The Fake Engagement

“We’ve got to be real with each other, and your job is guaranteed,” he said.

“Yeah, but only if I stick with being your fiancée. Not that there’s any kind of pressure.”

He sighed. “There’s no pressure. My folks, if not my brothers or my sister, are going to ask these kinds of questions. It would be nice to know what you’d say.”

She turned a little toward him.

He had never noticed the sharp blueness of her eyes before. They were so clear, such a pretty color. They were not like the ocean at all. They were far more mesmerizing than the waves.

“When we don’t land a client,” she said. “When a deal goes bad, you’re … moody. Not like a petulant child or anything like that, but you’re not happy, and I know you’re not happy, you know.” She sighed. “I think that is the hardest part. I want to help you. It kind of drives the whole feeling of failure up a notch.”

“You can’t control every single part of your life.”

“Exactly, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. Believe me, I do want to, like all the time.” She sighed. “There’s always so much going on. I love that.”

“You love being busy.”

“Don’t you? Back home, I used to work as a waitress in this dying diner. They hadn’t changed their menu in like fifty years. A brand-new diner, one that was willing to experiment, opened up, and there was no one coming to this old diner for days. I think old man Hubert liked that. He wanted to see his diner die. Eventually, he closed up, but I was so bored.”

“You get a job at the new diner?”

“No, I went away to college after that,” she said with a smile. “I’m a loyal person. I wouldn’t work for a rival diner. I wouldn’t work for a rival firm either, Preston. In case you were ever worried about that.”

He put his hand on top of hers. “I don’t think I’ve earned such loyalty.”

“It doesn’t matter if you earned it or not. I’m giving it. You do good work.”

“You think buying companies, breaking them down, building them up, or completely removing them is good work?” he asked.

“Okay, fine. Not everything you do is good work. I imagine you have a reason for it. You do keep good companies though. You can’t deny that.”

He sighed. “Can I be honest with you?”

“I’m your fake fiancée. If you can’t be honest with me, who can you be honest with?”

“There are times I hate my job,” he said.

She frowned. “Preston, you created this company. How can you hate it?”

“Back home, I watched my dad sink good money into bad businesses all because he didn’t want to see them go under. Rather than tell the people who owned them that they needed to adapt their business model, or just close the shit down. I would get angry because he didn’t give them the truth. He allowed them to believe they had a great company. I decided that when I was old enough, I was going to make the right decisions for each company. I’d assess whether it was viable to keep it or to throw it away. Sometimes, the best thing about a company is the people within it. Their ideas need to be protected.”

“You saying that makes me think of Mackenzie. Doug’s Advertising has been taken over. In the next few weeks, she will get to find out if she’s being replaced.”

“There’s always a job for her at our place,” he said.

She laughed. “Mackenzie would hate it. Deep in her core, she’s an artist. Working in corporate would kill her.”

“I’ll find a place for her to thrive.”

“Thank you.” Eliza put her other hand on top of his. “You know, your dad isn’t wrong to keep on investing in places. You probably don’t want to hear it, but there was a time when each company was doing well. It’s why they become lifelong names, especially in small towns. Big business infects small towns, drives the small shop away, and in doing so, you lose something.”

“Is this how you tell me you hate my company?” he asked.

“I don’t hate it because in the companies you save, you don’t make the changes on the inside. You spruce it up a little, provide the necessary training and services to the staff, and you help to build it up. You’re more like your father than you probably realize.”

He couldn’t deny that his father was a good man.

They sat in silence.

Preston reflected on the arguments he had with his father growing up. The old DIY place, he’d been so angry when his father had invested yet thousands of more dollars into nothing.

“And what, you think our town isn’t worth it? You think the people who call themselves Westcliffe Heights isn’t worth it?”

“Dad, you are wasting good money after bad. If he can’t stay afloat, then tell him to sell his business. There is plenty of investment—”