Chapter 23 Ash
ASH
Ash drove home, his stomach twisting more than the country roads in front of him.
It had all been right in his hands, the culmination of his career and the love of his life.
Her words still echoed in his mind.
I could never be with someone like you.
He’d been so stunned that he didn’t even chase her as she hurried away. He just stood there, frozen while the love of his life disappeared.
And the things she’d said didn’t even make sense.
Except that they kind of did. Of course they did. Everything he knew about corporate mindset told him that clearly the investors would love the idea of using elementary school greenhouses all over the country to find fresh, impressionable new customers.
It’s not pleasant. But that’s the way the world works.
He’d had to repeat those words to himself a time or two over the years as he made the kind of decisions that put Tailor Beverage on the map.
Whether it was curbing his more generous impulses when it came to employee pay and benefits so he could afford marketing and high-end ingredients, cutting prices to edge out a competitor in a local marketplace, or even working brutal hours as a young dad, Ash had done what he’d needed to do to make TBC what it was.
If he’d thought going national wouldn’t involve some compromise, he was delusional.
But they’re just kids…
The idea stuck in his throat. And it wasn’t just the implications.
It was the fact that he had been kept in the dark about plans for his own company.
He was disappointed that the other three never mentioned anything about it to him, but he wasn’t surprised.
After all, they knew he had a child of his own and probably wouldn’t love the idea.
He was pulling up at home before he knew it, his mind and heart still in turmoil.
The frigid air was calming, so he decided to walk up and down the drive for a minute before going in. But after a minute, he worried that Maya might still be up. If she saw his car and he didn’t come in she might think something was wrong.
He knew she was in good hands with Allie’s mom, but he cut his pacing short anyway.
Before, she’d been with a new nanny every month it seemed like. But these days, he seldom left her side except when she was at school. He was already beginning to feel like a part of him was missing without her as she disappeared into the school each morning.
I missed out on so much…
He jogged up his own front steps and opened the door to a cozy scene.
Maggie Lawrence was curled up on his couch with a book, the silver in her long brown braid bright in the light from the fireplace. A steaming cup of tea sat on the coffee table in front of her.
“Goodness, you’re home early,” Maggie said, looking up at him with a smile. “Did you two have fun?”
He thought he was playing it cool, but he saw the exact moment when she read his emotions all over his face.
“Oh, Ash,” she said softly. “Come and sit. Maya has been asleep for an hour or so. She won’t be bothered if we have a quiet talk.”
Ash was a grown man. He certainly didn’t need to confide in his fake fiancée’s mom.
But she just looked up at him with her beautiful, wise blue eyes, like she could wait all night if she had to.
“It’s not going to work,” Ash heard himself sigh as he collapsed on the couch beside her.
“What’s not going to work?” she asked.
He couldn’t tell her about Allie.
“I’ve dreamed about taking my grandfather’s drinks national since I was a teenager,” he said. “But what the investors want to do…”
“What do they want to do?” Maggie asked.
“Essentially, they want me to advertise a high-caffeine beverage in elementary schools,” Ash told her. “Using Allie’s greenhouse idea as a way in the door.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maggie said. “Can you tell them you won’t do it?”
“I could,” he said. “And they might even agree to it, this time. But with investors, there will always be something else, maybe something worse. That’s how it works. They want to make money, and it’s an extremely competitive market. I didn’t even want to make high caffeine drinks to begin with.”
“So why are you doing it?” Maggie asked.
“You don’t just get to do exactly what you want all the time,” he said, repeating what he’d said to himself when one of his sales team presented the Turbo Tailor idea and the data to back up why it would fly off the shelves and take TBC to another level.
He’d been right too. Just the concept was enough to have the investors interested.
“In my own life, I live by one set of rules. But to succeed in business, the rules are different.”
“Why?” Maggie asked. “Are things tight for you and Maya? Is that why you have to go national?”
“No,” he admitted. “But it’s always been my goal. It’s why I went to business school in the first place.”
He wanted to carry on his grandfather’s passion and turn it into a legacy.
But there was no point talking to her about the inventors of the big beverages in every store today and the men who had made them famous through clever acts of creation, marketing, and distribution.
One look at Maggie Lawrence and you knew she wouldn’t give a fig about the idea of seeing his grandfather’s image and his own placed among those others in the history books.
“You have other things to focus on now, I think,” Maggie said, her blue eyes twinkling, so like Allie’s. “And I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble keeping a roof over your head. You’re an intelligent young man.”
Suddenly, he was racked with guilt. Family meant everything to Allie and her parents. How could he have asked her to lie to them?
“You should know about this thing with Allie,” he began.
“It’s not real,” Maggie whispered.
He gaped at her for a moment. How could this sweet woman have guessed that he was scheming with her daughter?
“Her father and I figured it out from the very beginning,” Maggie said gently. “Allie doesn’t keep much from us, and in this town it’s almost impossible anyway. We knew you’d just met. And we knew you were telling everyone a whopper of a story. But we figured you two had your reasons.”
“She thought it was just to help me save face in front of my ex,” Ash said. “She saw that I was hurting. She’s an angel.”
“And why were you doing it?” Maggie asked.
“I couldn’t seem to help myself,” Ash admitted softly. “It feels like something is pulling me to her. And it’s worse now, like I won’t ever be able to sleep again without knowing she’s really mine. But how can she be with someone who would sell their soul?”
“Would you sell your soul, Ashwin Tailor?” Maggie asked him sternly.
“I don’t know anymore,” he said.
“I think you’d better sleep on all of it,” Maggie told him. “You’re at a crossroads right now, and you won’t have these choices again.”
“I think it might be too late,” he breathed, his heart shattering all over again as he heard Allie’s words in his mind, her pain evident from her broken tones.
“We’ll see,” Maggie said. “I don’t envy you, young man.”
Looking over at the sweet woman in her simple dress, her skin tanned and lined, and muscles strong from working long hours on a farm all her adult life, he knew to his bones that she was telling the truth.
She didn’t envy him. She was living exactly the life she wanted, and it had nothing to do with money.
“You really are one in a million,” he told her, shaking his head.
“So I’m told,” she chuckled. “But I think you’ll find there are an awful lot of one-in-a-million type folks around here.”
“How do you do it?” he asked her. “You raised six kids and you’re running a farm, and you’re still so happy. That can’t be easy.”
“Life is compromise,” she agreed with a smile. “You figured that part out already. But when I was younger, I made a habit of asking myself each night if I was satisfied with how I spent my day. And if the answer was no, then I did what was in my power to do a little better the next day.”
“That’s it?” Ash asked.
“That’s it,” she said, rising from the sofa. “Speaking of which, I’d better get out of your way. It was a pleasure to spend the evening with the little lady. She’s awfully smart and she has really happy energy. Reminds me so much of Allie at that age.”
Ash couldn’t help smiling at that. He walked Maggie to the door and helped her on with her coat.
“Get some sleep,” she said, patting his cheek before she headed out the door. “Things are always clearer in the morning.”
The next day, Ash awoke early as always.
He had made some of his best decisions in the still of the morning, waiting for the sun to rise.
But as he opened his eyes, he thought about Maya’s future and realized there was only one decision to make.
Ash grabbed his planner before he even got out of bed and jotted down a list of everything he needed to get done.
By the time his plans were made and he’d done his morning exercises and showered, the sun was up.
It was time.
He was going to make his dreams a reality, no matter what it took.