The Vitamin of Regret

Elena adjusted the brim of her velvet hat, checking her reflection in the restaurant window. At forty-seven, she'd become a collector of hats—they were armor against a world that increasingly wanted women invisible, or at least smoothed into something palatable. Tonight's choice: a deep burgundy cloche that hid the gray spreading through her dark hair like ivy.

The restaurant's glass door swung open, and there he was.

Marcus.

Twenty years had etched lines around his eyes, but he still moved with that predatory grace that had once made him the most feared executive in Chicago. They'd called him "the fox" in the boardroom—clever, ruthless, impossible to trap. He'd been her mentor, her rival, eventually her lover, until the scandal that sent him spiraling out of the industry.

"You're wearing hats now," he said, sliding into the booth across from her. His voice was rougher than she remembered.

"A girl's got to hide something."

"You never needed to hide from me, El."

The waiter appeared. Elena ordered whiskey, straight. Marcus asked for water.

"So," she said, "I hear you're back in pharmaceuticals."

"Supplements," he corrected. "Private label."

"Supplements?" She couldn't hide her disappointment. "The great Marcus Weller, reduced to selling vitamin pills?"

"Someone has to."

His gaze dropped to her hands, to the simple gold band she'd started wearing after David died. "And you? Still running the empire we built?"

"David left me everything."

"I'm sorry, Elena."

"Don't be." She traced the rim of her glass. "He was good. Kind. The opposite of us."

The silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid.

"I have cancer," Marcus said suddenly.

Elena's hand stilled. "What?"

"Pancreatic. Stage four. They gave me six months, maybe eight." His smile was bitter. "The irony isn't lost on me—after all those years developing drugs, now I'm peddling hope in pill form while dying anyway."

"Marcus..."

"I'm not telling you for sympathy. I'm telling you because I need something." His eyes met hers, that old intensity flickering to life. "I know you have access to the experimental treatment protocols. Your company's pipeline, the stuff that's three years from market."

"That's impossible."

"For anyone else, maybe. But you're Elena fucking Vance. If anyone knows how to work the system, it's you."

"And if I help you, what then? You disappear again?"

"No." His hand covered hers. "I take whatever time I can get. And this time, I don't run."

Outside, rain began to fall against the glass. Elena thought about David's gentle hands, about the way Marcus had shattered her heart twenty years ago, about how some wounds never healed—they just learned to scar over. About how a fox doesn't stop being a fox just because it's old.

She thought about vitamins, about the things people swallowed to convince themselves they could live forever.

"I'll need something in return," she said slowly.

"Anything."

"Not anything." She pulled her hand free. "But we can start with dinner. And then we'll see."

Marcus's smile faded into something realer. "I can work with that."

The waiter set down her whiskey. Elena lifted the glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light. She was still wearing the hat, still hiding pieces of herself, but somewhere beneath the velvet, something was waking up.

Some foxes, she decided, were worth the risk of feeding again.