Bedeviled

by Madison Michael

  Pulling his suitcase noisily behind him down the hall, Alex dropped his clothes on a chair and went to stand under in the hot shower, letting it revive him. He was already out of the shower and dressed but there was still no sign of Charlotte, so he wandered back to the living room to find her sound asleep on the sofa.

  Alex put a soft cashmere throw over her naked beauty before grabbing a juice from the fridge and heading to his office. His body was still on Pacific time and he was wide awake.

  May as well get a little work done for the bank.

  Instead of working, Alex sat staring out at the night sky, allowing his mind to wander. When they were lying in each other’s arms, he and Charlotte were a formidable pair, close and connected. But he knew he was hiding himself from her, and he was pretty damn sure she was hiding herself from him.

  Alex wanted to move their relationship forward. The more he was with her, the more he wanted to be with her. She was brilliant and funny, lovely and sweet, softly feminine and tough as nails. His family liked her. His friends adored her. He hated being away from her, even for a day. Everything was better shared with Charlotte.

  But how would things be when he told her the truth? How could she ever learn to trust him again? Would she look at him differently, perhaps think he no longer deserved her? How could she bring a man with his history home to her family?

  What are you doing, Alex? What the hell are you doing? You have to come clean before she finds out anyway. She will never trust you again if you don’t tell her.

  He wanted more with Charlotte but at this moment the hurdles in his way felt insurmountable. He had been keeping secrets almost his whole life, living logically and thoughtfully to assure that he never slipped up.

  Now he had made the biggest slip up of all. He had fallen for Charlotte and invited her into his home and his life. How could he stay hidden with her right here, and how could he not? There was still too much at stake. He could not blow it now, not after all these years.

  Soon, he would tell her soon, and let the chips fall where they may. It wasn’t fair to ask him to keep this secret even if he were able to, which was questionable. Enough was enough. It was time to come clean.

  But then what? After all, he only knew about his lies. What about the secrets and lies she had yet to reveal? Perhaps it was Charlotte who was destined to blow them apart, not him. She had mentioned no hotel, no landmark, no restaurant. Alex suspected Charlotte had been nowhere near St. Louis.

  So, where has she been and why can’t she tell me the truth about it? After all, how long am I supposed to be a liar - or love one?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The day was perfect for running and the crowds were thick. Too much adrenaline was coursing through people’s veins and Charlotte could barely hear herself think over folks talking too loudly with each other. Organizers had trouble getting out their messages despite the loud speakers.

  The whole gang had assembled to cheer on Alex. They were coordinating their positions throughout the course so that Alex would see a friendly face at least every four or five miles. Charlotte would see him off and then hang around to be there at the finish line since the course both started and ended at Grant Park. Wyatt and Keeli would be at the four-mile mark, Regan and Tyler at the eight. Aubrey and her Congressman, Adam, were taking the half way point at mile marker 13 and Alex’s parents would be just down the road from her at marker 18. So it went, until the finish line where they all would converge.

  She had offered to work her way through the crowds to egg him on after the halfway point but he had refused. A marathon runner herself, she knew that frustration and burn would set in before the last third of the race. She knew too well how it felt to run sixteen or more miles, be exhausted and still be facing ten more. Fatigue would set in and he would have to rely on will power, determination and training.. A friendly face would go a long way at that point. She had wanted to do this for him, but he assured her that other friends and family paced along the route would suffice.

  Charlotte had invited everyone back to their place after the race for what she hoped would be a late breakfast or brunch. Alex expected to finish in the middle of pack, as he had the previous year and with a 7:30 start time everyone would be back at the house before noon. The biggest problem was traffic. To avoid it almost everyone would be on foot. Those covering the northern edge, and Sloane and Randall, covering the southern corridor, would take the public transportation. Both groups assured Charlotte that they could get there on the “L” and then there was some good natured teasing of Sloane. It turned out she had never ridden any kind of public transportation.

  Charlotte was bummed she couldn’t run but at least the boot was off at last. She would never take a pair of light-weight shoes for granted again. Now, in sturdy running shoes, she made her way through the crowds to give Alex one last kiss and a proper send off.

  “You’ll do great. Just don’t start out too fast. You always want to start fast,” she told him now. “Remember that it is a fast course, and flat, so you have to pace yourself.”

  “Char, I’ve got this, ok?” he responded, humoring her with a hug to take the sting out of his words. “Do not make me nervous, please.”

  “I’m sorry. And even more sorry I am not running with you. Next year.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  “You do that. You ate enough?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Alex teased.

  “You have clothes to discard as you heat up, right?”

  “Yes, Mom. I am wearing the stuff you picked out, smarty-pants, and you know it. Just give me a kiss and let me get going.”

  “Okay, watch for everybody along the route and I will be waiting near the finish, as close as I can get.”

  “Gotcha. Now go.” Alex took Charlotte into his arms, gave her a swift, hard kiss and then pushed her away to join his fellow runners in the starting corral.

  “Love you,” she said reflexively to his retreating back.

  WHAT! What did I just say?

  Charlotte turned around to see Alex’s response but he was already lost in the crowds.

  Oh good, I think he didn’t hear me. Where the hell did that come from? Things have certainly changed lately.

  Charlotte reflected her recent trip to Boston. It had been so great spending time with her brothers, after she took heat from both of them about calling the police. Once they finished scolding her, they had settled into a typical family visit with lots of stories of what had been happening, numerous “remember whens” and a lot of telling each other how to live their lives.

  Jake and Don had a lot of questions for Charlotte about her new job, her new friends, but especially about Alex.

  “I don’t love the idea of you living with someone this quickly,” Jake complained, “but I confess that I am thrilled you live in a building with security people.” Charlotte didn’t offer information about Elizabeth, focusing on other door staff instead. While she was beautiful, Elizabeth was no match for Gil, should he decide to force his way in. There was that key to the elevator requirement, so Charlotte volunteered that information to her brothers to reinforce her decision to stay with Alex.

  “Now I feel even better,” Jake responded, relief evident on his face.

  Charlotte told them all about Regan and her job, bragging about how quickly she had been given responsibility, sharing information that was not confidential about acquisitions, development projects and deals. They were both pretty impressed, although Don missed many of the fine points of the negotiations. The sophisticated nature of Charlotte’s work and the skill and nuance required to do it well were not lost on Jake.

  Most of the time, the three discussed the online specialty food operation and their plans for it. “Papa may have been reluctant at first,” he reminded them, “but even he is enthusiastic now that we are selling back to Portugal.”

  “I cannot believe that you turned Mama and Papa’s recipes into a multi-million dollar business,” Charlotte fawned ove
r her brother. “It’s amazing to think that you grew one little corner bakery into a huge manufacturing plant shipping world-wide.”

  “What’s amazing to me,” Don had chimed in, “is that you can charge so damn much for a cake.”

  “That happened after all the publicity. Once celebrities started talking about our cakes on their talk shows and in ‘People Magazine’, we got to charge celebrity prices.” Jake explained proudly. “People pay those prices happily. It is pretty wild.”

  They all laughed at the notion that a $10 cake in her dad’s bakery now sold for

  $30 to $50 dollars or more. “We can’t keep them In stock,” Jake bragged.

  “Amazing,” Charlotte agreed. “And what about you, little brother? What are you going to contribute?”

  “Well, obviously I will take over the baking when Papa is ready to retire, but I am working on variations of Mama’s jams and soups and I have some ideas of my own regarding traditional Portuguese dishes that will ship easily. Nothing that needs refrigeration. So far, that is my biggest challenge.”

  “I also suggested to Don that we open a restaurant in Providence to serve the Portuguese community, and the community at large, while testing recipes and promoting our business.”

  “It worked for all the famous chefs, why not for you?” Charlotte agreed, ruffling her brother’s hair like he was still five. He slapped her hand away and soon they were all teasing each other like children.

  The time had flown by but soon Charlotte was donning a baseball cap and a new oversized Bruins sweatshirt, watching over her shoulder as she boarded a plane back to Chicago. The uneventful flight got in early enough for Charlotte to look like she had been sitting on the couch all day when Alex arrived home. In fact she had only beat him home by two hours.

  When Alex started asking questions, Charlotte thought he had found her out, but he had cut the interrogation short and taken her to bed where things were as good, if not better, than before they parted. They were close in bed, attuned to one another’s needs and wants, attentive to each other’s desires. The sex was hot and the cuddling was close. Everything seemed better than ever.

  Of course, Charlotte hated lying to Alex and wanted desperately to let down her guard and tell him everything but she would have to let Regan know the truth before she could come clean with Alex. She was not yet ready to risk her job. But if she was falling in love…

  Alex was smart and curious though. He was asking more questions and settling less for her usual vague responses. She either needed to be cleverer about her fibs, she needed to come clean or she needed to distance herself further from a man she had come to care for. She did not want it to be the latter, she wasn’t ready for the second. That left getting cleverer, but Charlotte feared Alex was too smart and Gil was too aggressive. She anticipated trouble, but could not figure out how to head it off.

  Still, in the two weeks since Alex’s return, there had been fewer questions and no issues. Alex was attentive but distracted by serious marathon training and work. Despite his long runs, Charlotte was aware that Alex was not sleeping as well as usual. Something big was happening in L.A. but she couldn’t get him to say more than that he was fighting a hostile takeover. She was impressed that he cared so deeply about his clients. He behaved as if the company was his own.

  The noise brought Charlotte back to the present as the marathoners were off and running. Charlotte waved to Alex as he flew past her – his pace just a tad too fast, she was sure – but she couldn’t tell if her saw her. She moved through the diminishing crowd to find a place to hang out until she watched for Alex at the finish line. She had a book to read, some work to do too, so she headed to get a cup of coffee and then find a shady tree under which to park herself.

  There were two coffee places almost across the street from each other if she walked up to Michigan Avenue, but Charlotte headed for a pancake place instead and pushed her way to the front of the line of hipsters and yuppies waiting for a table.

  “A cinnamon roll and coffee to go, please,” she told the cashier, pacing from foot to foot, anxious to get back out into the perfect autumn day. “Large, black.”

  Charlotte reached for her wallet, extracted a couple of singles and went to hand them to the cashier.

  “Here, let me get that,” a familiar man’s voice said placing his hand over hers to prevent her from paying.

  Charlotte didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge the generous offer. She was frozen like a statue, her blood running cold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When Charlotte wasn’t visible at the finish of the race, Alex was not concerned. The crowds were big, noisy and undulating. She could be nearby and he wouldn’t know it. Then he remembered that she had worn that hot-pink tee just so he could spot her in the crowd. She was nowhere to be seen. He would have checked his phone, but he had left the device with her while he ran.

  What a stupid plan that had been.

  Perhaps she wandered away a bit, or miscalculated the time. He had finished faster than last year by a full twenty minutes, he remembered with pride. He couldn’t wait to share his success with her.

  There was that ‘mile 27 after party’ down the street. Perhaps she had wandered over there. Alex was sweaty and exhausted but he headed that way anyway, only to run into Sloane and Randall coming toward him in the crowd.

  “Hey there. Very nice work, my friend,” Randall bellowed, slapping Alex on the back in congratulations. “I think you finished even faster this year. Not bad for an old man.”

  “Watch it with the old man comments, Rand. After all, you are three full months older than me. When am I going to see your sorry ass out there on the course?”

  “No running for this guy,” Sloane offered. “You know that will never be his sport. He is just too big a guy to let his knees take such a pounding.”

  “Where’s Charlotte?” Alex changed the subject abruptly. “She said she would be here at the finish.”

  “Oh, yeah, she texted all of us that she would meet us back at your place. She wanted to get lunch organized and waiting for you. She figured you would be starving.”

  “Oh, okay. Thirsty, really, but soon I will be ready to eat a bear,” Alex told them as he swiped a bottle of water from a nearby table filled with Gatorade and Vitamin Waters.

  “Anyway we said we would stand in and get you back home safe and sound,” Randall explained. “Can you walk the few blocks or do you need a rest first?”

  “I can walk,” Alex told Randall impatiently. “I am not an invalid.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Sloane said, keeping the peace between the two blustering men.

  When did Sloane become such a diplomat? Man has she mellowed.

  “But I have been on my feet for hours so let’s take it slow.”

  Ethan and Alex’s parents were sitting in the living room chatting about Chicago politics and sipping mimosas when Alex entered the apartment. He could hear voices in the kitchen so after accepting hearty congratulations, he moved in that direction.

  Wyatt had his head in the refrigerator and his muffled voice could be heard asking something about fruit salad. Keeli and Aubrey were standing at the counter surrounded by platters of meats, cheeses and pastries that Charlotte had been preparing for days. But there was no sign of Charlotte.

  Alex dragged his weary frame to the dining room. No Charlotte. He checked the pantry. No Charlotte. Finally he went back to the dark bedroom and saw her laying on the bed eyes closed, face white as a sheet.

  Kneeling on the floor beside her, Alex took Charlotte’s clammy cold hand in his and in just above a whisper called her name. “Char, honey, are you okay?”

  After what felt like an interminable delay, Charlotte turned her head toward Alex and gave him a weak smile.

  “I am so proud of you,” she said as if they were standing at the finish line. “You did so great today.”

  “Are you okay? Why are you back here lying down? Are you sick?” Alex was frightened by her s
tillness, by her cold skin.

  “I’m fine, Alex. Relax. I just got a bit too much sun or too much caffeine and came to lie down for ten minutes before our guests arrived.”

  Charlotte never got too much sun or too much caffeine and they both knew it. Still, by tacit agreement, she told her lie and he pretended to believe it.

  “Well, they are here now, so do you think you can get up?”

  “Of course I can, silly. Let’s go throw a party and celebrate our champion,” Charlotte said, bouncing from the bed with verve and excitement.

  She is definitely not sick. So she must be upset. What happened to upset her and why won’t she talk to me?

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine, worry wart, tell me all about the race.”