matter of time.
His phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see Simon calling. Ken lingered for a beat, debating whether or not he felt like talking. Right as the call was about to time out, he hit the answer button.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening, yourself,” Simon said in a mock-fancy voice. “Sounds like Jackson Hole is treating you well?”
“You gathered as much from two words?” Ken put the call on speaker and placed the phone on the coffee table.
“That or something is bothering you.”
Ken frowned. He should be better at hiding his moods. “I’m ready to get back to Buffalo is all. How are you?”
“Great, although I hadn’t heard from you all weekend. Usually, I get at least several texts or emails about work, but this weekend there was nothing. It’s good to hear you’re alive. I had my doubts.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might be having fun?” Ken tried to keep his tone playful, but he winced at himself. “How are you?”
“You asked me that already, and I’m great…as you don’t seem to recall.”
Closing his eyes, Ken pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe I’m not so great.”
“What’s going on?”
Ken paused, debating how much he wished to reveal. Simon was his closest friend, but unless an issue could be solved right away, talking about it did no good. It only meant you were dwelling.
Simon made a noise in the back of his throat. “Does it have anything to do with spending the weekend at a romantic destination with your beautiful party planner?”
Ken chuckled. Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
“I’ll have my head back on straight tomorrow,” he said. He pushed his fingers through his hair and sipped his scotch. He’d been through worse than this. He’d been hung up on women before.
But never like this.
Adison had a way of completely commanding him. She didn’t even know it, but sometimes he felt like a puppy dog around her. It was too much fun to trail along behind her, hanging on her every word. Like in that bakery, when they tested cupcakes. For a short while, he’d stepped out of his boring office routine and into her magical world, one filled with festive lattes and decorated pink.
Ken was gray, the section of the newspaper you read because you felt you needed to. Adison was the rainbow, the comics you couldn’t wait to get to.
“Did something happen between you two?” Simon asked.
“Not since…” Ken trailed off.
“Go on.” There was amusement in Simon’s voice. “This has to be good.”
“Not since her friend’s party, where we kissed.” Ken grunted in frustration. “Which should never have happened.”
“But how was it?”
Spectacular. That’s how it was, but Ken chose to ignore that question.
“It would never work out,” he said instead.
“Why not?”
“Because…” His throat tightened. The words were there, but they wouldn’t come out.
There was a quiet moment. Then…
“You’re not as broken as you think you are,” Simon said.
It felt like all the air had been punched out of Ken’s chest. Simon knew about his past; he knew about his greatest mistake.
But that didn’t mean that he understood, that he got what it was like walking through every day knowing that you had caused irreparable damage and that no matter how hard you tried, you would never be able to make up for it. Ken had funneled billions of dollars into helping children and families in need. He’d touched countless lives. On the regular, he received heartfelt letters and emails of gratitude.
He wasn’t yet forty, and he’d done more than many people would in ten lifetimes, yet it wasn’t enough. Nothing would make up for the mistake he’d made.
“Adison…” He struggled to even give breath to one sentence. “She deserves more.”
Another silence. “Okay.”
Simon—who already knew that when Ken set his foot down there was no talking him out of it—cleared his throat. “If you have time, I’d like to talk about Miami.”
Finally, a subject Ken felt confident with. He sipped his scotch. “I’m all yours.”
“I’d like to book a visit the second week of January. I looked into doing it this week, but the owner of the Brickell place won’t be available till then.”
The Brickell building was the one Ken was most interested in. While he hadn’t flown to Miami to scout out potential business spaces, he’d taken a look at what Simon had forwarded him.
“Do it,” he said. “I’m all in.”
Now more than ever, expanding the Montoya Foundation to Miami seemed like a good idea. Originally, Ken had gone to