He didn’t answer.

Neither did I.

I ended the call.

Aaron Came to My Door in the Rain

He arrived at the Vance house the following evening.

It had been raining for hours.

When I opened the door, Aaron stood beneath the porch light in a soaked navy coat.

No driver.

No assistant.

No Vanguard executives.

Just Aaron.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

His jaw moved.

“Alyssa, please.”

I stayed in the doorway.

“I fired Jasmine.”

“You told me.”

“I’m restructuring the board. I’ll give you control.”

“I don’t want you to give me anything.”

Rainwater ran from his hair onto his collar.

“Then tell me what you want.”

I looked at him.

“If Vanguard wasn’t facing insolvency tomorrow, would you be standing here?”

Aaron opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

That was the most truthful answer he’d given me in months.

He looked toward the driveway.

Then back at me.

“I love you.”

“Maybe you do.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Several.”

He stepped closer.

“Restore the patent licenses.”

There it was.

Not come home.

Not let’s find a counselor.

Not tell me how I became this person.

Restore the patents.

Aaron must have seen something change in my face.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It is.”

“Alyssa—”

“You came here to save Vanguard.”

“I’m trying to save both.”

“Which one did you ask for first?”

He stared at me.

Then Aaron Prescott, the man who had stood on stages in New York, San Francisco, London, and Tokyo while people applauded his brilliance, lowered himself onto one knee on my front porch.

“Please.”

I hated seeing him like that.

I hated even more that four years earlier I would have done anything to prevent it.

I stepped inside and returned with the divorce papers.

I held them out.

“Sign them.”

He didn’t take them.

“You’re serious.”

“I was serious seventy-two hours ago.”

He finally took the papers.

Then he looked up.

“What happens to the employees?”

That stopped me.

Vanguard employed thousands of people who had nothing to do with our marriage.

Engineers.

Assembly workers.

Technicians.

Administrative staff.

People with mortgages and children and medical bills.

“We’re not shutting the plants,” I said.

Aaron stood slowly.

“What?”

“Vance Enterprises will enforce the debt. We can take control of certain Vanguard assets through the restructuring.”

“Including the factories.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“We keep them operating.”

His shoulders dropped.

For a second, he looked relieved.

Then he understood.

“Under Vance.”

“Under me.”

He stared at the papers in his hand.

“So you get everything.”

I shook my head.

“No, Aaron. I get back what I spent four years pretending I didn’t need credit for.”

The Seat I Didn’t Have to Ask For

The restructuring took months.

It wasn’t clean.

Nothing involving that much debt ever is.

Vanguard Dynamics surrendered major assets to satisfy its obligations. Aaron lost most of his ownership and all controlling authority.

The manufacturing operations became part of Vance Green Energy.

We kept the plants open.

We kept most of the workers.

Jasmine’s disclosure of confidential information became a separate legal matter. I didn’t follow it closely.

Six months after the flight to Honolulu, Aaron and I finalized our divorce.

At our last meeting, he looked thinner.

He signed the final page and pushed the pen toward me.

“So that’s it.”

“Yes.”

He looked through the conference-room window.

“I barely have anything left.”

That wasn’t completely true.

Aaron still had his education, his reputation as an engineer, and more opportunities than most people would ever have.

But I knew what he meant.

I had approved one final provision in the restructuring.

Aaron retained a ten-percent nonvoting interest in Vance Green Energy. If he chose to keep working as an engineer, he would still benefit from what he helped build.

He looked surprised when Margaret explained it.

“Why?”

I closed my folder.

“Because you did build part of it.”

He looked at me for a long time.

“I wish I could go back.”

I stood.

“So do I.”

“Alyssa.”

I stopped at the door.

“The woman who was willing to stand behind your dream just because she loved you died on that airplane.”

Aaron lowered his eyes.

I left.

Three years later, I saw him again at an energy conference in Chicago.

I was there as CEO of Vance Green Energy.

Aaron was standing near a supplier booth, showing a procurement manager a small component his new engineering firm had developed.

No entourage.

No assistant.

No one carrying his briefcase.

He saw me across the hall.

We looked at each other.

He gave me a small nod.

I returned it.

That was all.

Two days later, I boarded my plane for New York.

My strategy binder was open beside me, filled with plans for our European expansion. Someone had left a cup of coffee on the table, and morning light came through the cabin window.

Before takeoff, I noticed something in the storage cabinet beside my seat.

The old cream travel pillow.

Apparently one of my assistants had found it years earlier at Vance headquarters and kept it.

I pulled it out.

For a moment, I could see Jasmine sitting on it again.

Aaron telling me to go to row five.

His mother looking annoyed.

Twenty-five people pretending not to watch.

I smiled, put the pillow behind my head, and opened my binder.

This time, nobody had to tell me where to sit.