Chapter 20
TRENT
For a woman who hadn’t even seen me this morning, she sure was furious at me, yelling at full volume. Full of fire, and I really didn’t hate looking at her while she did it.
Charlotte Westwood could turn heads in her oversized pajamas without even brushing her hair, but like this, in jeans and a fitted black T-shirt with her dark hair loose and wild and her eyes burning like the hottest of flames, she was fucking stunning.
It took me an embarrassingly long second to realize the flush in her cheeks wasn’t just fury. She was drunk. Or at least buzzed. At eleven in the damn morning.
All while yelling at me like I’d personally set her life on fire. “…you keep pushing me away when all you have to do is talk to me, Trent! That’s it! Just talk to me! I don’t understand why it’s so impossible for you, why you make everything so difficult.”
“Charlotte.” I finally managed to cut in, but she barreled right over me, red-faced and trembling.
“And why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “About Savannah? About the baby? Your marriage—”
Realization hit like a hard kick to the ribs and I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been talking to my mom?”
Christ. Of course, she has. They had breakfast together.
I dragged a hand over my face. “How much wine did you drink this morning?”
She screwed her nose up like she was trying to remember, then shook her head, her shoulders shaking. As her nose scrunched, however, I noticed the tears welling in her eyes, threatening to spill over.
Aw, hell no.
“Don’t cry,” I said quickly. “Please don’t cry on my account.”
Too late.
It was already happening. She started crying, big, gulping, messy tears. The second one reached her cheek, something inside my chest yanked tight, like an elephant had tripped over a rope I hadn’t even known was there.
I stepped forward before I could think better of it and she didn’t resist when I pulled her into me.
She didn’t stiffen or push me away, just collapsing into my chest like she’d been holding herself up by sheer willpower for years.
Her arms wound around my waist, her forehead pressing into my shirt, her breaths coming out in jagged little huffs.
It felt nice. Too nice.
She was small in my arms, warm, and fitting against me like she’d been made for it. I hadn’t held anyone like this in a long damn time. Maybe not ever, actually, in the way I could feel her heartbeat and sense her surrendering to her emotions.
I lowered my chin to the top of her head without thinking and breathed her in. The scent of fresh sweat, sunshine, and whatever perfume she wore made me stupid for a second.
“Hey,” I murmured quietly. “Slow down.”
She sniffed, gripping my shirt a little tighter as she whispered into my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I know?”
“I didn’t tell you about all that because it doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, even though something inside of me was very much not that.
“That kid I thought was mine turns ten this year. If he hasn’t already.
I have no contact with him and it was a long time ago.
” I exhaled hard. “Savannah is history. I don’t have feelings for her anymore.
Not beyond the shock of seeing her in Dallas yesterday. ”
Charlotte pulled back enough for me to see her face, her eyes red and wet. The hope in them said that she wanted to believe me, but she was too upset to settle just yet. I brushed a loose strand of hair off her cheek before I even realized I was doing it.
“It’s over,” I said simply. “All of it. None of it matters now.”
The fact that Charlotte was feeling so deeply for me, however, was new. I wasn’t used to somebody else getting tangled up in my emotions. Hell, I wasn’t used to me getting tangled up in them.
I’d always handled my own shit, quietly, neatly, and efficiently. No audience, no commentary, and no one trying to hold the other end of the leash, but now, now this woman was wiping tears on my shirt and I liked it.
Obviously, not the fact that she was crying. That sucked, but the fact that she cared so deeply… about something that had happened to me.
“You should’ve told me,” she said, her voice thick but calmer than it had been a minute ago. “Seriously, Trent. Isn’t this something that should’ve come up in our very official, very detailed fake-relationship contract?”
“We had a contract?” I asked, letting just enough teasing slide into my tone to make her eyes narrow.
“Yes,” she declared. “It was unspoken, but it exists.”
“Mmm. That sounds legally binding.” I lifted an eyebrow. “It would’ve been nice if you’d at least sent it to my lawyer.”
She smacked my chest, but before she could pull her hand back, I caught it. She was so warm, and small, but fierce in a way I was starting to crave.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered.
“And you’re dramatic.” I squeezed her fingers before she could yank them away. “Which I like, by the way.”
She glared at me, but there was at least some embarrassment and some lingering worry there, and I felt something ease in my chest.
“Fine,” I finally admitted, exhaling when I realized that she wasn’t wrong.
I could let her in, at least a little. “You’re right.
I should’ve told you earlier, but part of the reason I agreed to this whole thing in the first place is because people here still think of the Savannah situation when they think of me. ”
Her forehead softened, concern replacing irritation.
“I’ve wanted to move past it, but I haven’t really dated. Not seriously, anyway.” I huffed out a humorless laugh. “The eternal bachelor thing isn’t a cute look in these circles. You’re expected to settle down and produce heirs like it’s the damn nineteenth century.”
She snorted. “Please. Your mother would pick out china patterns for your wedding tomorrow if you let her.”
“She’s already got them picked out,” I deadpanned. “Three options.”
Charlotte choked on a laugh. “Of course she does.”
“But you, us, this thing we’re doing? It’s working.
” I reached up, brushing her cheekbone with my thumb without thinking about it too hard.
“People finally stopped whispering about Savannah. Especially here in Texas. Dad’s good-ole-boy friends?
They suddenly want to know everything I’m doing at the ranch.
Their deep pockets are a hell of a lot more open when they think I’m not a train wreck. ”
Her eyes warmed, but she tried to hide it as her chin tipped up. “So I’m, what, a business asset?”
“Charlotte,” I said, leaning in just enough that she stilled. “You’re a damn miracle.”
Color swept up her neck, but for once, she didn’t argue. It seemed like as good a time as ever to push my luck. My lips curved into a smile as I cupped her cheek. “And you cry real pretty. I thought you should know.”
She smacked my chest again, scrunching my shirt between her fingers after, right over my sternum like she needed something to hold on to. I probably should’ve been thinking about how sweaty and dusty I was, how I smelled like horse, work, and effort, but I wasn’t.
A smarter man would’ve stepped back. I even started to. Muscle memory, self-preservation, and all those well-worn instincts telling me to create space before I did something we couldn’t walk back, but then I looked down at her.
At her flushed cheeks and the tear tracks, the way her eyes were still a little shiny.
At her mouth, her lips soft, parted, and looking like they were waiting for mine.
Something snapped deep within my soul, loudly and irrevocably, and the rational part of me that had been trying to keep her at arm’s length so we’d never get to this point shifted gears.
Instead of pulling away, I crowded her, guiding her backward one step at a time until her back hit the stable wall with a quiet thud. I braced my hands on either side of her hips, not trapping her, but close enough that I felt the heat rolling off her skin.
She sucked in a quiet breath, her eyes flicking between mine with so many questions in them. I didn’t know the answers, but before I could think better of it, I dipped my head and kissed her, slow, and sweet, and careful, like she was breakable.
I knew she wasn’t, but this moment was fragile and it would shatter in an instant. I knew that, too.
The world stilled when her lips touched mine.
I leaned into her, unable to resist feeling the soft warmth of her body against my own any longer, but I didn’t deepen the kiss.
I didn’t want to rush, or claim, or demand, but it still felt like I’d fallen through a door I didn’t know I’d been bracing against.
A soft sound came out of her, a sigh or a whimper. I didn’t know which, but hearing it nearly undid me. It was at that point that my body finally caught up to the fact that she was pressed so tight against me, and instantly, the sweetness threatened to spill into something ravenous.
I pulled back, my heart pounding and my cock threatening to punch a hole through my zipper. Charlotte was panting too, but her eyes fluttered open slowly, like she was waking up from a dream she wasn’t ready to let go of.
Before I could assure her that I wasn’t ready either, my phone buzzed, the vibrations loud, violent, and jarring in the aftermath of what we’d just shared. Alex’s name lit up the screen like the universe wanted to slap me across the face.
“Of course,” I muttered, pressing my forehead to hers for a beat as I exhaled hard. “He probably has a drone following us around.”
Charlotte gave me a wet little smile and it hit me square in the ribs, making me wonder what she’d look like if I’d deepened that kiss. Or worse, if I did the kind of unspeakable things to her I’d been dreaming about against my will.
The vibrations seemed to be getting louder though, so I finally sighed and answered before it went to voicemail. “Yeah.”
The tone on the other end of the line told me everything before Alex had even gotten it all out. My spine went rigid, my grip on the phone tightening as whatever warmth that kiss had sparked cooled fast.
Charlotte’s hand landed on my forearm as soon as I hung up, her gaze gentle but searching on mine. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t tell her yet. I couldn’t. Instead, I fixed my eyes on the horizon like that would make it possible to see the trouble barreling toward us. With just that one phone call, the world around us had shifted again, but this time, for an entirely different reason.
“Trent?”
“It’s bad,” I said quietly, finally lowering my gaze back to hers. “It’s really, really not good news. Let’s go. I’ll explain as best I can once we’re on the way.”