The Christmas Grinch - Rebel Hart Page 0,13

“Is he cute or not?”

I considered it for a moment. That had been my first impression of him, after all. His good looks were kind of impossible not to notice, but they certainly were easier to forget in light of his brooding personality.

“I need the housewares section,” I announced suddenly, desperate to change the subject, which did not go unnoticed by any of them. I scurried off from their teasing giggles and glances. I needed to escape them anyway to buy a few things for them in secret.

The housewares section was one of the best parts of Palmers, with its displays of beds and decked out dining tables. I always liked to circle the place settings, complete with the finest china and linens and very convincing fake foods as an added touch. I always liked to imagine whole families sitting around the table with a perfect home cooked meal, laughing and telling stories, drinking eggnog and decorating cookies.

So to round the corner and see that the usual displays were not there...it was the cherry on top of mountains of disappointment that had been erupting for days.

The racks of bedding and dishes, towels and vases...it all looked no different than it would any other day of the year. In fact, it suddenly looked no different than it would in an ordinary, fluorescent lit supermarket.

I flagged down the first sales associate I laid eyes on. “Excuse me...I was just wondering...what’s going on here? Where are….well, where is everything?” As I waved around the underwhelming display, I noticed the sale signs...which usually didn’t go up until well after the boom of the holiday shopping season.

“Online sale,” she replied. “It’s clearing out a lot of in-store inventory. Would you like to see the ad?”

“No. Thank you,” I murmured, letting her go back to work.

I wasn’t online. I was in the store for a reason, and it was a downright shame to see so much of what captivated in person shoppers ruined by all these changes. Another symptom of Chris Palmer taking over, no doubt.

But then I considered his generally grumpy disposition...the look of stress constantly lingering in the corner of his eyes during the times we met. Was this decision to change so much deeper than I realized? Could it be that Palmers was in real financial trouble?

6

Chris

Pete and I settled into the secret lounge attached to my office - a sitting room with a minibar that had been designed to host more informal meetings. With a business as old and historic as ours, there were plenty of partners and advisors or other men with an interest in Palmers who were both friends and professional affiliates.

Pete Mayer was one of those dual role associates, and also one of my favorite people to consult. His father worked on Wall Street and they owned a considerable amount of stock in Palmers. The father and son team had sold a lot of shares for us too. Pete and I were close in age and grew up with the knowledge that we would one day be expected to attempt and fill our successful fathers’ shoes.

He sat on the couch across from me and listened carefully, swirling a glass of scotch around in his hand.

“Out of all the things I thought I’d be expected to worry about when this time came...My personal opinions on some frivolous holiday was not on the list. Why should how I feel about it even matter? It’s inconsequential to our sales or profits or any of the plethora of other things weighing on me right now.”

“Apparently not,” he said, raising both brows. “Maybe it wouldn’t matter if you were better at masking your true feelings. If you had just put on a smiling face for the girl and lied, you wouldn’t be in this boat.”

“Well, I’m more than happy to do that now...if that’s what it takes.”

He shook his head and took another drink. “Too late for that now. She’s not going to buy it if you pop up with a change of heart all of a sudden. You have to make her think she changed your mind.”

I pulled myself up from the couch and started pacing in front of him, racking my brain for some way out of this. “What do you mean about me masking my true feelings, anyway? So...what, I’m too emotional now?”

Pete burst into laughter so hard he nearly spit out a mouthful of scotch across the floor. “Too emotional!? Hardly! Quite the opposite. I meant you could have pretended