Goodbye, Mr. Regret

She thought, Larkin would definitely love this.

After all, it was Larkin who had given the photo to the gallery in the first place.

Once the piece was framed, the shop owner wrapped it carefully in a layer of crimson cloth to protect it on the road.

Jessica paid for everything, left the delivery address, and scheduled for it to arrive later that evening.

The papercut was quite large-nearly six feet long-making it impossible to carry home herself.

She'd been up until nearly 2 a.m. last night, then woke at dawn to work on it, finally finishing by late afternoon.

Fortunately, she hadn't lost her touch. If her hands weren't steady, there simply wouldn't have been enough time.

As Jessica stepped out of the framing shop, her phone buzzed with a message from Vince.

"Jessica, I'm outside your building. I came to pick you up-are you not home?"

She hadn't expected Vince to show up in person.

"I'm out, but I'll be back right away," she replied.

"I'll wait for you."

When Jessica arrived home, she found two people standing at her door.

One carried an impressively large bag, while the other struggled with several boxes in his arms.

"Jessica, open up!"

ease, the sort of easy

planning, but she couldn't very well leave her guests standing out in the

and said, "This is the makeup

busy finishing Larkin's gift,

high society gala tonight, after all-no way she could

a message on her phone: "Thank you for going to all this

need for thanks. I figured you wouldn't have time to get everything ready, living way out here. Go on, get changed

led the makeup artist

asking him not to come by, but the old man had called Timothy directly. Timothy promised

Vince was determined to make sure Jessica would be the star of

a legend

business world, practically

himself

1.n

but he had to

step behind Timothy in

of ruthless skill.

really wasn't much that could throw

curious-was there truly nothing that could shake

Lawson. Vince could easily guess why: the Lawson family would never allow it, not with her being just an

Lawsons probably didn't want to admit that

And if he had, why