Guarding My Love (Looking For Love #5)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

“S top acting like a child, Charlotte.”

She turned to look at Landon, wanting to wipe the smirk from his face. “I’m not a child,” she said, barely glancing at him.

“You’re not leaving and you know it.”

She hated his smug expression. “Looks like I am,” she said calmly as she put more clothes in her suitcase. She wasn’t going to be told what to do anymore.

“You’ve been threatening to do this for a year and never go through with it. I think it’s just drama. You love creating that.”

“No,” she said, not being bated. “I don’t care for drama.” He hadn’t been wrong about her threats to leave. This time she was doing it!

“Is it because I was out with the guys tonight?” Landon asked.

“You’re with them all the time,” she said, shrugging. “What was so different about tonight?”

Landon had the gall to laugh at her. “Exactly. I’m networking. It’s for business and you know it. It’s how you get to stay in this apartment with me.”

She ground her teeth. He’d owned this place long before she came into the picture. He made it sound like it was a privilege and he had to bust his ass to keep it and she was lucky he’d picked her to grace the place with him.

“Now you can have it all to yourself,” she said, turning to look at him.

He frowned at her smile. “Is it the ring that you want?” Landon asked. “I said in time.”

It’d been over a year with the same comment from him.

“Nope, not the ring,” she said.

He marched over and grabbed her by the arm and stopped her from putting more clothes in her bag. “Cut the shit.”

The smile was gone. She snarled and he took a step back. He wasn’t used to her standing up for herself. He better get used to it.

“Get your hands off of me,” she said, dead serious. “I’m leaving. I mean it.”

Landon stepped back. “You were nothing without me. What are you going to do? You wouldn’t have gotten your job if I didn’t introduce you to the right people. I can make sure that goes away as quickly as I got it for you.”

She took a deep breath in and let it out. She hoped he didn’t stoop that low.

“Then it’s a risk I’m going to have to take,” she said, lifting her chin.

“Are you going to fucking tell me what is going on?” Landon snapped. Yep, she pushed his last button for him to start swearing. He put this facade up for everyone but her. She always saw this side of him.

Charlotte turned and looked at him. She hadn’t seen him since yesterday. He was up at five and out the door when she got in the shower. It was eight at night and he walked in the door as if he was only gone for ten minutes.

Not one word from him all day and it’d been like this for months. It wasn’t even as if they were living together but more like roommates passing from time to time and she was more of a convenience.

She wanted more out of a relationship, but every time she brought it up, he laughed at her and gave her the same lines as always.

“It’s my birthday,” she lied to see if he knew the truth to that. Or if he remembered he’d bought her a diamond bracelet less than six months ago after he’d forgotten it and someone else reminded him.

“Shit. I forgot. I’m sorry, baby. Come here. We’ll go pick out some nice diamond earrings for you.” He was reaching to hug her as if that and a few thousand would make up for it.

She shook her head and put her hand up. “No,” she said firmly. “It’s not about gifts. I’ve said that to you before. It’s about acknowledgment and respect and knowing what is going on in my life. Last month you threw a fit because I went to visit my sister for three days and said I didn’t tell you when I’d not only told you, but emailed it to you, and texted you.”

“I’m busy,” he argued. “I don’t pay attention to those things.” Or the fact that he didn’t remember he’d sucked up to her about actually forgetting her real birthday not that long ago. That bracelet was sitting on the dresser and he didn’t even realize it.

“You’re not too busy to go have a drink with a friend when he texts you and you drop everything. You’re not too busy to go help Pierre two floors down when he calls to see if his new furniture matches the floors just right.”

Landon laughed at her. “He’s a client. I have to do those things.”

Client was laughable. She didn’t even know what Landon did other than to go work at his father’s firm. He didn’t even spend enough time talking to her about anything. She learned quickly she was more arm candy than a partner.

Should she have left the first time she said she was going to?

Yep. She was an idiot for holding on and hoping for something that just wasn’t going to be there.

Not anymore.

“Whatever,” she said. “You can do that until your heart is content now.”

She closed her suitcase. “I’ve got a party tomorrow night,” he said. “You need to finish getting it set up and host it with me.”

Which was what their relationship really consisted of in his eyes. A live-in assistant for him who got expensive gifts she was leaving behind because she never wanted them.

“You’re on your own,” she said. “Funny how you remembered that but not the birthday of your girlfriend who has lived here for over a year. The one you say you are just waiting to get a ring for. But since you’re forty-five, I should have realized it wasn’t going to happen.”

“You love being with an older man,” he snapped. “You like being taken care of. You enjoy everything I’ve given you like the greedy little bitch that you are. This is all about not getting something for your birthday. Is this an act to get more?” He pulled his credit card out and threw it at her. “Go buy what you want and we’ll call it even. Just make sure it’s nice enough to have on for the party tomorrow so we can show it off.”

She walked over to pick up his black credit card that he loved to take out in front of people.

She reached for it and his grin grew. He thought he had her.

All she did was bend it in half a few times until it was creased enough, then with all the strength she had started to twist it so that it’d break in two.

“What the fuck are you doing, you crazy psycho?”

The appalled look on his face was the best breakup gift she could have given herself.

“Have fun paying for your party with that tomorrow.”

She tossed it on the floor, then picked up her suitcase and marched out the door.

One problem. She had nowhere to go.