Chapter 26
MARY
Ilook pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. I feel good, too.
There’s nothing that’s technically all that special about today—I’ve had meetings with clients and investors a thousand times over.
It matters this time, though. This meeting with Ms. Goldthwait is a make-it-or-break-it moment for the ranch.
I have to pull it off and sell my proposal like I’ve never sold anything before.
This isn’t important to Mary Bryce of Branded, it’s important to me.
My excitement is obvious even to me, and I brush my hands over my skirt to smooth it out. It’s the first time in a while that I’ve gotten dressed up, and I forgot how nice it feels.
I don’t mind the jeans and tanks I’ve been wearing around the ranch, but a well-planned outfit makes me feel unstoppable. As I turn to grab a different pair of heels, my phone goes off on my nightstand.
It’s early enough that a call is a surprise, and my eyes go wide when I see the contact lighting up my screen.
Shit, I never responded to that email.
“Mr. Jameson, hi!” I answer, praying that my voice isn’t shaking.
Maybe I can pretend like my response didn’t go through? Service out here has been spotty enough that he might believe that.
“Good morning, Mary,” he says. “I’m calling about the email I sent you the other day.”
“Yes, sir?”
Play it cool, Mary. You’ve got a great poker face.
“I didn’t get a response from you, but I assumed the Wi-Fi out there was just down again. Sounds like it’s been a nightmare.”
Oh, thank fuck, I won’t even have to lie. All I have to do is agree with him, that’s a relief.
“Anyway,” he continues, “I’m sure you’ll be happy to get out of there. I need you back in the office today.”
A startled laugh slips out before I catch myself, and I make a lame attempt at covering it with a cough.
“Today?” I ask. “I have meetings planned with Ev–er, with the Black Spruce Ranch clients until later afternoon. The investor we’re meeting with is actually in town, so I could come by afterwards.”
He doesn’t seem to notice the slip, but I’m glad I didn’t call Everett by his name. I’ve never gotten close enough with my clients to call them by their first names, especially not to my boss. My carefully tailored professional interest tends to be a selling point when it comes to my skills.
People usually want a marketer, not a wannabe therapist.
“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “The Luxe Resorts team wants to come in at 1:00, and they expect you to be here. They’re insistent they’ll only work with you, so I officially pulled you from the ranch and reassigned you.”
I’m so shocked I can’t even speak. He pulled me from the account entirely?
I made the decision to stay, though. I swore to Everett and Jenny that I would help them fix this. I’ve been thinking about ways to stay here permanently, for fuck’s sake.
He can’t just pull the rug out from under me like this and expect me to follow along.
“I don’t assume that’s a problem, is it Ms. Bryce?” His tone is chilly and expectant, an obvious warning to gleefully accept and get my ass to work. “There are plenty of people vying for a position in this company, need I remind you?”
Is he seriously threatening my job right now?
My jaw snaps closed audibly, and anger rises up in my gut, hot and sharp. I open my mouth, planning to tell him exactly where he can stick it, but reality catches up to me.
“Of course, Mr. Jameson,” I say. “Sorry, my service got a bit weak for a moment. My car is still in the shop, so I don’t have a way to get to the office.”
One final Hail Mary—no pun intended—one last chance to quell the panic bubbling in my gut. I can’t just leave like this. Not now. I want to live the fantasy of being with Everett for just a little longer, even if I know I can’t keep up with it forever.
“So get an Uber,” he says with an annoyed sigh. “Put it on the company card, I don’t care. Just get here before 1:00, or you can kiss your job goodbye.”
Terror spikes through me like a lance at hearing him say it so plainly, and I damn near collapse onto the foot of my bed, holding my phone with shaking hands.
“I’ll be there,” I promise.
“Good,” he says. “I’ll send over the files, you can look them over on the drive.”
He doesn’t even give me time to agree before he hangs up, the dial tone sounding like a death toll in my ear.
I sit, frozen, for a long moment. My heart is hammering in my chest, my lungs tight.
It’s already almost nine, and I have no idea how long it’ll take to get an Uber out here.
I need to get my ass in gear, but I feel like my whole world is collapsing around me.
Am I just supposed to walk away and ignore the wreckage I’ll leave behind me?
I pull up the Uber app in a daze, plugging in the address to the office and selecting the company card for payment.
I pay no attention at all to the price of the trip.
It’s not my problem, and if I can make my boss regret his insistence on me being there today, it might make me feel a little better.
My eyes go wide in shock when a driver picks up the request almost immediately. Who the hell is driving for Uber out here?
And why are they only fifteen minutes away?
“Fuck!”
I scramble off the bed, grabbing at everything I can reach. It all gets stuffed haphazardly into my suitcase, shoes and suit jackets and my alarm clock all tangling together into a mess.
I have fifteen minutes to completely erase the remnants of my life here.
How did I start thinking of my life being here in just a few short weeks?
I rifle through the closet, yanking my clothes off hangers and tossing them over my shoulder. There isn’t time to fold anything, so I’ll just have to stuff it all into a ball in my suitcase and hope nothing gets torn.
I’m trying to fit another pair of shoes into my bag when a knock sounds on my door.
I look over my shoulder in sheer horror, but the door swings open before I can do anything. Everett’s face falls from the smile that was on it to a look of confusion as he takes in the sight of me, kneeling on the floor in front of my half-packed suitcase.
He rakes his gaze over the empty closet and the barren nightstand, and I see betrayal and hurt flicker in his eyes for a half-second before a cold mask slips over his face.
“Going somewhere?” he asks.
There’s no emotion in his voice, and that makes it so much worse. My legs won’t cooperate, so I just stay where I am, looking up at him apologetically.
There’s nothing I can say to make this better, but he at least deserves the truth.
“My boss called,” I say, my voice weak.
Everett hums, the noise uncaring and distant. A muscle ticks in his jaw, but he doesn’t say anything.
“There’s a contract he wants me on,” I say. “It’s a big one, and they picked me specifically. He said they won’t work with anyone but me, and they’re coming into the office at 1:00 today.”
“We have the meeting at 1:00,” he reminds me. “You set it up. You promised you’d be there with us.”
His voice shakes a little on that last sentence, and he tears his eyes away from me, fixing them firmly on the wall like it hurts to look at me. My chest aches so badly that it hurts to breathe, but I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing to say.
Fairytale time is over.
“He pulled me off this project.”
The words drop between us like stones, and I want to throw up just at hearing them out loud. My vision goes blurry with tears, and I search frantically for something to say, something to make this better.
I can’t fix this, and I know it.
“What about us?” Everett asks quietly.
I blink rapidly in an attempt to clear the tears pooling on my lashes, but the look on his face only makes me want to cry even more. He looks defeated.
No, betrayed.
And I’m the one who put that look on his face.
“You said you wanted to stay,” he reminds me when the silence stretches on too long between us.
“That’s not—I need this job, Everett,” I choke out. “I have to go back to the real world.”
It’s probably the worst thing I could have said. Everett sucks in a breath like I punched him, and that cold mask breaks. Heartbreak and pain shine through, and a tear slips from the corner of his eye to get lost in his beard.
I’ll never get to wipe his tears away again.
“You sure about this?” His voice is barely above a whisper, and it makes something break loose in me. I feel like I’m floating and sinking at the same time, my head spinning as panic and frustration tangle together and make my heartbeat pound faster and faster.
“Fuck no, I’m not sure!” I sob, the words colored with both pain and despairing laughter.
“I’m not sure about anything, Everett! I have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to do, but I’ve worked my whole life for this.
I’ve hardly been here for a month, but I feel like this is everything that’s been missing from my life. How the hell am I supposed to choose?”
Everett and I stare at each other, both of us at a loss for words.
“I don’t know what to do.”
He nods, and part of me wishes that he’d tell me. If Everett makes the decision for me, then I can’t be blamed for the consequences. Life isn’t that easy, though.
You don’t win the game without playing.
“I can’t give you that answer. All I know is… I’m sure about you.” There’s so much heartbreak in his voice that it feels like the world is shaking around me, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. “I’m sure about you, but I won’t stay with someone who doesn’t feel the same way.”
He turns on his heel, and a wounded noise tears up my throat. He pauses for a second at the door, glancing back at me, but he doesn’t meet my eyes.
“Goodbye, Mary,” he says. “Thank you for all your help.”
The creak of the floorboards beneath his feet slowly fades away as he makes his way down the hallway, and I can do nothing but stare at the empty space in the doorway.
I claw my way up off the floor frantically, my mind filled with nothing but the thought of chasing after him and begging for a chance to fix this.
My phone chimes seconds after I stabilize myself on wobbly feet.
Taylor is approaching in a red Kia Sorrento.
Indecision once again makes me freeze in my tracks, and I almost crumple in disappointment at myself. I may not know what I want to do, but I do know what I’m going to do.
Tears cling stubbornly to my lashes as I shove the last few articles of clothing and my laptop into my suitcase.
I pull on the only pair of shoes that I didn’t pack, and I can’t bring myself to care that the bright red flats don’t match my understated gray skirt suit at all.
My legs are unsteady as I stumble my way toward the front door, and the silence in the house hurts so much more than I could have ever imagined.
When I step out onto the porch, I realize that Everett’s truck is missing from the driveway.
He and Jenny are already gone.
I’m never going to see either of them again.
My Uber comes rolling up the driveway just as that thought really hits home, and I almost double over from the enormity of it.
Somehow, I manage to stuff my suitcase into the trunk and climb into the backseat.
“Let’s go,” I say. I don’t raise my head, too scared I’ll see Bill or Tony looking through the windows of the car at me.
We drive away. That rusty, wrought iron Black Spruce Ranch sign slowly vanishes into the distance behind us, and I brush back tears once I can no longer see it through the trees.
It’s gone. Facing the driver, I force myself to smile and ask how her day has been.
I think I even make enough small talk to pass off as normal conversation, but I don’t doubt the driver can tell something is wrong.
I can’t find it in myself to care.
I stare down at my hands as she turns the music up a bit and heads for the main road. I try not to think of what I’m leaving behind. There’s already been enough loss today.
My shampoo is still in the bathroom, and my company water bottle is still drying on the kitchen counter. My heart is still in shreds on the floor of the guest bedroom.
I’m wearing heels that don’t match my outfit and wiping my nose with tissues in the backseat of an Uber. The scenery that flies by is no longer unfamiliar, and I feel like every tree we pass is another loss—another thing I’ll never get back.
My phone buzzes, and I look down at the notification, my heart in my throat.
It’s an email from my boss, the files for the Luxe Resorts contract.
I don’t even open it before I start to cry, fat tears rolling down my face and ruining my makeup.
My eyes are going to be red and puffy when I give this presentation, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I have a feeling I just made the biggest mistake of my life, but there’s no going back from it.