The Girl He Left Behind のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

JAPHETH POV"You're doing the face," Kate said, dropping into the chair across from my desk without an invitation, the way she did everything."What face?""The face you do when you're thinking too hard about something and refusing to tell anyone what it is. Dad does it too. It's very annoying and very genetic.""I don't have a face, Kate.""You absolutely have a face." She stole a pen off my desk and started clicking it, which she knew drove me insane, which was exactly why she did it. "So. What's wrong?""Nothing's wrong.""Japheth.""Kate.""I will sit here clicking this pen until you tell me, and you know I have the patience of a saint when I'm trying to annoy you specifically."I sighed, leaning back in my chair. "Dean was in my office the other day. Peaches let him use my desktop to look at some document formatting for a case.""Okay? That sounds extremely boring, which tracks, because Dean's entire personality is 'extremely competent and extremely boring in the most attractive

DEAN POV**UNKNOWN:** It's been a week. The document is still unsigned. We're losing patience, Dean.I stared at the message in my car in the parking garage, the same garage, the same spot, like the universe had a sick sense of humor about where it wanted me to have my worst moments.**DEAN:** It's sitting in his review queue. These things take time, I can't force him to sign faster without it looking suspicious.**UNKNOWN:** You have until Friday. After that, we stop being patient with you, and we start being patient with your girlfriend instead. Kate, isn't it? Works in marketing. Drives a silver Audi. Takes the same route home every night at roughly the same time.My hands were shaking by the time I finished reading it, hard enough that I had to set the phone down on the passenger seat just to stop myself from crushing it.They knew her schedule. Her car. Her route. I'd spent three weeks telling myself this was abstract, distant, a problem I could solve with enough cleverness and e

**JAPHETH POV**By the time everyone had assembled in Dad's office, Dad, Mom, Kate, Dean looking like a man walking to his own sentencing, Jasmine sitting close enough to me that our knees touched, Ranjiv standing at the front with a laptop like he was about to present a very stressful TED talk, and Voss, who I'd invited at the last minute because apparently we were all one big dysfunctional family now, including the man who'd spent three months hoping I'd fail the energy in the room was somewhere between an intervention and a hostage negotiation."Before anyone starts yelling," I said, "I want to establish some ground rules.""I make no promises," Dad said immediately, arms crossed, looking at Dean the way he once looked at a vendor who'd shown up late to a shipment, which, according to Kate, had ended in tears."Dad.""Fine. I'll yell quietly.""That's not better," Kate muttered."Can I just say something first?" Dean asked, standing a little straighter, clearly having prepared som

VICTOR KADE POVEleven years is a long time to hold a grudge properly. Most men lose the thread of it somewhere around year three get distracted by a new marriage, a new venture, some fresh disappointment that crowds out the old one. I've always found that a failure of discipline more than a failure of feeling. A grudge, properly maintained, is simply a long-term investment. You water it. You wait. You do not let impatience rush a return that compounds better with time.Sebastian Montgomery bought me out of my own company for eleven million dollars, on paper, at a valuation I agreed to under duress, convinced by three lawyers and a very persuasive threat of litigation that it was the only reasonable deal on the table. Eighteen months later, Montgomery Industries signed a distribution contract that tripled its value overnight. I watched a man wearing my idea walk into every magazine profile for the next decade, charming, humble, self-made, never once mentioning the partner he'd quietl

JAPHETH POVVictor Kade's office occupied the top floor of a building with his own name on it in brushed steel letters, which struck me as the kind of detail a man only bothers with when he's spent eleven years imagining the moment someone else would have to look up and read it."You didn't have to come," Dad said quietly, as we rode the elevator up together, Voss on one side of him, me on the other, Jasmine having insisted on joining despite my attempts to talk her out of walking directly into the orbit of a man who'd already proven he knew exactly how to use the people we loved against us."Yes, I did," I said. "You're not doing this alone.""I did plenty of things alone for eleven years, Japheth. I can handle one meeting.""That's exactly the problem, Dad. You handled it alone for eleven years, and look where that got us."He didn't argue with that, which told me more than any response could have.The elevator doors opened onto a reception area so deliberately understated it border