CHAPTER 48 Rowan
CHAPTER 48
Rowan
T he cold muzzle of a gun presses against my skin.
Not this again. Fuck .
“Keep your mouth shut,” a harsh voice snaps.
My body’s frozen solid. I can’t move or do anything. I’m in a white room, and there’s nothing below me. Nothing above. All there is, is the gun at my temple.
But I look, and there’s another gun pointed at the back of Charlie’s head. He stands with his hands up.
I start hyperventilating, my heartbeat thrashing in my ears. My blood boils, and I fucking lose it.
They can hurt me, but not Charlie. Never Charlie.
Jerkily, my entire body sweating, I throw myself at the gun.
I scream.
With a gasp, I wake up.
Another nightmare.
Again, it’s the middle of the night.
Again, I wake Charlie with my movement. Though apparently I only screamed in my nightmare.
“What’s the matter,” he mumbles, turning toward me and throwing an arm across my back .
I mutter into the mattress, “Charlie, I’m not twenty-five yet.”
He tugs me to him. Like always, his embrace calms me, but my heart is still racing. “I know, baby.”
“I’m not even twenty-four.” I play with his hand, intertwining our fingers. He’s so warm and solid.
“That’s true.” He says it without sarcasm or amusement.
“I just had a dream that someone came after us.”
Charlie nuzzles his nose into my neck and strokes my hair with his free hand. “I’m sorry, baby. That’s scary.”
I nod a few times, but I realize: I have some security with the trust my father set up, for which I’m grateful, of course. But if I want to save the world, I need to hurry up and be thirteen months older.
“Charlie, you protect me, but who’s going to protect you?”
He huffs into my hair. “Me? I’m fine.”
I snuffle into him. “I don’t know that the protection we have is enough.”
“It’s scaring you?” Charlie whispers.
“Yes. What’s going to happen? Remi had me all concerned about security—having a bodyguard, a bulletproof car. How can we be safe?”
“Those things will help. But there’s never going to be complete safety.”
“Charlie,” I whisper. “I love you, and I want to honor your preference not to get married. But it feels more important to do everything we can to keep us both safe. Will you marry me? Please?”
He shudders and holds me close. He takes a few breaths. “Yeah, baby. Of course. I love you, too. If this will help, I’m in.”
If he’ll do it to keep me safe, and I’ll do it to keep him safe, maybe we both win.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” I say. “I know how much you don’t like the idea. But marrying anyone else is just not acceptable. ”
“Fuck no.” Charlie actually growls. “And, Rowan, marriage may not be something I wanted in my new plan, but I can think of a lot worse fates than being your husband.”
“Even that may not be enough to keep us safe,” I say.
“But if those harpies know there’s no way they can get the money, that should calm things down.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Getting the full inheritance isn’t going to solve all my problems. But it will solve the problem of how to keep my creepy new relatives from getting it.”
“We’ll do it first thing tomorrow,” he says. “I think we can get an emergency license. Cam figured out how to do it, so it can’t be that hard. Is that okay? If we’re going to do this, we shouldn’t wait.”
“Okay.”
I’m getting married to Charlie.
I flop around in bed. “Now I’m too excited to sleep.”
He chuckles, then pushes me to my back, climbing between my legs. “Sorry, baby.” He leans down and kisses me.
“We need to get you more security, too,” I whisper between kisses.
“We’ll figure it out.”
Charlie’s hand is snaking down, distracting me. “Deal.”
At ten thirty the following morning, I’m pacing on the steps of a same-day wedding chapel in Valley Village with Xavier. We’re fresh from the jewelry store, having gotten there when it opened. I have two rings in my pocket—a surprise for Charlie—and a boutonniere pinned to the lapel of my Prada suit. I’m holding a clear plastic box with another boutonniere for my fiancé.
I’m nervous AF.
I’m getting married.
It’s a cool spring day. People file into the dollar store next door. A woman passes by with a baby in a stroller. Xavier steps in gum and goes over to the curb to wipe it off his foot.
I check my watch. Charlie’s running a little late, but traffic can be terrible, and he was going to do some work he couldn’t put off before leaving the house.
Camden walks up hand in hand with Shelby, all smiles. “Hey!” He shakes my hand, introduces himself to X, then looks around. “Where’s Charlie?”
I check my phone. “Not here yet. The security service is picking him up, so we’ll only have one car here.” The driver will then take Xavier back to the friend’s house he’s staying at.
Just then my phone buzzes, and it’s Charlie. “Hey, husband-to-be,” I answer.
Silence.
My stomach drops. Why isn’t he saying anything?
Is the connection bad?
Is something the matter?
Charlie clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice sounds strained. “Rowan, I need to talk with you. We can’t get married. I can’t do this.”
“What?” My brain is fuzzy. He just agreed last night. I thought he loved me. Loves me. “Why?”
“Because,” he says in that same weird voice, “I thought love was the answer. That I could go back in time and fix things. Ride a bicycle built for two with you while listening to free-form jazz.”
I scratch my head. Um, what the fuck? Charlie hates all those things.
Freezing ice solidifies in my gut.
Charlie hates all those things.
“But I can’t. I can’t marry you. I’m sorry, Rowan.” He hangs up.
I look up at Camden. “Something’s wrong.”
Think, Rowan. Do something. Act.
Save Charlie .
Cam is grinning, but his smile fades when he sees I’m serious. “Charlie’s not getting cold feet, is he?” He shares a long look with Shelby, who has a frown on his cute face.
What would Charlie do?
I shake my head. Something happened to him after I left this morning. I think maybe he’s been kidnapped. He was definitely trying to tell me something, because what he said made no sense.
Charlie would call the police.
“He called off the wedding?” Cam asks.
I’m not Charlie, and I hate the police.
“Yeah.” I start pacing.
“Oh no!” Shelby says.
Still, Charlie’s rule-abiding ways did enable my father to find me.
Xavier curses under his breath. “I’m sorry,” he says, reaching toward me for a hug, but I dodge him.
Cam looks thoughtful. “Part of me isn’t surprised. While Charlie always had it on his list that he wanted to get married, deep down, I don’t think he actually did. I’m sorry, Rowan.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s not it. I trust Charlie. I think one of my relatives got to him. The St. Thomas family is seriously messed up. They wanted to stop the wedding so I wouldn’t inherit yet. I just can’t figure out how they found out what we were doing. We just told security because Charlie needed a ride.”
“What do you mean that they got to him?” Cam says, concern starting to show on his face.
“Not sure.” I blow out a breath, pull my phone out, then pause.
Am I going to be wasting time if I call the police? I can picture their reaction: So, Mr. St. Thomas, how do you know he’s been kidnapped if Mr. Cooper simply said he doesn’t want to marry you? Did he actually say he’d been taken?
Fuck. I need to do this right, or it could backfire. And we have to be fast.
They will not harm him. I won’t let them. Whoever they are.
I turn to X. “Do you have your laptop?”
He nods. “Sure, it’s in my car.”
“Can you find Charlie based on his cell phone?”
Xavier’s already taking off in the direction of the parking lot. “Let me see what I can do,” he calls over his shoulder as the rest of us follow.