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go.”
    He growled his frustration. “You’re sentencing us both to misery. In the name of what, Meli? Haven’t you been miserable enough? Wouldn’t a more fitting punishment be sentencing me to a lifetime of making you happy?”
    â€œLet me go, Celino.”
    â€œI can’t,” he whispered and kissed her hair.
    He couldn’t force her. He couldn’t bind her to himself if she didn’t want him. His muscles tensed. He went rigid, fighting against a sharp physical need to hold her, snarled, and finally opened his arms. She rose. “I have lived with this for over a decade. You broke me, Celino. You stole my future and my family treated me like a leper. I had excised myself to escape their pity. You can’t fix it with one night of reading through my old thoughts.”
    He watched her walk away and felt his heart shatter for the second time.
    In the morning, Celino Carvanna retired.
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    Celino sat on the second-story wrap-around balcony on a large lounger couch. A reader lay in his hand. A frosted glass of tea rested next to him. Below him dahlias bloomed. Two years had passed, but he still felt a sharp spike of pain when he looked at them. They reminded him of her. He forced himself to glance at them once in a while. Perhaps he had become masochistic, he wondered, raising his gaze.
    Meli stood among the flowers.
    She wore a simple sun dress of vivid red. She had cut her hair. Short and layered, it framed her face in a light cloud.
    She had bypassed his guards. It didn’t surprise him.
    Meli crossed to the house and took the stairs up to the balcony. When she finally sat in a chair next to him, tucking her feet under her, and he caught a slight scent of citrus from her hair, he decided she was real.
    â€œI should’ve never let them do it to me,” she said. “Even at ten, I should have known better. I should’ve never dedicated myself to becoming an accessory to you.”
    â€œYou did what any child would have done. Your parents suggested it, encouraged it, and praised you when you excelled at it. The responsibility is theirs and mine. Unfortunately, I turned out to be a self-absorbed arrogant asshole,” he said. “Both times.”
    â€œThe Carvanna finances are suffering. They are threatening to excise you, because you refuse to rescue them from themselves.”
    He wondered how she had found out that bit of highly guarded information. “They also demand that I turn over my personal funds to the family to bail them out. They won’t excise me. They’re too attached to the possibility that I might change my mind and return from retirement.”
    She arched her eyebrows. “Will you?”
    He shook his head. “‘I’ve lost the taste for it.”
    â€œYou lie. I’ve read the INSA file.”
    He grimaced. “It takes a special kind of worm to attempt a hostile takeover of a hospital network run by a charity. Even at my worst, I wasn’t that heartless. It was a one-time pro-bono rescue.”
    A little light danced in her eyes. “And Vinderra Wineries?”
    â€œThey were going under and I’ve always enjoyed their wine. Alfonso was taken in by an unscrupulous accountant. It was simply the matter of professional pride.”
    â€œAnd the fact that he has six children had absolutely nothing to do with your involvement?”
    â€œPrecisely.”
    â€œAnd the Arid Foundation account?”
    â€œIt was a pleasant diversion. I was bored.”
    â€œYour family is quite serious, you know.”
    He shrugged. “I couldn’t care less.”
    They sat in silence.
    A cynical thought occurred to him. “Did my family pay you to force me from my retirement?”
    â€œNo. I doubt I could.” She smiled at him, and Celino felt his throat close. “You enjoy being the caped crusader of the financial world entirely too much.”
    â€œI’ve served the family