Chapter 2
Charlie
I’ve had one hell of a week, and am grabbing a quick triple espresso in the sun when I get a call from my old friend and schoolmate, Lee.
The way my phone has been blowing up lately, I’m afraid to answer it.
But this is Lee ringing. He’s one of the few people guaranteed to make me smile, and I haven’t talked to him in ages.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Charlie, love. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Isn’t it a little early for caesars?” I tease about the tomato, clam, and vodka drinks Lee and I indulged in during my trip to Vancouver last year. It was the last time I let my hair down for a few hours.
“It’s never too early for caesars. Why, are you free?”
“Could be.” It’s wishful thinking. I only have two more high-profile clients to fix their tainted images before my boss in LA blows a fuse. Even if I’m one of her best publicists, she likes to keep us on edge. “But I don’t drink in the morning.”
“Lies, girlfriend… lies.”
“Yeah, I know. So what’s up, Lee?”
“Ryder asked me to find him a fixer. He’s been acting weird. You know, working for him is my dream job. I really hope he hasn’t messed it up this time. Believe me, there have been close calls.”
“Ryder Alexander’s in trouble?” My heart nearly stops.
“Surprised?”
“No.” My mind pulls up the image of the heir to one of the largest real estate families and North American restaurant franchises.
My memory is tainted with hate of the dreamy come-fuck-me eyes and chocolate locks of coiffed hair brushed to the side.
Those stunning features, high cheekbones, and full lips remind me of everything that had gone wrong in my life.
Ryder Alexander was more beautiful than the movie stars I worked for, but he was also a never-ending pain in my side.
Ryder charmed everyone, but no man with that level of God-given looks and success could be trusted.
He oozed of misplaced charm. I could only imagine the trouble he’d gotten into.
Or I didn’t want to imagine. I knew. Ryder was the only man I’d fallen for, despite his family crushing mine and the massive fallout afterward.
“I have to head back to LA tonight,” I say, still catching my breath. A jog on the seawall would have been nice, but that’s unlikely. My phone is already pinging with worrisome texts. “I wish I could help, Lee.”
“Pleeease, Charlie. I will owe you my life. This is important. I’d even change teams if I had to, but you already know I’d do that for you.”
“Lee, I’m… I…” Flustered. There’s one other issue, and the reason I know exactly Ryder’s type and the trouble he could get into is because we had a massive history.
We had a secret love affair when our fathers did business together.
It lasted my entire last year of high school before he left for France on his family vacation and ghosted me, leaving me behind like I was nothing.
I spent that summer crushed while he was jet-setting in Europe.
Left heartbroken, licking my wounds—I meant nothing to him—when the merger between his family and mine left mine financially devastated.
Ryder and his betrayal left my heart in a half-beating wasteland when my family was forced out of its home.
My father became ill, and my mother’s dreams shattered.
A few months later, I ran into him at a party before I had officially picked up the pieces and worked myself to the bone to fight for my family.
He shut me down when his college friend hit on me—after everything.
My hate for him became an inextinguishable bushfire.
Lee knows none of this because I keep my personal life hidden.
“You probably don’t like Ryder,” he says.
“Why wouldn’t I like him?” I clutch my phone to my ear, walking down the seawall, cyclists and dog walkers strolling by.
“You might not remember, but Ryder wasn’t your favorite person.”
“Why would I remember him? We were younger than him. He was in college when we were in our last year of high school.” Though, he was a legend and well-known in our circle of friends.
No one knew about the secret relationship Ryder and I had, and I never told Lee that Ryder’s family was part of why my family lost everything.
It was why we had to move out of West Vancouver.
It just seemed easier to disconnect from everyone I knew.
Lee and I only reconnected on my last trip to Vancouver a year ago.
And though we always have fun together, I certainly wouldn’t confide in him about anything.
I love Lee, but he isn’t great at keeping a secret.
“Sounds like you remember him better than you think, Charlie.”
My cheeks burn. “Barely.”
“Come on. Everyone knew Ryder. He briefly dated Shauna. She’s a supermodel now. It’s how I got the job.”
“Right.” As if I’d forget Shauna, prom queen and school darling. She was the opposite of me. I had my head stuck in books with my purple eyeglasses while she was killing it on international runways.
“I’m sure they made a good pair.” That rusty nail of regret digs in deeper.
Involving myself with Ryder was a mistake.
I knew it from the first day he saw me reading in the waiting room at the Lotus Club office tower while our fathers were in a meeting.
He’d asked me what I was reading and talked to me like he really saw me.
No one did that. That summer, we started seeing each other secretly.
I worked at the yacht club he rowed at, and one day after my shift, he took me sailing.
He claimed I needed to learn how to have fun or my youth would pass me by.
I let out a bitter chuckle, looking at the water because he was so right. If only he knew. Every muscle in my chest clenches, making it hard to breathe.
“Didn’t he say something to you to make you cry in front of his friends? He could be a jerk, but he’s grown,” Lee says.
That I found hard to believe.
“I don’t remember,” I lie, even if I remembered it clear as day.
Ryder humiliated me in front of his college friends at a party in West Vancouver.
It was the first time I had the courage to go out after we lost our home and my life detonated.
Lee snagged an invite and insisted I be his date, though the pretentious crowd intimidated me.
A well-known film producer owned the oceanfront estate—a friend of Ryder’s.
That night, Ryder’s words stung to the core after everything he’d inflicted on me.
“This party is no place for a child. Go home, Charlie. It’s past your curfew,” he said with a gaze that chilled me to the bone.
I was talking to one of his friends, the son of the film producer.
He had been pouring me a drink when Ryder’s words lashed out at me.
Everyone looked at me, and my cheeks burned like active lava before tears jammed into my eyes.
How dare he humiliate me after his family crushed mine and he ghosted me?
When I fled to the backyard and the unwanted gazes, he had the nerve to wrap his arm around the prettiest girl at the party.
Anger nipped through my veins like tequila shooters on fire.
I used to lie awake at night wishing he could know my pain when he was having a ball, living the privileged life that my family never would.
Soon after, Mom and I moved to LA. Mom had dual citizenship because she was born in the States, and we needed a fresh start.
Though her parents had passed, she had a few family friends left who helped us get on our feet.
The cost of living in LA was high, but Vancouver was worse.
I thought I’d left the Alexanders behind, but Ryder left a lasting mark that followed me.
“You know what? Something cleared in my schedule, and I can meet him tonight. If he hasn’t murdered anyone,” I say with a sour taste in my mouth.
“He hasn’t, or at least I don’t think he has. But what’s a little murder between friends? Can’t we make it this afternoon?”
“Don’t push your luck, Lee. I have caesars to drink.” Wishful thinking.
“Not without me, you don’t.”
That afternoon, I finish a staged press release with an A-list Hollywood actor filming in Vancouver who cheated on his wife, my stomach churning.
The thought of seeing Ryder makes me dizzy, and the unpleasantness of my job is getting to me.
But the job supports Mom and me. The guilty fireball in my gut won’t leave me during the conference call with my boss, Gale Lambert, and coworkers.
Walking down the seawall, I hold my phone to my ear.
My boss is relaying our next job—a high-profile CEO and environmentalist is trying to cover up his massive private jet and yacht fuel bills.
Like he thought no one would find out about his gasoline hedonism.
I look out at the cheerful dog walkers and joggers on the seawall, wishing that were me, and I still lived in Vancouver and had a life as easy as Ryder’s.
“Charlie?” My she-boss’ nasally and demanding voice rings through the phone. “Did you hear me? I want you to take care of this, or I’ll have to put your promotion on hold.”
Gale had been dangling a promotion in front of me for ages. I did whatever it took to win her over because being as powerful as her was my primary motivation in life. It would help make up for what my family lost.
“I’ve got it covered,” I say, mostly because I want to get off the phone.
I hang up and walk over to the railing lining the seawall next to the marina in front of the luxury restaurants and shops.
Nausea fills me, and I could hurl over the railing into the seawater.
I take a long breath of seawater air, trying to cleanse my cells—the damaged ones that have seen too much corruption, pickled by vodka and champagne during late nights with celebrity clients.
Nights where I could never let go. I always remained on alert, always analyzing, and a step ahead of the next mess I’d clean up.
I could see through people. It was one of the things that fascinated me most about my job—people.
They always surprise, even when you thought you had them figured out.
However, that surprise most often came with a letdown.
It’s time. My call with Mr. Environmental, who flew his private jet to Cuba to pick up a pack of Cohiba Behike 54s. Not something you want people to know when you run a green energy empire. I dial, and it rings once.
“Charlie, thank God,” he answers. “I’ve been waiting for your call. You’re going to fix this, right?”
I found it funny that my clients thought of me as a miracle worker when they could just clean up their act.
“It won’t be easy,” I say, though there’s always a way. I’m just not sure I want to hide this one. I like the environment. “But you should have thought of that before.” I never sugarcoat it for my clients. It is what it is.
“You’re right, I should have. So what do you suggest?”
“We’ll start with a formal apology and a pledge to seek therapy for your addictions, assuming you were drunk when you made that call?”
“Smashed, on blow too.”
“Any recent tragedies in your life?”
“Uh… my second cousin just died of tongue cancer.”
“And you were very close to this second cousin?” I ask.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Good. My assistant will send over your script. I want you to practice reciting it like you mean it. Devastated, you slipped into an old substance abuse habit that will never happen again. Okay?”
“If you think it will work.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” The line is silent.
I didn’t think so. “We’ll talk later. I have another meeting.
” I hang up. I had to be gruff with my clients.
They needed it because no one else was, even if I couldn’t care less if the jerk fired me.
Despite that, I desperately needed to land the promotion promised to me.
The beautiful Vancouver day is pulling me in with its bittersweet nostalgia.
Shiny boats are floating on the emerald-green sea, the sun beats like it will never leave, and the sea breeze blows my hair.
Caesars on a sailboat drifting off into the Pacific.
Maybe in another lifetime. I pull my focus away from the enticing waters of the Coal Harbour.
The spark of joy in my chest ignited by the cherry-red rhododendrons and palm trees swaying in the wind fades.
The sounds of children skipping and laughing dim.
It’s time to pay a visit to Ryder Alexander, the ruthless heir who turned me into the coldhearted executive I am.