Pushed

Chapter 28

It gaveme a secret thrill to be the one AJ called in her hour of need. Forget the fact that it was my job she was struggling with. Or the fact that the only reason she was doing it was to help me out.

No, I just wanted to live in the fantasy world where I could be the handsome hero rescuing her, where I was the only one she wanted to call to help her. My chest puffed out a bit, and I may or may not have flexed my biceps and pecs as I strode to her rescue. I’ll never tell.

But after leaving my other jobs for almost two hours, I had to work extra hard to get caught up. If I had no interruptions for the rest of the evening, I’d be able to get everything done and reward myself with going to see AJ again. Goal set.

My phone rang. Tempting as it was to ignore it, when I saw it was my assistant, Olivia, I knew I had to answer.

“Hello, Olivia. What can I do for you?”

“What’s going on there, Jasper? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour. You didn’t answer my texts or emails.”

“I didn’t see any messages.” I paused to check my phone, and sure enough, there they were. “I’m so sorry, Olivia. I had to run over to the restaurant quick to help with a payroll emergency. Apparently, I didn’t hear your texts, and I was just about to log into my computer. Is there a problem?”

“I’d say so. You were supposed to meet with the board of Cabot and Thorne over an hour ago. Do you remember I sent you the meeting invite last week, and you confirmed you would be there? Well, they waited while I tried to contact you, but when you didn’t show, they ended the meeting. And they were not happy. One of them mentioned finding someone more reliable. I told them there must have been some kind of emergency because you never miss a meeting, but I don’t think they believed me.”

“Son of a—!” I slammed my fist on the desk, then took a deep breath to regain my composure. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault that I dropped the ball. “Thanks for trying to smooth things over, but this is on me. I’ll talk to them.”

“Good luck, sir.”

She didn’t need to say more. This was my biggest client, and if I lost them, heads would roll. And the head on the chopping block? Mine.

Keeping all these balls in the air was about more than doing the jobs. I had something to prove. I wanted to show my family that I was no longer the irresponsible, impulsive, silly kid they all still saw me as. If I could handle all these jobs and do them well, maybe they’d finally respect me.

But after this… I began to wonder if they had been right about me all along.

How could I have forgotten about that meeting?

Olivia was right. I never miss things like that. In fact, this was the first time I’d forgotten a meeting in my entire career. I had to make this right, and also make sure it never happened again.

My gut trembled as I dialed the phone. I funneled in all the confidence I could muster. When the assistant heard it was me calling, she put me right through. That couldn’t be good.

“Mr. Thorne, Jasper Rhodes here. I want to apologize for missing our meeting today, and for making you wait. I understand how valuable your time is, and I’d never intentionally waste it.”

“I had to reassure the board members that we can trust you to be there for us, and that you are still the best man for the job. You better hope that’s true and that you’re not making a fool of me. What happened today?”

“My dad had a heart attack recently and I’ve been taking on what he can’t do yet. It’s just until he recovers or we can get more help for him. I swear I am committed to doing the job you hired me to do, and that I will give you my all, as I always have. Trust me. I promise this will not happen again.”

“Alright. I’ll tell the board you had a family emergency. Hopefully that will satisfy them. For now. But Jasper, there won’t be any other chances. You miss anything else, and it better be for your own funeral.”

I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that, and I promise I won’t let you down.”

“Be sure that you don’t. And I hope you will be more focused on your work for us from here on out, because it seems that has slipped over the last couple of weeks.”

Gulp. He’d noticed a change since I’d taken over the restaurant? And here I thought I’d been doing a good job of juggling everything. Apparently not.

I reassured him that I would be giving him a hundred and ten percent from here on out. But when I got off the phone, I dropped my face into my hands.

What was I going to do?

My temples throbbed as I tried to come up with solutions to this impossible situation I’d created for myself.

How about hopping on a plane and going on an African safari? Or grabbing a backpack and a tent and disappearing into the woods, hiking off the grid for the next month or so. Escaping sounded really good.

Running away won’t solve your problems, though.

Sigh.

Alright, alright. I knew that. But it sure would be more fun than sticking around here, where everything I touched fell apart.

Everything but AJ. She was the one bright spot in my life. I couldn’t leave her.

And I couldn’t leave dad, either. He already thought I was in over my head and wouldn’t be able to handle this. And I would have bet he also expected me to get tired of all this and move on to something else. I couldn’t prove him right by taking off. No way. I had to figure out a way to get through this and make each business successful. I’d show Dad and Mr. Thorne that Jasper Rhodes was responsible and trustworthy, not to mention the best in my field.

But how?

I wracked my brain for over an hour and still couldn’t think of a way to continue doing everything without cloning myself. There were only so many hours in the day and I was trying to do three full-time jobs during that time. Impossible. Something had to give.

Even though I was overwhelmed, I couldn’t quit my consulting job. I was in the middle of several big contracts that stipulated completion of the project. If I didn’t follow through, I’d be subject to steep penalties, not to mention it would trash my professional reputation. Letting go of that wasn’t an option.

But I couldn’t let go of the farm, either. After fighting so hard to convince Dad to let me help, and assuring him that I could handle it, I hated having to admit that he was right and I’d bitten off way more than I could chew. But more importantly, if I said I couldn’t handle the farm business, Dad would go back to doing all the things that led to his heart attack again. I couldn’t let that happen.

I rubbed my knuckles over my chest, trying to soothe the ache buried there. There was nothing I hated more than feeling stuck, which was exactly what I felt. I was backed into a corner. No matter what I did to get out of it, I’d be letting someone down.

As much as it pained me to break AJ’s heart, I didn’t know what else to do. The restaurant contract was only temporary, and there was no guarantee we’d be given the chance to buy it anyway. It seemed the logical choice to let that go. Hopefully, AJ would understand.

I thought I’d experience some measure of relief after making this decision, but instead, I felt worse. It tore my heart out. And now I had to do the same to AJ.

Trudging up to AJ’s apartment at the end of the night, I dreaded breaking this news to her. I just hoped she didn’t have any food nearby to pelt me with. I should be grateful I was meeting her upstairs, rather than down in her kitchen.

She opened the door and took one look at me and gasped. “Is it your dad? I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head, took her hand, and led her to the couch. “No. Dad’s fine. But I do have something to talk to you about.” I filled her in on the horrid details of my day. “I just can’t keep doing this. By trying to do all three of these jobs, I’m dropping the ball on all of them. I’m known for being the best. And I hate sucking at anything. But more than that, I hate disappointing everyone.”

Understanding and compassion glowed in her green eyes, and she squeezed my hand. “You’re human, Jasper. Nobody expects you to be able to work three full-time jobs and not miss a single thing. Nobody but you, that is. You have such high expectations of yourself.”

“Yeah. But now it’s clear that I can’t sustain this, and I don’t know what to do.” I leaned back, closed my eyes, and groaned. “The only thing I can think of is to give up the restaurant, then I can focus my time on the other two.”

She jerked away like I slapped her. “I couldn’t have heard you right. It sounded like you just said you were going to give up the restaurant.”

“My dad isn’t ready to come back to work yet, so he needs me to continue helping at the farm. And I have to step up and give more time to my other job or I’ll be fired and ruined. As much as I love working with you at the Moonstruck, something’s gotta give. I don’t see another way around it.”

“So your solution is to sacrifice the place we’ve been working so hard for. Just like that?” Before I could stutter out a response, she continued. “Don’t forget, this isn’t just your project. It’s both of ours. If you give it up, then so do I. Remember what they said? We have to do this together, or neither of us win.”

My shoulders slumped, crumpling under the weight of all these responsibilities. I covered my eyes with my palms. It killed me to take away her dream. “But what if I found someone to take my place? Someone strong in all aspects of business, and maybe even knows the industry even better than I do.”

AJ shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. For one thing, I don’t know if the Quinces would go for that idea. They were pretty adamant about us doing this together or not at all.”

“I could talk to?—”

She stomped her with authority, and with a pointed finger, she got right in my face. “Stop it right there. If you think for one minute I’m going to let you out of this deal, just because you’re busy with other things, well, you’ve got another think coming, buster. No way!” She dropped her finger and softened as fluid welled up in her eyes. “And besides that, I refuse to do this without you, Jasper Rhodes. We’re in this together. Partners. So we’ll figure out a solution. Together.”

My heart warmed at her declaration. If I were being completely honest, the caveman in me didn’t want her working with anyone else, either. I pulled her into my arms and held tight for a few moments. The feel of her heart beating against mine calmed and reassured me. I sat back and exhaled with a sigh. “Okay, so what do we do? We’re both completely overwhelmed and stressed out. In order to keep going, we have to find a better way.”

“I agree.” She rubbed her chin in thought for a moment. “The Quinces said we can hire whoever we want, right?”

I nodded.

“How about we hire a bookkeeper or office manager to handle the stuff that is beyond me? And maybe ask some of our current employees if they’re any good at social media. It probably wouldn’t be that hard for someone to post about our specials every day.”

I ran my fingers across my jaw. “Those are great ideas. And could actually work. It would free you up to focus on the kitchen and managing the staff. I could check on the financials each week after the bookkeeper is done, which would save me a ton of time.”

“Do you know anybody that might be interested?”

“No, but I know who to ask.” There was no doubt in my mind that Tillie would have the perfect person for us. Someone would probably be waiting on our doorstep by morning.