The Honeycrisp Orchard Inn (Honeycrisp Orchard #1)

Chapter 1

Y ou’re fired, Eleanor.”

Did I just hear Steve Gibbons, my boss for the last seven years , say that I’m fired? That can’t be, and yet...

One glance through the glass doors at the shiny brown oval conference room table provides more evidence.

All three of the clients, execs from the Bolt Hotel Group, are sitting there, blinking at me in sympathy.

They just heard my presentation. The one I’ve been working on all summer.

Right before Steve asked me to step into the hallway for a private conversation.

Steve’s eyes are slightly narrowed in that way he does when he’s trying to seem as if he cares.

Like the time I told him my uncle died, and I needed one day off work.

And Geoff, my coworker and ex-boyfriend for all of twelve hours , has his head cocked to the side, his fingers steepled in front of his chest, and is nodding in a clearly fake-sympathetic manner.

I recognize his look. It’s the same look he gave the ladies at the animal shelter when we volunteered there last spring and they told him how many dogs need homes.

Fake. As. Hell. Geoff doesn’t even like dogs.

He’s allergic to them. He only volunteered because Steve asked us to, and he took so much allergy medicine, he had to lie down.

Plus, I never should have dated a man who steeples his fingers. Finger steepling is ridiculous.

“I don’t... understand.” Those are the three uninspired words that decide to slide on out of my mouth as I continue to stare into the conference room. How eloquent. How professional. Five stars.

“This is really embarrassing,” Steve says, shaking his head. “I never would have allowed you to present to the Bolt Group if I knew you were planning to copy Geoff’s presentation.”

Wait. What? “Geoff had a presentation?” I ask. I thought he was only sitting in while I gave mine. My presentation began promptly at nine a.m. as scheduled. What the hell is Steve talking about?

“Yes, it started at eight. I thought you knew,” Steve replies, giving me a look that can only be described as patronizing.

“It started at eight? You thought I knew?” Apparently, all I can do is echo what I just heard like some sort of a well-dressed parrot.

And I am well dressed. At least I have that going for me.

I put on a suit for this. All long, sleek, black trousers with a wide leg, sky-blue satin shell blouse with a keyhole neckline, and one-button black blazer.

I’m wearing heels. Expensive heels. This is serious.

And I deserve this account. I’ve been working on the event plan for the Bolt Hotel Group’s new brand launch party for the last three months.

Our firm, GMJ Events, had been chosen by the biggest hotel group in the country, and Steve had given me the account.

After years of weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and small corporate shindigs, I was finally getting a chance at the big league.

Bolt Hotel Group owns over eight thousand hotels and has twenty brands. It’s huge.

I’d planned the hell out of their event, the unveiling of the first of their newest brand: Barn and Branch.

A set of unique country inns the Bolt Hotel Group will purchase around the country and make over in their exquisite style.

Their gorgeous boutique-like rooms start at a thousand dollars a night.

The launch event must go off without a hitch, and it will. Because I’ve planned it that way.

There will be farmhouse flowers in milk jugs, and pumpkin-and-cinnamon-scented votives in tiny glass holders on every table.

Thick off-white tablecloths and gold flatware.

Pumpkins and gourds spilling from every surface, making the entire dining room feel like a cornucopia from an autumn harvest. I planned every single detail down to the pesto-encrusted broiled salmon entrées and the apple-crisp bread pudding topped with semi-melted white chocolate chips. Delicious perfection, damn it.

This meeting today was supposed to be a formality.

A check in the box. Steve had assured me we already had the account.

Hell, everything was already planned, and now I was fired?

What happened between me leaving work last night and this morning when I walked into this conference room? Other than Geoff dumping me, that is?

“I didn’t know,” I assure Steve. “What’s going on?”

Steve’s eyes crinkle again. This time he adds a wince. “Listen, Eleanor, I didn’t want to make a scene in front of the clients, but Geoff told us what happened.”

“What happened ?” I frown. Did Geoff tell them he broke up with me last night?

After living together for two years, being together for four, he unceremoniously dumped me the night before my big presentation.

It sucks beyond belief, and I still haven’t processed it yet, but after watching a depressing documentary about the meteoric rise of dementia in the US and getting about two hours of sleep on the uncomfortable Ikea couch in our apartment, I woke up this morning determined to forget about it long enough to make the biggest presentation of my career .

But what the hell does Geoff dumping me have to do with it?

“Look, Steve. I’m fine. Really. What happened last night won’t affect my performance in the least. I—”

“I don’t think you understand, Eleanor.” Steve puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and squeezes ever so slightly. “Geoff gave us the heads-up. He thought your presentation might closely mirror his.”

What the—? “I didn’t—”

“I didn’t totally believe him,” Steve continues, “but then you came in with yours and it was nearly word-for-word the same thing. It makes us look bad, Eleanor.”

I know my face must register my shock. I was born without a poker face. “I’m sorry, he what ?”

“Look,” Steve continues. “We work in a competitive business, Eleanor. I know it can be tough, but GMJ is not an organization that tolerates this type of behavior. Passing off a colleague’s presentation as your own”—he shakes his head sadly—“is grounds for termination.”

What the hell? Geoff didn’t have any ideas.

And I certainly hadn’t stolen any of them.

In fact, if anyone needed to steal ideas, it was Geoff.

And apparently, that’s precisely what that snake had done.

He’d heard my presentation fifty times. He knew all the details, had been there when I’d worked day after day to make them all come together.

I’d practiced my presentation for him to get feedback multiple times a night every night for the last month.

My vision blurs slightly. Is going rage-blind a thing?

It sounds like a thing. “That’s it? I’m fired.

You’re not even going to hear me out? What if I told you that Geoff stole the presentation from me ?

” I don’t want to appear unprofessional, but I’m not about to go down without a fight or at least an attempt at telling the truth either.

Steve’s face crumples in faux sympathy. Very faux. Plus, another freakin’ wince. “I’d believe you if Geoff hadn’t been bouncing these ideas off me the last month or so. We’d already talked about his plan at length, he and I.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Geoff’s been giving you details of the plan for the last month?

” Was this really happening? It wasn’t some sort of test, was it?

See how the event planner responds to having her ideas stolen by her recent ex?

Am I on a reality show and don’t know it?

“Yes. And it’s a brilliant plan. I see why you would choose it over your own.”

I press my lips together. It is a brilliant plan.

Because it is my own . I’d perfected every detail.

The white pumpkins and hot toddies with cinnamon sticks swirling inside.

The hayrides in honest-to-goodness wagons with honest-to-goodness horses.

Horses with jaunty orange bows tied to their manes.

And I’d told every single one of those details to Geoff MF-ing Herringdon, only to have him steal them from me.

And now it hits me. Like a fist to my middle.

The memories flood back. Every time Steve and Geoff exchanged a look or laughed about their dumb golf handicaps or made their little inside jokes about their shared college fraternity.

I’d always known this company is a boys’ club.

But GMJ is the premier event-planning company in the city.

Every planner out there wants a job here.

I thought I had proven myself, but Geoff set me up perfectly.

He took all my ideas and fed them to Steve over the last month to ruin my credibility and make it look like they were all his .

Meanwhile, I’d been keeping my plans close to my vest so I could wow both Steve and the clients at the same time. Today. It was supposed to be today!

I drag air into my lungs as a red cloud covers my vision. “I spent the last seven years working sixty-hour weeks for this place, and this is the thanks I get?”

Okay, fine. I may medal in the cliché Olympics for that statement, but it feels good to say something, anything to get a little of my own back.

I’d given up weekends to attend the firm’s most important events. I’d missed family milestones to seem like a team player. I’d skipped the last several Thanksgivings at home to bring the apple pie to the annual dinner Steve holds for the top brass at the firm, thankful to have been invited.

“You’ve been a valued employee for years. I understand that,” Steve says. “Please, let’s keep this professional. I’ll call HR. You can stop there on the way out. They’ll tell you all the details of your termination.”