He’d all but put the brush in her hand and instructed her to portray him as a villain. She couldn’t help but think that if she’d been more mature or perhaps less shaken up by their parting and the events that followed, perhaps she might have tried to bridge the painful gulf he’d placed between them once the dust had settled. The money, which she’d seen as the root of all evil in the old narrative, had actually empowered Nick to blaze new avenues of earth-friendly technologies and systems. To say she’d been surprised to learn all the ways he had turned the entire Barrett empire on its head and reformed the family business into a forward-thinking concern he was proud to helm was an understatement. She’d all but wept at the sound of pride and excitement she’d heard in his voice when he went off on a rambling explanation of wind farms and renewable energy sources because that was the Nick she remembered. That person, smart, hopeful, driven and completely committed to changing the world one good idea at a time, was the one she’d fallen in love with.
