Page 121 of The Billionaire Is Back

And I realize that Claire isn’t the only one who wants more.

I want every inch of her and every second of her life.

I want so much more with her.

I’m good at getting more.

If I can combine Lynch’s empire with mine, then I can figure out how to unite my world with Claire’s.

I still just don’t know how.

Chapter 33

My Flakey Bakey Heart

Grady

My pen hoversa quarter inch from where I’m supposed to sign.

I’m back in the top-floor conference room of Relicteros Inc. to execute the final contract to merge our companies. I chose to do it here instead of my office as a show of good faith to the company that is being absorbed into ours. Like a victorious general allowing the vanquished one to surrender his sword in his own territory.

That vanquished general once again sits on the opposite end of the massive table. Harrison Lynch is stone-faced as usual. He didn’t have to be here today. But it says a lot about his character that he is. The room is as packed as it was when I gave my last presentation to hold off Lynch’s last play. Fewer of my Beacon Holdings executives are here because I’m not giving any presentations,but they’ve been supplanted by a small brigade of lawyers to make sure everything is done properly.

I turn my attention back to the arrow on the paper where my name should go. Somehow I still can’t get the pen to the paper. I’ve been a mess since the last time I saw Claire. I’ve become a twisted, confused mess since my father and brother and I had our talk. I can’t stop thinking about what my dad said and what it means for my life. How do I keep going if I know that I’ll never be happy without Claire by my side? How can I give Claire myself and the world when I have to sacrifice myself to conquer the world?

I move the pen the final quarter of an inch to the paper. There’s uncomfortable shifting and some light coughing in the room. They’re wondering what’s taking so long. As miserable as I’ve been, I kept expecting the fire to return once I returned to New York. The burning need to succeed that feeds me. But as I sit here in this room, I don’t feel any of it.

In my mind, I hear Claire’s quiet voice ask,But what if it doesn’t make you happy?

The answer is no longer that it does make me happy. Not even for right now. And I know that it never will again.

I look up at the other people in the room. Lynch’s board is here, but Aston isn’t. I hadn’t noticed that in my fog of despair when I first came into the room.

I lean in toward Alice, who’s sitting next to me in her lucky black Chanel suit that looks like all of her other black Chanel suits, and whisper, “Where is Mr. Pembroke?”

“His daughter is getting married. They have a rehearsal dinner,” she says.

“Why wasn’t I told about this?”

Alice looks a little confused. It’s so rare that she isn’t on top of everything, she doesn’t know what it’s like for me to question her. “It didn’t seem like pertinent information. It has no effect on the agreement or this signing.”

Of course not. Why would it? Aston’s got his priorities straight. But it does have an effect on me and this signing.

He’s made the kind of choice I need to make.

It feels like a light switch has been turned on. A powerful megawatt spotlight that illuminates everything in my life and makes it look completely different. A beacon, one might say. I had no idea I’d been living in the dark for so long.

Becoming rich and successful is a means to an end. I’ve always known this. But I was so focused on the means that I had lost sight of the end. So much so that I was willing to sacrifice it.

Claire is the end. The end of my story. Or rather, the beginning of the real one.

I’ve had it all wrong. I didn’t need to figure out how to combine our lives—mine in New York and hers in Beacon Harbor. I needed to chooseourlife.

I need to choose her.

I’ve made my fortune.

Now it’s time to go back home to my girl.

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