Chapter 1
It’s high time to end the pity party. That was the thought Jared James woke up with on the fortieth day after the love of his life turned down his marriage proposal.
On that Friday morning in late July, Jared woke to the sound of seagulls and surf pounding against the rocks that abutted his property on Gansett Island—and to this somewhat major development in the midst of his retreat from real life. As he did every morning, he thought of his girlfriend, Elisabeth—“with an S,” she always said. His ex-girlfriend now…
He’d called her Lizzie, a nickname she’d always hated until he decided she was his Lizzie. Over time, he’d convinced her she loved the nickname as much as she loved him. As he had every day since it all went so bad, he thought of the night he’d taken her to a rooftop restaurant in Manhattan, which had been reserved just for them. He recalled his carefully planned proposal and the look of utter shock and dismay on her face when she realized what he was asking.
She’d shaken her head, which meant no in every language he spoke. She actually said no. That was the part he still couldn’t believe more than a month later. He hadn’t seen that coming. It hadn’t occurred to him for a second that she’d say no. When he’d gotten down on one knee, he’d pictured an entirely different outcome. He’d imagined a tearful acceptance, kissing and hugging and dancing.
There’d been champagne chilling for the celebration that hadn’t happened. He’d had the company Learjet waiting at Teterboro to whisk her off to Paris for a romantic long weekend. She’d always wanted to go there, and he was set to make all her dreams come true, starting with that one.
She’d said no.
He hadn’t heard much of what she said after she shook her head in reply to his heartfelt question. The movement of her head in a negative direction had hit him like a fist to the gut. There’d been tears, not the happy kind he’d hoped for, but rather the grief-stricken sort, the kind that come when everything that could go wrong did. He knew about those tears. He’d shed a lot of them over the last five weeks.
In all his thirty-eight years, he’d never shed a tear over a woman until he’d finally given his heart to one, only to see it crushed to smithereens after the best year of his life. He had vague memories of standing up, of staring at her tearstained face as she continued to shake her head and tried to make him understand.
But he hadn’t heard a word she said. It was all noise that refused to permeate the fog that had infiltrated his brain. He’d walked away and taken a cab to the garage where he kept his car. He’d driven for hours to get the first ferry of the morning to the home he’d bought on Gansett Island a couple of years ago and had barely seen since. He’d been too busy to spend time on the island.
Now he had nothing but time after taking an indefinite leave of absence from work.
Lizzie had called him a couple of times since that night, but he hadn’t taken her calls. What did it matter now? What could she possibly say that would make a difference? He’d erased her voice-mail messages without listening to them. The last thing he needed was to hear her voice and be set back to day one when he’d honestly wondered if he was going to be able to continue breathing without her.
Yeah, he was a mess, and he was sick to death of being a mess. He was sick to death of himself. He got up and pulled on shorts and a tank, shoved his feet into an old pair of Nikes and headed out to run on the beach, something he’d done nearly every day he’d been here. What the hell good was owning waterfront property if you didn’t take advantage of the chance to run on the beach?
He hadn’t taken the time to appreciate most of the perks of making a billion dollars before his thirty-fifth birthday. He’d been too busy making more money to enjoy what he’d already accomplished. Those days were over, too. In the weeks he’d spent on Gansett, he’d been able to breathe for the first time in longer than he could remember. Without the constant pressure of work, work and more work, he’d discovered he had absolutely no life away from work.
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