Todos os capítulos de His Greatest Regret: Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

TARIKI don't hear the applause anymore.The room is still full of noise — chairs shifting, voices overlapping, people gathering around the tables — but it all seems distant while I stay in my seat, watching Sophia gather her notes at the front of the room. I spent five years imagining what it would feel like to see her again, and none of it prepared me for this. I thought there might be anger. Awkwardness. Maybe nothing at all, if enough time had passed. Instead, something in me went still the second she walked in this morning, and now that she's finished presenting, I don't know what to do with everything it's brought back.She isn't just my ex-wife. She's the woman who walked out of that hospital corridor with my son and didn't look back, and some part of me has been braced for this moment since the day she left.She was good up there. Better than good. She didn't hesitate when the committee pushed her on the sustainability projections, didn't look toward Nadia or anyone else for b

TARIKI wake before my alarm and lie still, staring at the ceiling as yesterday replays. I'd expected seeing Sophia again to be difficult. I'd prepared myself for the possibility that five years had changed her enough that I wouldn't fully recognize her. I hadn't prepared myself for recognizing her immediately, or for how much that would do to me.I reach for my phone, then stop before I pick it up. Nothing about the morning has changed since I went to bed. I'm still thinking about the question I asked her yesterday.Are you back?It sounded simple when I said it. It wasn't.I wanted to know if New York was about to become part of her life again, or if yesterday was a coincidence created by one project and nothing more. Her answer gave me neither.For the project, if it moves forward.I sit up and rub my face. I have a company to run and a project to secure, and a team expecting me to focus on the next stage of the competition. Sophia is one of the competing firms. That's all she need

SOPHIABy the time Nadia and I arrive at the Hudson Quay venue, our team is already in place — folders squared, laptops open, the quiet focus of people about to perform. I'm wearing a navy tailored suit over a cream blouse, hair pulled back neatly so I won't have to think about it once we're presenting. The conference room sits high enough to catch a wide stretch of harbor through the windows, gray water under an overcast sky.Nadia checks something on her tablet. "Everything ready?""Ready."She gives me a small smile. "Good."This stage is different from the first. The broad vision isn't enough anymore — we have to prove it can be built. The waterfront strategy's been refined, the construction sequence tightened, the cost team's trimmed the projected escalation without touching what matters.When the redevelopment authority representatives take their seats, the room settles. Across it, Bennett & Stone is already in place. Tarik sits with his team, one arm draped along the back of th

TARIKI'm in the conference room before anyone else.The finalist notification came through last night, and the Stage 3 packet came with it — forty pages of requirements. I spread them across the table, pull out the chair at the head, and uncap a pen.A few years ago, I would have waited for a summary. Ethan or one of the project managers would have handed me three bullet points, and I'd have nodded and moved on to the next fire. Now I read every page myself. My handwriting runs down the margins — questions, a few underlines, one word circled twice. Defend.By the time I reach the last page, the coffee at my elbow has gone cold. I drink it anyway.The door opens a little after eight. Two project managers come in first, tablets already out, then our project director, Renata Voss — early fifties, tall, dark hair in a low knot, a hard hat clipped to the strap of her bag — then the commercial lead. Ethan comes in last. He's in charcoal this morning, jacket buttoned, the silver in his dark

TARIKThe team is still bent over the site photos when I stop hearing them.Renata is circling things in red marker. One of the project managers says something about access, someone else answers, and I nod in the right places, my pen resting on a blank page.Second base. He's fast.I've gone over it so many times the words have worn smooth. A boy telling an umpire to call him safe before the dust settled. Loud, then, or at least sure of himself. A gap in his smile that closed over the summer, and a whistle that went with it. Three things I didn't know last week, and I've turned each one over like a coin.He draws, too. Buildings, mostly.My eyes drop to the photo in front of me, the black pilings in their rows, and all I see is a tall gray rectangle standing alone at the edge of a page."Tarik?" Renata is looking at me. "Do you want the access options tonight, or tomorrow?""Tonight." I cap the pen. "I'll read all of it."She nods, and for a second I think she's going to ask. She does