I’ll unenroll from UCL, I’ll quit volunteering at the British Museum because a resume for a career that needs a graduate degree to get started is now the least of my worries.
I’ll get a job, or two or three. I’ll find us a cheaper flat and buy us good food and make sure Jax is on time to school every day. I’ll be the sister and guardian Jax deserves.
And I will never, ever forgive Church Cason.
But all of that is tomorrow, and right now it’s today, and so I weep. I clutch my brother close and I let every single moment of agony rip through my chest and out of my throat. I give in to every horrible, self-hating thought I have, I curse myself for being stupid and poor and plain, and I curse Church for being perfect and cruel and wealthy enough to send a driver when he couldn’t be bothered to show up himself. I cry until I’m lightheaded and swollen-eyed and exhausted. I cry a thousand tears for every second I stood alone waiting for Church and for every pound note my asshole father stole from me and for every class I won’t get to take.
Tomorrow, I’ll be furious. Tomorrow, I’ll become the icy warrior I’ll need to survive.
But today, when I cry, I cry for a broken heart.
And for a man with dark, dark blue eyes and a voice like smoke and sin.
Chapter One
Charley
Four years later
“Stop chatting and go faster on the champagne,” Martin snaps as he shoves by. “They’re drinking it faster than you’re serving it.”
“It’s a gala for celebrities and society twats, what do you expect?” Twyla mutters, rolling her eyes at me and obviously not caring if he sees. She’s a server with Hart Catering like me, but she’s only doing it as a nights-and-weekends gig when she’s not in class, and really, it’s only to prove some kind of point to her parents, who are always begging to send her money. She only needs this job in an abstract sense, and so she tends to get mouthy with Martin The Boss.
Not me. As much as I’d love to give Martin a piece of my mind, I need Hart Catering because it dovetails perfectly with my days working at a supermarket—and I require both to keep paying bills.
Ergo, I keep my eyes down and my mouth shut.
Two more years. Two more years and Jax will be off to university and maybe something will change. Maybe I can go back to school. I’ll be twenty-six then, it won’t be too weird, right? The other students won’t look at me like I’m pathetic? Or a pensioner? Like I’ve missed my chance and now I’m doomed to work at Tesco forever?
Here’s the thing.
I never let myself dwell on Church and what he did to me. I never let myself admit—even in the privacy of my own mind—that I might still be in love with him. That I’m still nursing my broken heart because the broken heart is all I have left.
But sometimes—when I’m exhausted from working two full-time jobs plus parenting a hormonal teenager, when Martin is being a real dick, when the bills are piled so high I think they’ll bury me—I let myself dwell on what life would have been like if Church had shown up on our wedding day. If he’d married me and then whisked me and Jax off to his Chelsea townhouse, so I’d be free from paying rent and could keep paying tuition.
If I’d graduated with the degree I wanted and was working for the museum where I’m currently passing out canapés instead.
If my days were filled with kisses like good gin—clean and cool and biting.
If my nights were filled with gasping, uncivilized fucks.
Stop. It.
That’s the danger of dwelling on the future I wanted—it turns into pining for the man who took so much of it away. I make myself remember the gutting, lonely moments alone in the narthex, the slow heat of the tears when I realized he wasn’t coming. When I realized that I’d been made a fool of—and worse.
When I realized I loved someone more than he loved me.
There’s no word for stupidity that profound.
I pop open a bottle and start pouring, and Martin fusses off somewhere else in the back room, probably to scold someone else for being slow. Twyla snags one of the flutes I’ve just filled and knocks it back in one go.
“Come on,” she coaxes as she sees my small smile. “Have one. Fuck knows this is the best shit we’ll get to taste in a while.”
I want to. I really, really want to. I want to have a glass of champagne and disappear into some of my favorite exhibits and forget—just for twenty minutes—that my life is a sleepless grind of work and debt and putting on a brave face for Jax, who needs to have as normal an upbringing as I can manage.
I stare at the bubbling flute for a moment, and then I sigh. “With my terrible luck, Martin will smell it on me.”
“Ah yes,” Twyla says, grabbing another flute as I open up a new bottle. “This mysterious bad luck of yours. Are you ever going to tell me about it?”
What would I even say?
It’s nothing, really. Just got left at the altar by a scowling god—a god who still rules over the university department I had to leave because I was too broke. Oh, yes, he was my professor too, how thoughtful of you to ask.
It would make a great party story. If only I had time for parties.
Blocking Twyla’s reach for a third flute, I slide the now-full tray onto my hand. “It’s a tale for when we have something a lot stronger than champagne,” I say with a forced grin, and then I push out the door and follow the faint strains of music to the Great Court and the event itself.
* * *
***
* * *
The gala is in full swing now, the autumn sky just beginning to fade over the glass canopy that covers the court. The conversation and music together make for a dull, boozy roar in the echoing space.
I fix my of course I’m happy to carry a heavy tray around smile on my face and begin circulating through the room, unloading flutes at a rate that would horrify Martin all over again. With each step, the second-hand shoes I’m wearing pinch my toes and send pain rolling up the balls of my feet and into my heels, but still I keep the smile plastered on. Martin won’t care if my feet hurt, but if there’s one whiff of bad attitude among the staff, he’ll unleash hell, and I can’t afford hell. Not for another two years, at any rate.
I play one of my favorite games while I circulate to keep myself from focusing on my feet, where I pretend I’m David Attenborough observing the habits of rich people. Silently, I narrate all the elaborate mating and dominance rituals unfolding around me; I describe the elaborate plumage of the subjects, their bizarre status symbols and hierarchical negotiations.
It’s a game I’ve been playing since I went through a fervent Attenborough stage after my first anthropology course at UCL, and sometimes Church and I would even play it togeth—
Nope. No Church. Just Attenborough. The one man who could never let me down.
I’m gestured over by a pale woman in a ball gown, her eyes glued to someone younger, prettier, and possibly more interesting than her, given the way the younger woman seems to be holding court in the semi-circle of people in which they are standing. The older woman’s eyes never leave her rival as she efficiently plucks a glass of champagne from my tray, and the younger woman, who clearly is paying more attention than she lets on, reaches over and does the same, so that they’re matching each other flute for flute like antagonistic cowboys matching each other shot for shot in an old Western film.
Here is the cold-blooded society maven forced to defend her committee territory from a young upstart. The upstart will have a name like Summer or Vervain, and the maven will make sure to say it as often as possible to highlight how ridiculous her very existence is. Both will use the champagne as a way to buy time for the next cutting remark.
I leave the maven and Summer/Vervain to move along the curve of the Reading Room wall, which is practically glowing against the darkening sky outside. I approach a group of men and women who are all dressed crisply and conservatively and arguing vehemently about the impact of the Asian markets on pharmaceutical investments.
Bankers. A totally different tribe than the maven and her rival.
I hand out flutes as I narrate—the voice in my head sounding like Attenborough’s, old and wise and fond. Jostling for status, these young and hungry creatures must always be looking for prey, even at a gala—
My narration is interrupted by the slow fade of the music and a tide of polite applause. And then a voice I never thought I’d hear again rolls through the court, amplified by a microphone.
“Good evening,” Professor Church Cason says.
Those few syllables—smoky and burned around the edges—spark fires everywhere inside me. Fires of panic and shock and sizzling lust.
I freeze next to the bankers, who take my stillness and the oncoming speech as an invitation to relieve me of the rest of my champagne.
Church continues, his voice coming from someplace I can’t see, his words effortless and casual, like he’s not slicing me open with every single one of them. “On behalf of the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, the Friends of the British Museum, and the Pella Group, thank you for coming here tonight to support Common Harvest. It’s our hope that programs teaching students about the history of food sustainability and food culture will help shape contemporary attitudes to food and agriculture, as well as increase awareness and support of sustainable farming around the globe. We’re all here because we’re invested in the future of Common Harvest, this museum, and our young people. And because we like free drinks,” he adds dryly. Everyone laughs, as if they didn’t donate an obscene amount of money to be here. Those free drinks are probably worth hundreds of pounds a pop.
Tray picked clean by the banker-hyenas, I start sidling away, the Attenborough narration in my head completely silent, my own thoughts completely silent, everything gone except for Church’s voice and the thud of my heart. He continues to speak as I angle away from the Reading Room to head back to where the caterers have staged. He gives some kind of introduction to tonight’s big donor, and I think I’m going to make it without actually having to see him. I’ll escape without having to see him in a tuxedo—not unlike what he should have been wearing that day four years ago.
But I don’t make it.
There’s more applause, and my new vantage means that I’m able to see the raised stage near the entrance to the Ancient Egypt exhibit. I’m able to see Church—so much of Church. So much of that thick, dark hair I used to pull on, so much of those powerful shoulders testing the seams of his tuxedo. He’s turned away from me, he’s shaking hands with another man who could rival Church in tuxedo-seam-testing, now he’s stepping down right into the arms of—oh.
Oh.
A woman—tall and blond and in her thirties like him—hugs him briefly before giving him a soft kiss on the lips, a kiss which Church permits but doesn’t return. She pulls back from him and gives him a happy smile, already talking, and he gives her an unreadable expression as he leads her away from the stage where the handsome donor begins his speech about his corporation and why they care about food sustainability and research. Tax write-offs, one would assume, but he can hardly admit that to a party of schmoozy do-gooders.
I don’t know what line he ends up feeding the crowd, because I’m not actually listening to a word he’s saying. My attention is solely on Church and his blonde.
I want to hate this woman currently lacing arms with my ex-fiancé. In fact, the hate is right there at my fingertips, burning against the cool tray and begging to be unleashed.
Hate for her. Hate for him.
Hate for this terrible, itchy white shirt that marks me as staff and not as a guest, not as someone who matters.
But even as I force myself to take a step to the side—and then another, and another, until I finally have to tear my eyes away and watch where I’m going—the Attenborough in my mind can’t help but be fair to his date. As pretty and well-turned out as she is, she’s clearly not a society maven or a Vervain or a banker. Like Church, her skin is the kind of half-tan that comes from a fair person spending days and weeks outside. And though she seems comfortable in her dress and heels, she’s without lipstick or painted nails. She’s approached even more than Church is as they step away from the stage, and her friendly demeanor and immediate engagement with everyone who comes up to her is disarming.
No, she’s not a Vervain. If I had to guess, she’s another archaeologist or professor. Like I should have been.
It’s not her fault. None of this is her fault. I’m just jealous that she’s on the receiving end of kisses and amusement. That she gets to hear that low voice in her ear when she comes.
I decide I can still hate Church though. That seems fair.
I have to go.
I can’t go.
But I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the rest of tonight with Church here breathing the same air as me. Leaving isn’t an option—I’m not Twyla, who’s only a tourist in the Land of Unpaid Bills—I actually live there and I can’t risk losing a job as steady as the one I have at Hart.
But I also can’t face him. I can’t be close to him, I can’t talk to him, I can’t pretend to be okay while he plucks a champagne flute off my tray.
If he sees me and he ignores me, I’ll die. If he tries to talk to me, I’ll die.
If he looks at me, and in those dark blue eyes I see any combination of regret or pity or indifference—I’ll die.
How the hell am I going to survive the rest of tonight?
I can’t help it; I turn back around.
It’s not like this is the last time I’ll ever see him; if I listen to my pride or my bank account or my self-discipline, I’ll be back out here with a fresh tray in just a minute anyway—although I’ll definitely be avoiding him and his pretty date if I can help it.
No, this isn’t about pride or holding my ground or proving something to myself. This isn’t about strength. It’s about one moment—just one, haven’t I earned that much?—of weakness.
Church is turned in my direction now, listening to someone who’s chattering away at his date as said date chatters back and rubs an absentminded hand up and down his arm. He’s wearing the expression he wore the day we met here at this very museum—an expression like he’s waiting to be intellectually and morally disappointed by the person he’s listening to. His sharp-edged mouth is in a neutral line that might pull into an irritated frown at any moment, and his jaw works ever so subtly to the side, as if it’s trying his patience simply to exchange the usual social mundanities. The lights have begun transitioning to muted reds and oranges as the cocktail tables are discreetly moved to the sides to allow for dancing, and even in autumnal event lighting, he is arresting.
Arresting. Not perfect. Not beautiful. The unforgiving mouth and stern features preclude beauty; the scar slashing across his cheek from a dig accident in Jordan makes him look cruel and ruthless, which he is.
I should know.
I’ve often wondered if there’s something wrong with me, some kind of masochistic sequence in my DNA that’s somehow managed to defy evolution and common sense and lead me right into the arms of a man who could eat my heart raw . . . and did.
Even now, after he cracked my soul open, poured petrol inside, and lit me on fire, I want him. Every cruel and terrible part of him. His brilliance and his disdain and his carnality hiding underneath it all. His rough voice and midnight eyes and the way his need for me always seemed to stun him, like he hadn’t planned on me but once he’d had me, there would be no getting enough, no possible satiation. I was his to consume and his hunger was infinite, like a god’s.
What would Attenborough say about that, I wonder? Are there animals in the wild who willingly snuggle up to the bigger animals who want to eat them? Are there bunnies that can’t help but hop after snarling foxes? Big-eyed deer that nuzzle against the throats of wolves?
No, of course not. There’s only museum-loving girls who fall obliviously and deliriously in love with their brutally depraved professors.
I hate him
, of course, I’ll hate him forever for lying to me, for humiliating me, for shredding my heart in an unfamiliar narthex with only an event planner and my baby brother for comfort—but I could never hate him for that depravity. Or his indifference, or his arrogance. They were the things that made me fall in love with him, senseless bunny that I was, and even now as I’m watching him barely rein in his impatience with gala small talk, I can’t help but fall in love with him again, just a little bit. Just with that crisp tuxedo and with the way the reddish gala lighting makes his restless gaze a deep violet hue. Just with that mouth that used to mark sin and possession all over me in between murmured lectures about ancient religion.
It’s in this single moment of weakness, this one moment I’ve given myself in four years to remember how beautiful and daunting he is, that his eyes meet mine and he sees me.
He sees me.
His face goes from bored to stunned to avid to angry in the space of a heartbeat—in the space of my heartbeat, as my heart surges once in my chest and then begins frantically beating out a tattoo of fury and retreat. A message even my dumb bunny brain can understand.
Go.
Flee.
Before you kill him.
Church says something to his date and their conversant, and then begins pushing his way through the crowd toward me, determination carving his proud features into something equal parts sexy as hell and terrifying as fuck.
I see the moment his eyes rake over me completely, when he takes in the catering uniform and the empty tray in my hand. More shock ripples through him, followed by more determination, his mouth sharpening into a blade as he cuts toward me through the crowd.
Go, you stupid bunny, the Attenborough in my mind chides me, and I finally listen, unfreezing and darting towards the hallway, looking over my shoulder just once to see Church moving faster, walking with long, powerful strides.
“Charlotte,” I see him say. Growl. I know it’s a growl even though I can’t hear him over the music and the hobnobbing. His dark eyebrows are pulled together and his hands are flexing at his sides, like he’s itching to grab me and hoist me over his shoulder like he used to do before the wedding. I used to joke that studying primitive history had made him primitive indeed, and he’d simply smile back and dare, but tell me you don’t like it, little supplicant, and I never could tell him that, because I did, I did like it. I liked everything we ever did together until the day I had to ride the Tube home in my wedding dress, and then I liked nothing ever again.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 48