Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HARMONY
Walking into Travis’s office the last hour before town hall closed for business, Harmony couldn’t seem to quell the nerves zinging through her stomach. She wore her black jumpsuit and heels, and a confident, purposeful expression. Underneath it all, though, she was worried rather than enjoying the challenge of nailing a job. Maybe because of her confrontation with Travis the other night. Maybe because this time she had something to lose.
The mayor didn’t ignore her today. Travis waited for her with a smile, hands folded on his desk. “Miss Hale.” His white teeth flashed. “Good afternoon.”
At least he didn’t seem hung up on their little tiff at the café. She needed to pull this off to make the festival real for all of Brookville. For her and Preston. “I’m afraid it’s not. We’ve run into a bit of a snag.” Harmony sat. “Nothing that can’t be solved. With money, as all things can.”
“Oh?”
“Legend Watts, the headliner we’ve been in talks with, pulled out last minute. He’s taking a loss defaulting on the initial agreement by walking away, but that leaves us without a headliner just as we need to move to promoting.”
Travis pursed his lips. “That sounds like more than a little snag.”
“True. If we don’t start ticket sales as scheduled, that risks a depressed turnout, plus bookings for hotels, local recreation—and if we don’t line up a replacement, that puts the entire festival, along with everyone’s investments, in danger.” Harmony rested her folio in her lap and sighed. “I’m going to be straight with you. We need an infusion of cash to save the festival.”
Travis narrowed his eyes at her. “Miss Hale, you assured this town your company was experienced at putting on events like this.” He didn’t seem all that upset, considering how easily he always lost his cool.
“These things happen.” Harmony raised a palm in an unconcerned shrug and shifted forward. “I know you don’t like to put your money directly into ventures like this, but I think in the interest of so many of your neighbors, not to mention your business’s investment, and that of your wife—”
Travis laughed.
Okay, he was taking this maybe too lightly. Harmony shifted in her seat. Her marks always scoffed at her first threats of ruin, but then she got them to come around. “To be honest, Mr. Mayor, I think this might be a good opportunity for you, not just with the potential profit as a major investor, but to restore your reputation after that unpleasant scene at the restaurant this week. It’s a small town, and word gets around. Supporting the festival—saving so many of Brookville’s businesses, creating opportunities for its children—that would go a long way for buying back goodwill.”
“You think I’m going to have an image problem?” He laughed again.
This meeting was getting away from her. Travis was acting so strangely. She found herself moving too quickly to her biggest push. “I think the people will demand action, and if they know you could have saved them and chose not to?”
Travis flattened his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “And what if they know you’ve been lying to them, and me, the entire time?”
Harmony’s grip on her folio slackened. “Excuse me?”
“Miss. Hale.” A tight laugh wheezed from Travis, and he pinned her with his cold gaze. “Bullshit. You’re Iggie’s kid. Harmony Greene.”
Ice water ran down her spine. This could not be happening.
“All grown up.” Travis shook his head thoughtfully, his gaze on her assessing. Harmony’s stomach churned. “It only came to me today, once I knew you were full of it. I started thinking you over more carefully after a visit I had from someone this afternoon. Zach Seeley?”
No, no, no. Harmony’s hands, slick with sweat, slipped over the leather of her folder. She had to get out of here, she had to lie her way out of this.
“He said he’d heard you were in town and wanted to warn us. Told me all about how you like to spend your time.” Travis pulled a frown. “What would my old friend Iggie think of what you’ve become?”
Fury seared away Harmony’s panic. “Friend? You stole my father’s work and tossed him aside like trash.”
“He was trash, drunk or worse half the time.” Travis scoffed. “I took his one good idea and made something of it.”
Harmony’s hands clenched. There was no point arguing with this monster. She could only try to leverage what power she had against him. “Brookville will still be on the hook, we still need to save the festival for everyone’s sake—”
“ What festival?” Harmony’s chest constricted at Travis’s scorn. “You’ve tanked my chances at franchising the arcade. I might have to scrap the entire endeavor.” He shook a meaty finger at her. “You may have made a mess of my town, but the strongest will survive and eventually buy up the rest. You face a far bigger mess yourself, taking all those payments. Namely, unless you deliver a headliner by the date stated in our contract and move forward with the festival we both know you never intended to put on, you’ll be inviting charges of fraud.”
The threat rang in her ears, sending waves of desperation echoing through her—not only for herself but for everyone she couldn’t pay back, after laying out the last of her money on the festival. And because, for once—for Preston—she didn’t want to have to slip away in the night. Harmony fought to swallow, knowing she had no more cards left to play. No more tricks up her sleeve. Only more reason than ever not to lose. “Please,” she said, and that word cost her everything, breaking her down, turning her into that same little girl waiting outside the room while her father pleaded with Travis. She was begging Travis now too. Her gut soured, but she mustered, “Please, help fund the headliner, and I’ll make sure the festival is a success, and you can have all the credit.”
“I don’t think I need to worry about my image when the scandal of your fraud will be all anyone cares about once this comes to light. Now get out of my office.”
She couldn’t retreat without winning. She had the urge to run for her car and drive away fast, out of Brookville, before the truth of what had just happened could catch up and crash over her.
She hadn’t even recorded Travis throwing his town under the bus, like she always did with her targets. Because she’d only wanted his help saving the festival for real. Which would never happen now. Just like her revenge for her dad.
Harmony rose from her chair automatically, like a goddamn puppet, and walked out of town hall in a daze. She’d driven halfway to Preston’s house before she came back to herself and realized it. Yes, that was where she needed to go.
It was late afternoon, and people were walking their dogs, stopping to say hello, riding bikes, watching kids play on front lawns. This entire town was going to know she was a fraud and a liar. They would hate her, just as she’d wanted them to hate Travis. And she deserved it. Her scheme had put all their livelihoods at risk. Her manipulations had used their time and energy and passion. She didn’t know how to fix this.
But she knew she needed to tell Preston the truth. She’d tried to turn all the golden lies on her tongue true, and failed, and all she had left was the ugly truth. All she had left was herself.
It took so long for him to come to the door, she thought maybe he wasn’t home, though he said he’d be heading there from her hotel. Lacey would be back soon from Mason’s. Then the door swung open, and she was so relieved to see him, in his scuffed glasses and shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Harmony.”
She dug her voice out from somewhere south of her toes. “Hi. Can I come in?” He stepped back, all the way into the living room, and she followed, the screen door creaking shut behind her, still struggling for what to say. She always had all the right words, but this was so hard now. She could not mess this up. She was afraid she already had. “So. Um. My meeting.”
Preston looked her up and down, then stared at her face, forcefully, as if searching something out. He looked pale.
Harmony frowned. “Sorry, are you okay?”
His gaze drifted somewhere behind her. “Not really.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, but didn’t say anything. He was spinning his ring at about a thousand miles an hour.
“Preston?” She stepped forward, reaching a hand out. “Did something happen? Is Lacey okay?”
He backed up and sat on the piano bench. “I need to ask you something.”
She was at a loss, and she needed to tell him . But something clearly was bothering him, so she nodded. “Anything.”
His voice was like gravel. “What’s your real name?”
An entire sheet of ice water sliced through her this time, down to her fingertips, freezing her lungs. “What?”
“Someone told me today that you were only going by Hale. I think I should know the name of the person I’m—” His chest heaved, once, and he looked her dead on now, a terrible hope in his eyes. “Please, explain this to me.”
She’d been with Preston only a couple hours ago. Now everything was falling apart. She almost whispered, “Who told you that?”
“Well, he didn’t give me his name either. Too busy telling me how you’re a con woman and threatening to knock my lights out.”
“Shit.” She was on one knee before him in a flash, trying to take his hands, but he threw them up between them. “Are you okay?”
“I already told you I’m not.” His hands hovered over her shoulders. “I need you to explain. Who was that? Have you been lying to me this whole time?”
She rose from her crouch. Preston’s gaze on her was too intense, too severe to withstand up close. She took a few steps back before she could make herself say, “Someone I used to work with.” Harmony had shoved the threat of Zach into the back of her mind once she’d focused on actually pulling off the festival, on becoming everything she’d pretended to be. But that had been a fantasy—her biggest lie ever, told to herself. Preston raised a brow expectantly. Her shoulders dropped. “As a con woman.”
He grabbed off his glasses and ran a palm over his face.
“I was coming to tell you. I wanted to tell you—”
“Did you?” He shoved his frames back on. “Why would you do that, if you’re in the middle of a—” He waved a hand as if he could find the word he wanted and pull it out of the air. “A con?”
“Because I was trying to stop it. Change it. I didn’t want to lie anymore.” Because of you , she wanted to tell him, but she’d never in her life told someone she was in love with them, and the words wouldn’t come in the face of Preston’s glare.
“So you were lying.” He shot to his feet and paced away until he ran out of space. “The festival is a scam. You were trying to steal from the town.”
“Not the town—”
He spun back to face her. “You had me helping you.”
“No, I told you, that was because I wanted to see you.”
“Sure.” There was an edge of bitterness to his words now. “How am I supposed to know what’s real? You just say whatever you want.” He raked both hands through his hair, the blue of his eyes like shattered glass. “Fake. It was all fake. Of course.”
“ No .” She started toward him, but he cut her off with his next words.
“So there is a festival?”
She wanted there to be. “The festival—” She’d tried . Her answer tangled in all her lies, all her history, all her hopes. “It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s very simple,” Preston said with deadly precision. “Real or fake. Truth or lies. Right or wrong.”
It must have been so easy to see things clear-cut like that when you grew up with a home like this you knew you could always come back to, and two parents, even if one was a shithead. Preston had no idea what she’d had to do to survive, having zero safety net and telling herself she liked it that way. He’d never understand if she tried to explain how she felt about him, how everything had gotten into such a jumble because of the strength of that, the truth of it. Instead she did what she always did, and said the first thing that came into her head. “Yeah, you got me. I’m a dirty criminal, you sure are lucky you found out now before I stole your bike!”
She thought she’d seen the full force of Preston’s scowl before, but the disbelief and scorn his face wore now blew that way, shriveling Harmony’s impulse to argue. “Do you think this is a fucking joke?” His voice ground down to a growl. “I let you be around Lacey.” He seemed to startle at his own words, and Harmony sank against the back of the couch. He didn’t know her past because she’d lied to him about it. He was always so careful, and she’d made him trust her and then betrayed that trust. He was right to be horrified at inviting her into his life.
“Okay,” Preston muttered, maybe to himself, drumming his hands on his thighs and pacing again. “It’s fine. Fucked up, but fine. Same result. I always knew you were leaving.”
“Right,” Harmony croaked. “You’re not losing anything you care about.”
Now he looked truly furious. “Of course I fucking care about you. I’m not the one who’s been faking everything.”
“Not everything. I was trying—” But she hadn’t been good enough. Her eyes were burning. “I wanted to make it for real, even though you never said you’d want me to stay. I wanted —” She choked on how much she wanted, on her fear of how she could never have it now. How she didn’t deserve it.
Preston practically shouted, with shock or frustration, “I just didn’t want to hold you back.”
“ Why not ?” Her voice was between a rasp and a wail. “Why doesn’t anyone think I’m worth hanging on to?” Travis’s words back at his office had slithered deep inside her, that she’d already failed her father, let him wallow and waste away, and that was why she’d become something worse than trash trying to make up for it. “After he lost everything, my dad drank himself to death, because I wasn’t enough.” Maybe she was always going to turn out this way, loud and lying, but maybe that was why she was so much , trying to fill that hole. “Why am I not good enough? I’m never enough .”
“Fucking hell , Harmony.” Preston had gone very still and glowered. “You were a kid. It wasn’t your job to fix everything.”
That reassurance somehow both terrified her and gave her strength enough to say, “But I need to fix what I did here.”
“No. You need to leave.”
Harmony clutched at the sofa and summoned every scrap of her shredded bravery. “I want to stay.”
“For what?” He was back to looking past her. “So they can arrest you for theft or fraud or whatever?”
For you . But that was impossible now. Preston didn’t want her anywhere around him, his sister, his careful life he’d constructed for himself.
“How is anyone supposed to hang on to someone who’s been lying about who they are? How are they going to hang on to you if you’re in jail? ”
His phone ringing made them both jump.
Preston snatched it from the entryway table and tapped the screen. “Sarah? Is Lacey all right?”
Sarah’s voice was small over the line. “Oh, good, I texted, but you didn’t answer. Lacey actually headed home a little while ago, but I was driving to the grocery store just now and saw her on her bike over here.”
Preston’s face was blank. “That’s the wrong way.”
“I know, I thought maybe she’d gotten lost, but I couldn’t find her once I turned around.”
“Okay.” Preston ran a hand over his hair. “Okay, thanks, Sarah. I’ll track her down.”
“Just wanted to let you know. I’m sure she’s fine.”
Preston’s hand holding the phone dropped to his side. “Why would she—” His gaze pulled toward the screen door. “She must have come home and heard us. Shit.”
Harmony straightened and dug for her keys. “Do you want to go look for her? I could drive, or you could stay here in case she comes home?”
Preston slid his phone carefully into his pocket. “I want you to leave.”
“Preston, please.” She owed him far more but could at least do this.
“I can’t deal with this right now.” He pulled his keys from the hook by the door.
“Let me help, we can talk more later.”
He looked only at the keys when he said, “Please, go.”
“I still need to explain—”
“Tequila.”
A painful bubble rose in Harmony’s chest at the flat finality of his tone, the harsh line of his profile as he refused to look at her. She swallowed it down, fighting back those tears again. All she could manage was a nod.
And then she left.