Chapter 12
TRENT
Alex’s office overlooked half of downtown, all glass, steel, and warm morning light streaming in through the windows.
For once, he wasn’t pacing or clipping off sentences between phone calls.
He sat across from me in the sitting area in his office and listened while I laid out the shipping timeline, the processing facility details, and the east coast distribution plan.
All the things he’d supposedly dragged me back to Chicago to go over. When I finished, I leaned back on the couch, stretched my legs out, and leveled him with a look I hoped meant business. “Your turn. Give it to me straight this time. What the fuck, Alex?”
“Yeah, okay. I deserved that.” He didn’t even ask me what I was talking about.
He didn’t need to, just blowing out a slow breath and pinching the bridge of his nose.
Then he finally started explaining, the look in his eyes flat and haunted.
“My dad has known Greg Senior for decades. I heard Gregory was coming to town before anyone else and I knew what my father would do with that information.”
“Start planning a wedding Charlotte didn’t ask for.”
“Exactly.” There was a beat of silence before he sighed and leaned back, lifting his hand to his tie and actually pulling it a little looser. “I hate him. I can’t let her get pulled into one of his traps, Trent.”
My fingers drummed once on the armrest. “You used me.”
Alex didn’t flinch. “I thought Charlotte might like you. You’re safe. Steady. You’d never hurt her and she needs someone who—”
I cut him off with a sharp laugh. “Are you hearing yourself right now?”
His brow creased. “Look, I didn’t mean to use you. I was going to talk to you about it. Things just started moving a lot faster than I expected. I needed an option. Time. You’re the only person I trust.”
“I’ve dealt with this shit already, Alex,” I said, exasperation dripping from my tone. When confusion flickered in his eyes, I groaned. “The little sister with your best friend thing. Jameson married my little sister, remember? Do you even realize what you’re asking of me, of us?”
Alex’s jaw clenched. “Trent.”
“No. Don’t Trent me. I’ll be acting like Charlotte’s boyfriend,” I said pointedly, my eyebrows raised. “Are you really okay with that?”
His throat bobbed, but he didn’t break eye contact. “It would be temporary.”
I just shook my head, because none of this made sense to me—not the arranged marriage tradition, not the silent expectations or the idea that a woman like Charlotte Westwood didn’t have full autonomy over her own damn life.
“I’ll never understand your family’s obsession with marriage contracts,” I muttered. “I get convenience and God knows, my own family is as fanatic as any other about protecting the family name, and the family fortune, and whatever the fuck else, but this?”
Alex’s expression tightened. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it is.”
He hesitated for a second, but then he finally gave me more context and what he said wasn’t what I’d expected, but it made my blood simmer just to be listening to it. I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling as Charlotte’s oldest brother.
“Remember when I said Gregory was practically run out of England with pitchforks?”
“Yep.”
“Well, it’s because the people over there started realizing how he operates.
He’s a predator and his prey is any well-off, unsuspecting woman.
” Alex rubbed his hands over his face. “He goes after them, charms the living shit out of them and everyone in their lives, and then, once he gets what he came for, whether its status, or money, or even an invitation to a fucking polo match, he walks away. Clean. Or at least, it used to be clean until people started catching on.”
I ground my teeth so hard, my jaw popped. “So he came over here to start all over again, just in a new city with new women to use, and your father is ready to hand Charlotte over to him?”
Alex looked sick. “He thinks Gregory’s a gentleman. He met him long before everything started. Still thinks of him as Greg Senior’s little boy.”
I didn’t say anything for a long moment, then exhaled sharply through my nose. “Fine.”
Alex blinked. “Fine?”
“You heard me.” I stood. “I’m really taking Charlotte to Texas while you untangle this mess here, huh?”
Relief made his shoulders sag. “I’ll work my magic. Just keep her away for a couple weeks.”
“You got it.” I jabbed a finger at him. “This is on you, though.”
“I know.”
He looked me right in the eyes when he said it, but I still didn’t trust that he actually understood what he was asking me to do here.
I also didn’t trust that he was going to be overly happy when he realized, but that flicker of fear on Charlotte’s face when she’d looked at me after she’d said she couldn’t do it?
I trusted that.
When I reached his door, I turned back to him. “What’s her number? I should talk to her before we leave.”
“Yeah. I’m sure she’s pretty nervous about this.”
So am I.
I typed her number into my phone when he rattled it off. I called her as I walked out of the elevator in their lobby. She answered on the third ring, her voice a little breathless, like she’d been pacing or running before I’d called.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Trent.”
A beat of silence followed. “Yeah, I gathered. I don’t know many people with your accent.”
“We need to talk,” I said. “Preferably not in front of your brothers, your dad, or any other lurking variables.”
Despite the tension in her voice, I heard the faintest huff of laughter come out of her. “You’re not wrong. Alright, when and where?”
“That coffee shop you like. Now would be good. I’m leaving W&S as we speak.”
There was a much longer pause this time, but finally, she agreed. “Okay. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. See you soon.”
The line went dead and I slid my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, glancing at the sky when I heard a rumble of thunder rolling in the distance. Heavy, dark gray clouds were gathering, the blue skies and sunlight from before long gone.
At the back of my mind, I wondered if it was some kind of ominous sign, but I ignored the thought. The fact was that there was no other way. No matter what happened, I needed to get her away from here, far enough that neither Douglas nor Gregory would be able to interfere.
Besides, Douglas liked me. I doubted he’d be opposed to the idea of Charlotte and I getting together. I was practically Texas royalty.
Might not be the same as my father having an actual title bestowed to him by the King or however it worked, but I wasn’t a bad prospect for her either. Especially if it meant no one was going to fight him on it.
I got to the coffee shop a little early again, sitting down at the same table where we’d had our accidental date.
The rain rolled in fast, splattering against the windows and muting the city noise.
I ordered her drink, the same one she’d gotten last time, and my own.
By the time the barista set them down, the bell over the door jingled and there she was.
Charlotte Westwood—my temporary, fake girlfriend—walking in out of the rain. Her hair was darkened, pretty much black when it was wet, and clinging to her cheekbones, her coat damp, her cheeks flushed, and her breathing quick from rushing.
She scanned the room like she wasn’t sure I’d actually show, but then her eyes found mine and something in my chest constricted. Hard. Like a fucking python had wrapped itself around it.
Those blue eyes fell away from mine, almost like she was shy, but I saw the smile she was trying to hide by sucking her lower lip into her mouth. She crossed over to me and I pushed her drink toward her.
“Your usual,” I said.
The smile finally broke free. “You remembered.”
“It’s pretty hard to forget someone ordering milk with only a little bit of coffee in it,” I drawled, pleased that I’d gotten her order right, but not about to admit it.
Her lips parted, but she snapped them closed again and I’d be damned if she didn’t look even prettier when she was irritated. For the briefest of moments, I felt guilty about the thought, but then I remembered that we were really doing this, her and I.
This fake dating thing. Hell, her brothers were insisting.
I smiled when she sat down across from me. “Are you ready for you vacation?”
“I’m not sure I’d consider going to Texas a vacation,” she shot back without skipping a darn beat. “Working holiday, maybe.”
I laughed. “Well, either way, are you ready to talk about how we’re going to pull this off?”
Those eyes met mine and she nodded, and suddenly, the plan was real. This was happening. Secretly, I was kind of looking forward to showing her the ropes. Little Charlotte Westwood who wasn’t so little anymore, on my ranch, in my big old house?
This might just turn out to be pretty dang fun.