His words touched on more than just this—on the mistakes I kept making with them. The ones I’d been making for years.
I bit the inside of my cheek, my leg bouncing as I held his gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you in. With the freeze.” My eyes flicked to Henry. “Both of you.”
The way they looked at me then made my chest tighten—like I was back in that bedroom years ago, both of them looking up at me, waiting.
But I got it now.
They weren’t waiting for me to make things better.
They were waiting for me to stay.
I exhaled hard. “It’s—” My lips pressed together. “I can’t fix it. It fucking kills me that I can’t.”
Neither of them rushed to fill the silence.
Henry leaned forward first, forearms on the table. “What did Elena say?”
I dragged a hand down my face. “She wants to offset the loss through private sector contracts. Fast. Aggressive expansion.” My mouth twisted. “I’ve barely looked at them. I’ve been… focused on making it go away.”
Oliver nodded slowly, absorbing that. “Ash.”
I already knew that tone. I braced for it anyway.
“Why are you trying to do this by yourself?”
My spine stiffened. “I’m the one who?—”
“You’re the one whocaresthe most,” Oliver corrected gently. “That’s not the same thing as being the only person responsible.”
“There are entire departments whose job it is to handle fallout like this,” Henry said. “You don’t get to martyr yourself just because you hate losing.”
“I’m not martyring?—”
“You’re exhausted,” Oliver cut in, not unkindly. “You’re running on caffeine and stubbornness. That’s not strategy.”
My jaw tightened. They weren’t wrong. I hated that they weren’t wrong—and that it had taken me this long to listen.
“We can look at it together,” Oliver continued. “Loop in Elena. Finance. Marketing. Pivot the strategy—focus on private sector expansion for now. You don’t have to solve it in one sleepless night.”
My instinct was to refuse. To push back. To take it all back into my own hands where it belonged. But the pressure behind my eyes pulsed again, dull and relentless.
I couldn’t keep this up.
“We’ll figure it out,” Henry added. “Together. That’s what we do.”
I looked between them—really looked—and felt something give, just a little.
Before I could respond, Henry’s phone buzzed on the table.
He glanced down and pushed back his chair. “Vivian’s here. I’m being summoned.” He squeezed the back of my neck as he passed, a quick, grounding gesture. “Everything’s going to be okay, Ash.”
Then he was gone.
Oliver watched him disappear down the corridor before turning back to me, hand already reaching for his coffee.
My gaze drifted past him instead.
Ethan stood at the far end of the hall, leaning against the wall, one phone tucked between his ear and shoulder as he scrolled through files on another. Focused. Calm. Completely unbothered by the chaos around us.
