Chapter 14 Charlie
Charlie
“Is everything okay, lady?” My cousin, Selena, is looking at me as we picnic at the Ambleside Park in West Vancouver near the ocean. Pettie is playing soccer with her husband, Zane, and his friends on the grass as we sit at a long table filled with balloons, cake, and presents.
“Yeah, work has just been intense lately. I have a lot on my mind.” Though mostly I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to tell Pettie he has a father and that I kept it from him. I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive me.
“Pettie seems so happy here,” she says, watching my son play with the other kids, and my chest clenches.
“He does.” I force a smile because how can I turn down an opportunity for him to be happy?
I almost owe it to Pettie and my father to take the job, to keep a piece of Dad’s dream in the family.
But I also can’t imagine facing Ryder and working for his family.
The same family I resented forever. Plus, if I took the job, it would be career suicide for me in LA.
My boss, Gale, is extremely powerful, and she will not take it well.
I would lose client trust, which took me forever to earn.
I don’t want my mom’s and Pettie’s future to depend on the company that caused so much heartache to my family and me.
“Charlie?” I hear Selena say, and I shake my head, lost in thought. Selena is looking at me like she is expecting an answer when the kids run over, interrupting us.
“It’s time for cake and presents!” Pettie beams, wrapping his arms around my waist. I’ve never seen him so happy, and that’s always been my biggest wish for him—to be happy. I just don’t know what to do.
After the fun and games, barbequing, and present opening, we are stuffed with cake when Zane’s friends leave, and Pettie is watching a sailboat in the distance.
“What are you thinking about, kiddo?” I place my hand on his small arm.
“Nothing, it was just such a nice day, and I love sailboats so much. Don’t you?”
“They are nice,” I say.
My son has a thing for sailboats, just like his father.
He insisted on decorating his room in a nautical theme and has sailboat wallpaper and bedding.
I wasn’t keen on the idea because sailboats reminded me of Ryder teaching me how to sail.
It was one of his passions, and it wasn’t easy.
But my happiest memories were the ones we shared on the water.
“Well, what do you think? Are you ready to head to the airport soon?” I study him.
“I don’t want to go back.” Eyes—as poetic and dark as Ryder’s—plead with mine.
“I know, buddy, but at least we got to go to Zane’s birthday party. That was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He sighs, looking out at the water.
“Then, what’s wrong?”
“It’s just so bittersweet.” The maturity of his language, emotional intelligence, and the reach of his vocabulary is startling.
He’s very bright for his age, and I suppose he’s come by it naturally.
Not only did I advance before my time, but Ryder was scholastically brilliant.
He liked to hide it behind the stunts he pulled for attention, and it came easy to him like everything else, but Ryder was at the top of his class in high school and the Ivy League university.
He has multiple master’s degrees in business and commerce.
“Can we just slip away quietly? I don’t want them to see me sad,” Pettie says.
“We have to say bye.” His words eat me to the core, and I brush back his hair. “What if I promise we’ll come back to Vancouver sooner than you think, and next time, we’ll stay much longer than planned? Would that make it less sad?”
His eyes brighten. “Really? How soon?”
“Very soon.” I can’t tell him I’m thinking of taking a job and moving us here, not when I haven’t received formal paperwork and Ryder was so upset with me.
He may have changed his mind. And I’m still so confused about everything, including how much we’ve hurt each other.
So much irreparable damage has been done.
If I tell Pettie about the job, and it doesn’t work out, he’ll be devasted.
However, I have to tell him about Ryder quickly but not here at Zane’s birthday.
Maybe when we get home after he’s had a good rest.
“How soon? Like middle of summer soon?” He won’t let it go.
“I don’t know the exact dates, but I am working on it, sweetie.”
“Next month?”
“Maybe.”
And because he knows I’d never get his hopes up and hint at anything like that unless it was true. He wraps his arms around me and gives me a gigantic hug.
“Wait,” he says, looking at me. “Can we spend the summer here?”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up, sweetie.”
“Oh my God, there is, isn’t there?”
“I have some things I’m working on. We’ll talk more about this when we get home, okay?”
“Okay.” He smiles and runs off to say goodbye to his second cousins.
Once we’re home, it’s been a few days, and I still haven’t received my formal job offer from the Lotus Club, and I’m not sure what’s up. Was that all talk? Did Ryder come to his senses and decide to fight me for Pettie? Did he decide that having me work for his family would only complicate things?
My stomach is in knots, and Pettie keeps asking me when we’re going back to Vancouver and if we can spend the summer there.
I shouldn’t have said anything. I just wanted to cheer him up and make it easier for him to say goodbye to his second cousins.
It wasn’t fair to get his hopes up, but I believed Ryder about the job.
He seemed so adamant about it. Then when he went to his lawyers and HR, he probably realized hiring me would come with too many liabilities.
My heart deflates, even though it may be for the best.
I’m walking into my office in Santa Monica when I hear a thunder of voices.
“Surprise!”
My coworkers are popping a bottle of champagne, and there’s a pink cake on a rollout table with small plates and a silver cake knife.
“But it’s not my birthday,” I say, stunned. And no one in the office eats carbs. Then I read the words on the cake.
Congratulations, partner.
I look at the smiling faces. One of my sassiest colleagues, Zara, is handing me a champagne flute. When the realization hits me, tears prick my eyes. “I made partner?”
“You did.” My boss, Gale, is standing in black stilettos and wearing a skin-tight dress.
She’s an industry icon and has no other partners.
This is a dream come true—a milestone that seemed out of reach.
“And don’t worry, the cake is almond flour with organic strawberries. Obviously, there’s no sugar.”
I shake my head as she hands me a plate. I want to burst into tears and wrap my arms around her skinny body. Instead, I say, “Obviously.”
I take the cake, pressing a hand to my chest. “Thank you, Gale. I didn’t expect this.” It devastated me every time I killed it, and the promotion never came despite my working relentlessly.
“Well, I didn’t either, but your work with the Alexanders…
I mean, I may have done things differently, but you got the job done.
And Mr. Environmental told me he’d tear up our contract if I didn’t make you partner.
Well, a few other clients said something like that too.
So here we are!” She shrugs. Those are the warmest words I’ve ever heard from her.
“Okay…” I mean, I got the promotion, I’m a partner, and that is what should matter.
I’ll be rolling in it and able to give Mom and Pettie the creature comforts they deserve and hopefully free up more time.
My smile is shaky, and my breath is shallow.
I take a bite of cake. It tastes bland. Give me some sugar and caffeine, please.
It’s early in the morning but whatever. I did it!
I want to call someone and share the news, but I have no friends.
I’ve been too busy to make them. There’s Lee, but he’s too close to Ryder, and I don’t know what he knows.
Mom, she’ll just be worried that I’ll be working more.
I gaze around the room. Everyone is smiling and moaning over the keto cake while giving me envious looks.
Gale has left a trail of her potent perfume.
She had one bite of her cake and returned to her big office behind the glass wall. Soon, everyone’s finished gathering. The caterers collect the half-empty flutes and the half-eaten slices of cake on plates, and my colleagues are back on their phones.
I sit at my desk and look at my computer screen in shock.
This is actually happening, everything I’ve been working forever for.
Yet I feel empty. And I think about last night when I told Pettie he has a father.
His face turned blank, then thoughtful. He had little to say.
He went quiet before asking, “When can we go back to Vancouver?”
I stare at my desktop screen, wishing for a sign from the universe. I don’t know what to do. Then I check my inbox. There’s an official email from an unknown party. It’s a lawyer’s letter from Ryder, and my heart doubles over itself.