PART 3:

” Ryan smiled. It was a good smile. Genuine. a smile that reached his eyes and made the tired lines around them deepen. He didn’t try to kiss her, didn’t go for the hug that lasted too long, just gave a small wave, wished her a safe drive home, and walked back toward his own truck. Victoria sat in the Civic for a long moment before starting the engine.

She watched Ryan brush snow off his windshield, climb into a Ford F-150 that looked older than Emma, 27 men. All of them had failed, but most of them had also tried too hard. They’d performed. They’d pushed. They treated the first date like a sales pitch where they were the product. Ryan hadn’t done that.

He’d just shown up late, apologized sincerely, talked about his daughter, and left without demanding anything. Victoria drove home through streets that transformed from workingclass neighborhoods to progressively wealthier areas. The Civic looked increasingly out of place. By the time she pulled into her building’s underground garage, past the security checkpoint where the guard knew her face but not her car, she felt the familiar dissonance of moving between worlds.

In the elevator, she pulled out a real phone. 43 missed messages, 12 calls, three urgent emails marked with red flags. She ignored all of them. Instead, she texted Sarah. Date number 28 complete. Verdict: TBD. Sarah responded immediately. That’s the least cynical postate text you’ve sent in 2 years. Tell me everything.

Victoria stepped into her penthouse. Floor to ceiling windows overlooked Aspen. From up here, the town looked like a snow globe someone had just shaken. Perfect. Precious. Unreal. She typed. He took a call from his daughter in the middle of dinner to say good night, Sarah. And Victoria. And I think I want to see him again. Sarah.

Holy That’s progress. Was it? Victoria wasn’t sure. She’d wanted to see others again, too. The lawyer, the teacher, the photographer. All of them had seemed promising at first. But something about Ryan felt different. Maybe it was because he was the first man she’d dated who hadn’t tried to impress her, who’d shown up already shaped by something bigger than ego or ambition, the raw, unglamorous work of loving a child alone. Or maybe Victoria was just tired.

Tired of testing, tired of lying, tired of the loneliness that money couldn’t solve and sometimes made worse, she changed out of Tori’s clothes, hung the cheap coat in the back of a closet she never used, stood under a shower hot enough to hurt. When she finally climbed into bed, she couldn’t stop thinking about the way Ryan had stepped outside just to tell his daughter good night.

How his whole face had softened during that conversation. How he’d come back inside quieter, more vulnerable, like the call had cost him something emotionally, but he’d paid it anyway because that’s what Emma needed. Victoria knew men who hired people to handle their children, who saw parenting as something to be delegated, managed, optimized.

Her own father had been one of them. Ryan wasn’t that. Ryan was the kind of man who walked out of a first date to take a call from a six-year-old who needed to hear his voice before she could sleep. That mattered. Victoria wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but it did. She fell asleep thinking about it, and for the first time in months, she didn’t dream about board meetings or hostile investors or the weight of decisions that affected thousands of lives.

She dreamed about snow falling on a quiet diner and a man with grease under his fingernails who loved his daughter enough to be late. kids. The second date happened the following Sunday. Same diner. Victoria arrived early again, claiming she’d just finished a run when Ryan texted asking if she was close. Another small lie in the architecture of larger deception.

Ryan was on time this time. He looked less stressed. When he slid into the booth across from her, he was already smiling. “No emergency calls this week?” Victoria asked. “Emma’s with my sister for the afternoon. I have four whole hours of adult time.” He said it like someone announcing they’d won the lottery. They ordered coffee.

Doie appeared to remember them, gave a small nod of approval that Victoria read is good. You came back. The conversation picked up where it had left off. Easy. Natural. Ryan told her about a customer who’d brought in a BMW with a mysterious rattling sound that turned out to be a tennis ball stuck in the undercarriage.

Victoria told him a story about her coworker accidentally sending an email meant for her boyfriend to the entire nonprofit board. She’d pulled the story from something that had actually happened at her company. Just changed enough details to fit her cover. Lying was getting easier. That should have bothered her more than it did.

Can I ask you something? Ryan said after their food arrived. Sure. Your profile said you’ve been in Aspen for a year. What brought you here? Victoria had prepared for this question. I needed a change. I was living in Denver, working a job I hated, dating someone who turned out to be cheating on me.

When we broke up, I just wanted to go somewhere completely different. All of that was true, actually, just from 5 years ago before she’d fully taken over the company. The cheating ex had been real. a venture capitalist who’d seemed interested in her mind until he discovered her bank account, then became very interested in introducing her to all his entrepreneur friends who needed funding.

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