Shit… it was freaking frigid out. I should have thought to grab my coat. I hugged my arms into my body and shivered.
“Here,” a low, feminine voice said beside me. I glanced to my left to find Helena sitting in a chair on the deck, smoking a cigarette. She had her fur coat on, and a blanket draped over her lap. Lifting the blanket up, she extended it toward me. “I’m almost done and you need it more than me.”
“Thank you,” I said and took the blanket from her, wrapping myself inside it.
“It’s stifling in there, huh?” she asked.
I nodded. “A little, yeah.”
Helena looked glamorous. Her sleek blond hair and professionally applied makeup looked like she had just stepped out of a perfume ad. She wore a dark green dress and a fur coat over top. Pulling the cigarette to her lips, she took a long drag between her scarlet painted lips and released the ring of smoke into the frigid night air.
“I hate these events,” she said in a strange moment of honesty. I wasn’t sure what to make of her right now.
“Really? You seem so poised.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t good at them. It’s why men like Chris ask me to come.”
Men like Chris… or Chris specifically? “Did he ask you to come tonight?” I gulped, not expecting her to have brought him up so quickly.
She smiled in a sweet, lovesick way that I knew all too well. I wore that same smile earlier this morning, right here in this very house. “He didn’t have to. He and I have this connection. Plus… there’s going to be a motion tonight to vote me onto the board.”
The air punched painfully from my lungs. Helena was joining StoryBook’s board? Did that mean I would have to work with her… that Chris would have to work with her, see her regularly?
Helena tilted her head, sizing me up. It was a practiced art form, and though it seemed harmless, I knew better. She was like a cat—delicate and beautiful, but also cunning enough to know to wait for the right moment of attack. One moment, you thought you were friends, and the next, you had bloody scratch marks down your arm.
“I’m actually surprised to see you here tonight,” she said and ashed her cigarette onto the ground. “Do they usually invite their hourly employees to board meetings?”
I stood taller, and even though my stomach was quivering, I kept my voice eerily steady. “I can’t speak for all their store managers, but they’ve invited me in the past. Is this your first meeting?”
She gave a short, huffy hmm that released through her nose with her exhale. “I’ve seen you before somewhere,” she said, avoiding my question.
I nearly rolled my eyes, but suppressed the urge. “Yeah… today. At the store.”
She shook her head. “No, not just today. Your picture… it’s up in the corporate office as Employee of the Year.” She dropped her ear to her shoulder and tutted her tongue, pouting. “That’s sweet. Did you get a plaque for your wall, too? An extra week of unpaid vacation?”
There was nothing overtly wrong with her words. If you had a transcription of this conversation, on paper, she would seem friendly. Like we were just two people at a party, making small talk. But the condescending tone and the narrowing of her eyes that didn’t quite allude to a smile, but rather a sneer… I knew better. And she knew just what she was doing.
I will not let her get to me.
I did get a plaque, actually, not that I was going to admit that to her. “I got a raise,” I said, which was also true. “I also got shares of the company. And I earned respect from my boss. He’s treated me like an equal ever since.” Jack started listening to me after I earned Employee of the Year. Because in my first 12 months of working for StoryBook, I tripled his net income for our location. He took a chance on a scrappy, young employee and thankfully it worked out for both of us.
Helena stood and it wasn’t until I was right beside her that I realized just how tall she was. Good lord… was she 5’10”? 5’11”?
“The thing is, though, Amy—”
“Avery,” I snapped, correcting her. “But I’m pretty sure you knew that already.”
“—you’re not their equal. At the end of the day, all those people in there will go home to their mansions. They’ll go back to their office buildings where they earn six and seven figures. And you’ll still be here… in a town no one’s heard of, running a small shop, working like a little elf to add to the pot of money that funds their lifestyle.” She huffed a laugh; a sound that was anything but joyful. “The Pohle’s don’t see you as family… they see you as a cog in their machine.”
She flicked her cigarette between two manicured fingers off the edge of the deck and turned to go inside, but just as her hand hovered over the doorknob, she paused and turned back to look at me once more.
The world went watery as I stared at her cigarette, the orange embers sizzling against the wet snow, extinguishing.
Do not cry in front of her…
“I know I sound harsh, but trust me. I’m doing you a favor.”
The thing was… she was right. I knew it deep down in my gut.
And that’s why it hurt so damn much.
Chapter 20
Chris
“As you can see on page three of the printouts, with modest capital expenditures to expand Maple Grove’s StoryBook Christmas store—the creation of Santa’s workshop and Mr. Pohle’s café idea—we project a double-digit return on our investment and thirty percent NOI growth for this location by this time next year.”
I was in total awe as I turned to page three as she instructed. When in the hell did she have time to make this binder and print up nearly twenty copies for everyone? I was with her almost nonstop for four days… and even all night last night. I couldn’t help but smile as she finished her presentation and the table clapped for her.
There were a little less than twenty of us at the board meeting tonight and thank God for this incredible dining room that made it the perfect place to not only convene for a meeting, but also eat.
My sister caught my eye and smiled… that was, until Helena cleared her throat, tearing both of our attentions away from Avery and the presentation toward her inappropriately low-cut dress. It looked like she’d gone shopping directly out of JLo’s closet.
“Thank you all so much for your time,” Avery said, ending her presentation.
I stood as Avery took her seat beside me once more. “Thank you, Ms. Pinkerton.” I smiled at her in a way that I hoped maintained the professionalism she desperately wanted from me tonight. But inside, I wanted to draw her into my arms and kiss her.
Across the table from us, Tristan scoffed. “I think these projections are a little unrealistic.”
“Oh?” she asked. Though outwardly she seemed calm, I’d grown to know Avery so well in these last few days, and I could see from the way she twitched her head slightly and sucked the insides of her cheeks in… his question annoyed her. “How so?”
“Double-digit returns? Most retail expansions are lucky to break even in their first year, let alone turn any sort of profit. It seems naïve and maybe a bit obtuse.”