by Chelsea Hale
Chapter 13
Liam gave his name at the hostess stand. The woman dressed all in black handed him a beeper and told him it was an hour wait. What he wouldn’t give to name drop his own name and move his dinner up a little. He sighed. It was fine. He could wait. They stood for a while in the entrance with a crowd of others waiting to be called in. When a couple’s name was called and moved from the padded benches along the wall, Liam and Callie sat down.
The waiting time flew by, and Liam’s beeper lit up with red lights circling around the perimeter. He couldn’t believe how fast the time went when he was talking with Callie. The idea of talking with someone who made the time pass quickly excited him. He secretly hoped the prompt service that he always enjoyed at The Cheesecake Factory would be slow today. He wanted to enjoy more time with her.
They were seated, and the waiter introduced himself and took their drink orders. Callie ordered a water. This was the part about pretending to just have his resort job that he struggled with. When the waiter was gone, he asked, “Is your preference water? I don’t mind paying for a drink.”
“I’m not much of a soda drinker.”
“How about a Tropical Mango iced smoothie?”
“Thanks, but I’m really okay.” She leaned across the table and whispered, “The food is expensive enough as it is.”
She’d confirmed for him that it had everything to do with the money. He wondered if she would be so careful if she knew who he really was. But part of him loved that she was careful. That she wasn’t taking advantage of his generosity simply because he’d already offered to pay.
“Can we try something? Want to play a hypothetical game?”
She nodded. “Okay, about my business.”
“Sure, it relates to that. Let’s say that the menu has no prices on it. Say you are at an all-inclusive resort.”
“Like the Summers resort, where you used to work?”
He could feel his cheeks heating and he took a drink of his water. His resort name on her lips. And then just watching her lips. He snapped his attention back to her beautiful eyes. “Yeah. Exactly. Let’s say you’re at their Paris resort. It’s only a few miles outside the city. They even have a smaller location right downtown. But say you’re there.”
She closed her eyes, a smile crossing her very kissable lips.
He shook his head, trying to remind himself that she’d only wanted to come to dinner with him because it was a business meeting.
“Okay, I can picture it.”
“You’re having a great time, and at dinner, it’s a sit-down kind of thing, not a cheap buffet-style inclusiveness.”
She opened her eyes. “Is that really how it is at the Summers resort?”
“In some locations, yes. Close your eyes again. Now, the waiter hands you a book of a menu, like this one. But there are no prices on it. What do you order?”
“Why do I get the feeling that this really isn’t a hypothetical game?” She cracked open her eyes and smiled at him.
“Think of it as a warm-up exercise before we delve into your business.”
“Okay, I’d order one of everything, and I’d try it all.”
“What drink would you order?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d still order a water, but maybe I’d see the picture of the Sangria glass with the pineapple at the top and order an iced smoothie.”
He snapped his fingers. “See.” He felt like he’d won something.
“But that’s in a hypothetical world, somewhere in the future, where I’ve paid for my vacation up front. So yes, the food is included, but I’ve basically pre-paid for it.”
“Fair enough, but if you don’t eat something, you won’t get your money back. It’s not a discount. You’re paying for the all-inclusive experience.”
The waiter came by with a basket containing pumpernickel and sourdough. He set a small dish with butter next to it. “Are you ready to order?” he asked.
“We’ll need a few more minutes, but could we get two Tropical Mango iced smoothies, please?”
“Actually, just make that one,” Callie said to the waiter. Then her eyes dropped to Liam. “I told you, we aren’t in hypothetical.”
And just like that, his win came tumbling down. Liam looked back at the waiter. “I’d still like two. Would you like something too, Callie?”
“No, thanks.” The waiter left and as soon as he did, she asked, “Why did you order two?”
He blinked at her. “Because they don’t give refills, and I’m thirsty.”
“Now, what are you going to order for dinner? And don’t read the prices when you pick something. Order whatever sounds good, and if it ends up being the cheapest thing on the menu, I’m going to order one of everything just to make sure you get what you really want.”
She laughed. “All right, fine. I promise not to let the prices sway me.”
They ordered, and Liam slid one of the smoothies to Callie. “I think I probably should start with one. Help me not waste it?”
She shook her head but her eyes had a playful spark in them. “Fine. I’ll drink it for you.” She took a sip and then opened her purse and pulled out a folder. “Here are the designs that I have currently, in case you want a visual on what I’ll be trying to sell.”
The professional mock-ups were impressive. He flipped through several sketches, each showing different views and angles of the boldly-colored purses. A few of them were designed using a computer program. He knew enough about accessories from being around Sayler, and these seemed nice. “Impressive. How are you going to market these high-end purses?” he asked.
Her brow wrinkled. “I thought that was what we were going to talk through.”
“Yes, but is your only market the resort audience, or do you plan to expand beyond that—New York or Paris, for example?”
“I think it needs to start smaller than Paris, but if I could get them into worldwide resorts, maybe I could think about other places later.”
“That’s a smart idea. Tell me what you have so far.”
“I was thinking of making certain purses only available at certain locations, to give an exclusivity feel to my line. Then if people are resort members and they travel to different resorts, they will have different options.”
“That might be difficult with a bigger resort line like the Summers. They have over one hundred properties, so having purses exclusive to a certain one would be difficult at first.”
“You’re right, I hadn’t thought through that piece of it. I doubt I’d have stores in every single property. I’m not Vuitton or Gucci.”
“Think outside the box and dream big. Don’t limit yourself right now or compare yourself to big designers, just focus on you and your purses. You could release your purses by season. That would automatically make them exclusive and you wouldn’t have to come up with so many designs.”
She nodded. “First, I have to figure out how to get my purses into the resort stores though.”
“Let’s go over your pitch. What would you say?”
“If you were Mr. Summers?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
For a moment, he wondered if she knew that he really was Mr. Summers. Hearing it from her lips sounded so strange. He liked being just Liam around her. He cleared his throat. “Or if I was in charge of his corporate merchandise.”
She nodded. “Right, it’s not like I’d actually talk with him. I don’t know, I’d probably say something like, ‘You’re going to love these, and I hope you put them in your store. I’ll split the profits with you.’”
He nodded, though it wasn’t convincing him. She’d also have to convince his head of merchandise, and Frank was a tough one to convince on cold calls.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Only if you’re really going to say it like that.” He smiled at her. “But I think you’re on to the right track. Maybe if you talk about your purses and the story behind each design. Talk about the hardship it’s cost you in your life to make t
hese purses because you believe in the product.” Frank did have a soft spot for the story behind the products, but he’d made the Summers stores successful, so Liam’s uncle hadn’t questioned the methods.
Suddenly Callie’s eyes filled with tears. She grabbed her napkin off her lap to dab them away.
“What did I say?” he asked.
“I … I just don’t know if I can talk about the hardship.”
“The story for another day,” he said. Crap, he felt like an idiot for bringing it up, but Frank was always impressed by a story. His resorts were about people creating new dreams and new stories, going to new places and trying new foods. “You don’t have to share it. Let’s think of something else.”
She bit her lip. “I want to tell you the story. I told you I’d tell you over dinner. Maybe you could tell me if it’s a story worth telling.”
He leaned forward, not taking his eyes off her. “You have my undivided attention.”
“About three years ago, I met Michael. He was handsome and charming and very attentive. He said he loved business, and I told him about my purse designs. Over the next six months, we dated, talking business almost every time. I guess I should have seen some of the warning signs, but we dated for a full six months before he asked if I was interested in investing some of my money.”
“And you gave him everything and he lost it all.” Liam finished the story. What a jerk.
“No. I only gave him a little money. A thousand dollars. He invested it, and within a month I had fifteen-hundred.”
Liam didn’t like where this story was going. “What happened next?”
“It went on like that for another six months. I’d give him a little money, and I always earned a high amount. I asked him if he ever wanted a cut from it, you know, he was helping me out and making me money, but he assured me that he loved me and didn’t want to bring money in between us.”
“And you believed him.” His heart began to ache more for her.
“I didn’t have any reason not to believe him. I thought we were in love.” She shook her head and sniffed. “It was stupid. It wasn’t love, but I was caught up in it. He traveled a lot for work. Sometimes he’d take off unexpectedly, but I was busy making plans for my purse line, and by this time, my nest egg had grown considerably. I was able to focus all of my energy on getting this business off the ground. I only worked part-time just to keep insurance.”
“Makes sense,” Liam said. “If you’re doing well, it’s natural that you wanted to pour more of your time into building your business.”
Callie nodded. “Around that time, about a year ago, Michael came to me and asked if I wanted to invest more. He said there were some deals but they required a lot more resources to get the returns. He knew how much I had, and he said that half of my money would be enough to triple my earnings.”
“A gambler?” Liam had had several friends who’d lost everything because of gambling. Smart people who’d been sucked into the allure of easy ways to make money.
“He was a lot of things. I hesitated a little bit about it. I said I needed to think things over for the weekend. Two days later, he proposed. I accepted and things were going well. He didn’t mention the deal again with the money. We were planning our wedding. I’d made a lot of the arrangements, and he said he wanted to elope and get married on a beach, then have a honeymoon in paradise.” Callie choked up.
Liam reached his hand across the table and covered her trembling one. The sparks of electricity between them flew around him, and he couldn’t ignore the energy between them. She was opening up to him a lot, but he didn’t want to focus on the distraction of his attraction to her right now.
The food came and the waiter only gave a quick glance at Callie before asking them how the food looked.
“It looks good, thank you,” Liam said.
Callie nodded her approval in the waiter’s direction.
Once the waiter left, Liam took a few bites and waited until Callie had eaten some food before he asked the only question on his mind. “Did you get married?”
“Thankfully, no. But three months into our engagement, he asked what we should do for the investment opportunity. He was aloof and nonchalant about the whole thing. We didn’t have joint bank accounts or anything, and he was still traveling half of the time, but I thought maybe it’d be a good idea to invest. He was sure about it, and said he was going to put in seventy-five percent of the money for it. I told him that we should split it 50/50.” She covered her face with her hand. “I was such an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. Some people are conniving jerks.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She took another bite of her food. “I thought I knew him and I trusted him so implicitly and he wasn’t who I thought he was at all.”
Liam felt like he’d been punched in the gut. It wasn’t that he was lying to her on purpose to rip her off, but he felt the weight of her words and each one of them stung. He ate his food, trying to cover up the feeling that grew in the pit of his stomach.
She continued, “So, he took the money, and then he went on a business trip. At the time, I was so busy with all of my plans, and by this point I’d saved over $100,000. He came back once, said we could make a little more if we had just a little extra to invest, but his money was all tied up in stocks. I was busy at the time, and in love and not thinking, and I told him to add in what he needed and gave him access to one savings account.” She looked down at her plate, pushing her food around with her fork.
“Within two weeks, all of my accounts were overdrawn, my credit cards were maxed out and a second mortgage was taken out on my house. I thought it was some kind of glitch on the website, but when I went into the bank, they accused me of helping Michael with the fraud. I couldn’t get any of it back and I was under investigation. Once they cleared me of the charges, my house was repossessed, and my work had to let me go. That was six months ago, and I came here, hours from where I used to live so that I could start over and not be reminded of it.”
Liam listened as she told her story of betrayal. An ex who was the scum of the earth and how he’d ripped off her bank account and then skipped out. But when she stopped speaking, she looked like a weight had been lifted from her.
“I’m sorry you went through all of that,” he said. “Can anything be done to recover your money?”
She shook her head. “Thanks to some of my leads, they were able to find him and arrest him. But the money is gone. The bank was sympathetic to me, but there wasn’t anything they could do because I knowingly gave him access to my account.”
Callie blinked harder and focused on the food on her plate as she continued, “My credit cards were thankfully reported as stolen so I don’t have to pay that back, but everything else I was liable for. I sold the engagement ring he gave me, well, I tried to, only to find out that it was a really good fake. That was one way to describe the whole three years—just a really good fake.” She met his eyes again. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to about this, so sorry, apparently I’m not as over it as I thought.”
“You can tell me anything. We’re friends.”
Her face brightened for the first time since she began her story. “I’m glad we’re friends. Thank you. I’ve found such good friends at The Hideaway. But with all of the other employees, I’ve never felt like I could share this. Mostly, I’ve tried to get over all of it and my poor judgment.”
He pushed back the guilt that began to rise. He wasn’t trying to deceive her, but he had to stay undercover until he finished the obligations stipulated in the will.
“So, the way I see it, I have about five more years of working to save up, and not take any too-good-to-be-true investment offers, to make half of my money back. At that point, I can at least pitch the idea.”
“What if you were to pitch the idea now—without the money, just the idea—and get someone to financially back the project?”
“I’ve thought about that … dreamed about it, actually.
But I can’t get any business loans right now, and I wouldn’t want to. I closed down all of my accounts and reopened new ones at a different bank. I doubt with everything that’s happened that I could even qualify for a loan. I haven’t even tried. And with how much I work, I don’t have the time to find someone to sponsor it.”
“I could sponsor it. I have some money saved.” Why did he say that? He needed to be careful with how much he revealed. She didn’t think he had a lot of money, and that probably worked in his favor right now.
She shook her head. “I know you’re not Michael, but I’ve learned my lesson—there are no shortcuts. I’ll make this succeed with hard work and determination. I can’t take handouts from anyone anymore.”
He nodded. “Well, even if you don’t try your idea right now, maybe something will come up later and you can make your dreams a reality in less than five years.”
And whether it was the attraction or just his compassion that wanted to see her succeed, something changed for him. He’d talk to Sayler tonight and see what he could do to help Callie. He wanted her to find her happiness.
Chapter 14
Callie woke up with a headache. Had she explained everything about her past to Liam last night over dinner? She’d broken down and been completely unprofessional. Here he was trying to help her with her business plan and she’d blubbered all over the place, almost crying twice.
Liam had been so kind and compassionate. He’d listened to her without judging her, though she judged herself enough. How had she ever been so stupid to fall for Michael and his charming, handsome self? Ugh. It had all been a lie. Everything had been a lie. And Liam had listened to the whole story. Her fingers tingled as she remembered how much she enjoyed the moment when Liam touched her hand across the table. It was a reassuring, friendly thing to do, but she’d felt sparks and fireworks that almost made it hard to continue her story. She had pushed through all the details on autopilot, thinking about how much she loved the feel of his hand.
