The Plan Read online

  The Plan

  Jenn Faulk

  Copyright © 2016 Jenn Faulk

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  Other Jenn faulk books

  Resolutions

  Different Stars

  Just Breathe

  Best Day Ever

  Even Still

  Ready or Not

  A Little Faith

  Promises Kept

  Beyond the Game

  Just Friends

  A New Tune

  Pure Fiction

  Home to You

  Something Better

  From Here on Out

  Anywhere

  Happily Ever After

  Perfectly Pretend

  Take Heart

  So like Us

  Christmas Surprises

  Tis the Season

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  1

  Chapter Two

  53

  Chapter Three

  99

  Chapter Four

  131

  Chapter Five

  186

  Chapter Six

  240

  Bonus Material

  280

  For news on new books and giveaways, connect with Jenn at…

  Blog - www.jennfaulk.com

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  CHAPTER one

  Eli

  He was going to be rich.

  Filthy, gloriously, supremely rich.

  He looked over the signed contract one last time, a serious, contemplative expression on his face, one that would befit a tycoon of his standing, strong and capable, emotionless and detached to those beneath him.

  On the inside, though, he was practically doing cartwheels, whooping, and generally acting like a mad fool who was about to get paid.

  "Well, everything looks to be in order," he said soberly, his finger following along the fine print as it had been for the past thirty minutes. "I suppose we can file these then, since the deal has already been made."

  "Already did that, you dunce."

  He lifted his gaze up and across his desk to speculatively eye the brunette who sat sprawled out in one of his chairs, her knees under her chin, where he could see the beginnings of holes in her worn out jeans.

  She grinned at him.

  "How did you already do that if the contract is still here in my hand?" he asked.

  "Technically, it's not in your hand," she said. "It's on your desk."

  "Yes. And already filed, like you said," he noted.

  "The originals are filed," she answered him. "That's a photocopy you have."

  He looked back down at the document, squinting. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm positive," she said, dropping her feet to the ground and leaning over his desk, pointing sharply at the bottom of the first page. "Look at your signature. That's not ink. That's a photocopy. Eli Herbert Lucas." She grinned at him again. "Herbert. I've been working for you for four years, and that never gets old."

  He frowned. "It's a --"

  "Family name," she said, leaning back, one knee coming up again. "I know, I know."

  "Like Charlotte is a better name," he muttered, looking back down at the contract.

  "Shut up," she answered.

  "Are you sure this is a photocopy, because it --"

  "It's the new copier," she said, explaining this away. "Our contract was up with the other company. I found this one. They'd lease us an upgraded machine for half the cost."

  He stared at her. "How did you work that deal out?"

  "By virtue of my sparkling personality," she said.

  Not likely.

  "No, really," he said. "How?"

  "Told the salesman what we do. His daughter is going to have to make an A in geometry next semester to keep from going to summer school and ruining their big travel plans. I told him we could make a deal if he could make a deal," she shrugged. "They're going to Tahiti. Woo, woo."

  She was like that. She could spend five minutes with someone and have their whole life story… and use it to her advantage.

  She was brilliant, quite frankly.

  "You found out all of that, just to get a deal on a copier lease?" he asked, still impressed every time she did something like this, even all these years later.

  She nodded. "Uh... yeah. Isn't that why you hired me?"

  No, honestly.

  He'd hired her to be a tutor four years ago when they'd been undergraduates, back when his tutoring service business was just getting off the ground.

  Seriously. Just getting off the ground, as in he was the only tutor on the payroll he hadn’t even started.

  He could remember the day he met her as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

  Calculus I. He was going to be a math major, and it was a class he wanted to ace so as to get himself preference for the more competitive classes later on.

  He would've aced it... but some other nerd kept screwing up the curve every time they took a quiz.

  Grades were always posted by the last four digits of their social security numbers, and loathsome 8392 was consistently at the top of the list. Perfect scores again and again.

  Eli had despised the guy from the start, and the third test in, just as he was cursing yet another set of scores that 8392 was leading, he'd seen Charlotte.

  She had been turning from the posted scores with a smile on her face. While everyone else had been groaning and moaning, she had been smiling.

  Eli had very nearly gasped. "8392!" he'd yelled at her.

  She'd startled for just a second, then glancing around her, she'd looked back at him. "Yeah?"

  "You keep messing up the curve!" he'd exclaimed, following her as she began to leave the building.

  "Maybe you should study harder," she'd said, her back to him.

  He'd run to keep up with her, to get up close so that he could see her face.

  It wasn’t anything special. In the thousands of undergraduates on campus, she wouldn’t have been one to stand out. Brown hair, blue eyes, perfectly average in every way, just a nameless face in a sea of thousands of others just like it.

  It was entirely possible that they never would have met, if not for calculus.

  "I studied my freakin' butt off for that one,” he said, thinking back to the test. “I just missed one question. How did you get them all right?!"

  "Because I'm smart," she'd said slowly, condescendingly. The nerve. "And I've got a scholarship I've got to keep."

  He'd understood that. He could relate. He was trying to keep his own scholarships.

  And then, he was trying to keep up with her.

  Why had she been in such a hurry?

  "Am I keeping you from something?" he'd asked.

  "I have an interview for a work-study job," she'd answered. "Not that it's any of your business. Why are you following me?"

  But his mind had rested on the word job. He'd already started his business, but things were really new. He'd been to one of the local high schools, and they'd expressed a need for calculus tutors.

  He'd determined he'd have to do it all himself. But in light of the way she kept screwing up the curve...

  "Forget the work-study job," he'd said. "I can hire you as a tutor."

  She'd stopped and looked at him. "Wow. You really are serious about that class, aren't you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You want to hire me to tutor you," she'd answered.

  As if.

  But she was doing better than he was, and --

  "Not me," he'd clarified, determining silently that he’d study even more for the next test and show her. "I run a business. Hire out tutors. I need a cal
culus guy."

  "Do I look like a calculus guy?" she'd asked.

  "You look like the guy I've been waiting for my whole life," he'd answered. "Or at least this semester. Seriously. I could get you three commitments for the semester. And that's just what I've got waiting right now. Word gets out, and your work can triple. Easily."

  She'd studied him for a while. "Okay, so I'm interested."

  He'd been glad to hear that. "Awesome," he'd answered. "So, come with me, and I'll talk through the details with you, and --"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa," she'd said. "This is how human trafficking works, right? Small, naïve girl on a college campus goes off with a random guy and ends up being sold into the sex trade, right? Or maybe you’re in it for some organ confiscation thing, huh? Gonna knock me out, take my eggs for a profit?"

  Good grief. What in the world?

  He'd frowned at this. "No. Why would your mind jump to that?"

  “Oh, these things happen,” she’d said, wisdom in her tone. I'm taking a criminology class. Hear all about crazy stuff happening all the time to naïve girls.”

  "Well, clearly, you're not naïve. A little suspicious and nutty, maybe, but not naïve."

  She made a face at this and opened her mouth to say something, likely unpleasant, but he cut her off.

  "And I assume you’re making an A in criminology, too?" he'd asked.

  "Yeah, screwing up the curve for them as well."

  He needed her on his team. Obviously.

  "I'm thinking you could tutor any subject, so go ahead and triple that load I already told you to triple, because you'll have more students than you want," he'd said. "Can we at least go on campus somewhere, in public, where we can talk this through? Then maybe you'll trust me once you get to know me?"

  "Once I get to know you," she'd added, watching him suspiciously before holding out her hand.

  “Charlotte Jackson.”

  He’d breathed a smile, seeing dollar signs dancing all around 8392’s face.

  “Eli Lucas.”

  He'd hired even more students, smart students, from that point on, all of them to be sent out to younger students in all subjects, charging fees that were competitive to established learning centers, with the added bonus of sending the college students directly into homes and schools to work with younger students one-on-one. He paid work study wages to his workers and had made a tidy little profit. The business had expanded from then on. So much so that Eli had to close up his other business venture -- goat soap production -- and sell the goats for an even tidier profit, all because his tutoring business took all of his time.

  (Yes. Goats. Goat soap. He was a big deal in the big city, but before then, he'd been on his way to being a big deal in the far reaches of nowheresville. Always a businessman, always a man with a plan.)

  His tutoring business was an even bigger success than he ever could have planned, though, and part of the reason was Charlotte.

  She'd worked just as hard as he had, not just as a tutor but also as his accountant, and as things had grown, she'd picked up more responsibility, more hours, and more investment in the business.

  She did everything now, right alongside him. More than he even asked her to most of the time. She was the reason the business was what it was, the reason that he was what he was, honestly.

  She knew him. He knew her.

  And she knew what she was doing.

  "I love you, Charlotte," he said very simply, looking at the numbers and thinking about all the money he was going to make.

  "Right back at you, Herbert," she said, tapping the papers again. "That's yours, by the way. Made the extra copy so you can read it as a bedtime story."

  "You know my favorites," he said, picking up the whole stack and tapping it into a neat pile, taking the folder Charlotte slid across to him, and sighing appreciatively. "Another reason why I love you."

  "You better watch it," she chided. "If Alicia hears you declaring your love for me, she'll come after you. Or after me." She frowned. "Maybe I better watch my back, huh?"

  "Until the end of tax season," Eli reminded her. "You've promised to do my taxes even --"

  "Even though I'm leaving you in another month," she said.

  Eli didn't like thinking about the transition. They'd graduated nearly six months ago. Jobs were hard to find, though, so Charlotte had stayed on with him until her dream opportunity came along. She'd just recently gotten an offer from a huge accounting firm in Houston, and certain that she would take it, he'd made her promise to come back and do his taxes after the new year, just for old times' sake. (And because she was the best. He didn't know how he was going to replace her, frankly.)

  "Yes," he said, putting down the folder and looking at her. "And Alicia and I? Aren't even exclusive."

  Charlotte gave him a dubious look. "You've been dating her for a year, Eli."

  "So?" he asked. "We're just dating."

  "A year," Charlotte said again, more insistent. "That means something to a woman, you know."

  Likely. He thought about Alicia, about how he'd met her a year ago when he'd gone from sorority house to sorority house alternately looking for tutors to enlist in his program and dropping off information for services for those who might benefit from having their own tutors.

  Smart girls... not so smart girls.

  It could go either way in a sorority house full of women. He'd seen plenty of both as he'd made the rounds, and he'd been quite ready to be done with the whole thing when he finally got an audience with the most exclusive group on campus.

  Alicia had been the sorority's president and the scholarship chair both and had ushered him in for a meeting after giving him the runaround and rescheduling him three times. Charlotte had not had similar trouble with the fraternities on campus, as she'd gone to them dressed "like a girl" she'd told Eli later.

  He was sorry he'd missed seeing that, honestly.

  She'd been granted access every time she'd knocked on a door, of course, and she'd come away with a few good contacts and even better business. Fifty new clients. Eli had been thinking about the numbers when Alicia had finally glided into the room he'd been waiting in and sat down across from him.

  "Bless your heart," she'd murmured, holding out her hand. "All these broken appointments and the waiting, and now, we finally meet face to face, Mr. Lucas."

  He'd given her hand a cursory shake. "You're the lady in charge, then?"

  "Alicia Primrose, yes," she'd answered daintily, crossing her legs at the ankles as she smoothed out the sundress she wore.

  "The Phi Mu lady," he'd said, knowing that mentioning the house letters was always a big win with these groups. He personally didn't give a rip, but what was good for business was good for him. And saying two simple Greek letters always seemed to boost business substantially.

  Work smarter, not harder. That was his motto.

  Alicia had been unimpressed, though. "The president of this chapter of Phi Mu, yes," she'd said tightly, touching the drop on her necklace. The letters. Again. "A legacy. From my great aunt and my father's sister both. But I get the sense that you only mention it because it helps your business. Schmoozing the ladies, as it were."

  He'd been impressed by her discernment. She wasn't a dumb sorority girl.

  "Guilty," he'd said, shrugging. "I've talked to so many Kappa Whosits and Gamma Tron Whatsits that I'm not even sure what I'm saying. So, forgive me for insulting your intelligence."

  She'd studied him for a long moment. "Not a Greek yourself, then," she'd murmured. "I didn't think I recognized you."

  "No way," he'd said, thinking that this was totally not his scene. Parties, spending money, socializing, being someone hoity-toity. Not him.

  "Hmm," she'd said, watching him with a question in her eyes.

  So, he'd clarified. "I'm from some backwoods town you likely wouldn't ever go to for fear of ruining those very expensive shoes you're wearing. My dad is a factory worker. And I was dirt poor when I showed up here. So, I don't fit
the mold."