Promising You (The Jade Series #4) (24 page)

“What?” Garret asks. “What will happen?”

Pearce ignores the question. “Arlin, let’s talk specifics later.”

I glance at Garret who seems just as surprised as me that his dad actually wants to do this. I was prepared for him to list all the reasons why it wouldn’t work. But now I’m thinking that maybe it will.
 

18

Everyone’s quiet for a moment and then Arlin says, “If they let your son go, Pearce, they’ll have to find a different way to punish you for what you did to Royce.”

Pearce nods. “Yes. I’m aware of that.”

“Like what?” Garret asks his dad. “What do you think they’ll do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. That’s not a concern right now.”

“There will be other consequences as well.” Arlin turns to Garret. “You’re destroying your reputation by doing this. You won’t be able to take over Kensington Chemical. The board would never allow it.”

“Garret hadn’t planned to do that anyway.” When Pearce says it he doesn’t even seem mad about it. I’m starting to see that Pearce really does want his son to be happy. A few months ago I never would’ve believed that.

Arlin continues lecturing Garret. “Finding any type of job will be difficult with these indiscretions in your past. You may even find it hard to get into an MBA program.”

“I know.” Garret acts like he’s already considered that, but I hadn’t even thought about it.
 

“And you realize that you can’t see Jade while this is going on,” Pearce says. “They might be watching you and being with her would put her in danger. You two will need to pretend to break up and then have limited contact until this is over.”

“So I can’t talk to him?” I ask.

“You can talk to him like you would talk to any other student, but you have to avoid doing anything that would indicate you’re still together. You need to treat Garret like an ex-boyfriend. One who’s seeing other girls and doing things you don’t approve of. This is an acting job. For all of us. I plan to do my part as well.”

“Are you saying I can stay at Moorhurst? You’re not taking my scholarship away?”

“Arlin and I discussed this before you came in and we agreed that sending you home in the middle of the semester would draw suspicion from your classmates, your professors, as well as Frank and Ryan. We think it’s best if you stay at Moorhurst, but pretend that you and Garret are no longer together. And don’t worry about your scholarship. Your tuition, room and board have already been paid through the end of the year. But after this semester, Arlin has asked if he could fund the rest of your education. That’s something the two of you can discuss later.”

I glance at Arlin, then back at Pearce.

“But I thought the organization wanted me to leave. Isn’t that why you were sending me home on Monday?”

“As long as you stay away from Garret, they won’t care that you’re still at Moorhurst. So you need to make it clear to everyone that you’re not dating him and are not even friends with him.”

“Can I tell anyone that we’re not really broken up? Like my friend, Harper?”

“No. This needs to be kept a secret.”

“But Harper will never believe it. And she’ll never believe Garret would do the things he’ll be doing. She’ll ask me tons of questions. Plus, I was thinking we could get some of her film school friends in LA to help us make some fake videos.”

“We have to be very careful about who we let in on this,” Pearce says. “We don’t want Harper interfering so she might need to be told, but we’ll have to devise a story. She can’t know the truth. And we don’t need film school students. I already know people in film production who owe me some favors. In fact, Harper’s father owes me one.”

Pearce knows Harper’s dad? I guess I do remember Garret saying Harper’s parents had been to his house for some fundraisers. But why would her dad owe Pearce a favor? And why is Pearce willing to let Harper’s dad know what we’re doing but not Harper? It’s another one of those things I probably don’t want to know, so I don’t ask. Even if I did, Pearce would never tell me.

We spend the rest of the afternoon brainstorming all the possible ways to make Garret lose public appeal. Pearce comes up with some really good ideas. He’s clearly destroyed people in the past, which is a little disturbing but useful in the current situation. Arlin has some good ideas, too. Garret and I provide all the online and social media ideas since the two old guys aren’t as familiar with how that works, although Pearce is pretty up to date on most of it.
 

When we’re done, I feel a lot more confident. I’m not at all happy about the fake break-up between Garret and me, but I’m willing to do anything to make this work.

“How long do you think this will take?” I ask Pearce.
 

“The public will begin making their judgments about Garret after the first or second incident. We’ll continue to feed the media negative articles, photos, and videos and hopefully, a couple months from now, most people will never want to see or hear another thing about him.”

“And that’s when the organization will make their decision,” Arlin says. “Hopefully, they’ll decide Garret’s not worth the trouble to fix all the problems he’s caused and they’ll let him go.”

There’s some noise in the hallway and I look out thinking it’s Katherine, but it’s the maid. “Is Katherine going to know about this?”
 

“No, I don’t want her involved,” Pearce says. “She left about an hour ago for her parents’ house in New York. She took Lilly with her, so if you’d like to stay here tonight, Jade, you can.”

I almost jump for joy at his invite. Of course I want to stay. If Garret and I have to fake a break-up, this could be our last chance to be together for weeks, or months. Or forever if this plan doesn’t work, but I’m not ready to consider that yet.
 

Garret puts his hand around mine and gives me a sideways glance. We both know I’ll be expected to sleep in the guest room, but that won’t stop me from sneaking down to Garret’s room in the middle of the night.

“I’d love to stay. Thank you, Mr. Kensington.”
 

“You can call me Pearce,” he says. “And I should be thanking
you
. You might’ve just given my son a real life again.”

“She’s a very smart girl,” Arlin says, smiling at me. “But what else would you expect? She is a Sinclair after all.” He gets serious again. “Pearce, we need to discuss what to tell your father. He can’t know about this. He’d never allow it.”

Pearce nods. “Yes, I’ll keep him out of it. I’ll just go back to my role as the father who can’t control his son. No offense, Garret, but your behavior in the past wasn’t exactly something to be proud of.”

“Yeah, I know, Dad.”

“But your past will actually help us now because the people who know you will just assume you’ve gone back to your old ways. We can use your break-up with Jade as the catalyst. Your grandfather won’t suspect a thing, although he will think poorly of you and I know his opinion of you matters.”

“It’s okay. I won’t be bad forever.”

Pearce stands up. “Well, it’s getting late. Should we have some dinner? I thought it would just be me tonight, so I didn’t have Charles make anything. But now that it’s the four of us, I’ll see what he can put together. Jade, do you have any requests?”

“Um, no. Whatever everyone else wants is fine.” I’m surprised he’s asking me that. Does he think I’m a picky eater?

Garret leans over and whispers. “You get to decide because you saved my ass with this plan of yours.”

Pearce is still waiting for an answer.
 

“I could really go for a cheeseburger if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Burgers, huh?” Pearce smiles at me. “I think Charles can handle that. Katherine doesn’t allow hamburgers, so this will be a real shock when I tell him.”

“Katherine says burgers are poor people food,” Garret explains as his dad walks out of the room. “So they’re banned in the house.”

“She banned pancakes, too. You and your dad need to take control of the menu.”

“Poor people food? That’s nonsense,” Arlin says to Garret. “I’m worth more than your father and I enjoy a good burger on a regular basis.”

I turn to Arlin. “That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you have an office in that pharmacy next to The Burger Hut?”

Garret starts laughing.
 

Arlin nods. “Yes, it’s in the back. You were there. That’s where I took you that day you passed out on campus.”

“That’s what I thought. But Garret and I went there later and the pharmacist acted like we were crazy.”

“The employees don’t know it’s there. They think it’s a maintenance closet. Royce made that room into an office last summer. I never understood why he wanted an office in some small town in Connecticut, but now I think he used it when he was here spying on you.”

As he talks about Royce, I realize how strange it is that I’m sitting here with his father, right across the hall from where Royce tried to kill me. Arlin’s son was shot dead in this very house just feet from where we’re all sitting. And now Arlin is going to help Pearce, the man who killed his son, save Garret. It’s all too weird.

“I’ll be right back.” Garret gets up from his chair. “I want to see Charles’ reaction when my dad asks him to make burgers.”

It’s just Arlin and me left in the office which is awkward because I still don’t know how I feel about him.
 

“So, Jade, I talked with my wife and told her you’re willing to meet with her. She was very happy to hear that.” Arlin looks down and smooths his tie. “She’s, uh, well, she’s cried nearly every day since she learned the truth about Royce. I haven’t been able to console her. Grace is usually a very energetic, optimistic person, but after Royce passed, she just hasn’t been herself. Then today, when I called and told her you were willing to meet her, she sounded like my wife again.” He looks up. “Anyway, I appreciate you doing this. I know it might make you uncomfortable and I told her she may only get one meeting with you but—”

I put my hand on his. “Let’s just see how it goes, okay? I was thinking we could meet for lunch. We could schedule it for next week sometime. Do you live around here?”

“Not here in Connecticut, but we have an apartment in Manhattan which is where I’ve been staying all week while I take care of some business. Grace and I actually have several homes but currently we’re living at our home in Florida.”

“Oh. Then we can just have lunch the next time you’re both in town.”

“We have a private plane. We just need to pick a time and Grace and I will fly up for the day.”
 

Garret pops his head in the room. “Charles has the burgers started. He put some appetizers out if you want to come to the kitchen.”

A half hour later, the four of us are eating burgers on fancy china plates in the formal dining room. If only Katherine could see this. I’d love to take a photo right now and send it to her.
 

Pearce has two cheeseburgers because he says it might be the last time he gets to eat a burger in his house. It’s hard to believe how much control Katherine has over him. He doesn’t like her but he’s stuck married to her and for some reason he does what she says, at least when it comes to what they eat.

After dinner, Arlin and I make plans for lunch on Thursday and then he heads back to the city.
 

It’s only 9, but I haven’t slept for two days and Garret hasn’t slept much either, so we decide to go to bed early. Besides, we both know I’ll be sneaking in his room in a few hours and we could use a nap before then.
 

When we get upstairs, his dad is coming down the hall. I head to the guest room I’ve stayed in before and Garret goes to his room, which is at the very end of the hall.
 

Pearce stops me at the door to my room. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to bed. I know it’s early, but I’m really tired.”

“You’re not staying with Garret?”

I stare at Pearce like I heard him wrong. I glance down the hall and see Garret standing outside his door looking back at his dad.

“What?” Pearce smiles. “You think I don’t know what goes on in the middle of the night?” I blush what I’m sure is a shade of bright red. “Just go down there, Jade.”

“But I wasn’t going to—”

“You haven’t seen each other in a week and the next few months you’ll have to spend apart.” He motions to the end of the hall. “Go stay with Garret. I’m sure you two will just watch some TV and go to bed, right?” He’s trying not to laugh.

“Come on, Jade,” Garret calls out. “Let’s watch TV.”

My face is now burning hot. It’s not like Pearce doesn’t know his son and I are having sex, but the fact that he acknowledged it right in front of us is so embarrassing.

“Goodnight, you two.” Pearce turns and goes downstairs. I hurry to Garret’s room, shut the door, and collapse on the bed.

“I can’t believe your dad just said that!”

“You’re bright red.” Garret’s laughing at me. “It’s not a big deal, Jade. We’re adults.”

“Yeah, but parents are supposed to ban it under their own roof. You have to be married before they let you sleep in the same room. It’s in the parent handbook.”

“These are special circumstances. Like he said, we can’t be together until this is over.”

I groan. “I feel like I’ve been given a conjugal visit or something. Your dad was basically telling us to do it! He probably thinks we’re doing it right now!” I flip on my stomach and bury my face in the pillow.

“You’re getting too worked up about this.” Garret continues to laugh at me. I feel the mattress sink in as he lies beside me. “Jade, are you falling asleep?” He rubs my back.

“Yes,” I mumble, my voice muffled by the pillow.

“Do you want one of my t-shirts to sleep in?”

I lift my head up. “Crap! I don’t have pajamas. Now your dad will think I’m sleeping naked in here. That’s just great!” I fall back into the pillow.

“I’m sure he’s not thinking about that.” Garret moves my hair aside so he can see my face. “Can I at least have a kiss goodnight?”

I flip over on my back and see him propped up on his forearm, gazing down at me, his aqua blue eyes no longer red and groggy but gorgeous and inviting. His hand rests on my stomach as he leans down and kisses me.