Page 77 of Based on You

I just waited.

When the room had finally settled, I stood up.

"It's been a good journey," I addressed the table. "I'm glad things turned out this way. It means a great deal to me that this company got to be part of it." I paused. "I have one more thing to address."

I reached into the inside pocket of my suit jacket and took out the manila folder. For a second I let it sit in my hand. Across the room, Elena watched from her portrait the way she'd watched every meeting held in here for two years, half a smile on her face, like she already knew the ending and was waiting for the rest of us to catch up. I'd built this company at her side. Her name sat on the spine of every book we had ever printed. Handing it over should have felt like losing her a second time.

It didn't. I thought it might be the first decision I'd made since she died that she would have stood up out of her chair to applaud.

I found Olivia in the far corner. She was watching me, completely still, and she already knew. Of course she knew. She'd called my father, she'd told me the truth in the kitchen, she'd seen me clearly long before I could see myself. I held her eyes for a moment, and she gave me the smallest nod, like she'd been waiting to find out whether I would finally do the brave thing and was glad to be proven right.

I slid the folder across the polished table.

"This is my resignation from Beckett Media, effective immediately. It contains the legal transfer of my half of the company to Olivia Beckett Chien, who already holds her late mother's half through her trust." I looked at Marisol. "The company is hers now."

The conference room went silent.

Violet was staring at me. Her chin had shot up, and her hands were pressed flat on the table.

"Are you serious right now?" she demanded.

"Yes." I looked only at her. "I can't go back to how things were before. We both hurt each other, and I admit I was a coward, and I'm not willing to be a coward anymore. If you don't ever want to see me again, then this is the only way to make sure you don't have to."

I picked up a silver pen from the table.

"Simon."

She said my name once, not loud, but firm, and I stopped cold.

She was standing now. Her hands were planted on the table, and her dark eyes were locked on mine, and she didn't look away.

"Don't do this," she said. "This company is yours. Yours and Elena's. I'm not going to let you give it away because of me."

"Violet, it's the only way⁠—"

She shook her head before I could finish, her knuckles white against the wood. Two days ago in that hotel room she'd been cold and final. Now her hands were shaking.

"I was wrong," she said.

I stared at her.

"In the hotel room. I was blindingly angry and I was hurt, and I said I never wanted to see you again, and I was wrong to say it." She took a shaky breath. "We both hurt each other. That's true. And we both have huge things to work on. That's true too. But we don't have to do that work separately. We can do it together… if you still want to."

I just looked at her.

"I can't imagine my life without you in it," she said, her voice thick. "I know that's what I said in the hotel room, and then I took it back, and I'm not taking it back again. I'm in love with you. I want to be with you. And every time you start to doubt that, I'll tell you again, for as long as it takes, until you finally stop needing me to say it."

The room was silent.

I looked at her across the long table on the forty-seventh floor, aware of Elena's portrait hanging on the wall behind the head of the table, with Olivia watching in the corner, and every person I worked with witnessing this.

"I love you," I said, my voice carrying in the quiet. "I've been terrified, and a coward, and wrong about things I should not have been wrong about. But I love you, Violet, and I'm so sorry it took me this long to be a man worth saying it to."

She came around the table.

I met her halfway.

When I kissed her, someone in the room cheered. Then someone else joined in. Marisol made a delighted sound that was unprofessional and sincere. From the far corner, Olivia made a noise I could only describe as triumphant.