“Yes.”
“And you believe I can help you win her back?” Eleanor’s voice held a tone both wry and sincere.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know what I expect you to tell me. I only know that you and Andrew have been married for forty years, and when he speaks of you, there’s an emotion I never thought I wanted. Until now.”
Sympathy passed over Eleanor’s expression. She took a sip of her coffee, giving him a moment to collect himself.
“My husband believes the misrepresentation surrounding your engagement is the reason he should withdraw his investment,” she said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You’re not here to save the deal.”
He met her gaze. “No. The deal means nothing if I can’t fix what I broke with her.”
Eleanor nodded “Tell me about her.”
“She’s…” He paused, searching for words adequate to describe her. “She challenges me. Questions me. Makes me see things differently.” He looked down at his hands. “When we were together, she made me feel like I was someone worth knowing beyond the boardroom.” He looked back up at Eleanor. “She has this ridiculous pen—covered in rhinestones, shaped like a sunflower. I should have told her to get rid of it, but I didn’t. Because every time she used it, she’d glance at me, as if daring me to say what was on my mind. And I looked forward to those moments.”
Eleanor studied him for a beat. “And the ring?” she asked.
He reached into his pocket and took out the ring. The metal held the heat of his body.
“I thought it was part of the act. A prop.” He paused, thumb brushing over one of the glass petals. “But then she told the story at the gala. About her grandmother’s sunflower garden. That was the first time I realized it meant more to her.”
Eleanor remained silent, her eyes fixed on him as he turned the ring in his fingers.
“She left it on her desk when she walked out yesterday.” He studied the band, rotating it slowly. “A clear message.”
Eleanor took a long drink of her coffee before responding. “You know, when I met Andrew, he was much like you. Driven. Focused. Shrewd. He saw our relationship as a merger of compatible assets rather than a union of hearts.”
He looked up. The Beauchamps had always seemed the picture of marital harmony.
“Oh yes,” Eleanor continued, noting his expression. “He arranged our first meetings with the romantic spontaneity of a board presentation. Background checks. Character references. A complete dossier on my family connections and social standing.”
“What changed?”
“I walked away.” Eleanor set down her cup with a decisive click. “I told him I wouldn’t be another acquisition, another item on his balance sheet of success. That if he wanted me, he would need to see me as a partner, not an asset.”
He absorbed this, connecting it to Andrew’s words in the conference room.I don’t invest in family men. I invest in whole men.
“How did he respond?” he asked.
“Not well, at first. He made an interesting case—logic, timing, long-term compatibility. Synergy, as you business types like to call it. When I said no, he got annoyed. Then he went silent. And eventually, he realized he was heartbroken.”
“And then?” he asked.
“And then he showed up at my father’s summer house in Newport with nothing but the clothes on his back and a bouquet he’d picked from the roadside. No plan. No presentation. Himself, open and authentic for perhaps the first time in his life.” Her eyes grew distant with the memory. “He said he’drather have me without a plan than all the success in the world with one.” She studied him over the rim of her cup. “He recognized a part of his younger self in you, I suspect. And hoped your Devney might do for you what I did for him.”
He fell silent, turning her words over in his mind. The sunflower ring felt heavy in his palm. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he said. “I betrayed her trust. Used her in a scheme after she’d given me everything. And when it blew up, she was the one standing in the center of the explosion.”
“Perhaps the question isn’t how to fix it, but whether you’re willing to risk having no plan at all.” Eleanor’s keen eyes missed nothing. “Whether you’re willing to stand before her with no strategy, no calculation, nothing but the truth of what you feel.”
“And if that’s not enough?” he asked.
“Then at least you’ll have been honest. With her, and with yourself.” Eleanor reached over and closed his fingers around the ring. “That’s the only foundation worth building on. Take it from someone who knows.”
The only sounds were the distant crash of waves against the shore and the call of gulls overhead. He felt some of the tightness inside him ease for the first time in days, maybe even longer. Because he had finally asked the right questions of the right person.
