Page 68 of My Totally Unfair Deal

ELIZA

Conference, Day One

All my late nights with Harrison have led up to this.

The entrance to the St. Monarch—the most iconic and opulent hotel in Manhattan—is a spectacle all its own. Gold-trimmed revolving doors. Doormen in pressed uniforms. Fresh-cut florals towering from marble urns. And above it all, a sleek white banner flutters in the June breeze:

American Agricultural & Sustainability Summit

Innovating Tomorrow. Investing in Today.

Everything is branded. Polished. Decked out in golds and greens with eco-themed buzzwords printed on every surface. It’s all very... intimidating.

I smooth the hem of my dress and glance at Harrison beside me, who’s notably not walking through the doors.

“You’re not going to come in?” I ask, my voice just a little too tight.

“You know I can’t.” He cups my face in his hands, grounding me instantly. “I’ll show up to the parts that are open to the public when I can.”

“But at the end of every night, you’ll come back and pick me up and?—”

“You’ll stay here, have your late dinners, andnotrush back. You can’t afford to miss anything.”

“I’m sure Jackson would?—”

“The farm is bankrupt, Eliza.”

My world stops spinning. Everything around me goes eerily still.

I blink at him, almost laughing again—because it has to be a mistake. “We pull in hundreds of thousands every month,” I say. “There’s no way.”

But as the silence stretches between us, the disbelief in my voice starts to crack.

Because now… it all makes sense.

Jackson not hiring the new staff he promised—brushing it off with “we need to focus on one thing at a time.”

Him stepping in to cover jobs our team used to do—insisting it was just temporary, that it kept things more “efficient.”

Him gently, but firmly, keeping me away from the books.

Details I shrugged off as stress, or quirks in leadership. But now they settle in my chest like a stone.

“He didn’t want to tell you,” Harrison says quietly. “And I doubt he ever will. Even after you kill it here like you should.”

I look into his eyes, and there’s no doubt. No teasing. No bluff.

“Make him proud,” he adds.

I will…My voice barely works. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” He kisses me once, soft and sure. “Good luck.”

THIRTY-FIVE

ELIZA

Conference, Day Three

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