In three weeks, I'll know for absolute certain. I'll have information. Options. A path forward, maybe.
Until then, I'm trapped in this horrible limbo, unable to work, unable to think, unable to do anything except sit in my studio and watch my dreams slip through my fingers.
I look at the business plan on the wall again. At all those careful notes and timelines and projections. At the evidence of how hard I've worked, how much I've sacrificed, how desperately I've fought to build something that's mine.
The despair that washes over me is so complete, so overwhelming, that I can't even cry anymore.
I just sink into my chair and stare at the wall.
And try to imagine a future where I don't lose everything.
Chapter 5
Grant
The conference call ends with the usual pleasantries—a brief wave, congratulations on another successful close, promises to celebrate over scotch at some vague future date that probably won't happen.
I end the video feed and lean back in my chair, looking out at the city spread below my office windows. Thirty floors up, the traffic is silent, the noise of street level reduced to almost nothing.
A billion-dollar property acquisition in midtown, closed in under three months. I should be opening a good bottle of champagne to celebrate another win for Cross Holdings.
But I feel nothing.
My phone buzzes with congratulatory texts. My CFO. My lead attorney. A few board members who like to stay in the loop. I swipe through them without really reading, offering thumbs-up reactions that require no actual effort.
This should feel like a victory. It used to.
Now it just feels like another Tuesday.
I stand and walk to the windows, pressing a hand against the glass. It's cold beneath my palm, the spring afternoon still carrying winter's chill this high up. Below, people move throughtheir lives—rushing to meetings, grabbing coffee, talking on cell phones, laughing with friends. From up here, they're just shapes. Anonymous. Interchangeable.
Just like every deal I close. Every property I acquire. Every negotiation I win.
Transaction after transaction, and none of it means a goddamn thing.
I turn away from the window and check my watch. Three-thirty. I have a development meeting at four, dinner with a city councilman at six-thirty—the kind of dinner where we'll talk about everything except what we're actually negotiating—and then home to my empty penthouse where I'll probably work until midnight.
The same routine I've followed for months. Years, if I'm honest.
Ever since Victoria.
I force myself to acknowledge the bitterness that still sits in my chest like a stone. My ex-wife. The woman I spent fifteen years married to, who I built an empire alongside, who gave me my daughter.
