I stand on the balcony and overlook the city as night begins to creep around the buildings. The city talks and roars and screeches, a million lives interacting, a million actions creating voices that drift into the dark sky. Yet, here I find myself standing alone and in silence.

Just a few moments have passed since I got the call from the main office explaining that I have to leave the hotel immediately. Can’t say much for that in the way of friendly service. But then again, I can’t really imagine what other actions Thomas Bradley could have taken considering his position. He is adamant about not selling, about keeping his hotel chain as his family’s heritage, despite everything I laid out for him. Did I just not explain it easily enough? Thomas is not a stupid man but this stubbornness of his has really killed my business acquisition.

There was more to all of this, and the secretary that I spoke to on the phone had confirmed it — after some sweet talking, of course. Thomas knew of Stacy and me, or at the very least, that we’d been seen together a lot over this past weekend.

I lean over the balcony railing and look straight down, watching the cars pass below, the tiny specks of the people moving in both directions on the sidewalk. Heights have never bothered me but a sickness stirs in my belly still.

The air is colder now so I breath in until my lungs are full and hold it. No smog here, the cold air feels pure inside me. After a few seconds, I exhale slowly, deliberately, letting the relaxation that echoes through my body calm my thoughts.

Stacy…

What had it been? A weekend fling? That long sexual tension finally coming to an unstoppable fruition? Was this whole Stacy Bradley thing out of my system now?

As the last of the air exits my lungs an image of Stacy floats into my mind. She is standing before me, angry, livid. She says things I can barely even remember, words that are distant now, but still hurtful all the same. If there is one thing in this world that I hate it is being blamed in the wrong.

She had walked out on me, not that it was the first time a woman has ever done that, to be sure, but this was different. This was Stace.

“Stacy.”

I speak her name out loud, down into the twinkling lights below. There is no reply, only the sounds of the city. A certain wave of comfort comes over me at just having spoken her name. Maybe it is a way of letting her go. Speak her name and let it drift off into the air never to return, never to think of again; drifting away with all the problems associated with it. I have to think of the business, after all. Or maybe I just have to think of anyone and anything but Stacy Bradley.

All these thoughts stay in my head as I walk back into the penthouse. I shut the door behind me and turn back to my suitcases that lay strewn on the bed. I continue to pack, gathering my clothes and items and bundling them in without much care put into the task.

It takes me five minutes to finish and I look around the room to make sure I haven’t forgotten something, even though I know I have, or rather that I have been putting off to the last possible moment. I reach under the pillow carefully, as if afraid something is going to bite me, and pull out the book.

A new horror novel, hardback, signed. I’d bought it for Stacy as a present but this afternoon’s events had unfolded before I even had a chance to gift it to her proper. Wearily, I sit on the edge of the bed and thumb through the book, stopping at random pages and looking at the words — not reading — and leafing further until I’m all the way through. I turn it over a few times in my hands, taking in the front cover, then the back, then the front again.

She would have loved this.

I have been too brash and forward with the business. The realization creeps into my essence, word by word as I think. I half remember some wizened quote from some Japanese writer regarding self-discipline; a cliche relic from business school. Those words I had lived by when I first started building my empire, but now I have almost all but forgotten them, even though I truly believe they exist somewhere within still, etched in my soul, guiding me unconsciously.

But it had been the other part of that long forgotten quote that now reaches up from the dark of my mind like a phantom. The part I had scoffed at when I was much younger. Acknowledge your faults. These words have an almost profound meaning and I sit on the edge of the bed for passing minutes that are lost to me, contemplating everything that has occurred recently.

Too brash. I have always tried to keep business and personal separated, but in this case, it is where I went wrong: there is no separating my feelings for Stacy and the acquisition of her family’s business interests. And that means I care deeply for her, and perhaps my reasoning wasn’t fifty-fifty as I first thought, no, convinced myself. I care for Stacy Bradley and I wanted to provide for her, to make sure she was still provided for in the future.

The future…

As all these epiphanies explode in my brain, they are cast against a singular image: Stacy Bradley’s beautiful face.

The kid working the desk looks almost perplexed when I drop my cases behind him, ask him to watch them for a few minutes. He moves his lips, trying to formulate some words but there is no sound. I repeat my request before leaving, striding back across the foyer, past the elevators and toward the manager’s office.

As I step in the secretary nails me immediately: “Sir... Mr. Lockwood,” she flusters as she tries to stand and move toward the door. “You were, um, asked to leave the hotel. Calling security would not be a good thing—”

I hold up my hand, cutting her off. “Just tell Thomas I need to speak with him.”

“Well, I believe Thomas— Mr. Bradley, is out right now, Mr. Lockwood.”

A smile breaks across my face as I look from her panicked face to the door behind her and back. “I can see someone in there,” I say. I watch as she very slowly cranes her head to look through the frosted glass of the office door and then back to me, all the while trying not to take her eyes off me as if I might sprint past her at any second and through the door.

She looks me directly in the eye. “There’s no-one in there.” Her words are almost whispered, her lips seem dry and cracked.

I cock my head. “There isn’t?”

“No.”

“Are you sure Thomas Bradley isn’t in there right now?”

She adjusts her glasses. “Absolutely.”

I point at the door. “But someone is in there.”

“Not Mr. Bradley.” She takes an exaggerated glance over my shoulder to the exit, raising her eyebrows. “I think it’s time for you to leave, Mr. Lockwood,” she says.

I nod in agreement, smile, turn around and take a step toward the exit. When I see that she has started moving back to her desk I spin on my heels and breeze right on by her protests, throwing the door to the office open in one swift motion.

Thomas Bradley stands up from his desk, hands on his hips as his office door slams into the wall. The secretary rushes past me, speaking fast, her voice high with anxiety as she apologizes profusely to Thomas for letting such a bad man as myself entry to his domain. Thomas merely holds up his hand to assure her its not her fault, keeping his eyes locked to mine as we stare each other down from across the room.

In my periphery, I can see the secretary sense our gaze as she reads the room and begins to back out through the doorway, quietly mumbling something about canceling Thomas’ next appointment, evidently reassured that none of the transpiring events are her fault.

I step further into the room as she tries to close the door around my body. Seconds pass in an eerie silence until he finally speaks. “Mason,” he says simply.

“I thought you were out,” I say. “Decided I might have left a pen in here the other day, didn’t want to leave without it.”

“Few things to wrap up here before leaving,” Thomas says. “You know how it is, got to have that peace and quiet.” His words aren’t quiet, they boom from across the room, the air around me vibrating violently.

“I know,” I say.

Thomas slowly sits back in his chair, the squelch of the leather as equally loud as his voice. “You aren’t supposed to be here, Mason. It’s going to really disappoint me if I have to bring security into this, all just to get you to leave.”

I smile. “It won’t come to that, I have my bags outside, ready to go. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute, before I leave.”

Thomas snorts. “Oh, have a few things to say, do you?”

I nod in reply.

He fiddles with a pen on his desk as he speaks, maintaining that piercing eye contact all the while. “Well that might suit you, Mason, but it doesn’t suit me. I think you are really in some ridiculous need of intelligence if you expect me to even consider wanting to hear anything else that comes out of your mouth.”

“That may be so, but you’re going to hear it, either way,” I tell him and mean it.

“And what’s the topic of conversation this time? Still trying to get me to sell the business? Or is it something else this time? Or is it Stacy?”

When he says her name I almost intake a sharp breath but manage to catch myself beforehand. Thomas and I have known each other a long, long time, and even though I am known to be a shark in the boardroom the thought of having to speak to him about anything regarding Stacy now does not sit well on my mind. This is no nth hour boardroom shakedown takeover that requires ice-cold blood in the veins and a business-only manner.

This is my biggest deal ever, I realize suddenly. And now I can’t even rely on my expertly cultivated acumen.

I have to look at another aspect of myself to make this work.

“Look, Thomas,” I begin but he cuts me off.

“Stacy then,” he says quietly, and then, after a long breath: “so what I’m hearing around the hotel is true.”

Across from him there are two chairs on the other side of the desk so I move there, but I don’t sit. I stand my ground as I speak. “It depends on what you’ve heard, Thomas.” And that was true, I have no idea what the hell anyone could have heard about Stacy and myself, but I should have known we would not have gone unnoticed in such a big building filled with as many people.

Thomas leans forward, spreading his hands across the desk. “I’ve heard enough, Mason. When even my staff report as such, it greatly interests me.”

“It’s true then,” I say bluntly. “But Thomas, you have to understand, none of this in any way has to do with the business.”

Another squelch from the leather as he slinks backward, the chair itself protesting under the strain, being pushed to its absolute limits. His expression a terrible scowl, his eyes casting a complete disdain for my character. He all but shakes his head in disgust, but I can imagine it clearly in my mind all the same.

“We’ve known each other a long time, Thomas.”

“Much too long, it would seem.”

I shake my head. “Throughout these years you’ve always respected me.”

“I only respected your work ethic, Mason,” he snaps back.

The sentiment is false, we both know that, but he’s fighting now, throwing whatever he can to see what will stick, will hurt. I deflect and speak louder. “If you can respect my work, then you can respect my feelings, Thomas.”

“Your feelings?” he says with one eyebrow arched high.

“Coming here to speak of this, I don’t think you realize just how hard this is for me,” I tell him. “Feelings, Thomas. If you’re asking me if I’ve been seeing your daughter, then the answer is yes. But I’ve been seeing her this weekend only—”

“— of course, the ladies man, Mason Lockwood—”

I barrel on right through his interruption. “— only, Thomas. And it has nothing to do with the business, yours or mine.”

Thomas stands abruptly, fists on the tables, yelling, his chair spinning in circles behind him. “Then why did it have to happen just now, this weekend? Answer me that?”

I shake my head. “It happened on its own, that’s the truth. Regardless of what either of us, you and I Thomas, regardless of how we have misled each other of intentions, it simply happened.”

My fists are on the table now, too, the both of us hunching over the opposite sides of the desk, trying to stare down, trying to do anything to get our points across. In the back of my mind, I think about how ridiculous this must look to an observer, and I wonder if the secretary is at that frosted glass at this very second, trying to peer inside.

“It had nothing to do with the hotel,” I say calmly.

“That’s all very convenient,” Thomas’ voice is but a whisper above my own thoughts. “After all these years, Mason, and you have to fool around with my daughter because you couldn’t get your way? I think this has to be the lowest play I’ve ever seen you do.”

I lean in further, reaching across the desk, chin up. “Like I said, Thomas, none of this was planned.”

“After all these years of knowing us, the family, Stacy… how could you?”

I shake my head. “It has nothing to do with the past. That Stacy is long gone, all you have now is a beautiful young woman for a daughter, Thomas.”

“You think I don’t know that? I don’t like it, but I know Stacy is a woman, what can I do about it now. She is free to live her own life, go her own way.”

I try not to sneer. “But she isn’t, is she? You demand she continues on in the hotel business, your business, the family business, with no care to what she herself wants.”

“And you do know what she wants?”

“Yes,” I tell him, and mean it.

Thomas’ face becomes redder with anger. “Now you’re going to tell me how to communicate with my own daughter? Mason, get out of my office before I throw my desk at you.”

You can try, I think to myself, knowing that I can’t back down now, not after all this. “I know it because I have feelings for her, Thomas. You can laugh at it if you wish, but I’m telling the truth, I have feelings for your daughter, Stacy, and this is you hearing it from me, personally, no matter what all these rumors are.”

The words linger in the air for an uncomfortable time, his face becoming so stoic I can barely read him. After maybe half a minute he simply lifts the pen from his desk and plays it in his hand, and I’m half expecting him to try and stab me with it.

Thomas slowly sits back down in his chair, an aura of deflation about him. He breathes deeply, lets it out again, watching me as he does so, something going on behind those piercing eyes of his, perhaps the deepest rumination that he has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Finally, he speaks again, his voice a certain tone, not quite defeat, but rather a muted dejection; some willful result from an inevitable resolve. “Like you said, Stacy is a grown woman. I can only do so much to advise her. She makes her own decisions, good or bad.”

His eyes glint like he is seeing me for the very first time, or maybe he is seeing something within me. I hope its something good whatever his stare means.

“You always were a tenacious bastard, Mason.”

I lean as far across the desk as it will allow, summoning all my resolve, speaking my words with the fullest confidence and honest intent. “I want to do it,” I say quietly, simply.

Thomas looks up from the pen spinning in his fingers, regarding me with something of a puzzlement, then a realization. He leans all the way back in his chair, his feet propped against the desk drawers. He spins the pen.

A minute passes, yet another, the office once again silent as Thomas contemplates my words. The time stretches onward and it becomes almost unbearable as I watch the notion dawn on him, his face begins to change, for the better from my estimation, my hope.

I read his expression before standing up tall again, now fully reinvigorated, a new task at hand, so much to prepare. “It will keep the business in the family,” I tell him.

His eyes grow wide as I lay it all out for him but he doesn’t move, he simply watches as I pace the room, explaining, hearing my own words echo back at me as my heart beats faster in my chest.

It feels good.