Chapter 26: The Three Months
Three months.
Ninety-one days since Martina Hayes had walked out of Jordan Blackwell’s office and into a new life that didn’t include him.
Thirteen weeks since she’d started as director of operations at Ashford Industries. With her own office. Her own team. A salary that made her old compensation look like an insult.
Two thousand, one hundred, eighty-four hours since Jordan had promised to let her go.
And he’d kept that promise.
No calls. No texts. No flowers delivered to her new office. No accidental meetings at the coffee shop she frequented or the bookstore where she spent Saturday mornings.
Nothing.
Jordan Blackwell had done the impossible.
He’d let her go.
And it was killing him.
He stood now in his office, the same office where she’d spent five years sitting just outside his door. The same office where he’d been too blind to see what he was losing.
He stared at the framed photograph on his desk.
It wasn’t a photograph of Martina. That would have been pathetic, even by his current standards.
It was a photograph of his father taken thirty years ago. Holding a very young Jordan in his arms.
His father was smiling. Genuinely smiling. Not the vacant stare that dementia had left in its wake.
And young Jordan looked happy. Secure. Loved.
The photograph had been in storage for years. Jordan had pulled it out six weeks ago during one of many sleepless nights when missing Martina felt like a physical ache in his chest.
He’d been going through old boxes. Trying to remember what his life had been like before he’d built walls so high that no one could reach him.
His therapist—yes, Jordan Blackwell now had a therapist, which would have been unthinkable four months ago—had asked him why he kept people at arm’s length.
Why he’d built an empire but no real relationships.
Why he’d let the most important person in his life be invisible for five years.
It had taken three sessions before Jordan could answer honestly.
Because being vulnerable meant being like his father.
Strong one day. Gone the next. His mind stolen by a disease that didn’t care about power or money or carefully constructed empires.
And if Jordan couldn’t control his father’s illness—couldn’t fix it with all his resources and determination—then maybe control was an illusion.
Maybe vulnerability was inevitable.
Maybe loving someone meant accepting that you couldn’t protect them or yourself from pain.
