“You’re Mariel Johnson.”
“I am.”
“Jeremy told me about The NorthStar Way.” I hesitate, unsure how much to say. “He told me about your daughter, too. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Mariel’s expression shutters as her hand lifts briefly to touch the small pendant at her throat—a simple gold star.
“Thank you. Building NorthStar was our way of honoring her memory. We wanted to ensure her life meant something beyond the years she had.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“It helped give us a way through our grief.” Her jaw tics slightly. “We’ve spent twelve years building something special, and we won’t hand it over to a man who sees it as just another acquisition.”
Right. The Johnsons have formed their opinions about Jeremy, just as he suspects. They’ve decided what kind of man he is based on his public reputation and a few conversations where he came across as precisely the distant, calculating tech bro everyone assumes he is.
I think about Jeremy on the boat yesterday, talking about wanting to make a difference. About the isolation of his childhood cancer treatment, and how he doesn’t want anyone else to feel alone in the same way he did. How his voice softened when he talked about watching Sloane go through treatment. It was a sideof himself I’m sure he didn’t intend to show me, but I can’t seem to unsee it.
“I don’t know much about your company,” I hear myself saying. “Possibly even less about Jeremy’s plans for a partnership with you. But I do know he went through his own cancer fight as a kid. And when his sister got sick, he dropped everything to be there for her treatment.”
Mariel’s expression doesn’t change, but I can tell she’s listening.
“He’s not great at showing people the side of him that cares. Trust me, before this week, I would have told you he was nothing more than an egotistical jackhole in too-tight boxer briefs, but there’s more to him than people think.”
More than I thought.
Her mouth quirks at one corner, and I remember my words to Jeremy yesterday. “Don’t you owe it to your daughter to get your message to everyone who needs it?”
“You think Jeremy Winslow is the way to do that?”
“Billionaires can do good things when they want to. I don’t have much use for rocket ships or luxury yachts, but...” I shrug. “Jeremy has plenty of faults, but he’s not in this for the ego boost. He wants to make a difference.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mariel says quietly, her gaze on the waves gently lapping at the white-sand shore.
Pretty sure I’ve been dismissed. It’s hard to say whether I’ve helped or hurt his chances, but at least I tried.
“I should get back.” I gesture vaguely toward the direction I came. “Sorry again for trespassing.”
I’ve taken maybe three steps when her voice stops me.
“Wait.”
I turn.
She’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite decipher, but it’s not unkind.
“What’s your name?”
“Avah,” I say, licking my suddenly dry lips. “Avah Harris.”
“Would you and Jeremy like to join us at our villa for dinner tonight, Avah?”
The invitation catches me off guard, and my instinct is to decline. I’m in no mood to be social or make small talk with people I don’t know. I want to go back to Jeremy’s villa and hide behind snark and streaming services until my life makes sense again.
But I also know how frustrated Jeremy feels at his failure to make inroads with the Johnsons.
I hate owing people, and I owe Jeremy more than I can count. Procuring a dinner invitation would be a way to tip the scales back toward balance a little.
“That sounds lovely.” The smile I give her feels genuine, which surprises even me. “What time?”
