Chapter 35
CHARLOTTE
Trent covered my hand with his, his touch warm and solid, but the way he was looking at me made my stomach tighten. Defensiveness rose up like a wave, but I didn’t pull my hand out of his grip. I simply didn’t want to.
“I’ve already told you what I want to know,” I said. “Did she ever wear this ring? Did you get engaged to me with the same ring you gave your ex?”
“No,” he said, his tone ringing with finality. “Savannah never wore it and she was never going to. Hell, I don’t even think she ever knew it existed.”
I opened my mouth, not even sure what I planned to ask, but whatever it was, it died on my tongue when he shook his head sharply. “Don’t go there, Charlotte. Don’t start building stories in your head that aren’t true.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” he cut in, gently but firmly. “I gave you this ring because I wanted to. I never gave it to Savannah because I never wanted to. It’s as simple as that. I wasn’t sure why back then.” His gaze softened enough to make my chest ache. “I’m starting to understand it now, though.”
My heart tripped, then took off again in a sprint. “What do you mean?”
Instinctively, I knew he was saying something enormous. I could feel the edges of it brushing against me, but I wanted to hear him say it out loud. As he opened his mouth, however, his phone rang.
He cursed under his breath and pulled it out. When both of us saw Alex’s name on the screen, he sighed. “I have to take it.”
I nodded even though I wanted to throw the phone straight out the window—and my brother right along with it.
Instead, I just watched him press the device to his ear. “Yeah?”
Alex’s voice poured faintly through the phone, tinny but frantic. Even without being able to make out all the words, I could hear the tension. I stared out the windshield, fingers twisting in my lap as Trent went still beside me.
“Already?” he muttered. “Fuck, that’s faster than we thought.”
Another pause. Trent’s jaw clenched, a slow, pulsing grind like he was trying to hold something down. Finally, he exhaled sharply through his nose. “I’ll come after Labor Day.”
A beat. “No. Not before.”
Another beat. “I said no.”
He hung up without waiting for a response, and in the aftermath, silence filled the cab, thick enough to suffocate me. Blowing out a heavy breath, he scrubbed both hands over his face, then dropped them hard against his thighs.
“News of our marriage has spread to your dad. According to Alex, he’s pretty mad. He’s demanding an audience with me.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, heat prickling behind my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push or to ruin your morning. I shouldn’t have asked—”
His head snapped toward me. “Stop.”
The command in his voice froze me rock solid. His hand slid over and closed around my thigh, his fingers warm and steady. The grip wasn’t gentle. It was deliberate, reassuring, and possessive in a way that made my body come alive.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he said quietly. “Not a damn thing.”
I stared at him, trying to understand. He let out a breath, those blue eyes intently fixed on me.
“Look, I don’t want her to be a thing between us, so here’s the truth.
I loved the idea of Savannah, you know. The thought of her.
A warm home. Kids. All that domestic bliss bullshit. Everything my parents are.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, anxiety creeping back up my spine. “And?”
He kept his hand on my thigh, his thumb dragging across it in a thoughtful pattern as his expression shifted into something wry. Almost amused. “In the end, she checked every box except one.”
My pulse hammered. “Fidelity?”
He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, okay. That too. So there were two boxes she didn’t check.”
“What’s the other one?”
He huffed another laugh, but it was softer this time, the sound filled with something deeper than just amusement. “She was too fucking nice to me.”
My lips parted as shock tumbled through me. That woman had not seemed nice to me at all. “Too nice? Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I never wanted to argue with her. Never wanted to rile her up. I felt like I couldn’t because she was always just so fucking nice.”
“You didn’t want her to be?”
He shrugged. “She didn’t challenge me. Never pushed back. She didn’t take my temper and throw it right back in my face like someone else I know.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Oh.”
He smirked. “Yeah. Oh.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, an ungraceful bark of sound, and immediately slapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. He must’ve heard it, but instead of looking away, or being angry, or laughing with me, he just kept going.
“And you haven’t been nice,” he said, reaching out to put a hand against the side of my throat, cupping it gently. “Not at all.”
Warmth rushed up my neck to my face. “Hey—”
He didn’t let me finish. His gaze dipped to my mouth, lingering there long enough to make my pulse stutter, then rose back to my eyes, then his fingers were on my cheek, callused but achingly tender as he traced along my jaw like he was learning me.
“I thought I was supposed to want something soft,” he murmured.
“Something kind and sweet. That’s what I grew up thinking.
That’s what everyone expected. Savannah was all that.
At least, she was until she wasn’t, but by then, it was too late.
She was in love with someone else and I’d realized I’d never been in love with her. ”
His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth and a slow smile curved on his. “But you? You’re fiery. You’re alive. Sometimes, I think I say things to piss you off just because I love it when you get that look on your face that tells me you’re coming up with something cutting to throw back at me.”
My chest suddenly felt weird, like someone had reached inside me and twisted everything. He’d said it so easily, like it was obvious, like it wasn’t the kind of thing I’d replay in my head for the next decade.
“I gave you the ring because you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who I felt was worthy of wearing it,” he finished softly. “For the record, if I had given her that ring, I would never have given it to you. You’re you, Charlotte. I could never have recycled the symbol of my commitment to you.”
For a long second, I couldn’t breathe or think past the roar of blood in my ears.
I’d spent my whole life trying to figure out how to occupy space instead of accidentally shrinking out of it.
I’d taken whatever crumbs of affection my father had parceled out and pretended they were enough.
I was constantly, desperately trying to figure out how to stand tall in a world I was unprepared for.
How to find my footing and be who I was instead of who everyone wanted or expected me to be.
It meant everything to me to know he’d not only noticed me or gotten to know me in a way no one else did, but that he’d seen it all and still decided I was worthy. Which was probably why I opened my stupid mouth.
“Why didn’t you kiss me under the mistletoe?”
Trent’s hand paused on my face. Of all the questions I could’ve asked. Of all the moments I could’ve chosen to poke him, why the fuck did I choose to do it now?
He exhaled, his thumb brushing my cheekbone before he pulled his hand back to grip the steering wheel. “Everyone was watching and I got nervous.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not a real answer.”
He laughed, but the sound was resigned. Like he’d known I wouldn’t let it slide. “What do you think people would have thought about the princess of Chicago kissing a cowboy from Texas?”
I held his gaze, my heart thudding so hard I could feel it in my teeth. His jaw ticked once, then again, the muscle jumping like he hated the words even as he said them, but he didn’t look away and neither did I.
I then realized that he wasn’t just asking a question. He was telling me exactly how much I mattered to him.
For a really meaningful change, he was the one who needed reassuring, and although I knew I probably should’ve, I didn’t swallow my feelings. I didn’t hold back or try to calculate what version of me would please him the most. I just leaned across the console and kissed him.
It wasn’t delicate or practiced. It wasn’t even entirely graceful.
I hit my elbow on the cupholder and had to brace my hand against his jaw to steady myself, but it was mine.
Ours, and for the first time in my entire life, I didn’t care who saw, or what they’d think, or whether it made me reckless or unlikable, or too much.
His lips were warm and surprised for half a second, then he was smiling into the kiss. I pulled back just an inch, my forehead still touching his.
“There,” I whispered. “Now they can think whatever they want.”
“Let them, huh? That’s what we’re going for?
I like it.” His smile widened, slow, lazy, and entirely self-satisfied.
“Now that we’ve gotten the insignificant parts of my past out of the way, we’ve got a few things to talk about that actually concern the here and now.
Starting with the fact that we have to go back to Chicago. ”
I blinked. “We do?”
“Yeah.” He sighed, leaning back in his seat and rubbing a hand over his jaw. “This thing, being down here in Texas with you, I love it. A hell of a lot more than I expected to, but I do also live here. My work is here. My family. I need to be here most of the time.”
He hesitated, like he was bracing for me to scoff or argue. “If you want to live separately—”
“No.” The word came out fast, without even thinking about it, but I didn’t take it back. “No, Trent. I like it here. The quiet. The space. The fact that my hair smells like cedar and sunshine instead of city smog. I like your people. The city. The ranch.”
I like you, I almost said, but he already knew. I was sure of it.
His whole body deflated with relief, sinking deeper into the seat. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, but I do want something to do. Something that’s mine. I don’t want to just be the girl in your house.”
He laughed, a short, disbelieving puff of air as he tilted his head back. “You want something to do.”
“Yep.”
He dropped his head forward again, his eyes narrowing on me like he was trying to figure out how I could possibly be so oblivious. “Lord, help me.”
“What?” I asked, genuinely confused.
He leaned back and stretched his legs out, looking put upon in the most dramatic, cowboy way possible. “Am I ready for a wave of southern women to start clamoring for your attention?”
I stared at him. “I’m sorry, what?”
He glanced at me with that crooked grin I was becoming dangerously addicted to. “Sweetheart, if you step one foot into town, wanting something to do, looking and talking like you do? Every woman within fifty miles is going to try to recruit you.”
“For what?”
He held up a finger and began counting, a weird sparkle lighting his eyes. “Charity boards. Festival committees. Ranch association fundraisers. Church groups. Bake sales. Cemetery clean-ups. The annual chili cook-off.”
Startled laughter shot out of me. “I don’t even know how to make chili.”
“You don’t have to. They’ll teach you. They love teaching.”
I shook my head, still laughing and feeling that kiss buzzing under my skin. “They’re not going to clamor for my attention.”
“Sweetheart, they already do,” he said, dead serious. “They just don’t know you’re staying yet.”
Staying. Not visiting, or hiding, or passing through. Staying. In my home. With him.
Trent must’ve seen something shift in my expression because he reached over and took my hand. “We’ll figure it out. Chicago. Texas. All of it.”
I nodded, leaning against his shoulder and letting the reality of it settle somewhere hopeful inside me.
Right now, the future didn’t feel like something I was going to have to try to survive somehow.
It felt like something I could choose and I already knew that I’d be choosing him, every day, for the rest of my life.