THE CEO's REGRET

CHAPTER 18: NOT YET

Seven whole months, Sebastian had been writing to me for seven months, and I’d never known a single one of them existed. I sat down at the table and just stared at the shoebox.

It sat there between Jade and me like something that already knew it was going to hurt. I wasn’t exactly scared of it, more like I was bracing myself, the way you do when you know something is going to cost you. Jade didn’t push, she just sat there, watching me quietly.

All her usual sharpness had dialed down, leaving behind something calmer and steadier. That was how I knew she understood how serious this was. I reached for the top envelope. His handwriting, my name, the letters looked rushed, a little uneven, the way they always got when something was weighing on him.

I used to notice little things like that back when I still loved him in silence. My fingers tightened around it for a second, then I set it back down, picked it up again, then put it down.

“You don’t have to open them tonight,” Jade said softly.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to open them at all.”

“I know that too.” I kept staring at the stack. Thirty-one envelopes. Seven months of words I never got. I wasn’t ready to step into whatever was waiting inside them. Not tonight, not with that photo of Isla still stuck in my head… thirteen years old, those big grey eyes looking straight at the camera, completely unguarded.

I had nothing left in me today. I’d already used it all up, so I closed the lid, carried the box to my wardrobe, tucked it on the top shelf, and covered it with a blanket like I was hiding evidence. Then I shut the door and went to make dinner.

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Isla was in her room, headphones on, lost in a textbook. I stopped in the doorway for a moment just watching her, the way her shoulders curved, how she chewed on her pen when she was concentrating, those same grey eyes moving slowly across the page.

She glanced up and pulled one headphone off. “You okay?”

“I’mokay baby,” I said, trying to smile.

She looked at me a little longer, like she was deciding whether to press. Then her face softened and she let it go. The headphone went back on, and she disappeared back into her book.

I headed to the kitchen, made pasta, set the table, and called her for dinner. We talked about her history project and some movie she wanted to see. For once, I wasn’t faking being present, I actually was. Isla had always had that effect on me. She could pull me right into the moment without even trying. After she went to bed, Jade stayed a while longer.

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We sat at the kitchen table with mugs of tea that slowly went cold. Neither of us felt the need to fill the silence. That was one of the best things about Jade, sometimes just sitting together was enough.

Eventually she asked, “What are you going to do?”

I thought about it for a second, really thought about it,“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “Not all of it, but.”

Jade wrapped both hands around her mug. “But?”

“But I’m not leaving.” The words came out quiet but certain. “I came here for a reason, and I’m not done. Whatever’s in those letters, whatever any of this means… I’m not walking away until I’ve finished what I started.”

Jade held my eyes for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “Okay,” she said.

She left around eleven-thirty. At the door, she pulled me into one of those tight, wordless hugs that said everything she didn’t. Then she was gone, and the apartment settled into that deep, late-night kind of quiet, the kind that only happens when Isla’s asleep and I’m the only one still awake.

I stood in the kitchen for a minute, feeling the weight of that box even though it was hidden behind two doors, then I went to bed. I didn’t open it, I wasn’t ready, and I’d learned the hard way that you can’t force these things. The letters had already waited seven months to reach me and sixteen years after that. They could wait a little longer.

Tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after that. When I had enough room left in me to handle them.

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I got to Hale Tower the next morning at nine fifty-five, charcoal blazer on, folder under my arm, already running through the meeting in my head. The second I stepped off the elevator, the receptionist looked up. There was something in her expression… small, and careful, that made my stomach tighten before she even spoke.

“Ms. Reed, I’m sorry… there’s been a change to this morning’s meeting.”

I stopped. “What kind of change?”

“The boardroom’s been taken for something else. The regular meeting has been postponed.” She paused, then added, “Mr. Hale Senior is in there now. He’d like to meet with you instead.”

Victor Hale had moved my meeting, taken the room, and was waiting behind closed doors. Alone, without Sebastian or Patricia. No one else. The receptionist kept her polite smile in place, waiting.

I adjusted the folder under my arm, my pulse kicking up a notch. “Of course,” I said. “Lead the way.”