Лорен Блэйкли - Big Rock

Unlike my ruse.

“Charlotte, you don’t have to do this,” I say softly, just to her.

She shakes her head and speaks to the group. “No, I do have to do this. I asked him to pretend to be engaged to me so I could finally have some peace where I live. But please don’t blame Spencer. The fake engagement was all my choice, and he went along with it because he’s a really great guy, and he just wanted to help me. We planned everything, every detail, including how we would end it.” She sighs, but holds her chin high. “After one week, and now it’s been a week. So, I guess this is it.” She tugs off the ring. Her eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them before. Inscrutable. She looks to the others. “It was never real, but not for the reasons you think.” She plunks the ring in my hand, and curls my fingers around it. “Thank you for pretending for me.”

She wraps me in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and my muscles tighten with a sick hope as I wait for more words just for me, words like, I’d like to thank the Academy , or Do I get a gold star for that performance? But they don’t come, and her apology feels as real as any words she’s ever uttered.

She breaks the embrace, casts her eyes to everyone else, and repeats herself. “I’m sorry.”

She leaves, walking away from me. No just kidding comes my way, because this is all too real, and each step she takes crushes me. Like a fool, I stand frozen at home plate, my insides a churning mess of emotions as the embarrassment shifts into something worse. Hurt . So much damn hurt, like my heart has become bruised. She doesn’t love me.

It was never real.

Mr. Offerman turns to my father. His nostrils flare. His eyes are hard. “I don’t care whose idea it was. I don’t do business with liars. The deal is off,” he says, slicing his hand through the air.

Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” plays from Emily’s sound system.

I cringe, and Mr. Offerman roars at his daughter. “Enough.”

On that count, we agree.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

My head spins and my chest has a gaping hole in it.

That doesn’t stop Harper. She pulls no punches.

“Look.” Her hand clamps on my shoulder as she marches me through the park, Nick on my other side. “Your to-do list today just got a whole lot longer.”

It’s a good thing she’s guiding me, because I have no clue where I’m going or what I’m supposed to do. My dad took off fifteen minutes ago to deal with the cratering of the most important deal of his career, thanks to me. And Charlotte is history. I tried to find her, but she’s vanished in a puff of smoke. I could call her from Harper’s phone, but as the reality settles in like a dead weight in my heart, I’m not so sure I’m ready for that kind of self-inflicted torture just now. Hey, Charlotte. That’s a bummer that you’re not into me, but I had some ideas for our new marketing campaign? Oh, good. Glad you like my plans to sell more shots. Nachos are on you tonight.

“Okay. What’s on the to-do list?” I ask, my voice hollow. “Any chance it involves me waking up from this nightmare?”

She scoffs as she tugs me closer to avoid a skateboarder. “No. Welcome to your life, Spencer Holiday. Your big mouth has gotten you in a lot of trouble, and you need to dig yourself out of this hole.”

“It’s kind of the size of a black hole, though,” Nick says. “Do you have a shovel that’ll work on something that deep?”

I want to laugh. I really do. Instead, I scowl. “While you work on finding that shovel, maybe you can also let me know what to do about Charlotte? Seeing as I now run a business with a woman who served me walking papers on home plate.”

My sister shoots me a look that could burn up asphalt. “She’s not the first item on the to-do list, Spence.”

“She’s not?”

Harper shakes her head as the path spills out of the park and we curve onto Fifth Avenue. She points. Far in the distance. Down the avenue. “There. Ten blocks away you’ll find a jewelry store. Up on the sixth floor is our father’s office. You need to go see him and grovel.”

My shoulders sag, and I sigh heavily. “I really fucked this up.”

Nick laughs sympathetically. “You did, man. But now it’s time to unfuck it.”

I hold my hands out wide. A horse-drawn carriage clacks along Fifth Avenue behind us. “How does that work? I’m familiar with fucking. But unfucking—is that like pulling out early?”

Nick shakes his head. “Not exactly. It’s a new scientific discovery, though. Like reverse osmosis, but instead of water, it filters out your fuck-up. Got it now?”

Harper rolls her eyes. “Guys. Focus. Now is not the time to practice one-upmanship in smartassery.”

I drag a hand roughly through my hair. “All right. Let’s do this. What is step one?”

Harper draws a deep breath and turns to Nick. “Should we tell him, or let him figure it out on his own?”

Nick screws up the corner of his mouth, then pushes his glasses higher. “Not sure his brain is working at full-speed today.”

“Tell me what? Were you two talking about this already?”

“Yeah. Duh. When you tried to run off to find Charlotte,” she says, and I wince at the reminder of how I raced off to catch up to her after Rihanna’s song screeched to a halt. But the blond beauty was long gone, leaving me nursing this black-and-blue heart. Meanwhile, she has my phone, keys and wallet, so I’m operating blind.

Penniless, too.

“And what did you decide I need to do?”

“Dude, first you need to apologize to your dad for lying. You need to explain why you did it, that it came from the right place, but that it was a mistake, and you’re sorry,” Nick says, taking on the role of straight shooter.

I nod. “Got it. I can do that.”

“Then you need to try to fix this mess,” Harper says, chiming in.

“How?”

“You should ask to talk to Mr. Offerman. See if you can smooth things over.”

I cringe at the thought of groveling to that asshat. “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with Dad anymore.”

“That’s right now,” Nick says. “Tempers flare in the heat of the moment. See if he cools down. You’ve got to try.”

I nod, taking this all in, knowing they’re right. “And if that doesn’t work?”

They lock eyes again, then look back at me. “ You. You’re the way to unfucking it,” Harper says.

“Oh shit,” I say in a heavy voice as it hits me exactly how I’ll have to reverse osmosis this fuckup for my Dad.

* * *

Harper gives me a ten-dollar bill. I feel like a grade-schooler clutching his allowance. “Now, only use it if you need to take a bus home, dear,” she says, like a parent admonishing a child.

She gives me a shove toward the entrance of Katharine’s. “Go.”

I head inside, sticking out like a sore thumb with my gym shorts and ball cap. I make my way to the elevator and press the button for the sixth floor. After the doors close with a whoosh, I inhale and exhale, fighting to keep my focus on my dad. Not on Charlotte. Not on the worst words I’d ever heard in my life.

It was never real.

I don’t know how I could have misread things between us so badly. I was so damn sure we not only had epic chemistry, but so much more. But that must just be the cocky bastard in me, making assumptions that the woman wanted me.

When the woman doesn’t lie.

She made that clear from the start.

She said she’s a terrible liar, which means everything she said at the ball field was true.

How the hell am I supposed to go back to working by her side? To running a business with her?

When the elevator reaches my dad’s floor, the doors slide open. I step out and see a familiar face. Nina walks toward me, dressed in a crisp suit even on a Saturday. But then, Saturdays are the store’s busiest days.