Page 150 of The Perfect Mistake

My voice grows rough. “It’s not. Anyone can go at any moment. It was true with Mom, and then again with Victoria.”

“We all live with that risk,” she says. “I know it’s marked you in a way it hasn’t most, but the alternative is not loving at all. To let Isabel go now and to never know what you two might have been… to live your life with the question of if. And I’ve never known you to be the kind of person to back away because of uncertainty.”

My gaze slides back to hers. “When did you get this wise?”

She smiles crookedly. “Somewhere over the years, I grew up.”

“Hmm.”

“I have one more thing to say,” she says. “You’ve taken responsibility for me and Nate for as long as I can remember. For Contron, and even for Dad, saving him from his own impulses. You’re a great father to Willa and Sam. And as the CEO, you’ve made this company more profitable and a far better employer.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Is this some form of pep talk?”

“No,” she says with a smile. “It’s tough love. Because you need to stop with some of it. You can’t be everyone’s big brother, and you can’t solve every potential problem. Just like you needed to let me go my own way and make my own mistakes… you need to let Isabel make hers.”

I take a deep breath and force it out through gritted teeth.

“Stop thinking for her,” Connie says, “and listen when she tells you the age gap isn’t a problem for her. Just be there in the moment and don’t try to solve it. Not everything is a problem.”

I run a hand over the back of my neck. Damn, I really hadn’t listened at all when Isabel had protested. I’d heard her words. But I hadn’t believed them, not really. Not when I know how easy it is for love to slip out of your hands and disappear into the ether. How simple it is to lose someone you love.

All it takes is a single phone call.

But what comes before that phone call, well…

It could be glorious.

And loving Isabel will be glorious. Calling her mine, making her mine, and giving her the world. Truly letting go and giving in.

To kiss her in public, to take her to dinners…

The fantasy of her in a wedding dress comes rushing back. It’s too soon in every sense of the word, but I see it clearly anyway. Her walking down the aisle, her brown eyes smiling, and her long dark hair in an updo.

It won’t be simple this time. I can already feel it, the hold she has on me.

“You’re right,” I say.

Connie smiles. “I was taught recently that it’s worth taking risks,” she says. “It’s paid off pretty handsomely for me, so I have to pass the knowledge along.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting advice from a Thompson,” I say.

Her smile widens. “You know, you and Gabriel would get along, if you buried your swords.”

The way things are going, that might very well become a reality. All bets seem to be off these days. The world has changed beneath my feet, or maybe it’s exactly the same but I’ve finally become aware of things I spent years missing.

I head toward the door.

“I don’t think I should tell you this…” She stops me, her voice holding a faint warning. “But she just received a job offer.”

“I know,” I say. “The new dance studio idea.”

She shakes her head slowly. “Another one. To dance again for a ballet company… in Seattle.”

My chest constricts. It’s immediate. Knowing that time is even more limited than I thought. I need to speak with her today. To clearly lay it all out and let her make the decisions from now on.

“If that’s what she wants…” I say. “Well, we have a company jet. I can visit her.”

Connie smiles. “Go get her.”

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