by Emelia Blair
She stares at me, perhaps studying me in the same way that I am taking in her every detail. There is a guarded look in her eyes that has never been there before, and I hate it.
“You look well.” I finally break the silence. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Yeah. Like I said, I needed some time.” She takes a deep breath, and then looks me straight in the eyes. “You made our marriage a media storm.”
I do not flinch under her gaze. I hold no regrets.
“I’m not done yet. What Erik did to you was something he had planned. I overheard a snippet of their conversation when I arrived. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand what he meant to do until it was too late.”
Charlotte sighs.
“So what?”
A flare of something dark surfaces in me.
“You’ve forgiven him?”
She scoffs; this bitterness from her is something new to me.
“Forgiven him? I’m done with him. I want this whole thing to be over so that I can pick up my life and move on. Erik and I were always from two ends of the social spectrum. I should have known something like this was too good to be true.” She shrugs. “The blame lies on my shoulders as well.”
I don’t like the way she so casually throws herself under the bus like that, as if the fact that that slimy git chose her was an honor she had no right to.
“A man like Erik doesn’t deserve somebody like you.” My words are sharp, yet soft. When Charlotte pales at my words, I continue, annoyed, “You are worth far more than he could ever hope to get.”
She stares at me, and then lowers her gaze.
“Whatever the case may be, I’m not here to discuss that. I want to tell you that I’ve gotten in touch with my lawyer to prepare the annulment papers.”
I don’t react.
“I see.”
She waits for a moment, and then continues, “I already have a very low profile, so it shouldn’t have that much of an impact. I’ll have the papers to you by the end of the week. I—” She hesitates. “What you did for me, I’m grateful. I certainly didn’t expect it. But you and Agatha kept me together and I want to thank you for it.”
She is about to stand up, and I speak in a low voice, my anger thinly veiled.
“That’s it?” She looks at me apparently, startled at my tone. I grit my teeth. “We’ve been friends our whole lives, and suddenly you decide to treat me like some bug you can’t wait to get rid of?”
Charlotte blinks.
“What are—”
“You didn’t even invite me to your wedding.”
There. It is out. I hadn’t realized how bad it had stung me.
Even though I hadn’t wanted to attend, the fact that she deliberately excluded me had hurt.
She must have seen the flash of hurt on my face, because she straightens in her seat, and studies me.
“Would you have come if I had invited you?”
Would I have? I am not sure.
Charlotte studies me, and then struggles with something, almost physically, before asking, “Why did you do it?” My jaw tightens. Surely, she can’t be referring to—? “Why did you marry me? There were a number of ways you could have handled the situation. I spent these past few days thinking of all them. But you chose to marry me, knowing how it would complicate both our lives.”
This woman has a way about her that makes me lose my composure. That was the way it was always with her.
Nobody else could make me lose my cool faster than she could. Her words, her expressions, her actions, they pushed at me in a way that made me reckless.
It took me ten years to ditch my playboy lifestyle, to become a successful businessman and take over my father’s empire. Five of those years I spent on setting up and establishing McCoy Security Enterprises. I became more calculating, and put a tight leash around my famous temper, honing that leash until I was one of the most dangerous opponents in the boardroom.
And yet, this woman drives me insane, throwing all my years of hard work down the drain.
“The words your fiancé threw at you, I disproved them.” My words are chosen slowly, with great care, as if I have not spent the past few days forming this reply to the same question that Ian posed to me.
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” My eyes widen at the words she so casually throws my way. Charlotte gives me a look.
“You can fancy up your suits, Philip, and you can wear your civilized veneer like a second skin, but you haven’t changed that much. You’re still the same Philip that I grew up knowing. But me? I changed. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve anymore.”
I stare at her; her words are harsh, and I realize she is right about one thing.
She has changed.
The woman giving me that cold look might no longer hold any feelings for me.
And just like that, my plan changes.
4
Charlotte
Coming into the coffee shop, I never expected my heart to skip on seeing Philip sitting there. His dirty blonde hair all messed up, a cup of coffee in hands.
I put up my shields and barriers before I approach him. And right now, as I tell him in so many words that I no longer love him, the look of shock on his face shifts to something more calculating.
I came here with the intention of ending this relationship, this faux-marriage, but as he studies me now, that air of arrogance that he wears so well eats away at my shields.
“So, what you’re saying is, that once I sign the annulment papers, it’s farewell?” His voice cuts into my thoughts, and I bite my tongue, forcing myself to remain calm.
“What else is there? We both have our lives. I highly doubt we’re going to be running into each other any time soon.”
“Is that so?” His words are soft.
Something is wrong here. I mis-stepped somewhere along the way.
He watches me with those cool, unaffected eyes, and then takes out his wallet, placing a few bills on the table for the waitress before standing up.
“I’m afraid I can’t have that.” With that, he just walks away, making me gape at his retreating back.
Wait, does that mean he isn’t going to sign the annulment papers?!
I glare down at the table.
He hasn’t even agreed to sign the papers. What the hell is he after?
I take a few deep breaths and force my tensed frame to relax. I don’t understand what he is thinking. When I said he hasn’t changed, I was lying.
The man in front of me is a far cry from the playboy who had thrown the wildest parties in Chicago. He is no longer the boy who had stolen my heart and then crushed it within the same night.
Of course, I knew what he had been up to all these years. I was unable to help myself from searching for his name in the news, or hearing about him from Agatha.
After all, he was one of the most important people in my life before I went and fell in love with him.
Stupid me.
I stand up slowly and make my way to the bus stop. It is nearing nine in the morning, and I have to get to work.
As I sit on the bus, I rest my head against the glass window. I cut ties with Philip ten years ago. I walked out of that house. But could anyone blame me?
When he returned from college, a dashing twenty-two-year-old who no longer looked at me as if I was a child, my feelings for him morphed into something stronger. I saw the way he was with other women, always flirting and touching, but with me he was gentle, as if I was special, as if I mattered.
He would talk to me for hours, just sitting on the edge of the fountain in the garden of his estate. He would tell me all about his plans for the future, and I guess the girl in me felt important and desired.
I gaze dully at the cars as they whizz past the bus, recalling the small things about him that would catch my eyes and make my heart beat faster. The way his beautiful blue eyes would laugh at me, or the tender exasperation when I would insist that I could walk home alone.
/> Nobody had ever treated me like that before and I had handed my heart over to him without a second thought. In hindsight, my eighteen-year-old self was desperate to be loved and that was the only reason I had slipped up.
Ten years, and I could still remember the way he backed me against the wall, pressed his hot lips against my mouth. That rush of emotions foreign to me and yet so exciting.
My body had trembled as he let me feel every muscled plane of his form while he kissed me, first wild and passionate, and then gentle and loving.
That should have been my clue that he had viewed me as nothing more than one of the girls who hung around him. That all our years of knowing each other, the friendship we had struck up, it all meant nothing to him.
Hours later, when I had received a text from him, I went to his room, excited. I thought maybe he wanted to talk. That may be, he wanted to discuss whatever we had together.
I was floating on cloud nine at the time; a young girl, her head full of romantic notions for the first time in her life.
But I was shattered to find him wrapped around that blonde-haired girl, her bare legs wrapped around his waist as he made out with her, his hands molding her form to his.
Is it still supposed to hurt like this?
He’d met my eyes and then pulled away, only to gesture with his hand and say, “Close the door, Charlotte. I’m busy.”
And I’d done just that.
That was the last time I saw Philip. That faint smirk in his eyes, when he told me my worth in so many words. He took an ice pick to my heart and broke it into tiny pieces that I was never able to put back together.
I loved Erik, but a part of me had always been guarded with him, scared of giving myself entirely to him. Of course, if I think about it, most of our time together was spent in me helping him out with his business proposals. The pain of what he did is still fresh, but I am not planning on letting it hold me back.
Erik had my love, but only a portion of my trust. Trust isn’t a commodity that will ever come easy to me again.
My eyes harden, and I stand up when I see the familiar landscape.
I get off at my stop, and my eyes go across the road to the bakery that I am now running. I haven’t opened it for the past few days, and today will be my first day returning. I know the two girls whom I hired arrived in the early hours of the day. I woke up to the sounds of them bustling about downstairs.
It is oddly convenient that my apartment is located directly above the bakery. I never understood how things fell so neatly into place. Vera handed over the bakery to me after agreeing to minimal monthly installments when she decided to move to Canada with her son.
Now, I own my own bakery and rent an apartment right above it.
I worked really hard for this. As I enter the shop, my lips curve slightly at the scent of freshly baked bread.
“Charlotte!” Riley, a college student whom I hired a few months ago, looks at me, wide-eyed. “I didn’t see you this morning! When did you leave?” I put down my bag.
“Yeah, I took the back entrance.”
Sonya, my other assistant, calls out from the kitchen, “Hey, Charlotte!” She sticks her head out, and informs me, “A reporter showed up an hour ago asking after you. I told him he got the wrong woman. The Charlotte Evans who works here is fifty-four and went to attend her grandson’s wedding in New York.” I still.
“This won’t be a problem to you guys, will it? Because I have a feeling that reporters will keep coming over till this whole mess is sorted out.”
Riley grins.
“We got your back. I’ll put up a board outside. Anyone who has questions must buy. More business.”
Riley was the one who hooted after my nuptials, and even now, she casually supports me as if it is nothing.
“I appreciate this, you two.”
They just grin and move on with their duties.
It makes me relax when I realize they didn’t plan on bringing up anything that happened, and I feel that today might turn out to be a good day.
As I tie my own apron, I recall the way Philip refused to sign the annulment papers.
More than just angering me, his actions confuse me. What does he want?
There is nothing I can give him. There is no benefit he could possibly get from this marriage. So, why is he being so persistent?
I find it hard to believe that his feelings are hurt that I walked away from him ten years ago. Of course, he never knew the whole story of what happened after I left Agatha’s birthday party that evening, the traumatizing events that occurred that very night. Nor will he ever find out.
Let him think what he wants, I tell myself as I start icing the fresh batch of cupcakes. His opinion matters little to me.
The part of me that is logical, knows that he took pity on me. But such a decision, even motivated by pity, makes no sense to me.
Maybe if we have been friends, it would make more sense to me, but for someone that I know is a very savvy businessman, for him to take such a step—
My hand falters on one of the designs, ruining it. I stare at it, upset.
I can’t afford to waste too much product.
However, since I haven’t had any breakfast, I take a bite out of the ruined cupcake and chew slowly, surveying this bakery that I now call my own.
Although it is located downtown, in a seedier part of town, the customers are many, and that is all that matters. I am a known face around these parts, and although Vera taught me the basics of baking, somehow it turned out that I have a natural flair for it.
Pouring over cookbook after cookbook over the years, I tried and experimented with different recipes, finally coming up with my own variations. The small bakery that Vera was running for a handful of years, slowly started picking up more business till it was one of the most successful businesses in this part of town.
Maybe that was why Vera handed it over to me, because she knew I could run this place and that this bakery was all I had.
Listening to the laughing conversation from the front end of the bakery, I smile. My life isn’t all that bad. I am well settled here. I am working my way towards an MBA degree, with my twice-a-week night classes at a top-tier college uptown.
It is ironic, really, that it had taken helping Erik out with his pending mergers that taught me that I might have a head for business after all. That ultimately put me on the path to this degree.
The jingling of the doorbell that indicates the arrival of the first customer, makes me quickly wrap up the icing and move towards the front room.
I am surprised to see Agatha standing there, dressed in a red blouse and sharply-pressed black trousers. She is leaning over the counter, showing something to Sonya on her phone, while Riley just rolls her eyes at the two of them.
“What’s going on?” I ask, wiping my hands on my apron. Sonya grins.
“Agatha’s showing me the photos from the fashion show in Paris from two weeks ago.”
Sonya is currently enrolled in an art school. She is majoring in fashion design, something which thrills Agatha to no end. Both my childhood friend and my employee can spend hours debating over clothes and designs if they aren’t reined in.
Agatha waggles her fingers at me in greeting, as if she hasn’t just spent the night over at my place. It warms something in my tattered heart that she knows just how to handle me right now.
All three of these women are my closest friends, and all of them are treating this past week as if it never happened, dragging me into normalcy. I can’t help the curving of my lips.
“Are you going into work?” I ask Agatha as I pack up two slices of banana bread and a spinach roll for her. I put the brown bag next to her and give her an expectant look. She makes a face.
“I should really say no to this, but I’m greedy.” I give her a confused look, and she flashes her teeth at me in a smile. “I’m meeting Ian for lunch.”
“Oh,” I raise a brow as I reach for the bag, “Guess you won’t be needing�
�” Agatha immediately grabs the packaged food from within my reach, glaring at me.
“Did I say I didn’t want these?” She cackles almost maniacally. “These are going in my fridge.” I shake my head.
“You worry me.” She smiles.
“Come on. Walk me out.”
I oblige, and wave at one of the local shopkeepers, who is putting up the promotion board outside his shop.
Agatha’s smile disappears.
“How did it go? What did Philip say?”
“Nothing.” I stick my hands in the pockets of my apron, not bothering to hide my upset. “He didn’t agree to sign the papers. He hardly stuck around for more than ten minutes.” Agatha sighs.
“I tried to talk to him, but he told me that this was between you and him and that I should butt out. The spin on the story I put out… I was just trying to protect your reputation at that point. I didn’t want that rat bastard to make you a laughing stock.”
“Maybe,” I mutter. “But we’ve already fielded off one reporter, and now that the shop is open, more will follow. I’m not – I don’t know how to handle the media, Agatha. I’m not one for the spotlight. And since this involves Philip, they are bound to hound me.”
Agatha puts a hand on my arm.
“I wish you would consider staying at my place for the next few weeks.”
“You know I can’t do that.” I shake my head. “I have my classes and I have the shop.”
I am barely able to make ends meet as it is, with the increased rent and the fees for the classes. I know it is just six more months, but I am still struggling. If Agatha finds out, she will try her best to loan me some money, and I don’t want that.
“I’ll try talking to Philip again. I was so angry at the time that I didn’t think of the consequences of what I wrote. God, this whole thing is such a mess.”
I stop her.
“Don’t. I’ll handle this. I don’t want to come between you and your brother. I’ll convince him, and even if I can’t, he’ll come to the realization himself that whatever he’s trying to achieve here is pointless.”