“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 thankingyou. 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?”
