Chapter 45
CHARLOTTE
Ihonestly hadn’t expected to come back to W&S after breakfast, but Alex had insisted he needed to get to a meeting and Nate had said he might as well keep an eye on me until Trent got back.
Since they were Westwood men and precaution was basically their love language, I’d decided to come to the office with them.
Besides, I hadn’t spent much time with either of them for the last couple months, and once Trent and I went back to Texas this time, I was pretty sure we weren’t going to be back here for a while. I figured I might as well make this visit count.
Getting comfortable in one of the chairs in Alex’s office, I accepted a cup of coffee from Nate, picking up where we’d left off before he’d gone to fix our drinks.
“You should’ve seen this storm. It was crazy.
The sky turned this insane shade of green and I swear, it looked like the world was ending. ”
Nate chuckled. “What’d Trent do?”
“After handing me my ass for going out there without knowing the weather? He just stood there in his storm shelter basement. Completely calm, texting his parents and assuring me that there wouldn’t be a tornado like he was some kind of walking, talking weather app.”
Nate almost choked on his next sip of coffee. “Actually, yeah. That sounds about right. That guy doesn’t scare easily.”
“Nope. He said something about storms in Texas being like nature reminding you who’s in charge and the craziest part is that now that I’ve gotten a little more used to them, I kind of love it. The power of it. The sound. The smell. I don’t know, maybe I’m weird.”
“You are absolutely weird,” he said cheerfully. “Good weird, though. Don’t worry. The best kind of weird.”
I flicked a paperclip at him but then wrapped both hands around my mug and smiled. “I love the horses too. All of them, but especially Firecracker. She’s this grumpy little mare who hates everyone except—”
“Let me guess,” Nate cut in. “It’s you. She loves you.”
I shrugged. “She tolerates me, but for her, that practically makes me a soulmate. It’s been pretty cool getting to know them, though.
They’ve all got such different personalities.
Hurricane Hustle wasn’t too happy with me after we got stuck in the storm together, but he’s finally forgiving me one sugar cube at a time. ”
Nate chuckled and we fell into easy conversation, a soft, sweet rhythm I only ever seemed to get with him.
He was less intense than Alex and he made more of a point about spending time with me than any of the others.
I told him all about Texas, answering the rest of his questions and not even registering the shift in the air until Nate’s entire body went rigid.
When I looked up, Gregory was standing in the doorway. My spine locked so fast, it hurt. He didn’t knock, wait, or even pretend to be civilized. He just appeared like a storm cloud, suddenly blotting out the sun.
“I need to speak with Charlotte,” he said, his voice perfectly calm as his gaze landed on my brother. “Excuse us.”
Nate was out of his chair in one sharp movement. “Absolutely not.”
“This is our business,” Gregory said, his eyes flicking over me like I was a line in a ledger. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“She’s my sister,” Nate snapped. “That makes it my business. Don’t even think about taking another step closer.”
Gregory smiled, but it was more of a sharp and unpleasant twist of his lips simply masquerading as polite amusement. “Nathaniel, step aside.”
“No.”
Their standoff lasted exactly three more seconds before Alex appeared in the doorway behind him, breath slightly short, like he’d run the last stretch from the conference room.
“What the hell is going on?” Alex asked.
Gregory turned on him like a snake spotting new prey. “I need an audience with my future wife.”
Alex didn’t hesitate, grabbing Gregory by the elbow and peeling him away from the threshold, dragging him to the corner of the office with a force that was anything but brotherly. Nate stayed planted in front of me like a wall.
Across the room, Alex leaned in close, fury vibrating off him in a visible aura. “You think you can just show up here after all the shit you’ve pulled? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“I came here to talk to you, Alexander. It was just a happy accident that Charlotte is here as well.” Gregory didn’t even flinch.
“However, what I came to tell you is that if this doesn’t get resolved, I’ll rain hellfire down on Chicago and I’ll drag the entire city down with you if I have to.
I know all about how much you do for all those little charities of hers.
I’ll put a stop to every donation. I’ll—”
“Why?” My stomach dropped and I blurted it out before I’d even considered heeding Alex’s pointed look that said don’t engage. “Why are you doing this?”
Gregory turned toward me. The victorious, smug grin that spread on his lips turned my blood to ice. “Because you were supposed to be mine. We had an arrangement. You owe me what I would’ve been entitled to if you’d kept your word, Charlotte.”
“We barely know each other,” I said, my voice trembling before I could catch it. “Why is this so important to you?”
Before he could answer, the door opened again and Trent walked in. He took one look at the scene, Nate blocking me, Alex cornering Gregory, and my white-knuckled grip on my coffee cup, and something dark slid across his face.
“Tell her, Alex,” he said, his voice completely even. “Tell her everything.”
Alex’s jaw flexed hard, but he didn’t look at me. I frowned, waiting for him to say something, but when he didn’t do it, my eyebrows rose. “Tell me what?”
No one answered for a long beat. Then Trent’s tone sharpened. “Now, Alex. Tell her the truth about Gregory. All of it.”
Alex closed his eyes briefly, like he needed a second to brace himself. Then he looked at me and on his face was all the ways he’d tried to protect me—and all the ways he’d clearly failed.
“Gregory has a history,” he said quietly. “A bad one. He’s done this before. To other women.”
My throat tightened, but I forced the question out anyway. “What do you mean this?”
“He pursues women for what they can offer him,” Alex said.
“Status. Alliances. He doesn’t care about anything other than what having you can mean for him.
What the women give him access to. It’s a complete shit show that got him run out of England.
If he hadn’t learned how to manipulate every legal loophole, I’ve no doubt he’d be in prison by now. ”
I felt cold all over. What?
“There’s more,” Trent added coolly, stepping closer to me but looking Alex dead in the eye.
“Douglas is still insisting that I interfered with the negotiations. He still wants this match, but he knew enough to see the red flags, didn’t he?
Even if he didn’t know everything. I went to speak to him earlier and he didn’t seem all that surprised when I told him about any of this. ”
It was like someone had cracked the floor open beneath my feet. My father had known. He’d known Gregory had a pattern for this kind of behavior and he’d still offered me up.
Nate gently touched my arm. “Hey, it’s—”
“He knew?” I looked at my brother, but Nate seemed a little stunned right now too, so I turned to Alex. “Please tell me he didn’t know.”
Alex’s face was ashen, but there was a glimmer of fury in his eyes that told me the truth before he even opened his mouth.
“Honestly, I don’t know exactly what he was told, but he must’ve known at least parts of it.
Enough that he shouldn’t have pushed you toward this asshole without further investigation. ”
My heart didn’t break, but it buckled. Dad hadn’t overlooked the danger in this situation. He’d seen it, and then he’d accepted it. On my behalf, without even giving me the chance to do it for myself. That hurt more than having Gregory take my inheritance.
Gregory who, meanwhile, didn’t deny a thing.
If anything, he looked more pleased with himself, like being exposed only confirmed he was winning somehow.
He adjusted his cuffs and turned back to me.
“Well, now that we’re done with the moral outcry, let’s get to the point.
Charlotte, you’re going to sign the paperwork.
You’re going to annul that little Vegas mishap, and we’re all going to move forward. ”
“I’m not annulling anything,” I said, but the conviction in my voice wavered.
Naturally, Gregory noticed. His eyes drifted to Trent just for a second before he smiled.
“If you don’t, darling, I’ll take his ranch.
Every acre. Every cow. Every contract. And while I’m at it, I’ll tell the world what happened with Savannah.
You know how people love a good scandal, especially the kind that involves illegitimate babies and cheating cowboys. ”
My blood froze. Nate’s mug shattered on the floor.
Gregory pivoted effortlessly, turning to Alex next. “And you. Once I have that share of the company? God, it’s going to be so much fun being your boss. Maybe I’ll redecorate. Something gaudy. Something tacky. Something Texan, perhaps.”
Alex moved a fraction, but Trent caught his arm.
I swallowed hard, beating both of them to the punch. “If I do it, if I sign your precious paperwork, you leave Trent alone. You don’t touch him. You don’t speak his name. Ever.”
Gregory’s grin widened like he’d been waiting years for this exact moment. “I knew you’d come around, darling. Ever since our conversation the other day, I knew you’d see reason.”
Trent went still, but he didn’t seem tense or angry.
Just still. A dangerous, razor-thin kind of stillness that set even my teeth on edge, but Gregory didn’t notice.
“Honestly, I could’ve slipped those rings right off your fingers if I’d wanted to.
Did you tell them that? Did you tell them how easily I could end this silly little fake marriage? ”
That did it. Trent moved so fast, I barely processed it, but one second Gregory was smirking, and the next, Trent had him by the collar, his teeth gritted and muscles coiled like a bull about to gore someone.
“Enough,” Trent snarled. “Enough is really fucking enough, and this is enough.”
“Trent—” I croaked, suddenly terrified about what would happen to him if he did whatever he was about to do, but he didn’t even seem to hear me.
He dragged Gregory straight out of the office and no one stopped him. Instead, people scattered like he was hauling a live bomb. The hallway echoed with Gregory’s sputtered protests until Trent slammed him into the back wall of the elevator and the doors snapped shut behind them.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, stumbling forward, but Alex caught my arm before I made it three feet. “Trent’s going to kill him.”
Alex laughed, like actual, real laughter. “No, he’s not. He’s a cowboy, Charlotte, not a hit man. He’s just going to encourage Gregory to leave town. Forcefully. You can relax. I know what Trent is capable of when he’s like this, and we won’t be seeing Gregory again.”
“Relax?” Does he seriously expect me to be able to relax? “Are you kidding me right now?”
“I’m serious, Char,” Alex said, a smile on his lips as he finally sat down behind his desk. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took him this long to snap. He must’ve been a whole hell of a lot more distracted than I thought, but don’t sweat it. He’ll be back in a minute and Gregory will be gone.”
I snorted, but then I paced. I sat. I stood back up. I wrung my hands. Nate tried to get me water, but I couldn’t swallow. Every awful scenario imaginable spun through my head, Trent getting arrested, Gregory pressing charges, and security footage capturing everything.
Minutes stretched into small eternities before Trent finally walked back into the office, completely fine. There wasn’t a scratch on him. All that thick, deep red hair wasn’t even ruffled. If anything, he looked a little smug, but that was it.
Striding in as if he hadn’t dragged a man out of here kicking and screaming just a few minutes ago, he dropped a stack of crumpled papers onto Alex’s desk. “Thought you might want these.”
Alex lifted the top sheet, his brows rising slowly as he read. “What’s this?”
“It’s everything Gregory had,” Trent said. “Prenups. Agreements. Letters from Douglas. Contracts.”
Alex didn’t hesitate. He scooped up the entire pile, marched to the paper shredder, and fed it all through. The machine whirred hungrily, chewing up months of Gregory’s scheming in just a few seconds.
I stared at them, my gaze flicking from the relief on my brother’s features to the absolute ease in the set of my husband’s shoulders. “What the hell just happened?”
Trent immediately came to my side, shot me a smile, and leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Did I ever show you my dad’s pigs?”
I frowned. “What?”
“Hungry creatures,” he said, entirely too casual. “They’ll eat anything if you toss it in. I let Gregory know that we’ve got a whole pen full of ‘em.”
Alex snorted. Nate lost it, bending over laughing. I swayed on my feet, unable to decide whether to be horrified, relieved, or both simultaneously. “Did he actually buy that?”
“’Course he did. The secret to making people believe that you’re serious when you threaten them is to be willing to follow through.” Trent wrapped an arm around my waist. “It’s done, sweetheart. He’s gone. He won’t bother us again.”
Alex clapped his hands a few times, giving Trent a standing ovation as he laughed. “Well, I’m starving. Anyone else hungry? I’ve got a standing reservation at a place just down the street.”
I stared at the shredder bin, marveling at Trent’s absolute confidence that it was over. I let out a long, shaky exhale before I leaned into his side. “Yeah, I could definitely eat, but come first thing tomorrow morning, I want to go home.”
Trent kissed the top of my head and nodded. “You’ve got it, baby. I’ll have the pilot fuel up the plane. Whatever you want, you’ll get. Especially if what you want is the quiet life away from all this fucking insanity.”
He winked at me, leading me out of the office after my brothers when they left, and I pulled in a proper breath for what felt like the first time since his parents’ barbecue.
From now on, there would be no more cousins arriving with bad news, no more phone calls from my brother insisting that we had to come home immediately, and no more backroom deals by my father.
I didn’t know what we’d do with all the free time we were suddenly going to have, but I really couldn’t wait to find out.