Once we cleared the banquet hall, I told them to go home and wait for further word. Then I pulled out my phone and dialed a number.
"Miss Delgado."
"Put the Henson Group contract on hold. I have a better deal to discuss with you."
If this place didn't want me, plenty of others would. Wherever I took these eighty people, companies would be fighting to have us.
"Oh?" Doreen Delgado's voice drifted through the line, tinged with amusement. "What's this? Judging by your tone, are you looking to stray? Run into this big sister's arms?"
She'd come all the way from Grandview to find me. When she learned I was married, she'd been quietly hoping for a divorce ever since—using the contract as an excuse to stay close.
I was about to respond when footsteps sounded behind me.
"I'll send you the details."
I hung up. I'd assumed it was Marlene chasing after me, but it turned out to be Miles Sullivan.
"Jacob!"
"Now do you see how powerful a first love can be? No matter how much you sacrifice for Marlene, she's still wrapped around my finger."
Miles sauntered toward me, his smirk stretching so wide it practically touched his ears. The smugness rolled off him in waves.
"You might be forgetting something," I said, regarding him with flat indifference. "Marlene wasn't the only one who came begging me to come down from that mountain."
With that, I turned and walked away.
Three years ago, Henson Group had imploded—teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Marlene's grandfather, Felix Henson, was on his deathbed.
He'd ordered every member of the Henson clan to take the family's ceremonial token and kneel for three days and three nights before the gates of Shadow Peak Academy, just to recruit me.
They called me a once-in-a-generation business prodigy.
On his deathbed, Felix entrusted me with his final wish: marry Marlene and pull Henson Group back from the brink.
I owed the old man a debt—a kindness from years past—so I agreed. Over three years together, I'd grown genuinely fond of Marlene.
She was gentle. When I worked late, she'd bring me a warm glass of milk. She'd knead the tension from my shoulders.
She'd lay out my clothes for me every morning.
A few times, when I'd pushed myself to collapse and ended up hospitalized with a high fever, she sat at my bedside through the night without leaving.
She was attentive to my feelings. If anyone disrespected me, she was the first to shut it down.