Chapter Fifteen
Seth
“G O, GET OUT OF HERE !” I called after the men, as they piled back into their car and drove off. I could tell they were pissed, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let them come poking their noses in here, measuring the place up ready to knock it down.
I could tell how much it had shaken Jorja, seeing them come crashing into the place like that, but that was what Wharton was hoping for. He obviously thought that if he could shake her enough, she would back down, but I knew we couldn’t give him what he wanted. Assholes like that, they thrived on being able to push everyone around, telling everyone what to do and how to live their lives. I wasn’t going to let that happen to Jorja or the store. No way in hell.
I let out a breath as I watched the car vanish off down the street, though I was sure it was far from the last one that I would be seeing today. No way was Wharton going to give up that easily. I craned my neck back toward the store, and I could see Jorja leaning on the counter, shoulders shaking, like she was crying. But, before I had a chance to go in there and comfort her, I heard footsteps approaching the table.
When I turned back around, my jaw clenched at the sight of Wharton making his way toward me. What the hell was he doing here? Checking that he had finally gotten her to give up? Doing a victory lap? I stood my ground, not breaking his gaze for a moment as he approached the table.
“Can I help you?” I snapped at him, hardly able to keep the venom out of my voice.
He glared at me for a moment, and then leaned across the table, closing the distance between us. “Let me into the store.”
I didn’t move an inch.
“Let me into the store, Seth,” he repeated himself, but I didn’t budge. Sighing, he tried to walk around me, but I stepped out in front of him, stopping him before he could reach the door. The last thing Jorja needed right now was to deal with him, and I wasn’t going to let her see that he was even here at all.
“Just leave,” I told him. “Just go. There’s nothing for you here right now.”
“You really think she’s better off with you, huh?” he demanded, shoving his face close to mine again.
I didn’t budge. I’d dealt with enough crap over the course of my life not to be worried by a rich kid like him. He was used to throwing his weight around, but he wasn’t used to people daring to stand up to him.
“This is about the store,” I replied calmly, but he was already off on one, lost to some imaginary battle he was certain he was trapped in.
“She could have had a good life with me, but no ,” he continued, pacing back and forth in front of me. “She wanted to be with some... some model instead. She could have sold me the store, been set for life, we could have...” he trailed off.
So, this was what it was about, huh? He wasn’t just trying to get the store, he wanted her, too. I wondered if she was aware of that. It would explain the weird energy he had come at her with when I had first met him, acting like she owed him something, acting like there was something between them, when it was clear she wanted nothing to do with him.
“She could have had an easy life, but she made her choice,” he muttered, stabbing his finger into the air next to my face.
I didn’t even wince. He didn’t scare me. He was desperate, mad he wasn’t getting things the way he wanted, throwing his toys out of the stroller and trying to make enough of a scene to get me to back down and let him inside. It wasn’t going to happen.
“You need to go,” I told him steadily. “Now.”
He gritted his teeth, and for a moment, I thought he was going to try and cause more trouble, but he thought better of it. He turned on his heel and stalked back to his car, and I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping Jorja hadn’t heard any of that. Not that I was in any way threatened by Wharton, not a chance in hell. I knew she would never have gone for someone like him. She was far too sweet and decent to associate herself with a man of his nature.
I stepped back behind the table, where an older woman was going through the books. All at once, she grabbed one from the bestseller pile, and whipped it out.
“Is this you?” she demanded, stabbing her finger at the cover model on the page.
I stared at it for a moment. Damn, yeah, I could remember doing that shoot. I had been covered in tattoos, and grown out my facial hair a little for it at the request of the photographer, but there was no denying it was me.
“Uh, yeah,” I replied, dropping my voice slightly. I didn’t know how Jorja would take finding out about my work as a model on top of everything else. I didn’t want her to feel like I had been keeping anything from her, but at the same time, I knew it was bound to feel like a betrayal.
“Whoa,” the woman muttered, staring down at the book and then back up at me. “You’re a model?”
“Yes.”
“Can I get your autograph?” she asked. “I’ll take this book. If you sign it.”
“Uh, yeah, sure.”
But, as I spoke, a bulb went off in my mind.
“Actually, I’m not signing anything now,” I replied, pulling my hand away from the book. “But I’m planning a fundraising dinner tonight, if you’d like to meet me there instead.”
I knew it was a long shot. Hell, I doubted it was even going to work, but I had to throw something out there, something to try and help Jorja in the face of everything she was going through. I couldn’t imagine how difficult this was for her, and if I could use my tiny hint of celebrity for something good, then that would count for something, right?
The woman eyed me for a long moment, trying to figure out if she believed me. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had just laughed in my face and told me that I must have thought a lot of myself to believe that she would be willing to hand over any money to see me again.
“You’re a model, right?” she repeated.
I nodded. It was true—just about. It might not have been my main profession, but it was part of what I did for a living, at least back on the West Coast.
“I think I can make it, then,” she replied, her eyes flashing with interest.
“If you have any friends who’d like to attend, we only have a few seats to spare,” I told her. “But they’re limited. If you want a place there, you’ll have to act quickly.”
She grinned. I knew how important it was to make an event sound like the most exclusive, most exciting thing in the world, and I could tell she was already buying it. I mean, not that there was a lot of competition for big events in Mastin Falls, but still.
“I’ll see if I can find anyone else who’s interested in coming,” she replied, tossing her hair over one shoulder. “Where can I find the information about it?”
“It’ll be posted on the social media for the store later today,” I told her, gesturing behind me to the Bookshelf.
“Good,” she muttered, and she pulled out her phone, tapping at the screen rapidly. “I’ll see if there’s anyone else who’d be interested.”
She wandered away from the stalls, and I watched as she went, feeling a tinge of hope in the base of my spine. I glanced around, and, inside, I could see Jorja, still hunched over, trying to pull herself together in the face of everything that had just happened. I pushed the door open, and she glanced up when she heard me coming in.
“Oh, hi,” she muttered, wiping away her tears quickly. I wished she didn’t feel like she had to hide that part of herself from me, but it was clearly a learned habit, putting aside those heavy emotions so other people didn’t have to deal with them.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She nodded, then shook her head. “No, not really,” she admitted. “I just thought... oh, I thought that maybe people were actually going to turn up to this thing, you know? I thought the community was going to turn out for me. Or for my grandmother. But I...” She glanced outside again, shoulders slumping. “I guess I was na?ve.”
“Hey,” I murmured, catching her head in mine. “I... I think I have an idea. An idea to make this all work.”
She lifted her head and stared at me for a moment, incredulity written all over her face.
“You do?” she replied softly. She wanted to believe me, of course she did, but after everything she had been through, I couldn’t blame her for thinking that it might just be another in a long line of let-downs.
“Yeah, I do,” I replied. “If we can book out a restaurant for tonight...”
She furrowed her brow. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her, shaking my head. “I’ll get it all set up. That Italian place should do. Just meet me there, okay? Later this evening?”
“For what, Seth?” she asked, incredulous.
I hesitated. I could have told her, and maybe it would have made more sense to just come out and let her know what I was planning, but I didn’t want to get her hopes up if this wasn’t something I was going to be able to pull off.
“You’ll see when you get there,” I replied. “Just trust me on this.”
She hesitated for a moment, but then, much to my relief, gave my hand a squeeze in return. “Okay,” she murmured. “I trust you.”
“Good,” I replied, breathing a sigh of relief. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to pull this thing together on such short notice, but I could do it, I was sure I could. I had pulled together more difficult events in less time. Well, probably. I just needed to call the restaurant and then get on to her laptop and fire off a few announcements on her social media, and all of this would come together.
“Let’s get the tables in,” I told her. “Before it gets too cold tonight.”
“They said the blizzard isn’t going to hit ‘til late this evening,” she replied. “But I don’t think it matters. Nobody’s coming by the store, anyway.”
I gritted my teeth as I held back on the urge to say something to her, to assure her that everything was going to be okay, that she just needed to have a little faith, and we would get all of this under control. I knew why she had a hard time trusting that it could work that way, but I was going to show her that there was still hope—and that this community could still come around her and support her the way she needed them to.
Even if it might not be in the way she expected.