Chapter 24 Cole
Cole
I’d always despised other people’s wedding receptions, but never one as much as my own.
This was the opportunity to show off my beautiful wife and mingle with the shareholders, but I didn’t have the stomach for it.
Not yet. My suit hugged too tight and my jaw ached with the tension of pretending.
Not a drop of alcohol had passed my lips, but I felt tipsy, and not in a good way.
Love? I am in love with my wife. A really fucking bold statement for my brain to make, and yet it wouldn’t stop. I loved her. Everything about her.
For someone else it would have been a good thing, but this was a disruption I hadn’t anticipated and definitely didn’t want. Feelings didn’t come with a receipt. It was really fucking difficult to get rid of them, but I had to figure out a way to make them stop.
Charlotte sipped from a champagne glass and laughed with Tiffany.
I had to stop staring at her, but my eyes always found her in every crowd.
This had been a mistake. I’d had a contract drawn up specifically to keep feelings out of this.
I had no time for an actual wife or a genuine marriage.
There were only two options: I could try to make this marriage work, in which case I had less than a year to win Charlotte over and do this for real, or I could resist. We could live our separate lives and these feelings would pass.
The first option was unacceptable. It would derail everything in my life.
I had a job to do and a focus, and a wife needed time and attention.
I was already thinking too much about her when I should have been schmoozing and convincing all these bastards here that I was a top-notch bloke brimming with integrity.
The easier option was to get over it. If I got Charlotte out of my sight, then I hardly had to see her.
Everything would go back to how it was before.
Feelings were just ephemeral states. I made decisions with my head, not my dick, and definitely not my heart.
Love was an inconvenience at best and dangerous at worst. Love was a distraction I couldn’t afford.
I owed it to my mother to focus my energy on bringing down Philip.
I’d committed to spending every day making him pay.
Anything else would be a betrayal. The problem was I’d never been able to get Charlotte out of my head.
For all these years, no other woman had compared.
It would be easier if she was someone else.
If she wasn’t everything I’d ever wanted.
There was only one choice: I would have to live with it.
“I never thought I’d see this day.” Lucas held out his hand and shook mine. “My brother is a married man.”
My other brother, Theo, glowered at Lucas’s side.
One side of his face shone with a mesh of scars from the explosion that had nearly finished him off.
Not that he’d ever speak about it. It was hard to get a word from this man about anything, let alone something that mattered.
He’d been a miserable bastard before he traveled the world driving tanks and blowing things up, and now he was ten times worse.
Captain Gloom had left us the minute he was old enough to enroll in the army.
“Congratulations,” Theo growled, raising his glass in the most lackluster salutation imaginable.
“I didn’t expect you to come.”
“Didn’t believe it when I got the invite. Had to see it with my own eyes.” He took a sip of orange juice and scanned the party. “Where’s Reuben?”
“Posing on a yacht somewhere, I imagine.”
“You didn’t invite him?” Lucas narrowed his eyes. His voice was chiding, which it had no right to be, considering I was the only one that had suffered through a round of golf with him.
“He’s a pain, and I don’t trust him.”
Lucas scoffed. “He’s harmless. He’s a little puppy who wants to make friends.”
A puppy who was trying to hump my wife’s leg. No thanks. “I don’t buy it. I can’t trust anyone who laughs like that.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. He laughs at jokes that are barely amusing. He acts like he’s being graded for enthusiasm, and he’s so weirdly clumsy.”
“You make him nervous. He’s trying to impress you,” Lucas said.
“He’s trying too hard.”
“He wouldn’t have to try so hard if you didn’t have such a chip on your shoulder.” Lucas rolled his eyes and followed my gaze to Charlotte. “Your new wife is very sweet. How did you get a woman so nice to agree to this?”
I kept my voice low and level. “I’m paying her.”
Lucas laughed darkly and patted me on the back. “Good one. You’d need to. She’s way out of your league.”
Don’t I know it. Theo watched me over the rim of his glass. Nothing got past him. He liked to stand around with his massive muscles, eyeing everyone with watchful mockery, like a Bond villain’s evil bodyguard.
Lucas smiled and raised his glass to Beatrice and a couple of the other shareholders gathered by the buffet table across the room. “I’ve heard people talking about how this is you turning over a new leaf. This marriage is making you look good, Cole. You couldn’t have timed this better.”
Beatrice gave me a wave. I pasted a smile onto my face and waved back. That’s right. Drink my champagne. Stuff your face with my fucking vol-au-vents while you plot my downfall.
Beatrice had shed a few tears during the ceremony. The shareholders seemed appeased for the moment. Now I had to hope that my new status as a respectable family man was enough to convince Gabe Rivers to pick up the fucking phone.
Theo gave me a knowing look and raised his glass. “How convenient. You found a wife just when you need one.”
“What can I say? Sometimes things fall into place. I’m lucky like that.”
Charlotte appeared next to me, pink-cheeked and grinning. She’d never looked more beautiful. A rush of heat went through me.
She threaded her arm through mine. “Do you mind if I steal my husband? It’s time for the first dance.”
Lucas pushed his glasses up his nose and smiled genially. “Please. Take him away. We won’t miss him.”
No. Not a good idea to be holding her close and swaying. I had to make these feelings go away, not nourish them with lovey-dovey music and closeness. I shrugged out of her grip.
“I don’t dance.”
She plastered on an overbright smile. “But that’s what people do. It’s a normal thing to dance at a wedding. People are waiting to see this. It will be weird if we don’t.”
Lucas raised a “what are you playing at?” eyebrow. Theo watched the exchange with a too-interested expression. My gaze flicked back to the shareholders. Fine. I’d have to. With her hand wrapped around mine, Charlotte dragged me to the middle of the dance floor.
“Everyone is looking at us,” I said through gritted teeth.
She slipped her arm around my waist and rested a hand gently on my shoulder. “Because we look good in formal wear.”
I couldn’t argue on that score. There couldn’t be a more beautiful bride than my wife.
It gave me great pleasure to see that Charlotte had worn the dress I’d chosen.
The moment I’d seen it, I’d known she’d look incredible in it.
All I wanted was to strip away all those pretty layers of white lace and bury myself in her.
Music poured from the speaker. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley.
The irony of the song choice wasn’t lost on me.
“Thank you for today,” she whispered, peering up at me. “For making this easier for me.” She stood on tiptoes and whispered in my ear. “I don’t know why everyone says you’re an arsehole. Sometimes, you’re not actually that much of an arsehole.”
“Such high praise. You’ll make me blush, Mrs. Thorner.”
She froze in my arms. “We haven’t had a conversation about changing my name.”
“There isn’t a conversation. You’re Thorner now.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No.”
“No? People will expect you to take the Thorner name.”
Panic flashed in her eyes. “I’m keeping my surname.”
“It has to be done. It’s in the contract, if you bothered to read it.”
She frowned and pulled away.
“Keep dancing,” I whispered into her hair, catching a hint of citrus. “People are watching.”
“I take it back,” she muttered. “You are that much of an arsehole.”
I pulled her back into my arms. Her hair tickled my chin where she rested her head against me.
She blew out an irritated breath. “I just hope you don’t snore and ruin my sleep tonight. I’m exhausted.”
We were flying to Rome in an hour. I had no time for a honeymoon, but we had to keep up the pretense.
This honeymoon had to look real in case there were paparazzi sniffing around, but now I had the unhappy prospect of a fortnight sharing a suite with my wife.
I needed to spend as little time as possible with Charlotte from this point on, not cozy up to her in the dark.
She watched me with a discontented look. It should have been a turnoff, but she was so sexy when she was pissed off with me. At least it was a spark of life.
“I’m not changing my name. You’ll have to amend the contract,” she hissed.
“You already signed it.”
She let out an angry huff and her fingers clutched my shoulder so tightly they burned. “Then set your lawyers on me. I’m not doing it.”
“If you want your money at the end of all this, you’re doing it.”
There was no way out of the sleeping situation, but it was only two weeks.
I’d send her off with a guide to do tourist things in the day, and at night I’d keep myself busy.
The penthouse was big enough to keep a distance, and Rome was a big and exciting city.
Charlotte would have plenty to do alone.
When we got home, I’d send her off back to the Cotswolds.
She was content there, and I had Elain, one of the few people I trusted, to keep an eye on her.
Problem solved. The song ended and couples filtered onto the dance floor.
If I put as much distance between us as possible, it would allow these feelings to pass.
Everything would be fine. If I wasn’t anywhere near her, then I couldn’t be tempted by her.
Out of sight, out of mind. This was manageable, but for now, people were watching us, and it would defeat the entire purpose of this farcical event if I didn’t hold her close.
“We’ll be leaving soon.” I pulled her flush against me. Her soft breasts rested against my chest and made my heart pound. “Another dance until then, Mrs. Thorner?”