Sideways

by Lisa Hughey

  He wanted to let her off the hook but…she’d hurt him. And it really didn’t matter to anyone, except him. “Why did you stick around so long?”

  “My father’s communication director wanted me out of sight.”

  He rejected that answer. She could have gone home at any time. “You always listen to him?”

  “He was my boss.”

  “Was?”

  “I’m quitting.”

  Tracy

  Tracy was going to throw up.

  Before she arrived back at the cabin, she’d held out a small hope that maybe they could work things out. That he would understand the rock and hard place that she’d been in and they could move forward together.

  That his talk of her being good for him wasn’t just talk. That he would stand with her.

  But since she’d come inside the cabin he’d been distant and forbidding. She couldn’t blame him. She understood and still her heart was crumbling.

  “I guess I’ll…go.” She gestured to her bag in the corner. “I’ll do one final pass and then get out of your hair.”

  She made a circuit around the small cabin. Surreptitiously she tucked his John Deere cap in her bag.

  While she looked around for her stuff, she waited for him to ask her to stay. To say don’t go. If he gave her any encouragement, she would fall to her knees in gratitude and promise to take the next fifty years to make it up to him.

  “That would be best.”

  With those quiet words, her heart broke the rest of the way. She should have known that he wouldn’t stick around.

  That fantasy of him, of them, that she’d built up in her mind was just that. A fantasy. Fairy tales didn’t exist. At least not for someone like her. Maybe she’d used up all her good karma with her ancestry. She was destined to be alone. Never trusting anyone enough to let them in. She’d trusted him and look where it got her. Her heart was broken.

  “Question.”

  She whirled around, a small hope in her heart. “Yes?”

  “Fairy Tale Beginnings is you.”

  She loved that he got that it was her. “Yes.”

  “All those times you connected other diners, the employees, whoever, was Tracy.” Colt continued to analyze her actions dispassionately. “You didn’t just connect people romantically. You put together those hikers.”

  “Sure. I love connecting people.” It was what she’d done since she was a kid.

  “So why haven’t you ever tried to match yourself with anyone?” Colt studied her. “You couldn’t find the right person?”

  “I didn’t use my app.” Tracy shrugged. Told the absolute truth. “I could never be completely honest. That didn’t seem right. How could I have a relationship when I was holding back an event that shaped everything about me?”

  “Yet you didn’t feel the need to be honest with me either.”

  Her heart dropped. She had been more honest with him than with anyone. But her secrets had the ability to hurt him. He’d told her how much he hated the spotlight, hated fame. And to protect herself she had withheld a crucial piece of information.

  Sure, she’d tried to step back, but she hadn’t tried that hard. Yearning for the connection that they’d had, thrilled when he’d pursued her. Because no one had ever wanted her just for her. There were always family considerations, family connections, in play when she met someone.

  “I wanted to.” But she’d feared exactly this. That he would turn away from her once he knew who she was, once he knew who her family was. She’d been more honest with Colt than with anyone else. Ever. Even her friends didn’t know about her parents. But telling him that now would give him ammunition. Would give him more information to use against her if he chose.

  “But did you?” He shook his head. “You’re right.”

  “About what?”

  “You can’t have a relationship based on lies.”

  “If I could go back and have a do-over, I would.”

  “Yeah, well, you can’t go back.”

  It was clear from the finality in his voice that he had no intention of going forward.

  That’s when she knew they were over.

  17

  Tracy

  “You hooked up with Colton Vega?” Her pal Courtney roamed around the living room of her penthouse condo.

  “Um, yes.” Hooked up wasn’t quite how she’d put it. Immersed in, absorbed in, fallen in love with. Those were all terms she would use to describe what happened with Colt. She had fallen in love with him. It only took a few weeks. Hopefully falling out of love would work on a similar timeline. But she wasn’t counting on it.

  “Man, I ate at Vega’s a few years ago.” Courtney twisted the rings on her fingers. “His food was the bomb.”

  Tracy stared out the window, watching a couple walking down the sidewalk of her residential neighborhood. They were wrapped up in each other.

  Why couldn’t she have that?

  Her shoulders slumped.

  Britt sat on the sofa, looking at her with concern. You okay? she mouthed.

  Tracy nodded. She was miserable but she’d get over it.

  Britt and Courtney had met Tracy at the rental car return place where she’d dropped off the small compact. The drive back to Boston and her real life had only taken a few hours. She’d hopped on the highway and been back in the city, leaving Cee-Cee and Vermont behind her.

  “Did he cook for you?” Courtney was a member of the BBC. She designed video games with kickass female lead characters. This week her black hair had bright pink streaks.

  “Yes.” And it had been amazing. Whatever else happened, she had helped him overcome his reluctance to get back in the kitchen.

  “Court, maybe we should talk about something else,” Britt said.

  “Wow. Okay, you’re sad. I’ll quit talking about how amazing his food is.” Courtney gave Tracy a hug. Beneath her tough-girl exterior, she was a total marshmallow. “He looked pretty good in that photo.”

  The reporter had snapped a picture of her and Colt before he’d approached her at the bar. He’d posted it without permission. Tracy had already had her lawyer send a takedown notice but who knew if or when it would actually be removed.

  She’d left a message on Colt’s cell phone and apologized. But he hadn’t called back.

  Hopefully after that one incident, the press would leave him alone.

  She’d removed herself from his vicinity.

  “He did.” He’d been in profile. The moment that he’d discovered her secret had been immortalized in print. So that she could look at it and agonize all over again how much she’d hurt him. She was stupid but she’d saved the image to her computer.

  She didn’t have any pictures of him. Or them together. Except that one. Of course, that wasn’t a bad thing. She didn’t need to be mooning over his photo and wishing things could be different.

  “Screw him if he doesn’t appreciate you.” Courtney made a slashing motion with her hand. But Tracy knew that was her frustration with her own man problems rather than any animosity toward Colt.

  “He’s a really good person.” Tracy felt the need to defend him. “I lied to him. And he isn’t interested in the notoriety and scrutiny my family would bring.”

  “You are not your family,” Courtney shot back.

  No. But the truth was more complicated than that. “He’s a good person,” she reiterated. Apparently, she just wasn’t the right person for him.

  “What can we do to make it better?” Britt asked.

  She loved her friends. Solidarity. “Stop talking about it?” Tracy said desperately.

  “Dude, we could talk about your business instead.” Courtney plopped on the traditional French settee next to Tracy. “Now I understand why you kept trying to get me to try it out.”

  Courtney had her own guy problems. And Tracy didn’t see them getting better any time soon.

  “Tell us all about your brush with country life and living like the average person.”

 
She knew Courtney was trying to tease her out of this funk, but that just made Tracy want to cry as well. “I had no idea how hard it would be for the average person to come up with the Fairy Tale registration fee.”

  Britt snorted. “I could have told you that ten grand was way out of reach for most people.” She lived with Pete now but Britt had had her own money struggles last year.

  “I can’t talk about it yet.” It hurt too much.

  “I’ve got an idea.” Britt pulled out a bottle of Dom Perignon. “Let’s get drunk.”

  “Works for me,” Courtney chimed in.

  Britt popped the cork expertly and poured the golden bubbly liquid into several flutes.

  Getting drunk wouldn’t solve her problems, but maybe it would let her forget for just a few hours.

  The next afternoon, Tracy headed to her parent’s house in Wellesley. Once she’d been discovered in Vermont and Colt had cut her loose, there had been no reason to stay.

  Besides, now it was time to home and fight.

  She could have returned sooner. Now she wished she had just left when she had been cleared to come home. She should have left on a high note.

  She hadn’t done anything wrong. Her app worked and matched couples. There was nothing nefarious or illegal about what she did. However, she’d gained valuable insight into the fact that Fairy Tale Beginnings wasn’t accessible to a lot of people. She already started developing ideas to change that on her drive home.

  The mansion had a separate wing that was strictly for her dad’s work. Bernie also had an office in the wing. Tracy stopped in Bernie’s office before going in search of her father. The wall-to-wall carpeting and ornate wood desk with Queen Anne chairs upholstered in a traditional Tudor pattern were all familiar to her. She’d grown up in this office. She looked around fondly, as she mentally said goodbye.

  Bernie was there and they held a quick strategy session. Thomas had agreed to settle with Esme before she revealed the damaging information about her parents’ marriage. Esme had put the registration fee on a credit card and bought clothing and spent money to transform into the ideal woman for Thomas. She wanted reimbursement for her expenses plus extra for the emotional distress of calling off the engagement.

  Tracy had met with Pete and Yolanda this morning and figured out how Esme had cheated the system. Esme had researched Thomas and literally modeled herself into the perfect woman for him. But she’d been unprepared for the commitments that went with being a public servant. She’d thought her life would be all glamorous parties and hanging out with rich people. Instead Thomas had worked eighty-hour weeks, hitting the campaign trail and meeting with voters. He didn’t have much time for fancy parties or the money to spend like Esme expected him to.

  Esme had set up profiles on most of the higher-priced dating sites, trolling for ways to connect with Thomas and other rich and famous people looking for a partner. It was just a coincidence that Esme was matched with Thomas on Tracy’s app.

  Esme’s roommate was one of those people who did internet sleuthing to find obscure people and dox them. She’d dug through the documents and found out that Tracy was the owner of Fairy Tale Beginnings. The roommate was the one who had been pushing hard for Esme to extort money. Esme had leaked that Tracy owned Fairy Tale Beginnings, thinking that divulging that information would spur the Thayer family to pay out more money by showing that she was serious about revealing their family secrets. She wasn’t wrong.

  Apparently, Esme had already moved on to someone more interested in publicity than public service.

  It frosted Tracy that they had paid her. But the decision had not been hers to make.

  Now Bernie said, “We’ve almost got the right angle to use the opposition research on your father’s opponent.”

  “I think we should just defend the app. I already admitted that I made a mistake.” Besides, another story was taking over the news, and the furor around her app and the connection to her father would be dying down.

  She was tired of this. And heartsick.

  She’d been home for all of a day and she was already fed up with having to watch what she said and what she did.

  Not to mention, she had a hangover.

  Everything felt off. She felt like her skin was the wrong shape.

  She missed Colt.

  Bernie wasn’t thrilled that she had spoken with the reporter in the bar. “What’s wrong with you? We set up the entire spin to take care of the fallout,” Bernie chastised her. “I had already prepared a press release and set up a press conference.”

  “The guy was bothering my…friends.”

  “You are more savvy than that.”

  “I was trying to distract him.” Tracy hadn’t been about to let the reporter near Colt. “So he didn’t get close to my friend.”

  “You should have followed protocol.” His next question was cynical. “Besides what friend do you have in Vermont?”

  “The people are really nice and welcoming.”

  “You could charm the stuffing out of anyone.”

  “I did what I could to protect people who were there for me while I lived in Vermont.” She wasn’t sorry. She handed him a sheet of cream stationary paper with her resignation on it.

  “What is this now?”

  “My resignation.”

  “You’re quitting?” Bernie chomped on a cigar, unlit, as he paced around the office. “But, but…”

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him speechless.

  “I have too much going on with my business. Now that my secret is out, I can take a more active role in the day-to-day operations.” She had other plans as well, but she was going to discuss them with her parents first.

  He snorted. “Matchmaking?”

  “Having a healthy, positive, loving foundation is the cornerstone of a stable society.” She shoved his spin back at him.

  “We can talk about this later.”

  Which meant he was going to try to talk her out of it. But he was out of luck. She’d made up her mind.

  Her dad walked into Bernie’s office.

  “How you doing, pumpkin?” Most of the time the silly nickname made her smile. Her dad knew she was an adult, but she would always be his baby girl.

  She’d been holding it together since she’d returned. But when her dad stepped in to give her a hug, all the pent-up sadness escaped. Her despair bubbled up and she couldn’t hold back the sob that erupted from her throat.

  “Hold up now. What’s this?” Her father squeezed her tighter.

  She wrapped her arms around her dad and hung on, tucking her head into the curve of his neck. And she cried.

  “Bernie, give us a few minutes,” her father said quietly.

  “We’ve got the presser in thirty minutes.”

  “I might be a few minutes late.”

  She cried harder.

  Because it had been a long time since her father had put her in front of his work.

  Tracy cried for her thirteen-year-old self who’d been devastated by the shocking knowledge that her parents’ relationship wasn’t a fairy tale. She cried for her adult self who had sabotaged several promising relationships to keep her parents’ secret safe. And she cried for losing the guy who had gotten her to trust him even while she was holding back. She cried for the loss of Colt. She cried for the loss of Cee-Cee, because she freaking loved her alter ego.

  Cee-Cee was the bomb.

  “What can I do to help you?” Her father’s plea made her cry harder. That’s who he was.

  “I’m quitting,” she said into his now soaking wet shoulder.

  “Okay.”

  Tracy heard her mother come into the room, felt the brush of her hand on her shoulder. “You okay, princess?”

  Tracy nodded against her father’s shoulder. “I will be.”

  “That’s my girl,” her dad’s voice rumbled from beneath her ear.

  “We are here for you.” Her mother’s hand on her shoulder felt like acceptance, love.

&nbs
p; She was lucky. Her family loved her and supported her. What about all those people out there who didn’t have the same kind of support system that she did?

  “I’m going to focus more on the offshoot businesses of Fairy Tale Beginnings.” The paperwork to create the engagement and wedding planning arms had been filed.

  “We are so proud of your accomplishments,” her dad said. “But—”

  Tracy stepped back from his arms and wiped away the evidence of her tears. “I should have told you about the business.”

  “Especially since we were blindsided by the news.” Her father frowned. “Even so, my opponent was wrong to criticize you.”

  “Actually, he was correct,” Tracy said firmly. “That’s the next part of the changes I want to make.”

  Her mother raised both eyebrows, a small smile playing on her mouth.

  “I really had no idea how expensive my registration fee was.” Tracy paced around the room. “I’d like to look into either developing a fund that helps people without a safety net or finding existing programs that do just that. And I want the Thayer Family Foundation to put a significant portion of funds into it.”

  She’d learned a lot by living on a waitress salary for a few weeks and she planned to put that knowledge to good use.

  “I was shocked at how little room there was for anything to go wrong,” Tracy explained.

  Her mother was perfectly made up, wearing a Chanel suit in a pale stem green with nude pumps and matching fingernails. Her makeup was done in coordinating colors. She was the epitome of a perfect political wife.

  Maybe her mother had forgotten what life had been like before she’d married her father. And her father had never had to worry about money.

  “And it was just for a few weeks. There are people out there living from paycheck to paycheck and one little catastrophe can bring their whole life crashing down on them.”

  She had listened to her father speak about the average family for years but until she’d actually lived in their shoes she hadn’t grasped the fundamentals of how precarious life could be.

  She was ashamed of the fact that she’d been trying to dump the foundation business off on Esme.