Charmed: A Small Town Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Willow Springs Series Book 3)

by Laura Pavlov

  “Because I don’t want this night to end.” It was the truth, and I had a hunch Maura would appreciate an honest answer over a bullshit answer.

  She pushed down to stand on her feet. Maybe it was a way of holding her own. Standing her ground.

  “Listen, Crew. I don’t just sleep at random guys’ houses. It’s just not me. And this is complicated.” She twisted her hands together and studied me.

  I nodded. She was fucking right. But I didn’t give a shit. I’d always trusted my gut and my gut told me this is where I wanted to be. Needed to be.

  I moved into her space. “We’ve got a lot of strikes against us, there’s no question. But I like you, Maura Benson. Maybe too much.”

  “I like you too. And that scares me.”

  I tucked the hair behind her ears. “I want to give you what you need, but dating out in the open isn’t going to work for either of us right now. My grandfather would lose his shit, because I’m the president of the company and you’re an intern. If anyone found out, it would be really bad press for the company. We have competitors just looking for something to knock us down. And your father would probably disown you if he found out. Hell, you can’t even tell him you work for me.”

  “I don’t need a big public display or care what anyone else thinks. It’s not about that. Obviously this is new, so there’s no sense causing a huge battle when we are just getting to know one another, right?”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  She shifted on her feet, looking off as if she was deep in thought. “I’m fine with keeping it on the down-low. Seeing as my father is capable of disowning his children, and as disturbed as I am by what he’s done, I’m not ready to start a war in my family. I mean, this might just be a friendship. We might just enjoy one another’s company.”

  I chuckled even though we both knew it was a hell of a lot more than that or we wouldn’t even be going there. “Agreed.”

  “But we also like kissing, and now you want me to spend the night.”

  “I do.”

  “And I want to do that too.” She smiled so wide my breath caught in my throat. I leaned forward and rested my forehead against hers.

  “What do you need?” I asked. I was a straight shooter. I’d probably give this girl my left testicle right now just to get her to spend the night in my bed. With zero expectations. She made me feel things I didn’t know I was capable of, and I wanted to see where that led.

  “As long as we’re, you know, going to see where this goes, I would want to know you aren’t with anyone else. I’m just not big on sharing when it comes to relationships, or er, non-relationships. It’s already weird because we have to keep it a secret. So, I need to know that much. That we’re seeing where it goes. But no other complications.” She shrugged.

  I chuckled because she was so fucking cute. “I can do that.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes. Without question.”

  “And when you can’t, you just tell me. But I need to have some normalcy. I mean, I’m spending the night with my father’s nemesis and my boss.”

  “No sex. No cheating. And it’s a secret. This is definitely not the norm for me either. But I’m game. And you tell me if it’s not working for you as well. Deal?”

  “Deal. We’re friends, without the benefits, who get to kiss, and sleep in the same bed,” she said over her laughter. “And I will just borrow a T-shirt to sleep in and have Brad take me home early in the morning.”

  This was by far the craziest thing I’d ever agreed to, and I was completely fine with it. The thought of sleeping beside her gave me mixed feelings. I was hard as a rock and I’d need to take care of that in the shower tomorrow morning before work, so I was all sorts of uncomfortable. Yet I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. Like I was about to open the gift I’d been wanting all year. Which was crazy, considering she’d made it clear we wouldn’t be having sex.

  “Fucking awesome, Benson.” I held out my hand to shake hers, and when she reached for mine, I swiped my arm around her waist and scooped her up. Laughter filled the space around me, and I walked to my bedroom and dropped her on the bed. “Most women don’t laugh this hysterically when they get me in bed.”

  She smiled as she looked up at me. “I’m not most girls, Carlisle.”

  Ain’t that the fucking truth.

  “I’m quite aware.”

  She pushed to her feet and took in the space. “My god. You live so large.”

  “Says the girl who grew up in an estate.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “My dad is a bit bougie, obviously. But you live alone. Don’t you get lonely being here by yourself?”

  I shook my head. “No. I like my space. I go home plenty. I work a lot. Spend time with friends, and er, yeah. Friends,” I said, trying to change the subject.

  “Women. I’m not stupid. You’re sexy as sin. A bit broody, which girls love. Not me particularly.” Her head fell back in laughter once again. “You’re definitely the grumpiest guy I’ve ever not-dated but spent time with.”

  “Oh yeah. What kind of guys have you dated?” My tone was serious. The thought of Maura with anyone else had me feeling uncomfortable. Off-balance.

  What the fuck was that about?

  “I’ve only had three relationships. One in high school. And two in college. They weren’t super exciting. Low drama. Definitely not complicated. All three guys were very nice. We never fought.” She shrugged.

  “So, they were boring, then? I’m guessing the sex was a letdown with all that non-chemistry going on.” I raised a brow because I wanted to know. Hell, I wanted to know everything about this girl.

  “The sex was—vanilla. At best. I only know that because my friends have told me what it could be like, and it wasn’t like that for me. My high school boyfriend and I only did it twice.” She shook her head and shrugged. “And clearly, we didn’t know what we were doing, and I wasn’t in a hurry to do it again. And the next two were…”

  “Fuckers?” I said as I seethed at the thought of them touching her. She wasn’t even mine and the thought of another dude touching her had my blood boiling.

  “Boring is a better word. You know the day that we were out in the field...” She paused and studied me.

  “Yes. It was two days ago. It’s etched in my brain forever.”

  Her cheeks pinked even more than normal. “Well, that’s never happened to me.”

  “What? Making out in a field?”

  “No. What you did to me. The way you made me feel.”

  Jesus Christ. How innocent was she? She couldn’t even fucking say it. “The orgasm that I gave you?”

  She shook her head and looked away. “That’s never happened with a guy.”

  I moved closer. “Well, I’m happy if I can be the first to give you real pleasure. You’ve been dating selfish pricks, Maura Benson. Now you can have all the orgasms that you want.”

  “As long as I don’t tell anyone who’s giving them to me, right?” She chuckled, but I saw the hesitation behind her pretty honey brown gaze.

  “Hey. If we decide this is going somewhere, we’ll deal with it at that time. You won’t be an intern at my company forever.”

  “But you and my father will always be enemies,” she said.

  “Good point. Come on. Let’s get some rest.” I moved to my dresser and grabbed a T-shirt out of the drawer for her.

  She held it to her nose. “It smells like you.”

  I laughed. “Oh yeah. What do I smell like?”

  “Like mint and pine and sexy man.” She walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I tugged my sweater over my head and dropped my jeans on the floor. This was definitely not the norm for me. The woman spending the night with me was changing into my T-shirt behind a closed door. Hell, she’d probably locked it.

  She opened the door. Her
hair was tied in a knot on top of her head. Her face was shiny and clean of makeup and she looked like a motherfucking wet dream in my T-shirt. How the fuck did an oversized Harvard shirt look sexy on this girl? She stared at me for a long moment. Her gaze moving down to the oversized bulge in my fitted boxer briefs. I could certainly refrain from touching her if she wanted me to, but I couldn’t control how the big guy responded to her. Especially after hearing that I’m the only guy to ever bring her over the edge. To ever hear her cry out my name. Her eyes bulged out and she licked her lips before turning away.

  She hurried over to my bed and hopped under the covers before reaching for her phone. “I need to let Ivy know I’m not coming home.”

  “And you trust your friends won’t tell anyone about us?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  I turned off the lights and climbed in bed beside her while she sent her friend a text. Our legs tangled together, and I breathed her in. Her heart was racing against my chest. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer.

  “Why doesn’t your dad work for the ad agency?” she asked.

  I ran my fingers through her silky hair, her head resting just beneath my chin. “After our grandfathers had the fallout, my grandfather left the business completely. He opened the ad agency and asked his two brothers to run the oil business. My Uncle Pete got sick when I was young, and my father stepped up. Our family has always been close, and we fill in wherever we’re needed, I guess. But I think he liked it, and Uncle Pete died a few years later, and Dad just stayed there. I knew I wanted to do something different, and I used to go with Gramps to work during the summer when I was a kid. He ran Carlisle Ad Agency for fifty years before he handed me the reins. He started it from nothing, and we used to talk about the day I’d take over. And with my brothers working for the oil company, this works. Knox will come work with me after he graduates. He’s into the creative side of things. Both of our companies are family-run, so we really care about the outcome, you know? We want it to grow. We want to leave a legacy.”

  “I love that.” Her voice sounded sleepy.

  “Why don’t you work for your father?” I asked.

  “Well, for one, he’s a tyrant. My brothers can’t wait for the day that they take over. They have all these ideas, but he doesn’t listen. And he doesn’t even want me to work. My dad is old-fashioned. He wants me to get married and have kids and be pampered. So, I knew I’d need to find something of my own to pursue, and I have. Your father owns a bunch of businesses in town, right?”

  Her father owned several businesses in Willow Springs as well. He’d rent his properties for a ridiculously high rent, which meant most of his tenants would eventually go out of business because they couldn’t maintain the payments to stay afloat. My father invested in people. He’d help them start their own businesses and back them to do so.

  “He’s a silent investor. He believes that we are very blessed to have what we have, and we should do what we can to give back. You know… that whole theory that there’s enough for everyone.” I chuckled, but my eyes were heavy. There was a peacefulness having Maura Benson in my arms and in my bed.

  “My father believes he’s the king of his castle. Of Willow Springs,” she said, her tone laced with sadness. “Lately I don’t feel like I even know him.”

  She didn’t. That was where I’d messed up. I’d put all the Bensons in one category. But I’d quickly learned that Maura was nothing like her father.

  And I liked her.

  I liked her a lot.

  “So, tell me, Maura Benson. How was our first date? Are you charmed?”

  “Completely charmed. And that terrifies me,” she said just above a whisper.

  She burrowed closer into my neck and I kissed the top of her head, and we both gave in to sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maura

  Ivy and I were having dinner and we’d just gotten off of a Zoom call with the Magic Willows. I’d filled them in on the past two weeks. I didn’t even know how this was my life anymore, but I’d never been happier. I was working for my father’s enemy, about to graduate from college, I’d had two more secret meetings with my sister Piper, and we were becoming friends, and I was spending my nights in my boss’s bed. We made out every night until my lips were swollen and sore, but I still wanted more. I knew I needed to be careful until we knew where it was going. Crew Carlisle could destroy me. I’d never been in a relationship where I feared how much it would hurt if it ended. And now I was in a… what was I in? A friendship with a man I could never openly date. A man I was so attracted to, I thought about him every second that we weren’t together. Which wasn’t all that often. We’d been very careful in the office thus far, but today we’d nearly gotten caught when he’d come up behind me in the break room and kissed my neck, thinking no one was in there. Thankfully, I’d jumped away from him before Sam stepped out of the restroom. Crew had finally let go of his ridiculous jealousy over Sam, who liked to talk to me about his relationship with Gwen. I’d encouraged him to stop sending the poor guy to the printing room and actually allow him to work in design, which is what he thrived in.

  Tonight was the first night I was having dinner at home with Ivy because I’d gone from work to Crew’s house every day since we’d agreed to this crazy arrangement. It was good to put some space there. He had dinner with his grandfather tonight, and I’d planned to have dinner with Ivy.

  “So, tell me about your date last night?” I said once I set the pasta down on the table between us.

  “Six-point-five out of ten. He was polite. Good-looking. But he talked about himself the entire time. He was a state champion wrestler in high school. He was a top student in high school. He was voted most likely to succeed….” She held her hand out for me to join her.

  “In high school,” we said at the same time and burst out in laughter.

  “Apparently he peaked in high school. He then went on to tell me an hour-long story about his high school girlfriend and how she broke his heart. In the end, I helped him craft a text to win her back. It’s a long shot. He wrote me today that he still hadn’t heard back from her. You can lead a horse to water, but you sure as hell can’t make it drink,” she said, twirling her fork around an oversized bit of pasta and inhaling it.

  My head fell back in laughter. “How in the world does he get a six-point-five?”

  “Girl,” she said, holding her hand up to let me know she had to finish chewing. “He picked the cutest French restaurant and the waiter asked for my number when Tony went to the restroom. Hashtag when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

  Ivy had the dating scene down. She went on more first dates than anyone I knew. She rarely ever went on a second. Maybe three times over the past four years, and they never went beyond date number two. According to Ivy, you know when you know.

  “So, back to you. You spend the night in this gorgeous man’s bed every night. He feeds you. He listens to you. You don’t have sex with him, yet he keeps coming back? What’s the catch?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what we’re doing. My dad’s going to lose his shit when he finds out I’m working there. But dating Crew—I think he’d disown me.”

  “Maura, the man finds out he has another daughter and makes no attempt to meet her. No attempt to apologize. He has no heart. Don’t gauge your happiness on Arthur Benson.” She held her hand up to stop me from interrupting. “Listen, he holds money over your head. Over all of your heads. I know he loves you, probably more than anyone. But the man is emotionally bankrupt as a human being. He’s not going to cut you off because it would look bad for him. One of the wealthiest oil tycoons in the state of Texas, disowning his daughter for dating a guy he doesn’t like? Nonsense.”

  I thought about her words as I chewed my food. There was some truth to that.

  “It’s not the money I’m worried about. I mean, s
ure, he supports me. He’s my father. The thought of him cutting me off is scary, but my mother would never allow it. And I am about to graduate and enter the workforce. So I plan on supporting myself very soon. Everything’s just a mess, Ive. I’m seeing my sister behind my mother’s back. My brothers don’t think we should tell her. They think I should encourage Dad to tell her. But the guilt is eating me alive. Wes and Lyle can’t stand to be home because they feel so terrible to be around Mom when they’re keeping something so big from her. This is a secret from the past. It feels like it’s Dad’s secret to tell. But it’s wrong that we know, and she doesn’t. And my father hasn’t spoken to me since I confronted him, and he doesn’t know that Lyle and Wes know. And then you throw Crew into the mix. He could get in a lot of trouble for dating an intern. He’s the president of the largest ad agency in the state of Texas.”

  “I think your dad should tell your mom as well. He’s put you in a terrible position. But as far as Crew and you are concerned, you’re five years apart. You grew up in the same town. This is not a me too moment. It’s a consensual relationship. Is that why you won’t sleep with him? I mean, I’ve never seen you like anyone as much as you like him. Why are you holding back?”

  “I’m scared that when this whole thing blows up, he’s going to walk away. He hates my father. My father has done terrible things to their family. I understand it. But I’m still his daughter. And if I ever went all in, I would most likely be dead in my father’s eyes. He’s irrational when it comes to the Carlisles.”

  “God, your dad is such an asshole. I mean, I love that we get to live in this swanky apartment in the city, but you know if we had to move out and live in a studio together, I’d be right there beside you,” she said, holding up her wine glass and clanking glasses with me.

  I laughed. “I know you would. He’s not going to kick us out. We graduate in two months. We’re fine, I promise.”

  “So how long can you keep up this arrangement? Crew has got to be dying, sleeping with you every night with the no-sex rule.” She fell back in laughter. “The man is used to getting what he wants.”