Strictly Pretend (The Salinger Brothers #6)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

EMMA

The driver lifts my case out of the trunk and wheels it over to me. “Where would you like me to put this?” he asks, eyeing the bookshop. It’s closed, which isn’t a surprise because it’s Sunday afternoon and we don’t open on Sundays. But I know for a fact that Granddad is inside and I want to see him.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it.” I pause a moment. Am I supposed to tip him? I know I can’t pay him because Brooks made it very clear that I can’t pay for anything. “Thank you.”

He gives me a nod. “You’re very welcome. Have a pleasant day, Miss Robbins.” He turns and walks back to the car – a black sedan with funky tinted windows. I felt like a superstar sitting in the back.

Or as much of a superstar as you can feel when your heart is kind of aching because you’ve just spent the most glorious few days with somebody who feels like they could be your future.

“It’s only me,” I call out as I let myself into the shop. Taking a deep breath in, I inhale the mustiness, the aroma of old paper. The feeling of home. “Are you at the back?”

Granddad appears at the doorway to the storage area. He looks tired. And small, which is silly because he didn’t get shorter in the last few days.

“Emma,” he says, holding his arms out. I run into them and he hugs me tight and for a minute I’m thirteen again.

“How are you?” I ask him. “You’ve been taking it easy, right?”

“Didn’t have a choice,” he mutters. “You did all the work before you left.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out to see Brooks’ name on the screen.

Tell me again why you’re not with me? I miss you. – B

A smile pulls at my lips. He moaned the entire flight back about how he had to go straight to Virginia and I had to come here. I kind of liked it. Because I felt the same way.

Because we’re grown ups and we have work to do. I’ll see you on Wednesday. – E

He’s already told me he’s coming to stay with me on Wednesday night. Even though my apartment is tiny and from looking at the photographs of his place it’s huge. Apparently, his Manhattan apartment belongs to his family’s real estate business. His brother, Linc, used to live there, but he moved out after he and his wife had their second child and they needed somewhere bigger – so they bought a new house together. And Brooks moved into the apartment.

“Did you have a nice time?” Granddad asks. “How was the yurt?”

“Very nice.” A memory of Brooks in the yurt last night flashes through my mind. As soon as we walked through the door he dropped to his knees and pushed my dress up around my hips, tearing my panties off before eating me like he was the hungriest man on earth.

My cheeks pink up at the thought of it. I’m pretty sure that’s not what Granddad means when he asks if I had a nice time.

It was, very nice though.

“You seem different,” Granddad says.

“Do I?” I look away, because now I’m thinking about how Brooks bent me over in the shower this morning. Is this what it’s like to be a man? Having inappropriate thoughts left, right, and center?

I never thought I’d feel sorry for them.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Granddad’s voice is suddenly deep.

Dear God, does he want me to go through every move Brooks made on me?

“Um, no?” I say, though it comes out as a question. Granddad grabs my hand – my left hand – and holds it up.

And then I realize I’m still wearing the ring. I’d forgotten it was there.

“What’s this?” he asks.

I open my mouth to lie to him, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m so sick of pretending. I promised myself that once the wedding weekend was over I’d put it all behind me. If I tell him a lie it will just come back to haunt me again.

“Brooks and I got kind of fake engaged,” I tell him. And then I give him the briefest of summaries of the weekend. Explaining that Brooks was gallantly supporting me because Will was going to be there. That the cart driver thought we were getting engaged as we stared out at the ranch stretching ahead of us.

That he gave us the ring. And then we couldn’t do much because Cassie’s dad had everybody under surveillance. Maybe.

Granddad listens without judgement. One of the best things about him.

“I’m just glad technology wasn’t so advanced in the sixties,” he says once I finish. “We’d have all ended up in jail. Though there were all those CIA thought experiments…” he trails off and shakes his head. “Anyway, you’re engaged, huh?”

“Not really.” I smile at him. “It’s too soon anyway, isn’t it? We’re just going to see where things go.” Okay that’s a lie, too. But at his heart, Granddad is an old romantic. He’s probably already plotting my wedding vows.

“Of course it isn’t too soon. I married your grandma four days after we met.”

I blink. “You did what?” That can’t be true. She told me it was true love. That they both knew this was it for them.

How could they have known that after four days?

“That’s not what happens anymore,” I point out. “People don’t get married on a whim. It’s too expensive anyway.”

“It doesn’t have to cost anything,” he tells me. “Love is free. We learned that in the sixties.”

I grin, because he really is an old hippie. “Any luck with the books?” I ask him. “Did you find a first edition Dickens? Can we retire at long last?”

“No.” He shakes his head. Our eyes catch and I know he knows what I’m really thinking. Did he find Grandma’s book among those old dusty tomes.

The answer is no. He doesn’t have to say it.

“I think I’m going to stop buying auction stock,” he tells me. “We have enough.”

It’s stupid, but that makes my heart hurt more. “We shouldn’t stop,” I say, my voice thick. “You can’t give up on your quest.”

“We have no more room.” He looks around at the books piled high. “Sometimes you just have to say that’s enough. It’s time to end the foolishness of an old man.”

“Granddad…”

“I’m not getting any younger, Emma. And I know you hate this mess of a shop. You hate not being able to find the books you want. You were right all along, let’s catalogue what we’ve got and make some decisions.”

“What kind of decisions?” I ask him. But then my phone starts to ring.

“Hello?” I say softly, because it’s Brooks.

“I’ve just arrived at my dad’s place,” he tells me. “Did you get back okay?”

“I did.” I smile, because he knows this. “I’m just with my granddad.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Granddad says.

“Did you hear that?” I ask Brooks.

“I did.”

“And tell him I know about the engagement.”

I hear a soft chuckle over the phone line. “You didn’t take the ring off then?” Brooks asks.

“You knew I still had it on?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? I would have taken it off.”

“Because you would have taken it off,” he parrots. “And I like you wearing it.”

My cheeks pink up again. “Brooks…”

“Tell him you want at least thirty carats,” Granddad says.

“Ignore him.” I sigh.

“Let me talk to him,” Brooks says.

“What?” Why would he want to talk to my granddad. “No, you can’t talk to him. I’m not ready for that.”

“Let him talk to me,” Granddad says. And I get the feeling I’m being outnumbered.

“Um…”

He takes the phone from me, and much to my annoyance he walks into the storage closet, closing the door behind him. I let out a squeal, because there’s no way these two can talk about me without me. I press my ear against the door in an attempt to listen to their conversation.

But it’s too muffled. Damn all those books and stupid fire doors.

Its another two minutes before Granddad comes out and hands me my phone. I give him a narrow-eyed stare as I take it back, because I will find out what they talked about.

“Your fiancé wants to talk to you,” Granddad says, biting down a smile.

I lift the phone to my ear. “What were you two talking about?”

“It was a man-to-man conversation.”

“That’s so sexist,” I tell him.

“I know.” There’s a smile in his voice.

I look at Granddad. He’s busying himself by reading the back of a book. Even though it’s upside down.

“Tell me,” I demand.

“I’ll tell you on Wednesday.”

“Why make me wait?” I pout like a child. I hate being left out.

“Because that way you might be as desperate to see me as I am to see you.” He lets out a breath. “I have to go. My family is descending on me. I’ll call you tonight.”

“Okay,” I breathe. “Have a nice day with them.”

“I won’t. Because you’re not here.”

I hate that I love that.

“I’ll speak to you later,” I tell him.

“Emma?”

“Yes?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” I tell him. And as we hang up the phone I’m walking on air.

brOOKS

It’s Monday morning and we’re in my father’s office in the big house at Misty Lakes, his estate in Virginia. All six of us brothers are here, plus my dad.

We all have a financial interest in every part of Salinger Enterprises, even though half of my brothers do their own thing. Myles and Liam – my oldest brothers – run their own consulting firms, helping small businesses grow. Eli is a coach for a hockey team, and Holden works as a pediatric oncologist in West Virginia. Then there’s Linc, who has just walked in wearing a pair of bright pink shorts and a white polo, which seems a brave choice considering he has baby Abigail strapped to his chest.

“Is this going to take long?” Linc asks, checking his watch. “I promised the kids we’d go swimming this morning.”

“Which kids?” Myles asks him.

“All of them. Which means we all get to be on lifeguard duty.”

Between them, my brothers have a lot of kids. And when they’re all in the lake swimming, my brothers all have to watch their kids like hawks.

“Including you,” Linc says to me, his brow lifted.

“I don’t have any kids to watch,” I point out.

“Yeah, you do. You have ours.”

My dad clears his throat. “Can we get on with this? I need to get back to New York this afternoon.”

“You’re leaving?” Myles asks.

“I have a couple of meetings.” Dad looks at me. “What did you want to talk about?”

“The Redfern Building.”

“Ah yes. When I was in the office last week they told me about the contract they found. Good news.” He gives me a smile. “Makes things a lot easier. Was that what you wanted to talk about?”

My throat tightens. “I’ve changed my mind about evicting the tenants,” I say. “I want to keep things as they are.”

From the corner of my eye I see Myles tip his head to the side, running his thumb along his jaw. He’s trying to work me out.

“Why would we do that?” Dad asks. “You said yourself this deal was hemorrhaging money. It was looking like a drawn out court case, but now we have the upper hand. I’ve already given Luke a bonus by the way. He did good by that contract.”

“No,” I say. “You don’t understand. I’ve changed my mind. We’re sticking with the original contract. The Vintage Verse bookshop can stay as long as they like. And the other two businesses as well.”

My dad’s gaze is unwavering as he stares at me. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

“Because he’s in love with the girl who runs the shop,” Linc says. I turn and glare at him and he shrugs.

So much for brotherly love. I make a note to push him under the lake when we’re both in there later.

“Emma and I are a couple, yes,” I say. “But that’s not the reason why I’ve changed my mind.”

Dad puts up his hand to stop me talking. “Emma is the shop girl?”

I screw my nose up at the way he describes her. “Emma Robbins runs the shop. And she’s also my fiancée.”

That shuts everybody up. Six sets of eyes are on me. I press my lips together, because this wasn’t exactly the way I was planning to tell them. But she’s not a damn shop girl.

She’s everything.

Dad’s face is unreadable. “She’s your fiancée? As in you’re engaged to this girl?”

I jut my chin out. “Yes.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dad shakes his head. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s seduced you to get what she wants. I thought better of you.” He shakes his head. “What did she do? The dance of the seven veils?”

I stand up, angry at the insinuation. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I tell him. “She’s a good woman.”

His jaw is tight. He’s an old man, but he’s also made of steel. But right now, I don’t give a damn.

“Can we all calm down a bit?” Myles asks. “Emma? That’s her name?”

“Yes.” I nod at him.

“And you’re engaged to her?” he clarifies.

“Yes.” And I’m not giving them the full fucking story. Not right now, anyway.

Myles’ expression softens. “Congratulations.” He stands and hugs me. Then all my brothers are surrounding me. Holden hugs me next, Eli slaps me on the back, and Liam punches my arm. Then Linc – my closest brother – kisses my cheek.

My dad pinches the bridge of his nose. “Congratulations,” he manages. “I look forward to meeting her.”

“Don’t ever let him,” Linc whispers in my ear. I try not to smile.

“But business is still business,” Dad tells me. “And if she’s going to be part of this family she needs to understand that. If we don’t redevelop the Redfern Building we’re going to be in a financial hole.”

“I’m not throwing her out of the building,” I say firmly. “I’ll fill the hole myself if I have to.”

“You don’t have enough money.”

“I’ll take out a loan.” I lift a brow at him, because I’m not doing this with him. Yes, business is important. We both agree on that.

But some things are way more important than money.

Dad presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I would never let you do that. And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” I ask him, annoyed at how quickly he’s dismissing me.

He looks straight at me, his eyes flinty. “I met with our lawyers on Saturday. In your absence, I authorized for them to give all the shops in that building one month’s notice from today. Our server drove down there first this morning.”

My blood turns cold. “You did what?”

Dad shrugs. “I instructed them to serve the notices at ten. The sooner we get this mess sorted the better. It’s business, son.”

I look at my watch. It’s already a quarter after ten. Emma and her granddad will already have the letter in their hands telling them they won’t have a business within a month.

She’ll think I knew about this. She’ll think I’m involved.

She’ll think I screwed her over the way everybody does.

I grab my phone from my pocket, and panic as I see I have missed three calls from her.

Fuck. How the hell am I going to make her believe I have nothing to do with this?