Unbelievable

by Callie Harper

  “You’ve been preoccupied lately.” He attempted to soothe me, offering me a drink which I declined. “You’ve had a lot on your mind. And you’ve got an interesting distraction, I agree.”

  “I assume you’re referring to Caroline.” My hands balled into fists at my side. But Leonard surged forward, blindly unaware or too sure of himself to worry about the strength of my anger.

  “A nice handful, I agree—”

  “Don’t you fucking talk about her like that.”

  “This isn’t a bar brawl, Colton.”

  “Then don’t make it one.”

  He took a step back, sipping his drink, surveying me, slightly more attentive now. “You don’t think it’s possible that this girl’s…ample charms are distracting you from taking the best course of action? Surely you’re a better businessman than that. You wouldn’t let a nice pair of tits—”

  My fist landed square along his jaw before I gave it a moment’s thought. His drink went flying and he landed down on one knee, swearing loudly.

  “Get out!” I thundered, done with him. “Get the fuck out of my company. I should have done this years ago. The day I became CEO.”

  “You can’t do this.” He struggled to his feet, rubbing his jaw, anger and pain contorting his face.

  “I just did.” I walked over to the door of his office and opened it. I didn’t care who the hell heard me. I’d spent too long with this viper in our midst. Following my father’s advice to keep him close, I’d empowered him, given him leeway to do as he saw fit. But now he’d gone too far.

  “You’re making a big mistake.” He started toward the door, pulling himself together. “I’m going to sue you so fucking hard—”

  “Get. The fuck. Out.” I glared at him and he glanced nervously at my fist, balled up again and ready.

  “All for a piece of ass,” I heard him mumble to himself, straightening out his tie and trying to affect his typical strut away from me down the hallway. I let him go. He could talk tough, but he’d be doing it from outside the walls of my empire.

  I made a few calls, informing the chair of the board and our legal team about my decision, then checking in once again directly with the head of the crew on the ground in Redwood Bay. All work had ceased.

  So that part was taken care of. But the damage had been done. Caroline’s bakery had been torn to the ground. All while she’d been out visiting me.

  Sneaky bastard. Leonard had probably made the call the minute he’d confirmed Caroline was out of town. I was surprised he hadn’t done it while we’d been lost at sea. I was sure he’d been hoping I’d be out of the picture for good. Now that I was, unfortunately for him, alive and back at the helm he’d waited for a moment when he could seize the reigns without detection.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this. I knew he’d let “mistakes” happen on other projects, simply asserting the dominance of our interests and then letting the legal battles sort themselves out. His winner-take-all approach had served our company well, and I’d turned a blind eye. Until now.

  Back in my office, I fixed my own drink, sipping it as I paced. I knew a man’s worth wasn’t measured in how he strove for perfection. It was how he dealt with disaster once it had struck. And learned from past mistakes.

  Back in that plane, I should have been more vigilant on the flight. I shouldn’t have sat there with Caroline, enjoying the feel of her sleeping at my side, allowing a dozy warmth to steal over my senses as well. But I had, and our pilot had had a heart attack and we’d required a water landing. I’d maneuvered our way thorough that disaster, steering our way to safety and keeping us alive on a deserted island for five days.

  Surely I could see the way through this disaster, too. When compared side by side, a bulldozed building was a lot less life threatening. Though honestly at the moment it felt much worse.

  What Caroline must have thought when she arrived to see the rubble. I groaned, rubbing my forehead. Her brief, clipped phone call informing me of the mess had been one of the worst in my life. It would have been better if she’d yelled at me, railed away, screaming and weeping and calling me names. Instead, she’d kept her cards close to her chest, her emotions pulled in tight.

  “Your construction crew got right to work while I was out of town,” she’d said. She wasn’t having it, any of my bewildered confusion, my claims of not knowing anything about it.

  “You’ll be hearing from our lawyers.” She’d ended the conversation, no longer referring to herself in the first person. She was now a part of the team unified against me. And I wasn’t a person anymore, either, I was seamlessly one with Kavanaugh Investors, The Enemy.

  No, words weren’t going to fix this one. Denials of responsibility and offers of compensation weren’t going to be enough. I needed to act, and I needed to act fast. Good thing I was a fast-acting, fast-moving kind of guy. I knew exactly how to spring into action when duty called. And it was calling, loudly.

  CHAPTER 20

  Caroline

  I know I’d technically been marooned a few weeks ago. But I didn’t actually feel marooned until after my shop got bulldozed to the ground. I hadn’t realized what an anchor my bakery had provided in my life. How much of a source of comfort. Walking in that rickety old door every morning, so early the sun hadn’t even thought to rise yet, that had felt like coming home.

  Now it was gone. And I didn’t even have any solid answers. How had it happened? Whose fault was it? What could be done about it now? I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone. The building owner pleaded completely innocent. He’d been blindsided! But then he didn’t answer any more of my calls. I figured he’d be the first in line to file a lawsuit. Talk about damages—he now had no building from which to collect rent. But he was MIA.

  The insurance company wasn’t much help either. When I’d opened up shop, I’d taken out general liability coverage as well as a business owner’s policy. But I hadn’t exactly purchased the high-end versions. The monthly payments were too high. I still figured something I’d been paying for should offer some coverage for this. But the broker I’d finally managed to get in touch with hadn’t exactly appeared out of thin air to help me like a TV commercial. He’d even seemed to imply that I hadn’t sustained any property damage.

  Except I had no store in which to operate! But it was technically true that the wrecking crew had taken the time to remove my two appliances, the oven and the refrigerator. They’d also thrown my baking sheets and pans and other supplies into moving boxes. They still sat, alongside the cash register, under a waterproof tarp at the site. I knew I should deal with moving them, and I guessed I would eventually, but it felt too damn much like giving up. It would feel like acknowledging defeat, handing over the ground to them. I still felt attached to that pile of rubble and I wasn’t ready to move on yet.

  The town Chamber of Commerce didn’t bat an eye. The environmental protest people were sympathetic, but no coastal lichen had lived in my store. The demolition hadn’t destroyed their habitat. Even the person I figured would be the most outraged, right by my side in the march for justice, the woman who owned Second Time’s a Charm, wasn’t returning my calls.

  It made sense that the empty storefront in between our shops went down without a fight. But the other business owner on our little strip, making not so much as a peep? It didn’t make sense.

  “Something’s up,” I declared. Hannah sat beside me on my couch with a large vat of popcorn, series two of Outlander playing before us on the TV screen. Neither of us had anywhere to work now, so binge-watching a series seemed the only other viable option.

  “I know,” Hannah agreed. “Jamie is acting so weird.”

  “No, I mean why isn’t anyone getting back to us?” My mind never strayed far from the demolition. Hannah did not suffer from a similar problem.

  “Shh, wait.” She shushed me, indicating the need to concentrate on the unfolding drama. I picked up the remote and clicked pause. “What did you do t
hat for?” she asked, pissed.

  “I’ll push play in a sec,” I promised. “But, can you tell me again, when did Joyce call you and tell you to take Sunday off?”

  Annoyed but deferring to my position of power—I held the TV remote in my hand—Hannah ran me through the sequence of events again. Saturday when I’d been in New York, Hannah had finished her shift at five and then received a call at six-thirty informing her she didn’t need to come into work the next day. She could take the day off.

  “Did you ask her why?”

  “No. I was psyched. But she told me anyway. She said she’d decided to take the day to do inventory.”

  “On a Sunday?” I asked, incredulous. Weekends were the busiest days in her shop. “Why would she have closed? She could have done inventory on a Monday when you’re always closed.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to talk her out of it.” Hannah’s hand itched for the remote.

  “It’s weird.” I shook my head.

  “Yup. So can we…?” She pointed her index finger toward the play button. I clicked it on for her, reminding myself Hannah hadn’t suffered the loss I had. She was just an employee. I was an owner.

  And it seemed like the other owner in question had gotten some advance warning. I hadn’t noticed a pile of boxes under a tarp at her site. Where had all the clothing gone to? She must have packed it all up on Sunday, boxed up shop and moved it to another location. And she must have had help to do it. Not her regular help or she would have asked Hannah. She’d had others come in. Like people who worked for Kavanaugh Investors.

  Another surge of anger pulsed through me and I stood up. “I’m going to go for a walk!” I announced. We’d been sitting on the couch for hours. I had too much restless energy.

  “But it’s getting so good!” Hannah didn’t even turn away from the screen.

  “I’ll catch up later.” I pulled on some sneakers and a light jacket and headed out the door. A brisk walk always cleared my mind.

  But even the exercise didn’t work today. I couldn’t stop thinking about Colt. Maybe I should call him again? We’d spoken exactly twice since Demolition Monday. That was five days ago. I’d called him from the site, tears streaming down my face but my voice tight and controlled. And I’d taken his call later that day, as well. But that had been the last one.

  I’d spoken words I couldn’t even really follow up on. Our lawyers would get in touch with his. It was something I’d heard in a movie sometime.

  As if. I’d assumed I’d have others wanting to fight this fight along with me, other interested parties and together we’d mount a legal defense. But alone? How was I supposed to scrape together legal fees? And I didn’t even know who to go to. Should I google “reliable attorney” and see what I came up with in the area? And it didn’t take a genius to figure Colt’s billion-dollar enterprise probably had a pretty strong legal team associated with it. He probably knew half of them from his days at Harvard.

  I hated him so much. If only I could keep that thought at the forefront of my brain at night, too. During the day I had enough to keep me busy and enough reminders of his betrayal it wasn’t too hard. And if I felt myself wavering, I could always drive over and go visit the rubble. Or I could call up my mother. She loved trashing Colt.

  I clicked on her name in my phone, putting in my earbuds so I could walk while we talked.

  “How’s my baby?” she asked. So affectionate since I’d gone down in that plane crash.

  “All right. I’m taking a walk. I’m frustrated, though. I’m not getting any answers about my store.”

  “Those corporate assholes are all alike!” She launched into her rant, as expected. “Every single one of them is on the take!”

  “I think they might have given the other business owner in our strip advance warning.”

  “They might have.” She warmed instantly to the idea. She’d never met a conspiracy theory she didn’t like. “They probably didn’t even try with you because they knew you couldn’t be bought.”

  “It would have been nice if they’d tried!” I joked. Mostly joked. If Joyce had gotten tipped off and maybe even paid off, that would explain why she wasn’t up in arms. I’d be a lot less upset if I had money on hand to start up in a new location.

  “Swines, all of them!” I could picture my mom sweeping her hand expansively over her head as she spoke. “You should come here and live with us for a while. Take yourself out of the dog-eat-dog world.”

  “Don’t think so, Mom. Thanks.” I’d visited them at the nudist colony for artists once. I’d regretted it ever since. Some images could not be unseen.

  “There’s a man out here we’d love you to meet. He’s a potter. You should see his work.”

  “Does he wear any clothes?” I already knew the answer. I couldn’t shake the visual of a guy working at a spinning potter’s wheel naked. Couldn’t that get dangerous? Dangling bits and all?

  “He’s free from the constraints of conventional society, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Oops, sorry, got to go, thanks!”

  I ended the call with my mom, wondering if maybe I should have called Colt instead. At least he wouldn’t have tried to set me up with a nude potter. Although a nude potter probably wouldn’t have bulldozed my store to the ground. Maybe I needed to rethink my value system.

  When I returned, Hannah was still glued to the couch. But she directed my attention over to the kitchen counter. “I signed for you!”

  I had a FedEx delivery, signature required. Inside I found a handwritten note from Colt, inviting me to a Monday morning meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. “Please come,” he urged me. “You need to hear this.”

  Grumbling, I resisted the temptation to ball it up and throw it out. Or feed it into a paper shredder, that would be satisfyingly symbolic. Only we didn’t have a paper shredder. And I wondered, what was this meeting on Monday? I guessed I’d have to find out.

  §

  Colt was already there when I walked into the room. I didn’t make eye contact. But I didn’t need to, to feel his presence. I remembered how when I’d first met him he’d reminded me of Superman, that dark hair with the bright blue eyes and strong chin. Hadn’t Superman had x-ray vision, too? I could sure feel the intensity of his gaze, like he was looking right through my clothing.

  I sat down, and thankfully Hannah was with me, as was Joyce her boss.

  “Where have you been?” I whispered to Joyce, leaning toward her.

  “Busy,” she answered, vaguely. If you searched for images of “guilty” online, a picture of her face would come right up. She looked miserable. Conspiracy theory suspicions confirmed.

  “Thank you all for joining us here today.” Some man in a suit I’d never seen before stood at the front of the room to address our group of fifteen or so attendees. The environmental protesters, some town politicians plus the few, the sad, the displaced: us small business people.

  “We’ve got a lot to cover, so I’ll jump right into it.” He introduced himself as a partner in the new architectural firm in charge of the project. And then he unveiled the plans to open a world class eco-resort right here in Redwood Bay. Kavanaugh Investors had secured a partnership with an aquarium to open a coastal satellite, complete with interactive features like tide pooling and scuba diving.

  “It’s the next big thing,” he told us, “the nexus of recreation and conservation.” A portion of all revenue generated through stays at the resort would be donated to sustainable seas. Guests would also have access to all of the luxuries of a five star resort, in addition to all of the unique environmental features.

  It sounded amazing. And it had to have taken a lot of work, likely in place before the whole shop-wrecking incident. When had Colt first started the planning process?

  I snuck a glance at him and he was gazing right at me, intent. I looked away again. It was too hazardous. He was too hot. And I still felt way too much for him, all my emotions right at the surface, positive
and negative all duking it out.

  “And for those of you involved with the unfortunate incident last week, the small business owners of Redwood Bay. We’d like to offer an apology. A sincere one. And more than that, we want to help you rebuild your businesses.”

  A collective gasp ran through the room as he began projecting images onto the screen behind him. A showroom straight out of a SoHo boutique, gleaming hardwood floors and lighting and space to spare. A bakery as clean, bright and inviting as any I’d ever seen with a state-of-the art kitchen.

  The presentation ended to resounding applause. He’d definitely won over the crowd. Personally, I felt too confused to make sense of anything.

  The architect promised us many more opportunities for input into the planning, as well as the build phase of the proposed projects. Next steps were agreed upon. Hands were shaken. I sat dazed in my seat.

  “I’m sorry, Carrie. I thought they’d called you, too, before demolition started.” Joyce leaned over to me before she stood to leave the room. “I felt awful when I saw all your stuff boxed up under that tarp.”

  “No, no one called to warn me.” I said it to her, but I looked over at Colt. He heard me, too. And he winced.

  The two of us sat as everyone else stood and filed out. Hannah left, too, after giving me, then Colt, significant glances.

  As soon as the last straggler left the room, Colt spoke. “It never should have happened, Caroline. I’ve been sick over it. I had no idea they were going to demolish your store.”

  I could feel relief coursing through me. Slowly. My trust in him had taken quite a hit. But this presentation went a lot further to restore it than his confused words over the last week.

  “You’re going to build me a new store?”

  “The store of your dreams.”

  I nodded, starting to believe it. “So what do we do next? Where do we go from here?” I’d had the store in mind as I’d spoken, but the minute the words were out of my mouth they took on a whole new meaning. What was our future, exactly?