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.

“Hey there. Are you looking for your dad?”

I nod. “I am. Is he in his office?”

“Yes. He’s working on some contracts.”

A flicker of hope ignites in me. Maybe the deal is back on. Maybe the kerfuffle blew over in mere minutes. Maybe there are Walmarts on Jupiter.

Still, I have to ask. “Is Mr. Offerman in there?”

“No,” she says with a small smile, then drops a hand gently on my arm. “But go see him.”

She leaves, and I draw a deep breath, square my shoulders, and walk to my father’s office. Whatever is coming—whether anger or disappointment—I will take it like a man.

I knock, and Dad says to come in.

He’s at his desk, still wearing his softball jersey, his fingers poised over the keyboard. I can’t read the expression in his eyes. I seize the moment, the words tumbling out in a traffic jam.

“Dad, first of all, I owe you a huge apology. I lied to you and tricked you. And I’m sorry. You raised me better than that. I should never have pretended I was engaged, but in my defense, I thought—stupidly—that it would be the thing you needed for the deal. When I met Mr. Offerman, he so clearly didn’t like my past or my ‘reputation,’”—I sketch air quotes—“so I thought I could simply be engaged for a week as you finished the deal. It wasn’t Charlotte’s idea. It was mine. I thought I was doing the right thing and making sure that my past wouldn’t be the reason your deal went sour. But instead it went sour anyway, because of me.”

“Spencer,” he begins, his lips twitching.

I hold up a hand and shake my head. “I should have been honest with Mr. Offerman at breakfast the next day, and I should have been honest with you. But I wasn’t. You said all those nice things about Charlotte before Fiddler, too, and I felt like a schmuck for lying to you. You taught me to be better than that.” I sigh and say the hardest part. “But at some point, it stopped being a lie, because even though it started as a fake engagement, it became real for me, and I fell in love with her.”

The corners of his mouth curve up. “Spencer,” he tries again, but I keep going, standing on the other side of his desk, my mea culpa pouring out of me.

“But that doesn’t matter, because you heard what she said.” My voice chokes with sadness as I recall her awful words. “She doesn’t feel the same, and that’s that. I’m sorry that I took advantage of you with the entire charade. And I know I can’t make it up to you, but I want to try.”

Then I dive into what I’ve realized I must do to make this right. “I know what you want most in the world—to retire and spend more time with Mom. I know that’s why you wanted to sell Katharine’s. I’m not asking you to hand it over to me. I’m not asking you to give me your business. But I’m volunteering my time. I’m offering to run the business for you. At no charge, of course,” I say with a small laugh, because even in these moments, you need to keep your sense of humor. My dad’s eyes sparkle as he listens. “I’m good at business. I might be terrible at relationships, and I clearly have no clue what women really want, and I have an ego that’s far too big to fit on any city bus, but I’m a rock star at running all sorts of businesses. I’d love to make this up to you and be your substitute teacher while you take your time off and we find you another buyer.”

I take a breath, and even though I never wanted to run the store, and even though he never intended for me to do so, it feels good to man up and make the offer. To let him know that I’m willing to fix my mistakes.

Dad rises, walks around his desk, and crosses his arms. He stands with his heels digging into the carpet of his office, his dark eyes taking me in.

The weird thing is, he doesn’t look pissed.