“Marcus and I will sort things out. I just need some space and time to think.”
“You don’t have to brave it out. I’m supposed to listen to you crying and kvetching. I’m supposed to be your support and counsel. I’m your sister, Charlotte. I want to be there for you when you need me.”
Tears gathered in my eyes, but I didn’t want to cry in front of her and spoil her night.
“I am not trying to put up a brave façade. We have to sort things out.” Christina’s eyes grew big with surprise and understanding. “I am falling for him. I’m falling hard.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
“What? Why?”
“To give him the threatening sisterly speech, obviously.”
“Ah, that,” I laughed, remembering I had done the same with Logan when I was too young to be credible. “It’s not necessary, Chris.”
“Of course, it is. He needs to know that I will literally cut his pride and feed it to the goats if he hurts my sister.”
“Poor guy,” Logan muttered, filling the doorway. Dressed in a dark suit, paired with a pale blue shirt and a fancy bowtie, he looked dashing. I smiled at him, and his fleeting masculine empathy vanished. “He’d better treat you like a queen. Otherwise, he’ll have to deal with me.”
I hugged and kissed them both, and they left soon after. I took Marie to the living room and played with her until she was thoroughly hungry and exhausted.
It was my cue to feed her when she started sucking on her thumb, watching me sleepily. Afterwards, I gave her a quick bath, daubed her skin with the baby oil that Christina had brought, and tucked her in my bed, surrounding her small body with pillows so she wouldn’t roll and fall.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as exhausted as Marie. I sat on the sofa, pulling my legs underneath me, and sipped quietly at a glass of red wine.
My phone rested silently, too silently, on the glass tea table. I almost reached for it when the doorbell jolted me to my feet. I hissed in frustration, expecting Marie to start crying at any moment, but seemingly, she was too tired to be bothered by the intrusive noise.
My heart thudded almost violently in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat as I crossed the small space to the door. I already knew it was Marcus on the other side of the door.
Pressing my hands to the wooden frame, I struggled to control my ragged breath. I felt childish for not opening up, but the moment I saw him, I would cave in. I couldn’t yield to a relationship where I felt betrayed from the beginning.
“Please, Charlotte. I know you are home.”
I slid down to the floor, my back stiff against the wall. Could he hear my panting breaths or my savage heartbeats? Could he feel the misery and uncertainties warring inside me? Could he read the questions going on a rampage in my head?
“She is not who you think she is. She is the past, Charlotte. I cannot erase it, and I cannot repair it. Please don’t cut me out.”
The seafoam green eyes of the unknown woman haunted me. Her expression, although paling with anger when she found me by Marcus’s side, hadn’t lost its natural doll-like beauty. She seemed the type of woman that, through her mystery, drove men wild.
Despite the silence, I knew Marcus hadn’t left yet. I rubbed my bare arms with robotic movements, but no matter how much warmth I struggled to infuse into my flesh, I still felt oddly cold. The feeling that I was the intruder returned to me like a punishment. That was exactly how the red-haired woman had glared at me—with crisp, pitiless reprimand in her eyes, punishing me for claiming what was hers. I shuddered and covered my mouth to smother a sob.
“I will explain. I promise. But give me time.”
Time for what? Time to forget her? Time to turn me upside down?
Amidst all the confusion, something was painfully clear. Whoever that woman was, she embodied a past that Marcus wasn’t ready to discard yet. The way his voice softened when he talked about her epitomized feelings that hadn’t quite subsided.
Sobbing, I let the tears pour. Sometimes the only thing I needed to calm down was to cry.
I WOKE WITH A JERK out of a sickening nightmare that exposed Brayden in a darker light than ever before. I was lying in front of the door in a tense fetal position.
Ever since the nightmares started, they had been variations of the same dream: a blonde man attacking me until somebody came to my rescue. Sometimes I could see their faces, sometimes I only intuited.
This time something had shifted.
I had just dreamt of Brayden, and nobody had come to the rescue. It seemed that the bad dreams returned with a vengeance when Marcus and I walked on shaky ground.
It was still dark outside when I returned to my bedroom to check on Marie, who was sleeping soundly. I wrapped a blanket around myself and crashed on the sofa by the window, succumbing to a restless sleep.
SUNDAY DAWNED EARLY with Marie’s piercing cry. As soon as I picked her up and took her to the kitchen for her morning bottle, she recovered the previous night’s bright mood. Her cute giggles and innocent eyes warmed me to the bone.
Christina called for the second time close to midday, saying that they would be back Monday before I left for work, as promised.
Although it was a splendid sunny day, my enthusiasm lacked as I ventured out of my apartment building, pushing Marie’s fuchsia stroller down the busy street. I chose walking instead of driving to the restaurant Rachel had picked for our lunch as a substitute for my usual runs in Central Park, which I hadn’t been able to enjoy lately.
Her copper blonde hair was perfectly coiffed as usual. She stood out as we entered the outdoor restaurant. When she sighted us, she waved so graciously that she could have been mistaken for royalty.
“Hey, you two beautiful girls,” Rachel greeted us with a huge grin, standing to give me a hug and blow kisses to Marie, who had already fallen asleep. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too. You have no idea.”
We exchanged long, meaningful glances as the waiter took our orders then vanished dutifully.
Rachel and I led agitated lives. While I was suffocated by the cases my father was throwing on my plate, she was holed up at the hospital where she worked as a nutrition specialist. Between our chaotic professional lives and personal drama, we saw each other less frequently than we once used to, but our friendship was appropriately nurtured and still thrived.
“So how are you and Ethan getting along?” I started without any further ado.
At the sound of her husband’s name, her eyes sparkled then clouded. I related more than ever to her fluctuating emotions.
Her slender fingers, tipped by blood-red nails that matched her sleeveless blouse to perfection, started drumming on the tabletop.
“We’re still getting a divorce.”
Rachel had that soft kind of voice that curled around your senses like warm caramel even when it came out like a rasp tinted by desolation.
“So should I buy a fancy dress for your next wedding?” I asked, pointing to her ring finger. She was still wearing her wedding band.
She fixed me with knowing blue eyes, and I couldn’t help but think of another pair of blue eyes watching me intently, shamelessly. I missed those eyes even when seeing them would have hurt.
Rachel’s lips twitched with a barely contained smile, but the gesture didn’t reach her eyes.
“It won’t happen again. I’m done.”
I was far from trusting her statement, but I supported her nonetheless. She and Ethan had been through many fights. This lunch and my discussion with Rachel felt too much like déjà vu to believe her completely when she said she was done. Sometimes, no matter how badly you wanted to be done, you still needed to continue.
“You can’t be done with him, Rachel. You’ve tried, but you can’t function without Ethan. You’ll just go back to him.”
“I know,” she sighed.
She patted her hair although not a single lock was out of place. It was a gesture betraying her nervousness and her longing for Ethan. When
she was away from him for too long, she grew impatient, irritable, and eventually flatly downcast. She always realized that as soon as the divorce papers were signed and the longing for her former husband became intolerable.
The waiter brought us the salads we had ordered, which offered me more time to study her. She looked radiant, although miserable, but then again, that was her factory setting. There was something in her eyes, though, that I couldn’t quite pinpoint, yet it gave her a new sort of beauty and vigor. She seemed rejuvenated.
“You already did, didn’t you?” I gasped and covered my mouth to tone down my voice.
I laughed, and Rachel scowled magnificently, the glare turning into a delightful childish look that made me laugh all the harder. She and her patterns were incorrigible.
“I slept with him,” she admitted in a rushed whisper. Gripping tightly her fork and napkin and leaning in so nobody would hear her speaking, she looked as if she had just confessed having committed murder. “I slept with my husband, and it felt like I was with a lover, doing something illicit. Something that felt so good.”
“That’s not bad, Rach.”
“Of course, it is. I’ve practically cheated on my husband with himself.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Not even for you.”
She sighed overdramatically, but in the end, the smile that covered her face was dazzling. The reason for her newfound vitality was the affair she had with her husband.
I smiled, widely and sincerely. Whatever their problems, I trusted they would solve them, and Rachel seemed to believe that too, regardless her proclamation that she was done.
“You don’t seem your usual exultant self.”
Rachel scrutinized me as she slowly sipped her margarita. Squirming and looking away, I realized I wasn’t prepared to discuss Marcus, but I didn’t want to lie to Rachel either. Despite her tumultuous love life, she always offered me insightful perspective that helped me deal with my problems. Her inquisitive stare propelled me to answer.
“You met Marcus King,” I stated with controlled calm. My blood simmered at the mere mention of his name. “He’s giving me headaches.”
“Headaches as in sleepless-nights-headaches or you’re-incompetent-headaches?”
“Headaches as in I-don’t-think-I’m-the-only-woman-in-your-life-headaches.”
“Lottie,” Rachel sighed and covered my hand with hers in a comforting gesture.
It wasn’t pity she felt for me but empathy. When she met Ethan, she had just gotten out of a long, painful relationship that ended with the man’s crude betrayal. It didn’t mean it had been completely wiped from her mind just because that episode seemed so far away.
I frequently suspected that she feared Ethan would cheat on her, but she loved him so deeply that she trusted him with her heart despite her fears. I didn’t know Marcus enough to trust him so blindly.
“Have you talked to him?”
“Not exactly. He called, though.”
“How many times?”
I slid the phone across the table, and she picked it up, switching to my call log. There were seventeen missed calls from Marcus King. Rachel’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes grew as big as onions.
“Persistent, I know. He also came by last night, but I didn’t open the door. If I had, he would have just convinced me that everything was okay. And it isn’t.”
“Maybe you want to believe that everything is not okay because everything is happening much too fast?” Rachel suggested, her eyes kind but admonishing. I shook my head but couldn’t bring myself to verbally deny. She might have been right. “Seventeen missed calls can’t be the sign of someone who is interested in cheating on you.”
“They can also be the sign of someone who has too much apologizing to do.”
“I don’t know him well enough to defend him, but I think you owe it to yourself to hear him out.”
“Ha.” I managed an honest laugh. For once, she had the opportunity to give me my own line. She enjoyed it, and she showed it with a big smile of her own.
When Marie stirred, Rachel clapped her hands then cradled her to her chest, cooing over the baby as if she were her own. One day, perhaps soon, Rachel was going to be a spectacular mother.
We spent the following hour talking about Marie, my sister, Logan, and celebrations of all kinds. When we said our goodbyes, both of us felt a little better.
A taxi passed me by, but I chose to walk back home, knowing that the excess of physical activity wouldn’t do me any harm. It was still warm and pleasant outside, but the sun didn’t burn as it had earlier.
I pulled back the canopy of Marie’s stroller and reclined the seat so she could sit and play with her little Minnie Mouse toy. I was making funny faces at her when her uncontrolled giggles were drowned out by the most familiar voice echoing right in my ear.
“Stalking seems to be necessary with you, sweet Charlotte.”
I jerked and came to a halt.
It had been less than two days since we parted on precarious terms, but the separation felt longer and more scathing than that. Marcus was close enough that his arm brushed against mine, the contact making me tremble.
I looked back at Marie, who was ogling and pointing curiously to Marcus, and forced myself to ignore what the sight of him did to me even when I was mad and hurt.
Dressed in gray slacks and white shirt, smelling of clean soap and man, exuding his characteristic quiet dominance, he demanded my attention without speaking. He was a magnet I had to respond to.
“Who is she?”
He stared at Marie just as curiously and suspiciously as she was staring back. It was refreshing to see that there was someone who didn’t feel intimidated at the sight of him even if that someone was a baby girl, unaware of the power a man could wield.
I faced him and arched a challenging eyebrow. He couldn’t honestly expect to receive answers while I didn’t.
“You should have waited until Monday,” I responded instead.
“Why? So you could keep avoiding me?”
“I’m not avoiding you, Marcus.”
But I was.
He growled so low and deep that the sound reverberated in my whole being. In the middle of the street, surrounded by strangers, I was acutely aware of the male standing a breath away from me. I anticipated his touch as much as I feared it. I didn’t want to surrender to him unless I was sure he was worth surrendering to.
“No? Then how do you explain not answering my calls or my texts, not opening your door when you were clearly home?”
His anger was barely concealed, but there was also that look in his eyes that told me he hadn’t expected otherwise.
“I’m entitled to be upset. I’m also entitled to an explanation. I don’t care about your outburst at the race. I didn’t like it, and I don’t like the idea of you being a part of that scene, but I can overlook it. I can’t say the same for what happened in your apartment.”
“Charlotte, I need you to trust me.”
There were several good responses he could have given. He could have apologized. He could have explained although I might not have liked the explanation.
Evading wasn’t a reply I would tolerate.
I grabbed the handle of the stroller and pushed forward, my gaze stubbornly trained ahead. He followed, or rather, stalked.
“Would you trust me so easily if you found a man waiting for me in my apartment?”
“I would probably murder him, but I would trust you.” There was no hesitation in his voice, no hint of concession.
“Murder wouldn’t be a sign of trust.”
When I walked faster and refused to look at him, I considered that Rachel might have been right, that I was purposefully making a mountain out of a molehill.
Then, the image of that woman returned in my mind. The fact that Marcus declined to explain who she was proved she had a place in his life, one that I might have wrongfully occupied.
“Charlotte, please. I upset you, and you made your point
, but don’t leave me hanging like this. I can’t stand it.”
“You’re doing the same, Marcus. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The wounded, frustrated groan he emitted in my wake accompanied me throughout the night and most of the following morning.
The week started with a call from Jack Stewart’s team summoning me urgently to Washington. By midday, I felt irritable and restless.
Nothing worked out well when Marcus and I did not work out well. That was why I didn’t like mixing business with pleasure. If something went wrong on a personal level, it affected everything else.
“Miss Burton?”
Sofia stepped cautiously inside my office, assessing my mood correctly as usual and avoiding getting in my way when I was already touchy. I looked up from my notebook screen, and she got the cue to continue.
“I booked your flight for tonight at eight o’clock and made reservations at Willard Intercontinental. Is that alright?”
My temper got worse when I thought that I might have to remain in D.C. until my client was exonerated or convicted. As his lawyer, I should have believed in the former, but my heart was leaning toward the latter.
That was my chance right there to be vindictive. Marcus had demanded that he come with me the next time I went to D.C., and the opportunity presented itself sooner than we expected. Since we had fought, and I was rightfully upset with him, I could have simply left and let him mind his own business. But that was not the way I was built.
“Book two rooms, please. Let Mr. King know I need to have a word with him.”
“Senior?”
“No. Junior.”
Sofia arched an eyebrow but otherwise made no comment.
“Will that be all?”
“Yes.”
Less than ten minutes later my door opened and closed without a sound. I knew it was Marcus before I looked up to confirm what my body had already acknowledged.
I stood up immediately but remained behind my desk. My stilettos did not boost my height enough to tower over him, but it made me tall enough to feel a little less vulnerable before his stately pose. He marched inside with purpose stamped in his gaze, making my heart skip a beat.
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