Chapter 9 - The Winter of Work
The next six months were the hardest Julian had ever experienced.
True to my word, I stripped away his executive titles within my holding company. I put him in heavy work boots and Carhartt jackets. When a blizzard knocked down a section of fencing near the northern ridge, Julian was out there in waist-deep snow, hammering posts and stringing wire until his hands bled and his muscles screamed.
At first, he was miserable. He missed his sports cars and his luxury dinners. But slowly, the mountain began to change him.
He stopped complaining. He started listening to the groundskeepers—the very "blue-collar" people he had once been ashamed of. He learned their names, their families' stories, and the intense pride they took in keeping Highridge Lodge the jewel of Aspen.
One evening in late February, I was walking past the maintenance shed when I heard Julian laughing. He was sitting on a crate, sharing a thermos of cheap coffee with Miguel, our head groundskeeper, covered in engine grease after fixing the snowplow.
Julian looked up and saw me. He didn't look embarrassed. He smiled, raising his coffee cup in a salute.
I smiled back. The arrogant boy who had let a gold-digger manipulate him was dead. In his place, a man was finally being forged.
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News occasionally trickled in about Chloe and her father. Richard had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chloe had desperately tried to latch onto a tech billionaire in Silicon Valley, but the public humiliation of the "Highridge Rejection" followed her like a shadow. She was toxic in high society, relegated to attending minor parties and pretending she still mattered.
Julian never asked about her. He had stopped looking back.
