Alle Kapitel von The Girl He Left Behind : Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

**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 part

**JAPHETH POV**The conference room went quiet the second I walked in, which was somehow worse than if it hadn’t. Ten faces turned toward me, board members, division heads, a couple of lawyers I didn’t recognize, all of them doing the math on exactly how long I’d been back in the country and exactly how unqualified that made me look, sitting down in the CFO’s chair like I’d earned it instead of been handed it.“Everyone, my son, Japheth,” Dad said, like that settled anything.I sat. I nodded at faces I half-remembered from childhood dinners, men who used to ruffle my hair and now looked at me like I was a line item they hadn’t approved.One of them didn’t bother pretending otherwise.“Alaric Voss,” he said, not standing, not offering a hand. Senior VP of Finance, I placed the name a half second before I placed the face, older, sharper around the eyes than I remembered. “I’ve been with Montgomery twelve years, Mr. Montgomery. Long enough to have expected this seat myself, if I’m being

Japheth pov“Japheth, I think it’s time to go home. You’re done, man.” Edmund had a grip on my arm, steering me out of the bar.I’d been drinking for hours, got roped into a tequila shot contest with some girls from the bar, and I’m a lightweight, so it hit fast.“I can still take a few more, Edmund,” I slurred.“Shut up, drunk-ass. I’ll lose my job because of you, baby Japheth.”I took a swing at his arm and missed. “Stop calling me baby Japheth or I swear…”He just laughed. My eyes were already falling shut by the time I hit the back seat.“Night, Edmund.”“Just shut up,” he said, not unkindly, and turned the music on.The doorbell dragged me out of sleep, ringing over and over. My head was pounding hard enough that sitting up felt like a mistake.I rubbed my temples. Whoever was at the door better have a good reason, family was the only one who could get up here without going through security downstairs.I swallowed two tablets off the nightstand and drank the water next to them

**JAPHETH POV**"Japheth, I will let Jasmine start her proper job next week. No arguments," Dad said, the moment I sat down across from him.I blinked. "What proper job?""Financial analyst. She's earned it. Cum laude, top of her intern class, and she's been carrying half of Hughes without anyone noticing for months." He said it like it was already decided, because with Dad, it always already was."Dad, she's a fresh grad. No experience outside an internship.""So are you," he said, not even looking up from his tablet."That's exactly my point. I need someone experienced on my team because I'm not." I heard how it sounded the second it left my mouth thin, and he heard it too."You'll learn. So will she." He finally looked up. "Or is this about something else, Japheth?"I didn't answer fast enough, and that was answer enough for him."I'm not going to pretend I haven't noticed the two of you circling each other since you walked back into this building," he said. "But don't let whateve

**JAPHETH POV**Kate didn't answer my text for almost an hour, and when she finally did, it wasn't sympathy.**KATE:** Fix it yourself, Japheth. I'm not doing your apologizing for you this time.She was right to say it, even if it didn't make the drive to Jasmine's apartment any easier. I sat in the back of the car turning the whole conversation over in my head, trying to find the version of it where I hadn't sounded like I was managing her career instead of respecting it, and I couldn't find one. Because there wasn't one. I'd said what I said, and it had landed exactly the way it sounded.Edmund didn't ask questions this time. He'd learned, over the past few weeks, when to just drive."You want me to wait?" he asked, pulling up outside her building."If she lets me in, go home. If she doesn't, I might need the ride back."He huffed something that might've been a laugh. "For what it's worth, boss, whatever you did apologize like you mean it. Not like you're trying to win."I sat with