Just Pretend (Just… #1)

32. Hallie

CHAPTER 32

HALLIE

Three days after we got home from the retreat, all I can think about are the promotion and James. Every time my work phone buzzes or an email pops up, I assume it’s going to be news about the sales director job. When I run into any of the Winter brothers around the vineyard, I hold my breath, wondering if they’re about to make the announcement. I know they want to make the right decision, but I don’t understand what is taking so long. What is it going to take for them to make up their minds? I’m running out of time to get the money my parents need, especially if I also need to apply for loans to make up for the amount that my bonus won’t cover.

When I’m not thinking about the promotion, my thoughts are consumed by James. We’ve stayed together every night since we’ve been home from Wyoming, alternating between our apartments. Two nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and he was gone. I assumed he had gone back to his apartment, tired of spending the night. My heart sunk and I wondered why I thought he was going to change. He wasn’t the relationship type before and I was foolish for thinking he could be just for me. Then I heard the toilet flush and a minute later he was climbing back into bed, slipping under the covers next to me. When he saw I was awake, he silently ran his hands over my body, awakening each and every nerve, and we made love without a word.

“Wow, you’ve got it bad.”

I glance up from my desk, still smiling from thinking about James, and I find Jasmine standing in my office doorway, smiling back at me.

“What?” I ask dumbly.

“You have a lovesick look on your face,” she says, coming in and shutting the door behind her. “You’re obviously thinking about James. Or Timothy Chalamet. It could go either way.”

“Definitely James,” I laugh. “Is it really that obvious?”

“Almost like you have his name tattooed on your forehead,” Jasmine teases me.

“I can’t help it,” I tell her, shaking my head in amusement of my own obsession. “I know I’m acting like I’m in some cheesy RomCom about two people who can’t stand each other suddenly falling into love, but I don’t care. It feels so good.”

“Good,” Jasmine replies. “I’m happy for you. You’ve been working too hard for too long and you deserve to be happy and in love.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, still unable to shake the smile from my face. “I really do owe you for pushing me and James together.”

“I know,” Jasmine says with a wink. “And speaking of things you deserve, I heard that the brothers are getting ready to announce who’s getting the promotion.”

“Really?” I gasp, sitting up a little straighter as if the Winters are about to walk through the door at any moment. “God, I hope they choose me. Obviously I need it for my family, yes, but if I’m being totally honest with myself, I want the opportunity. Like, I really want this opportunity. I’ve been a sales associate for years now. It’s getting old. I’m ready to grow in my career. I’m ready for a bigger challenge. A change. Is that selfish?”

“Let me stop you right there,” Jasmine says. “First thing’s first. You are not selfish. You’re one of the most selfless people I know. You’ve earned this.”

“Thanks, Jas,” I say. “I needed to hear that.”

“But sometimes, being a little selfish can help you get what you want. I mean, there is a way to ensure you get picked,” Jasmine says, lowering her voice.

“Jas…” I sigh.

“Look, I don’t condone it. But you know Chase would do it to you,” she points out. “Maybe it’s less about being selfish and more about… playing the hand you’ve been dealt.”

I shake my head, knowing that Jasmine is right. If the roles were reversed, Chase would have gone straight to Lucas Winter to tell him that I had been lying during the retreat. But I’m not Chase and I’m not going to stoop to his level.

“I can’t,” I tell her. “I want to get the promotion because I’m the best person for the job, not because I exposed Chase for lying about his marriage. I personally don’t even think our private lives should have anything to do with the position, though I can see why the family would want to promote someone who has roots in the community and is likely to stick around for a long time. I wish I could have proved that I’m devoted to the company without pretending to have a boyfriend, but I’m just relieved that it worked out in my favor, and hey, I really do have a boyfriend now. I don’t know how much longer I could have kept up the ruse. Eventually I think I would have felt guilty, and I’d come clean just to get the weight off my shoulders.”

“See? You’re a good person,” Jasmine smiles. “So, I guess we just have to hope that the Winter brothers make the right decision.”

My parents’ faces fill my phone screen as they pick up my Facetime call. They’re sitting at the kitchen table together and their smiles are comforting only for a moment before I realized that they’re forced.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “What are you two doing?”

“Oh, not much,” Dad replies. “Just going over some paperwork.”

“What are you up to?” Mom quickly changes the subject. “Aren’t you at work?”

“I am, but I was thinking about you both and I wanted to call and say hi,” I explain. “I still haven’t heard about the promotion, but I have my fingers crossed that it’s going to go my way. As soon as I have the bonus money, I’ll transfer it to you whatever way is fastest. And I was looking into taking out a loan from?—”

“Hallie, slow down,” my father interrupts.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, unable to ignore the pained looks on both of my parents’ faces. “Seriously, what’s going on? Did something happen with the camp?”

“It’s just that we’re running out of time,” Mom says with a sigh. “We don’t want you to put all this pressure on yourself and we certainly don’t want to be borrowing any more money.”

“What do you mean you’re running out of time?” I ask. “I thought we had until the end of the year.”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Dad says reluctantly. “But we got a legal notice in the mail, and it seems the lease is up December first, not on the thirty-first.”

I count the weeks in my head, knowing that losing that extra month’s pay is going to hurt the total amount I can give my parents.

“It’s fine,” I shake my head. “I can ask Scott for an advance on my pay through?—”

“Hallie, no,” Dad says firmly.

“Wait, what do you mean that you don’t want to be borrowing any more money?” I ask.

I watch as my parents exchange a look, and that’s when I realize their financial situation might be worse than I thought.

“We didn’t want you to worry,” Mom tells me. “But we’ve already had to take out several loans just to keep the camp running.”

“But this would be in my name,” I protest. “So, the bank wouldn’t look at your borrowing history.”

“We’re not worried about getting the money,” Dad says. “It’s about getting out from under all these loans. The camp isn’t profitable. We won’t have the resources to make any money if we’re paying back loans for the next decade or more. It’s over, Hal. We all have to move on.”

“What are you saying?” I ask, my eyes filling with tears, knowing exactly what my father means.

“Hallie,” Mom says. “As much as we hate the idea, we have accepted that we are going to have to close the camp. We had a great run, and we did great things for the most amazing young people, but there is no other way at this point.”

Tears spill down my cheeks and I feel a deep ache inside my chest. I’ve been thinking of little else than saving the summer camp for months, and now that I’m so close to being able to help my family, my parents are giving up.

“But there has to be another way!” I exclaim, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “We can’t just throw in the towel and let Rupert Sinclair win!”

“It’s not about winning and losing,” my father says sternly. “We made an agreement, and this is the result we have to live with.”

“Have you thought about talking to Rupert directly?” I ask, testing the waters. “Maybe you can work out an agreement.”

“No,” my father says, banging his fist on the kitchen table. “ This is the agreement. I’m not negotiating with that man. No more lawyers. I’m done.”

“But you used to be friends!” I unnecessarily point out. “You trusted each other enough to go into business together. Maybe you can work it out.”

“It’s not happening, and you need to accept it,” Dad snaps. “Rupert is not the same man I once went into business with. He’s cold hearted and apathetic to anyone’s situation but his own. All that man cares about is money. His values and mine no longer align.”

“We appreciate what you tried to do,” mother says, her tone much gentler than my dad’s. “But it’s time to let it go.”

Too distracted by my call with my parents to work, I decide to take an early lunch break. I know that I need to focus and get my head on straight, but nothing seems to matter anymore—not the promotion or the bonus or closing a big sale. It was all just to help my family and now my parents are telling me that there’s nothing I can do. For so long, saving the camp was my main, no, my only , goal. Now I feel like it was all for nothing. My job has been my only identity for such a long time, and it didn’t amount to anything of importance.

I freeze in the breakroom doorway when I spot Chase sitting at one of the tables eating a sandwich. He glances up at me, holding my gaze for a second before looking away again. I’m really not in the mood to talk to him, so if he wants to give me the silent treatment, that’s fine by me. We actually haven’t spoken since the airport in San Francisco, partly because I’ve been swamped in catching up with work, but also because I’ve been avoiding him. Chase was a top-notch jerk to me on the retreat and the fact that he was giving me a hard time about my relationship while he was lying about his marriage hasn’t sat well with me. Part of me wishes I were the kind of person to throw him under the bus and be done with it.

Keeping my head down, I go straight to the refrigerator and take out the container with my leftovers from last night. I try to make myself feel better that at least if I’m not saving money for the camp, I can go out to eat for lunch more often, but somehow that only makes me feel worse. All of the sacrifices I made—that I wanted to make and did so out of the love for my family—were all for nothing.

As my food is heating up in the microwave, I happen to turn my head to see Chase staring at me. He looks away, but glances back a second later.

“I keep waiting to get called in to meet with the brothers,” he says, breaking the awkward silence. “I’ve been on edge for days, waiting to hear I’m fired for lying to everyone on the retreat about my marriage.”

“I didn’t tell them, Chase,” I reply with a quick shake of my head, keeping my voice down.

“You didn’t?” Chase asks, looking stunned.

“No,” I sigh. “And I don’t plan to.”

Chase narrows his eyes at me as if I’m messing with him, playing games to get him to let his guard down only to screw him over later.

“I’m serious,” I try to assure him, though I know I don’t owe him any sort of explanation. “I’m not going to tell the Winters anything. It’s not my place.”

“But…why not?” he asks bitterly. “That’s what I would do if I were in your shoes.”

“Well, I’m not you,” I tell him, feeling tired. “As much as I want the promotion, I don’t want to get it that way.”

The microwave timer goes off, but I leave my food inside. I know I should go back to my office, have my lunch, and get back to work, but Chase caught me at a bad time and now I’m not going to be able to let it go without giving him a piece of my mind.

“You know, as long as we’re talking about it, you’ve been a real shit to me,” I tell him. “From making me think I needed to be in a relationship to get the promotion, to trying to prove James and I weren’t a couple, to outing James about who his father is. You’ve stopped at nothing to get the promotion by default instead of actually earning it. But I’m not going to play dirty, even if it’s what you would do, even if you deserve it.”

Chase stares at me silently, his mouth slightly agape in disbelief. Shaking my head, I get my lunch out of the microwave and start to walk out of the kitchen, but Chase stops me.

“You know what’s ironic?” he asks. I turn, silently glancing back at him. “Annette left me because she thinks work is more important to me than my family. Getting this promotion would pretty much guarantee she’ll file for divorce.”

“Then why…?”

“I’m not the most involved father,” Chase shrugs. “I can’t coach soccer or teach them how to play an instrument. I’m not the guy who gets down on the floor to build with blocks or color. This is what I can do.”

He gestures around the breakroom at the tables and the sink and the Keurig machine, but I know what he means is work.

“I work to provide for my family, so I can pay for nice clothes and fancy cars. I thought that’s what they wanted, honestly. I thought that was the way to show them my love—to give them things.”

Chase lets out a breath and shakes his head. He looks down as his half-eaten sandwich and when he blinks, I wonder if he’s holding back tears.

“It’s nice that you’re able to give them those things,” I say gently, “but I think they’d rather have you .”

“I don’t know,” Chase mutters. “But I don’t want to lose them.”

He looks up at me again and for the first time in a while, I can see the real man behind the smirk and smug expression.

“I’ve been so miserable,” he continues. “I’m not making excuses, but maybe that’s why I’ve been such an asshole. I’m going to talk to the Winter brothers and take myself out of the running for the promotion.”

Chase averts his eyes, staring out the window while I absorb the shock of what he just said. Looking at him now, he doesn’t just seem less self-satisfied, he looks completely broken. I think about my conversation with my parents, how I can relate to feeling unable to do what my family needs.

“We used to be friends,” I say softly, reminding us both. Chase turns and looks at me with his eyebrows slightly raised. “We worked really well together, before we started competing with each other.”

“Yeah,” Chase nods, miserable. “One more thing I messed up.”

“Don’t talk to the brothers just yet,” I tell him. “I have an idea.”