Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“It’s not just her. It’s how everyone in my social circle was treated. Meanwhile, you...” She turned back to me and gestured up and down my body as if displaying a prize on a game show. “You didn’t smell like the stable. You worked up a healthy sweat. You weren’t a know-it-all, you were confident. And you certainly never had to worry about safeguarding your precious virginity.”
“If anything, the pressure was on to be rid of it.” I’d known, not to the full extent, that Catherine had always had a problem being the “girl” of the family. I’d never thought about how insufferable the position could be. “I’m sorry that happened. And I’m sorry I didn’t notice it happening. None of that was right or fair.”
“I suppose it wasn’t right or fair for me to blame you. You weren’t making anyone treat me that way. You certainly didn’t have the power to stop them.”
“I didn’t have the understanding, anyway.” I could cop to that. The other stuff might not have been my fault, but not noticing or thinking about the pain my sister was in and assuming she was a huge bitch for no reason? That was inexcusable.
“I wish things could have been different.” I meant that, deeply. “So that we didn’t have to grow apart the way we did.”
“Me too.” She cleared her throat. I’d already seen her cry once recently. She wasn’t going to let it happen a second time. We may have been in the process of making up, but Catherine would always be Catherine, and some of her quirks and boundaries would stay the same.
“So,” she began again with a fresh start. “Let’s get the notary in here and get all this paperwork squared away. Starting with the closing documents.”
* * * *
After my sister’s office, I had one more stop to make. An important one. Another secret one, a secret so nerve wracking, I couldn’t finish my coffee on the drive to work. It was noon when I got to headquarters, and I knew that Charlotte would have been here for hours already, hard at work, probably wondering where the fuck I’d been.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she asked when I entered the conference room she was setting up. Her greeting didn’t come from a place of exasperation; she sounded more curious than pissed off.
“It’s a secret.” I watched her grimace at her laptop, then looked back to the screen at the front of the room and back again. “Why isn’t your assistant doing this?”
“My assistant is on a call that I didn’t want to take,” she said, and flinched. “Am I going to get in trouble for that?”
“I won’t tell the boss that you shirked your duties,” I promised. “What time is your meeting?”
She didn’t look up from the computer. “I don’t know. What’s your secret?”
“If I tell you, it won’t be a secret.” But I was dying to spoil it. Absolutely dying. “Here’s a hint. I closed on a building.”
Her head snapped up. “A building?”
“I wanted to show it to you, but you’re busy.” I motioned over my shoulder with my thumb. “I can take you by later.”
“My meeting isn’t until four,” she said quickly, and pushed the laptop back. “Besides, it’s not going to happen until IT gets up here to help me.”
“So, you’re going to fuck off from work in the middle of the day?” I clucked my tongue.
“Only if my boss agrees. But I feel like he probably will, since he’s the one who suggested we leave in the first place.” She headed to the conference room doors. “I’m going to get my jacket, and we can go.”
“Great. And when we get there, I’ll tell you the secret.”
Both secrets.
She turned back to me and my chest ached suddenly at her beauty. She wasn’t the unpolished party girl I’d met months ago, or the sexy siren she’d turned into at Ascend Red. This was another Charlotte entirely, confident and powerful in an environment she’d once described as “out of her element.”
There was no “element” Charlotte could ever be outside of; every Charlotte I’d known up until now still existed in her. They peeked out under the right circumstances, vanished when appropriate. She wasn’t a chameleon. She was a shapeshifter.
And I was the luckiest asshole on the planet because every single version of Charlotte loved me fiercely.
“Go on,” I said, somehow sounding normal while my throat was sealed shut with terror. I wasn’t worried that she would freak out about the foundation. I knew she would love it.
It was the engagement ring that might make her bolt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
(Charlotte)
While I hadn’t been living in the city for long—and I certainly wasn’t someone to ask for directions—I knew enough to know that Matt was driving us in the wrong direction.
“I think we might be headed to the wrong site,” I said, trying not to let my disappointment show. I’d wanted to see Ascend Manhattan situated closer to downtown than the East Side. Sure, our clientele would probably be from the ritzy, legacy buildings neighboring Central Park, but it wasn’t an area that screamed modernity and decadence like the ever-changing, eye-catching midtown.