“You have some blood …” He pointed at her chest, and she looked down. The white blouse she’d worn today to the office had blood spatters on it.
“Not mine.”
A short beeping honk drew her attention to the car idling at the curb. Luther was waiting for her.
“Amelia,” he called to her, loud enough to be heard, but soft enough to not scare her. She appreciated it. “He walked. Get in.”
She supposed that was just as well. A cab ride home would cost close to a hundred dollars.
Ensconced in the back seat, she let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m just going to say one thing, and then I’ll be quiet the rest of the drive,” Luther began, his voice soothing, as if she were a wild animal. She supposed he was used to talking to Charlie this way. “I’ve known him a long time, and he’s never taken to a woman like he has you. What he did today wasn’t for himself. It was for you.”
“He did that for me?”
“I can tell it was misguided, but his dark heart was where he thought it should be.”
Luther, true to his word, was quiet, until they were almost home. As he pulled into her neighborhood, he spoke again. “We both like you, Miss Amelia. Of course, he loves you. And I love you by proxy. I haven’t seen him smile the way he has these last couple of weeks. You will be good for him, if you try.”
She was surprised she wasn’t crying, but she was sniffling, trying to keep back tears. She wasn’t sure she wanted to try at this point.
“I don’t think I can, Luther.” When he put the car in park, she paused before opening the door. “Thank you for everything.”
“I’ll see you.” He gave her a soft smile, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t think he would. That he was the only man who ever had.
Chapter Twenty-three
Charlie walked to his apartment and changed before heading to the office. While Luther drove him nearly everywhere, he actually lived only a few blocks from where he worked, so it wasn’t a long hike.
Yet it gave him time to think.
He didn’t regret beating the man who’d hurt Amelia, but he regretted the consequences of the action. However, it was who he was. She needed to see it now, before she got in too deep. She thought she loved him, she’d told him so, but now there was no way she could.
He, on the other hand…
If she’d been pregnant with Charlie’s child, there was no way he would be so stupid as to ever do anything to make her leave him. He would turn into a ridiculous sap who doted on her every need, want, and desire. He would be putty in her hands.
That guy didn’t deserve a second glance from her, much less to be her husband.
Charlie tried to lose himself in work, confirming plans, making new ones. Now that the mayoral opposition was taken care of, Savage’s ratings were high, and he was sure to win his candidacy. The payment had come through in his account, and now he only had to start in on the high school football player’s reputation before colleges started dropping him. The kid’s parents were rich, but he’d been busted breaking into someone’s house.
Charlie was tempted to let the kid ride it out, claim the job impossible, let him live with his consequences. He couldn’t imagine a good scenario where he learned from his mistakes and turned out to be a good human after Charlie repaired things with the public perception.
But it was a paycheck, and this was what Charlie did. So he made a few phone calls, spoke with the kid and told him where to be when, and got the ball rolling.
One of the women on his payroll, Lola, would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the kid would be there to save her. A web-extra reporter would also be there with his camera, coincidentally doing a piece on neighborhood crime and would capture the entire thing on camera.
The kid would be touted as a local hero, a romance would blossom between him and Lola, and Charlie would set up some charity work for the kid to start doing with children who get in trouble with the law. He would amend his ways and turn over a new leaf. Yada yada.
Reputation restored. Hopefully the colleges would continue fighting over who got to have him start as their quarterback in the fall.
His work would be done. But then again, who really gave a shit if one more petty criminal got away with stealing the family’s silver?
He didn’t. But the kid’s parents were willing to pay a small mint for it, so who was he to question it?
Even through his work, his thoughts kept straying to the events of this morning. He couldn’t have changed his actions if he tried, but he knew without a doubt that they had lost him the person who was quickly becoming more important to him than Luther, his best friend since childhood.
No, he couldn’t have changed the events from today any more than he could turn his skin green. It wasn’t just the beating, although that probably would have caused it easily enough. But the reasoning behind it, a pregnancy, tipped him over the edge of reason. What would he give for the chance to see Amelia’s belly swell with his own child inside of her?
Offspring weren’t something he’d ever imagined for himself. But with her? Absofuckinglutely.
She was the only woman he possibly could imagine it with.
And for that asshole to take it for granted like that was unthinkable. He was a murderer, in every sense of the word.
He couldn’t imagine Amelia’s pain when it had happened. It was the stuff of nightmares, and he wished he could have been there for her, to witness it, to absorb it and take it away.
No wonder she fucking flinched.
It was a subconscious protection thing, her curling of her body inward, an attempt to protect herself from unseen dangers.
A heavy weight sat on top of his chest, making it difficult to breathe. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but he had an idea. Different from his usual adrenaline crash after a well-deserved beating, it filled his limbs with lead. It was the crushing weight of anticipated despair. She would leave him. She had left him, hadn’t she?
Because she was a good woman and couldn’t be with someone like him. She needed a good man, a doctor, or humanitarian, or someone of that ilk. He was certainly not that man.
He needed to let her go to find that man.
It hurt, and he hated it. His own pain was something he’d said goodbye to a long time ago. It had been a conscious decision to not feel it ever again, to not feel small from the ridiculous emotion of emotional pain.
But he welcomed it now.
He surveyed his desk, his office with its glass walls. His domain. He’d built this.
Charlie suddenly didn’t want to be here.
He wanted to go to his apartment, smell his sheets, see her imprint on the pillow from this morning, before everything fell apart.
Then he would wash the sheets to get rid of that memory, and he would put her out of his mind. There was no need to dwell on her. He had things to do and accomplish, and he knew now, he couldn’t do it with her.
**
Amelia didn’t have the heart to even call and quit. It was just too much, the idea of hearing Charlie’s voice again, knowing the disappointment she would feel because she hadn’t been able to handle him.
So she took the chickenshit way out. She didn’t call him to say she wasn’t coming back. She didn’t give him a piece of her mind for doing what he’d done to Jackson. She did call 9-1-1 to tell them there was a man in distress at his address, but nothing more.
She ran and hid in her home to lick the wounds of being yet again, too little, too much, just not right for someone.
Of course, the nurse was there, sitting with her crocheting in the easy chair.
“You can go. I’m not sure about tomorrow, but I’ll call you.” Her voice pleaded with the friendly lady to not argue with her. She didn’t want to explain that the man who’d hired them both was a vile man.
Even if those words didn’t quite describe him. She wasn’t going there, not even in h
er head.
She opened her mouth to respond, but snapped it shut, smiling vaguely instead.
“I understand.” She rose and gathered her things to leave. “But please, keep me updated. I don’t mind coming in for a reduced price, if you need me to.”
Amelia was grateful for the gesture, but she didn’t think it would help. She was currently unemployed and didn’t think she’d find a job with no degree that would afford the kind woman’s efficient care.
She had no job. Gram needed tending. And she was suddenly overwhelmed and frustrated.
When the woman left, Amelia went into Gram’s room to remind herself of her goals.
She’d completely lost sight of them with Charlie.
Gram was resting for the afternoon. She napped in the afternoon most days, after her grand pickle-making endeavors. Today was no different, except she sat up with a book in her hand.
“You’re home early.” Gram looked at her with one raised eyebrow and Amelia was surprised the woman was aware she wasn’t supposed to be here, much less what time of day it was.
“Well, I broke my engagements to spend a little time with you over the next few days.”
“Quit your job, you mean? Downtown businesses don’t usually let employees take time off to visit home.”
Amelia stifled the gasp that wanted to escape. Gram didn’t observe her need to work a real job when she was stuck in her regency romance world.
“Yes. I quit.”
“What happened with Mr. Delmonico? You seemed rather taken with him, as I recall. Although my memory isn’t what it used to be. I could be remembering wrong.”
Amelia’s mind raced. Number one, Charlie had only been here once, and that was before they’d done anything together. Number two, Gram didn’t remember anything right, so the idea she was getting this at all was almost laughable.
“We didn’t … mesh.” She settled for the understatement, seeing the lie for what it was. Physically, they’d meshed so freaking good. Her skin heated at the thought.
“I see, well, you’ll need another job, then. Yes? And don’t worry about the meshing aspect of things.” She said the word as if it tasted bad.
“Okay, mesh isn’t the right word. But it didn’t work, okay? Tell me about your day.”
Gram waved at her as if she’d asked about her personal hygiene. “Same as always. But I do want more flowers. I’d like to have a garden with flowers I can pick for inside the house. It’s a bit drab, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Sure.” She was still in a state of surprise at the unreality of this conversation. She wasn’t having to make up stuff about a ball or something and they were talking about real things like flowers.
“But about this man, you were happy. I hadn’t seen you that happy since you were a child. It was nice. I’d like to see you that way more often.”
“Me too, Gram. But Charlie isn’t the right man for me.”
“Isn’t he?”
No, most definitely not.
“Did he hit you?” Gram asked quietly, her eyes focused intently on Amelia.
“No, Gram. He never laid a hand on me like that.”
“So what sort of job are you going to look for next?” The abrupt change in topic was disconcerting, as Amelia was thinking of all the loving ways Charlie had touched her. But it served its purpose: getting her mind off Charlie.
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
She needed to take advantage of this rare moment of lucidity from Gram, before like a fleeting memory, it disappeared.
But she couldn’t think of a damn thing to talk about, put on the spot like this.
“My biggest regret of my life is that I didn’t find myself in my youth. I didn’t have the time with marriage and babies and avoiding Carl to discover what I wanted with my life. By the time I made the time, I was too old to do anything about it.” Gram looked wistful as she spoke, staring out the window of her bedroom. Her hands relaxed in her bedspread, where they were usually clenched tightly with some unused energy.
“What did you want with your life, Gram?”
Her eyes took on a faraway sparkle. It wasn’t the faraway look of Gram not being present though. The woman was all here, right now.
“I wanted experiences. Romance. Adventure. Harold was so focused on getting us things, a new car, a house with a yard, another barbecue pit. But I wanted to try escargot; I wanted to dance in the rain; I wanted to see the ocean. Grow an award-winning rose. Experiences. Not things. But I was too old for any of it by the time I realized it. That's what you should use this time for.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Charlie carried the manila envelope through the lobby and out the door, as if it didn’t cause a fiery pit of alarm to crawl around inside his belly. People didn’t mail him things. Not unless it was a bill or an invitation. But his name scrawled across the front of this, no address, no return address, told him this wasn’t regular mail.
Luther opened the car door for him, as usual, with his customary smile, but it faded when he saw the look on Charlie’s face.
“Something up, boss?”
“Not sure, but I think so. Take the long way to Nonna’s.” Tonight was the first poker game with the guys. They were all supposed to be firming up plans to take down Forrester.
He was curious. Because that’s who he was. A nosy motherfucker.
But this envelope was heavy in his hands, and he needed the interior of his car, a sanctuary of sorts, to look at the contents.
For the first time in weeks, he didn’t think of Amelia as soon as he slid into the creamy leather seats. He didn’t imagine lost moments with her in the silence of his car. Not much, anyway. He was too curious about the envelope.
He opened it, sliding the contents out. Glossy photos, still stuck together from wherever they’d been developed. Glossy photos that were only used rarely, for photo frames in family homes, and in this case, for blackmail.
Proof of something. But what? He would have to look to see.
They were dark, but the contents were clear enough. There was a picture, clearly showing Charlie’s face and index finger as he beckoned someone out of his car window. Then inside his car, as he spoke to someone. Then handing them a baggie of white powder.
It was the punk, Desert Eagle, the night he’d given him the doctored drugs. Pictures showing them clearly. The kid’s silver pinky ring of the skull clearly shown in the photos.
Someone was trying to blackmail him. Had a camera on the punk. He wondered if the kid had known.
Then the next picture was of something that surprised him.
Amelia.
A street view of the two of them getting in his car. Pictures of them at his desk in more intimate poses. His hand on her bare ass. His dick inside her, his hands pressing into the flesh of her hips. The look of pure ecstasy on both of their faces.
From the fucking coffee maker.
The last picture was of her in a yard, what he presumed was at her home. She was digging in the dirt, a faraway look in her eyes. He studied this picture the most, since it was the only one he hadn’t been present for, yet the most threatening.
She was so sweet, flowered gardening gloves on her delicate hands. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, and sweat made her hair stick to her face around the edges. He could almost smell her sweet innocence as the picture showed her lowering a plant into the turned up dirt.
Partnership? Otherwise, next time I see her, me and the boys will see how much fun she can be …
The note was written on a piece of paper that fluttered to the floor as he stared at the last photo. He picked it up, toying with it lightly before crumpling it in his hand.
He almost laughed at the thought of blackmail. The last man who’d tried found himself at the bottom of the river. But with the pictures of the kid taken from the kid’s point of view, it told him whoever was blackmailing him was the guy who was trying to undercut his contact
s on the street.
The same man whom he was meeting about tonight. Forrester. Had to be. Desert Eagle had been working for him, too.
Now he was personally invested.
The pictures were meant to be scary, but Charlie smiled to himself, plotting his moves. Clearly the bug didn’t have a microphone, or Forrester would be demanding more, since they’d all plotted his demise right in front of it. The pictures were a first step. He’d wait a few days for the second step: contact.
Then he’d tell Forrester to go fuck himself.
Meanwhile, he needed to keep Amelia safe, and he wasn’t sure how to do that. The fact this asshole had figured out a way to take pictures of her told him she was most definitely not safe. That thought made him panic, and Charlie Delmonico didn’t panic.
It was new. He needed to focus and figure out his first move.
She hated him now. Which she should, because he was a terrible human. But now she was in danger, and it was all his fault. More reasons for her to hate him. If he went to her to put a protection detail on her, which was what his first instinct was, she would only hate him more.
Charlie was pissed someone was spying, sure, but the fact they’d been privy to his more intimate scenes with Amelia was what had him seeing things through a red haze of fury.
Someone would pay for these pictures, and it wouldn’t be Amelia, or him.
Luther silently watched him through the rearview mirror as he drove to the restaurant. His friend didn’t say a word, understanding the mood. That was good, Charlie needed his poker face right now.
**
“Are you here for the private party with Luca?” The hostess flashed him a sweet smile as she looked up from her book at the front of the restaurant. It was full tonight; a charming din flowed around the room. He simply nodded and she led him to a room right next to where kitchen noises came from.
As he entered the room, he noticed first the hushed quiet as a contrast to the Friday evening noise in the main part of the restaurant. Then he noticed a side table filled with food and drinks. He strode over to pour himself a drink out of the bottle of scotch, then turned to the men around the table.
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