Regrets - Chapter Twenty One

Nicole faces the outside world creeping back in "Back To Life", while Alexis asks the hard thing and Project Ascension comes into focus in "Draw A New One"

Just jumping in now? Go back to the beginning of Regrets

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Saturday - Week 2 (part 4 of 4)

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Back To Life - Nicole

The room was amber when Nicole surfaced.

Late afternoon light stretched low through the curtains. She had been asleep longer than she meant to. The quiet felt careful, like the sound of something that had survived so far and had not decided what to do next.

Alexis had not moved. Her arm still rested around Nicole’s waist, loose but present. Her breathing had slowed, but she wasn’t asleep, not completely. Nicole remembered her breathing patterns like she knew her own name.

Alexis was still holding her.

Nicole stayed still and let herself feel it. The warmth. The weight. The fact that she was still here, in this bed, in this room, with this person’s arm around her, and the world outside had not ended.

She had not let herself want this in eight months. Had not let herself name it. She had sat across from Joan twice a week and circled it while Joan watched with the patience of someone who knew exactly what sat in the center.

This. This was it.

A faint buzzing drifted up from the floor. Her phone lay in the sweatpants in a heap beside the bed. It buzzed again. Then again.

Nicole did not move. She knew picking it up would end everything. The suspended quiet would collapse into whatever waited outside this room.

She ignored it.

Three quick vibrations. A pause. Two more.

Alexis’s arm tightened slightly.

“You should look at that,” Alexis murmured.

“Probably.”

“Nic.”

The nickname landed warm in her chest, pulling up memories of another version of them. Nicole sat up, reached for the sweatpants, and pulled the phone free.

“I’ve been here almost twenty-four hours,” she said quietly as she settled back against the headboard.

The screen flared bright in the dim room. She scrolled without opening anything.

Aaron. Four times. Her mother, three. She set those aside.

Jim: Heard you left early. Good. You needed a day. See you Monday at the coffee shop. She almost smiled.

Joan: Whenever you’re ready. I’m here. Two words that carried the weight of being pushed toward this and being terrified of it every step.

She read it twice.

Two from Charles.
CS: You okay?

An hour later, another one.

CS: Never mind. I hope the right one showed up last night. Call me when you can. I’m here.

Something settled in her chest.

Three work notifications she did not open. The quarterly report could wait. Everything could wait until Monday.

The first one, the one she didn’t look at when she got up was the most important.

AJ: It’s worse than we thought. Sunday. Coffee shop 9am.

She set the phone face-down on the nightstand.

Alexis’s hand had shifted, fingertips resting at Nicole’s hip.

“How bad?” Alexis asked.

“Aaron…multiples. My mother. Work. Board members. Joan.” Nicole paused. Alexis did not know about Charles or what Nicole had set in motion there. She would tell her later.

Nicole stared at the ceiling as the light crept across it. She inhaled and started talking before she could lose her nerve.

“Six weeks ago, I hired a PI. His name is AJ. Former military. Good. Discreet.” Her voice stayed even. “I found him through old channels. I knew Aaron wasn’t clean. Something was off… I thought maybe I could use that for a quiet exit.”

She turned her head to watch Alexis process that information, but her face did not betray any emotion. She was just listening intently, the way she always did when Nicole brought her a problem.

“I told him to find leverage. Something personal. Something Aaron would not want surfaced. My plan was simple. Sit across from him with enough in my hand to give us both a quiet out. No scene. No press. No board. Just go. I thought he would take it.”

She stopped.

“Aaron moved first.”

“He had photographs,” Nicole continued. “Of the two of us. San Diego last year. Probably more. He had been collecting for a while. Long enough that when he showed me, it was obvious.” Her jaw tightened. “He did not stumble into the engagement. He had been planning it…he engineered it.”

Alexis absorbed that without interruption.

“So I told AJ to go wider,” Nicole said. “That’s when it stopped being about the engagement.” She nodded toward the phone. “That text means he found something else. I don’t know what yet. I’m meeting him tomorrow.”

Nicole heard the faint sound of a siren in the distance.

“You’ve been carrying all of that alone,” Alexis said.

“Yes.”

“And you came here Friday without leading with any of it.”

“Because that wasn’t why I came.”

A car door slammed somewhere outside. A brief chirp of an alarm.

“You hired someone,” Alexis said.

“Yes.”

“To protect yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Just the word. Clean. No drama.

Her chest loosened at the response. It was the feeling of being seen and not turned away from.

“Are you hungry?” Alexis asked.

Nicole let out a breath at the pivot. “Starving.”

“Thai?”

“Always.”

Alexis reached for her own phone, already moving toward the next thing. Nicole watched her.

“While we wait,” Alexis said, opening the delivery app, “you answer the ones that matter. Joan. Board.” She lifted one eyebrow. “Not all of them.”

Nicole pushed off the bed, clothes in hand, phone balanced against her palm.

The room felt dimmer than it had a minute ago. She opened Joan’s message first.

I’m okay. Better than okay. Monday.

She sent it before she could edit herself.

Outside, the city moved on, and the world kept going. Inside, Alexis read menu options aloud and Nicole said yes to the first thing that sounded like food.

It was the most ordinary thing that had happened all day.

It was enough.

That was everything.

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Draw A New One - Nicole

The food covered the coffee table in the deliberate excess of someone who ordered too much on purpose. Containers open. Lids stacked. Chopsticks resting across edges. Outside, the city had gone dark. Lamps were on. It felt, improbably, like a regular Saturday night.

Alexis had her legs tucked beneath her at one end of the couch. Nicole sat at the other, container in hand. For a few minutes neither of them spoke. Just two people eating in a room that had carried a lot of weight and was finally settling into an understanding of sorts.

Then, Alexis tapped her chopsticks against the carton. “The list.”

Nicole glanced up. “What about it?”

“What was on it?”

Nicole looked her in the eyes. “I told you. I threw it out.”

“I know.” Alexis tilted her head. “You memorized it first. You always do.”

Nicole felt the shift before the next question came.

“What was the business thing you wanted to talk about. The thing that got you into this house.”

Nicole froze. Because it was not just about business. It was about everything. If she chose wrong, she could lose this again. For good. She almost stayed silent. Almost let it pass. But her father had not built her that way. Neither had Alexis.

Nicole set her container down.

“I think Dad was building something,” she said. “Not the regular business. Something underneath it. A second architecture inside the first. R&D. Defense relationships. Cloud infrastructure that doesn’t connect to anything the board knows about.” She paused. “Something that could separate cleanly. Move faster. Exist on its own terms.”

She didn’t look away. “I found the name in two places. Project Ascension. I can’t find full documentation. Just breadcrumbs.”

Nicole felt the silence hit first in her ears. The ticking of the icemaker suddenly became too loud. Alexis wasn’t moving. Not even blinking.

“I was going to ask if you ever saw a second plan,” Nicole continued. “Something he might have kept back from Jim. If it existed, it would have been aggressive. Defense integrations. Architecture built to evolve.”

Alexis did not look away.

“I found the name twice. A vendor agreement. A deleted calendar entry.” Nicole’s voice stayed level. “I wondered if you knew anything about it.”

The corner of Alexis’ mouth tightened.. Not anger. Something older.

Alexis uncurled from the couch and left the room. She didn’t explain. Nicole stayed where she was. She heard her footsteps down the hall, then returning.

Alexis walked back in holding a red folder. It looked worn around the edges, as if it had been handled many, many times over the course of its lifetime.

Nicole stared. She recognized her father’s initials in the corner of a tab.

“I wasn’t going to give you this,” Alexis said. “Not unless I saw something real. Not unless you came back for more than nostalgia.”

Nicole did not hesitate. “I didn’t come back for anything else… I came back for you.”

Alexis searched her face for a long moment. Then she handed it over. The folder was heavy. Her father’s looping script filled the margins. Tabs read: NT Proposals – Confidential. Fragments of Nicole’s own research stared back at her.

“He built this?”

“With you,” Alexis said. “From your notes. From ideas you shared when you thought he wasn’t listening. He knew they weren’t ready. You weren’t ready. The board wasn’t ready. He asked me to keep it. Until you were.”

Nicole swallowed. “You’ve had this the whole time?”

“I promised him I would keep it safe. Even from you. Especially from you.”

Nicole opened it. Her father’s handwriting was dense and precise, the shorthand he used when he was thinking faster than he could write. Page by page, Project Ascension came into focus.

She had been close. Not complete, but close enough that the pages didn’t shock her. They slotted into place. Like she had been circling the shape of it in the dark and someone finally turned on the light. He had built the split cleanly. A path that did not require dismantling his legacy. Just stepping sideways and building something new from the best of it.

With Alexis beside her.

He had known exactly who he was building it for.

Nicole turned the last page and kept her hand on the paper.

“I’ve been sitting on a gift meant for a relationship that looked finished,” Alexis said quietly. “It was his. It was yours. I kept it from getting lost.”

Nicole looked up.

The edge in Alexis’s face softened. Not forgiveness. Something heavier. The same hollow ache Nicole had been walking around with since the funeral. Robert. Each other. The future they had missed because they were not in the room when it was ready.

Nicole leaned back, the folder resting on her lap like a live wire.

This wasn’t inheritance. It wasn’t something handed down. It was something she had to pick up. And once she did, there would be no pretending she hadn’t seen it. She reached for Alexis’s hand. Alexis let her.

“I thought staying steady honored him,” Nicole said. “This is different.”

“It’s not about honoring him,” Alexis replied. “It’s about becoming what he saw in you. And don’t confuse my part in this with a guarantee. I still don’t know if you’re playing me.”

Nicole closed her eyes and let it land. No retreat.

Alexis squeezed once, then let go.

“Elizabeth keeps the legacy division,” Alexis said evenly. “You take R&D, future tech, the defense relationships. Full autonomy. Separate independent board.”

“And you?”

“Legal oversight. Carve-out support. I drafted the framework with him a year ago.”

Nicole studied her. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”

“He always did,” Alexis said. “He just didn’t know he wouldn’t be here for it.”

Nicole pressed her palm flat against the red cover.

“Then we don’t follow their map,” she said.

Alexis watched her. “He would want to see you draw your own.”

Nicole’s phone buzzed again. She did not flinch.

“I should text Charles Scott back,” she muttered. “Before he sends a rescue party.”

Alexis raised an eyebrow. “Charles Scott?”

“He’s been helpful,” Nicole said, typing. “One of the few who sees Aaron clearly.”

She hit send and set the phone down. No secrecy anymore.

“I know this sounds calculated,” she added. “It wasn’t. Not at first.”

Alexis gave her a small smile. “Oh, this should be interesting.”

“Charles and I have been talking behind the scenes,” Nicole said. “His family controls enough shares to stall the board. He’s backing me. Even if it gets ugly.”

Alexis’s expression sharpened. “Smart. Risky. But smart.”

“And with the investigation, I can figure out what was happening with my mother, or Aaron or any other messy thing I don’t want to be a part of.”

Alexis let that sit, then laughed softly. “Look at you. Plotting corporate coups. Running black ops.” She leaned closer, eyes bright. “I’m not sure whether I want to kiss you or follow you into battle.”

“Why not both?”

She kissed her because words would fracture it. Because if she tried to explain all of it, she might lose her nerve. This was simpler. Mouth to mouth. Stay. When she pulled back, her voice was steady. “We’re not doing this apart. Not anymore. It’s us or nothing.”

Later, the containers were empty, and the living room was organized chaos. Whiteboard taken from the office. Flowcharts. Laptops. Annotated printouts spread across the rug.

Nicole sat cross-legged on the floor, scrolling. She was no longer hungry. She was calibrating.

Alexis reclined on the couch, wine glass balanced in one hand, bare foot nudging a shareholder map.

“If you frame this as strategic acceleration,” Alexis said, tapping the page, “you control the narrative. It’s not walking away. It’s scaling forward.”

Nicole nodded. Forward meant they couldn’t stall her. Couldn’t box her in with condolences and delay tactics. If she kept moving, they would have to react.

“Advance the legacy without diluting the future,” she said. “That’s language they can’t attack without exposing themselves.”

Alexis studied her. “What if AJ finds something criminal?”

Nicole did not hesitate. “Aaron gets one chance to walk. After that, we expose.”

“And your mother?” Alexis asked, with a bit of fury behind her eyes,

“I’m not sure....” Nicole shook her head once. “But I think she’s compromised somehow.”

Alexis leaned forward. “Then we keep the circle tight. You. Me. Charles. AJ feeds up.”

Nicole lifted her glass. “And if it blows up?”

Alexis met it. “Then we use the new map.”

They clinked glasses.

Nicole’s gaze returned to the red folder on the table. Her father’s handwriting. Alexis’s faith. Not symbolic, but possibly operational.

“I meet AJ tomorrow,” she said. “Brunch with the Scotts after. I can hold the line until Monday.”

Alexis watched her carefully. “And then?”

Nicole leaned back against the couch.

“Then we take the company. Clean. Public. On our terms.”

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Authors Note: So this is the end of the Nicole and Alexis Saturday. We stayed here a long time.

Was it enough? Did Alexis choose wisely… or dangerously? Would you have handed Nicole the folder?

And the harder question: Is Nicole worth it?

Drop your thoughts in the comments for me. I’m writing later about the how and why of this and how l got from a sketch to a full blown day of confrontation, reconciliation and realignment.

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