For four years Cole had done everything Vanessa asked. Every single thing, without complaint, without question. Last night was a blip — weird, unexpected, but not the end of the world. He had eight million reasons to come around, and Vanessa knew exactly how to make a man feel like coming around was his own idea.
Derek noticed she'd gone quiet. He turned his head and caught the look on her face — eyes a little too sharp, a little too busy — and read it instantly.
The corner of his mouth pulled down.
"Don't tell me. Now that Cole's got eight million you're thinking about him again."
Vanessa came back fast, face arranging itself into something hurt and soft.
"Derek, how could you even say that? You're the only one I've ever cared about."
She leaned into him. He pulled her close without thinking about it.
She stayed there and let him believe every word.
But in her head she was already working through it. Derek was consumed right now — Margaret, the Ashford deal, the Group bleeding money. He didn't have space for her, and she had stopped being naive about what that meant. She needed something solid that didn't depend on his goodwill.
Cole Harmon. Eight million dollars. Four years of feelings that didn't just switch off overnight.
She could work with that.
---
Cole sneezed three times in a row standing in the middle of a Fairview Heights bedroom.
Maya Caldwell was at the doorway with a pack of tissues out before he'd finished.
He took them. "Thanks." He wiped his nose. "Someone must be thinking about me."
"My grandmother used to say the same thing," Maya said. "Every sneeze, someone's got you on their mind."
Cole looked around the room one more time. "This one's fine. Let's see the next."
"Right behind you."
She pulled the door shut and followed him down the hall.
---
Two hours later they came out onto the street. Maya flipped to a fresh page in her notepad.
"So — satisfied with any of them?"
"All four are fine. Help me negotiate the price."
Maya's eyes lit up. Four houses. One buyer. One commission.
"Which one do you want me to start with?"
"All four together. Package deal. If the number works I'll take all of them."
He wasn't going to go bigger than that right now. Eight or ten units in Fairview Heights was the right move — enough to matter when the demolition came through, not enough to make anyone curious. The whole game in the early stages was to stay invisible.
"Full transparency, Mr. Harmon — all four belong to the same seller. He bought them years back when there were demolition rumors floating around this area. Nothing came of it, so he's done waiting. He wants to sell."
"Then he's motivated. Negotiate twenty percent off the listed price."
Maya looked at him.
"That's a tough ask."
"Tell him I'm taking all four at once, clean transaction, no back and forth. He gets rid of everything in one shot. That's worth twenty percent to him."
Maya absorbed it without pushing back. She knew better than to argue with a buyer who already knew what he wanted.
"I'll call him," she said.
"One more thing." Cole kept it casual. "How many units are currently listed in Fairview Heights overall?"
"In our system, over a hundred. Open market probably a bit more — the recovery brought a lot of sellers back out."
Cole nodded slowly.
"Find me a few more after this. Lowest price per square foot, that's the priority."
Maya tilted her head slightly.
"Just so you know — the demolition talk around Fairview Heights has been going around for years with nothing behind it. The areas actually getting attention right now are Lakeview Commons and Crestwood Village. I moved several units there just last month."
She was testing him. Gently, professionally, but testing him all the same. Trying to figure out what he knew and why he was so fixed on a worn-down eighties complex that nobody else was touching.
Cole smiled.
"Nobody really knows what's going to happen with any of these areas. I've got cash I'd rather put into property than let sit around. Fairview Heights rents easily enough. That's all I need."
Maya held his gaze for a moment. Then she let it go.
"Makes sense."
Cole pulled out his phone and dialed her number. It buzzed in her hand.
"That's me. Keep me posted."
She saved it, stepped off the curb, and had a cab pulled over before Cole had even put his phone away. She held the door open.
"Thanks, Miss Caldwell."
"Take care, Mr. Harmon."
She gave a small wave as the cab merged into traffic and watched it go until it disappeared around the corner.
---
Cole watched Crestfield move past the window.
These were streets he'd spent ten years walking through with his head down — too buried in debt and exhaustion and a life that had been quietly strangled from the outside to ever really look at them. They felt different now. Not smaller exactly, but closer. Like he was finally standing at the right distance to see them clearly.
In his previous life he'd been nobody. Just a man getting ground down by forces he didn't understand and couldn't see. That wasn't going to be this life.
The cab dropped him at Elmwood. He stopped at the corner supermarket — instant noodles, water, a few basics for the week — and headed upstairs.
He pushed the apartment door open.
The smell hit him first.
Real food. Not takeout, not something reheated from a box — actual cooking, from an actual stove. The kind of smell that reaches somewhere in your chest and just stays there, warm and unhurried.
Cole stood in the doorway and didn't move for a second.
Through the kitchen door, Ava was at the stove, moving around with the easy confidence of someone completely at home in what she was doing. The light was warm. The apartment smelled like a real meal for the first time since he'd moved in.
He hadn't realized how much he'd missed that.