seven

The whiskey burned Henry Wynthorne’s throat, but he welcomed the sensation. It was the only thing that felt real anymore. He sat alone in his father’s study—now his study—surrounded by leather-bound books and the weight of expectations he’d never wanted.

Three months had passed since Verity Langford had walked out of his life. Three months of sleepless nights and hollow days. The letter from MIT sat unopened on his desk, likely another polite rejection of his request for yet another deferral of his astrophysics program. Not that it mattered anymore. His dreams of research stations orbiting distant planets, of unlocking the mysteries of space, felt as unreachable as the stars themselves.

“Mr. Wynthorne?” The housekeeper’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Miss Hartwell is here to see your father.”

Henry didn’t look up from his glass. “Send her up.”

A few minutes later, Lavinia Hartwell appeared in the doorway, a folder tucked under her arm. Her dark hair was pulled back in its usual practical ponytail, her expression shifting from professional to concerned when she saw the bottle on his desk.

“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.

Henry gave a humorless laugh. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Lavinia didn’t respond to that. Instead, she stepped into the room with deliberate purpose, placing the folder on his desk with a quiet authority that commanded attention. “These are the quarterly numbers your father asked for. He wanted to review them before his doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”

Henry nodded, making no move to look at the documents. “How is he today?”

“Tired, but determined. He insisted on going through these figures himself, even though I told him I could handle the analysis perfectly well.” Her tone held a note of mild exasperation. “Your father can be remarkably stubborn.”

Henry took another sip of whiskey, the familiar burn now a welcome companion to his thoughts of orbital mechanics and gravitational fields—subjects that once filled him with wonder, now serving only as painful reminders of what he’d lost. “That sounds like him.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Henry was aware of Lavinia watching him, her dark eyes missing nothing. Unlike Verity, who would have launched into a lecture about his drinking by now, Lavinia simply waited with the kind of steady composure that suggested she had faced far worse than his self-destruction and emerged unbroken.

“Was there something else?” he finally asked, an edge to his voice.

“No,” Lavinia said, turning to leave. Then she paused, looking back at him. “Actually, yes. Your father hasn’t eaten lunch yet. I was going to make him something. Would you like anything?”

The simple question caught Henry off guard. When was the last time he’d eaten? He couldn’t remember.

“I’m fine,” he said automatically.

Lavinia nodded, unsurprised. “I’ll make extra anyway.”

Twenty minutes later, she returned with a tray holding two sandwiches and a cup of coffee. She set it on his desk with quiet efficiency, moving the whiskey bottle aside to make room without comment or judgment.

“I wasn’t hungry,” Henry said, irritated by her presumption.

“I know,” Lavinia replied with unshakeable calm. “But you should eat something before you drink more. Your body needs fuel to process alcohol properly, and you’ll think more clearly with food in your system.”

She spoke with the matter-of-fact tone of someone stating scientific facts rather than offering advice. Before he could argue, she was already heading for the door. Henry stared at it for a long moment before reluctantly taking a bite. It was good—simple but exactly what he needed. He finished it in four bites, not realizing until that moment how hungry he’d been.

The coffee, he noticed, was made exactly how he liked it—strong, with just a splash of cream. He couldn’t remember telling Lavinia how he took his coffee.

The pattern repeated itself in the days that followed. Lavinia would arrive, ostensibly to help Robert Wynthorne with company accounts or to deliver documents. But she always seemed to find her way to Henry as well, bringing food or coffee, asking practical questions that required his attention, pulling him, however briefly, out of his self-imposed isolation.

Her visits became the only constant in his increasingly chaotic life. Wynthorne Industries was struggling under his inexperienced leadership, board members questioning his every decision. His father’s health continued to deteriorate despite the doctors’ best efforts. And Verity…Verity was gone, her absence a physical ache that no amount of whiskey could numb.

The rejection letters from space programs and research institutions piled up on his desk, each one a reminder of the path he would never take. Henry had once dreamed of studying cosmic radiation beyond Earth’s atmosphere, of contributing to humanity’s understanding of the universe. Now he could barely understand the quarterly reports spread before him.

“She’ll come back,” Henry slurred one evening, as Lavinia helped him from his car to the front door. He’d driven himself home from a board meeting, stopping at a bar along the way. He was lucky she’d been at the house when he arrived, barely able to stand.

“Who will?” Lavinia asked, supporting his weight as they navigated the steps.

“Verity,” Henry said, as if it were obvious. “Once she sees I’ve changed. Once I’m running the company properly. She’ll come back. She has to see that I chose Wynthorne Industries over my research dreams for good reasons.”

Lavinia’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but her voice remained steady. “Henry—”

“I’d wait an eternity for her,” Henry continued, his words running together. “I’d beg her. I was wrong, you know. I was wrong to want the stars more than the boardroom. That’s why she left.”

Lavinia helped him to the sofa in the living room, her movements precise despite supporting his full weight. “You should drink some water,” she said, her tone brooking no argument.

But Henry grabbed her wrist, suddenly desperate to make her understand. “She’s the only woman I’ll ever love, Lavinia. The only one. I have to get her back. She was right about everything—about duty, about responsibility, about what really matters.”

Something flickered across Lavinia’s face—pain, frustration, perhaps both—but she carefully extracted her wrist from his grip with the same quiet strength she brought to everything else.

“I’ll get you some water,” she said, her voice soft but controlled, revealing nothing of what she might truly be thinking.

Henry passed out before she returned, the whiskey finally pulling him under into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Henry awoke to a pounding headache and the sound of quiet voices from his father’s room down the hall. He lay still, trying to piece together the previous night. There had been the disastrous board meeting, then the bar, then Lavinia helping him home. He winced as fragments of his drunken monologue about Verity came back to him.

He forced himself to sit up, noticing with surprise that someone had removed his shoes and jacket and placed a glass of water and two aspirin on the coffee table beside him. He swallowed the pills gratefully, then made his way toward his father’s room, following the voices.

“…not good for him,” Robert Wynthorne was saying, his voice weaker than Henry remembered.

“He’s grieving,” came Lavinia’s reply, her tone firm yet respectful. “For you, for Verity, for the career in astrophysics he sacrificed. He dreamed of research stations and space exploration, Mr. Wynthorne. That’s not something a person simply forgets.”

“He’s destroying himself,” Robert argued. “And the company with him. The board is talking about removing him. Space research doesn’t pay the bills or employ thousands of people.”

Henry froze in the hallway, his heart pounding painfully in his chest.

“Give him time,” Lavinia said, and Henry could hear the quiet steel in her voice. “He’s brilliant—more brilliant than anyone gives him credit for. Right now he’s drowning in responsibilities he never wanted, but he’ll find his way. Intelligence like his doesn’t simply disappear because of grief.”

There was a pause, then his father spoke again, his tone thoughtful. “You care for him, don’t you? More than just as a friend.”

Henry held his breath, waiting for Lavinia’s response.

“What I feel doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “Henry loves Verity. He always has.”

“And yet, you’re still here,” Robert observed. “Supporting a man who talks constantly of another woman, who throws his pain at you like weapons. Why is that, Lavinia?”

Lavinia was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice held a strength that surprised Henry. “Because someone has to be. Because beneath all that anger and alcohol, there’s a man worth saving. And because…” She paused, and Henry held his breath. “Because what I feel doesn’t change what he needs.”

Henry retreated before they could discover him eavesdropping, his father’s words echoing in his mind. Could Lavinia have feelings for him? The idea seemed absurd. She had never shown any sign of it, had always been nothing more than a steady, reliable presence in the background of his life.

But now that the thought had been planted, he found himself watching her more closely in the days that followed, looking for signs he might have missed. The way she anticipated his needs before he voiced them. The patience with which she endured his moods. The quiet competence she brought to every task, never seeking praise or recognition.

Still, if there was more to her feelings than friendship, she kept them well hidden. And Henry, still drowning in thoughts of Verity, told himself it didn’t matter either way.