Chapter 1 Home

**JAPHETH POV**

*Four years later.*

New York hit me the second the jet doors opened cold air, a skyline I hadn't seen since the night I told her to get out of my house and never come back. I should have felt something like relief, coming home. Instead my stomach churned the whole ride into the city.

I'd promised my family I'd come back once I finished school. I hadn't promised myself I was ready.

My new driver, Edmund, greeted me with a nod and a handshake that felt a little too formal for a man who was about to spend every day of my life stuck in traffic with me. He drove me straight past my own penthouse toward the Montgomery mansion instead, under strict orders from my mother.

"She said you'd try to talk me out of it," I told him, watching the skyline blur past the window.

"She said you'd try that exact line on me, too, sir." He didn't even glance in the mirror. "Wasn't born yesterday."

I already knew what was waiting for me at the mansion. I didn't know if *she* would be.

The party was exactly what I expected too many people, too much noise, my mother crying into my shoulder like I'd been gone a decade instead of four years. My father's hug was shorter, steadier, the kind that said *welcome home* without needing the words. I hugged who I was supposed to hug, laughed where I was supposed to laugh, and the whole time my eyes kept moving to the door.

She never walked through it.

Kate found me before I could ask. She always did.

"She didn't come," she said quietly, an arm around my waist, like she was bracing me for it.

I nodded. Pressed my lips together. Didn't trust myself to say anything back.

"You could still call her," Kate said. "You know that, right? Four years is a long time to let one bad night decide everything."

"She hasn't answered a single message in four years, Kate. I think that's her answer."

"Or it's yours," she said, and walked off before I could ask what she meant by that.

By the time I said goodnight to my mother, the sky outside was already turning gray.

"You two need to talk," she said, holding onto my hands like she could keep me there a little longer. "You both need closure."

I kissed her cheek and left before she could see my face.

In the car, I pulled out my phone. Found the message thread I hadn't opened in four years — hers, the last one she ever sent me, still sitting there unanswered.

My thumb hovered over it.

I didn't send anything. I just sat there, staring at a conversation that had been dead for four years, wondering if it was too late to bring it back to life.

I put the phone away before I did something I couldn't take back.

****

The thought of how we ended it kept hurting me, even now, even years later.

We were seventeen, a few weeks from graduation, and I'd spent that whole spring half-convinced the two of us had the rest of it figured out same college, same city, the two of us against whatever came next, the way it had always been since she was the girl who cried on the stairs over a stolen sketchpad.

"Did you talk to your mom about coming with me to college?" I'd asked her, that last night, while she scribbled something on her sketchpad, biting her lip in concentration, lying on her stomach across my bed like she'd done a hundred times before.

"Not yet, but as long as I get my acceptance letter, they can't say anything."

I sat up. A small smile spread across my face watching her draw she'd been at it twenty minutes, sketching my face like she still did, four years after that day on the stairs, like some habits just never wore off.

"We've already talked about this, Peaches. Why aren't you listening to me?"

"Japheth, I said I'm coming to college with you. Whether Mom and Dad agree or not." She grinned, not even looking up from the page. "Who can say no to a free house and free food?"

I grinned back. "I'll talk to your mom and dad." She swung her sketchpad at me and caught me square between the legs.

I curled into a ball, groaning. "Are you trying to kill me, Peaches?"

"I said sorry! You don't have to be a bully about it."

The pain eased after a few breaths. I glanced at her. She was hugging her sketchpad, lips quivering, about to cry. "Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped," I said, but she didn't answer.

"You can live without me, Japheth," she said instead. "You'll find new friends. A girlfriend who won't be bothered by our friendship."

"What do you mean, Peaches?"

She didn't answer. Just kept crying, twisting her fingers, looking down.

"You didn't apply, did you? You have no plan to come with me?"

Nothing. Not even a shake of her head.

"You lied to me! You tricked me!" My eyes started to sting. "When were you going to tell me? Before the flight? Were you even going to say goodbye?"

"I just don't want to bother you, Japheth. I'm only a burden to you."

"Did I ever complain? I chose you over them because you matter more to me than they do. They only want me because I'm a Montgomery  not because I'm Japheth, the way I am to you." My voice cracked on the last word.

"You can still go while we stay best friends."

"Best friend? No best friend lies. No best friend leaves her best friend behind."

"Japheth, I'm sorry, okay? We can still"

"No effing way. I don't want to be your best friend anymore, Peaches." I stood, hands on my hips. "Get out of my room. Out of my house. I don't want to see your face again."

The words left my mouth and my chest caved in right after. I didn't mean any of it. She dragged herself off my bed, grabbed her sketchpad, and left me alone.

I told myself I'd apologize in the morning. I told myself that for four years.

*****

A buzz against my leg dragged me back into my body, four years and one bad night later.

**KATE:** Meeting tomorrow, 9am sharp. Time to meet the new CFO.

**JAPHETH:** And who's that?

**KATE:** YOU, idiot.

I groaned. Perfect. Exactly what I needed tonight  the reminder that by morning, I'd have to be someone's boss before I'd figured out how to be someone's friend again.

I didn't sleep. I lay there running the fight back the way I had a thousand times before, except this time it came with a question I still didn't have an answer to: tonight, she'd chosen not to walk through my family's front door. I didn't know if that meant she'd never forgiven me  or worse, that she just didn't care enough to try.

By six, I gave up and got dressed anyway. Crisp shirt, charcoal suit, cufflinks with my initials the armor my father always said a Montgomery wore into any room, no matter what was actually going on underneath it.

Edmund was waiting in the garage, entirely too cheerful for the hour.

"Morning, boss."

"Morning, Edmund."

"Rough night?"

"Rough four years," I said, and he had the good sense not to push it, just turned the radio down instead of off and let me sit with it the rest of the drive.

Dad's office hadn't changed. New photo on the wall, my graduation picture next to it, same tired charm in his voice when he looked up from his desk.

"Morning, son. No hug?"

"Morning, Dad." I crossed to him, buttoning my jacket like it might hold something together besides fabric.

"Why am I starting this early?" I asked. "I thought I'd do my master's first, then train under you."

"Because I need you here," he said simply, checking the watch Mom had given him. "In twenty minutes. Want to see your office first?"

I nodded. Anything to put off standing in a room full of people expecting me to be fine.

"Elle will show you  just down the hall to the left." He paused as I turned to go. "And son?"

"Yeah?"

"Be nice to your new assistant."

I almost laughed. As if being nice was ever going to be the hard part.