11. CHARLOTTE
11
CHARLOTTE
“ Y ou’re seriously not going to talk about it?” Maya followed me into my apartment.
“What’s there to talk about?”
“Come on, Lottie. What’s going on? It was clear as day you and that guy were about to climb into each other, and then you just leave the bar like that… I thought you guys might come to blows outside.”
God, if only that had been true. That would have been a hell of a lot easier to handle than the furnace he lit within me.
I thought about the way he’d held my chin, possessive, demanding. It had turned me into a puddle of need. I’d wanted him to take what he wanted, to turn all that high-and-mighty big-boss energy onto me. With his piercing eyes staring into my soul and those perfect lips… I wanted them all over my body. I wanted him to taste every inch of me, pin me down, and pound me into the mattress again and again.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“I’ve got wine,” I said to Maya, trying to shake off the thoughts and the waves of lust washing over me just at the thought of him. “We’ll just keep drinking here. It’s cheaper than that place, anyway.”
Maya was suddenly behind me in my kitchen. I hadn’t heard her come up. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the counter where I stored my wine so that I couldn’t get to it.
“So, no drinking?”
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Maya said.
I let out a shuddering breath. She wasn’t going to let this go.
“I…” I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. “Slept with him.”
I opened my eyes again. Maya’s face was one of pure shock, her green eyes wide, mouth open, and the pink and green streaks in her hair were comically disheveled.
“You what ?”
“That’s why I was late after Gabe’s party. I came from his place, so I had to go home and get dressed first.”
“You slept with him ? Alexander Blackwood? Holy. Shit.”
She moved so I could take out the wine, and I pulled out two bottles—yeah, it was going to be that kind of afternoon if I was going to have to admit to any of this.
I took out two glasses, and we walked to the open-plan living room.
“You have to tell me everything .” Maya kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs onto the couch, settling in with her glass of wine. She watched me with her eyes filled with excitement.
I groaned. “He’s Gabe’s best friend.”
“Oh, he’s Gabe’s friend? Shit. How does Gabe move in circles like that ?”
“Beats me,” I said. “I didn’t ask how they knew each other because by the time I found out, it was the morning after.”
I glanced at Maya, who looked about as surprised as I’d thought she would.
I sighed, took a few gulps of wine, and told her about what had happened.
While I talked, Maya listened intently, squealing and gushing and swooning in all the right places but never interrupting me. When I was done, she sat back and sighed.
“This is like a movie, you know that?”
I shook my head. “It’s not.”
“Of course it is. He’s amazing, by the sounds of it, and you’re perfect together.”
“No, we’re not,” I said pointedly. “We’re the opposite of perfect together. He’s a Blackwood, Maya. He’s the CEO of the company that we’re directly pitted against in the campaign. Not to mention the fact that he’s Gabe’s friend, and Gabe can’t know about any of this.”
Maya shook her head. “So, you’re just going to leave whatever happened between you two?”
“There’s nothing between us.” That was a lie. There was a lot between us. I’d felt it that night, and I’d felt it today.
“You can’t just forget that kind of chemistry, you know,” Maya said.
“You’re not helping.” I groaned and drank more of my wine. I was hot and bothered again just thinking about Alex and the night we’d had together. And the conversation we’d had today…
Of course, I’d told Maya all about how pissed he was and that we’d argued. I hadn’t told her about the moment all that anger had melted away, and I’d wanted to stand on my toes and kiss him again.
I hadn’t told her about the way he’d touch me, demanding, controlling, but there had been something gentle in there, too.
“You can’t tell Gabe,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to tell Gabe,” Maya pointed out.
“I know, but I mean… he just can’t find out. I can’t be that sister, you know? The one who sleeps with his friend the moment I come to the city. I’m so pissed at Alex for not telling me who he was until after.” I bristled when I thought about it.
“I don’t blame him, you know,” Maya said.
I stared at her. “What?”
“Women must use him all the time for his name and his money. This place has an elite society that you know nothing about—circles with people who only care about what others think of them, about money and fame, and I can just imagine any of those women wanting to sink their claws into a man like Alex Blackwood. Rich, hot, and he has that whole brooding thing going on. I would probably not have said who I was either.”
“How can you take his side?” I cried out.
“I’m not. He should have told you, I get it. But I get where he might have been coming from, too. You haven’t been out and about in this city yet, Lot. You don’t know what it can be like out there.”
I rolled my eyes and drained my glass, irritated with Maya for knowing everything about everyone and we’d been here the same amount of time.
Sometimes, I wished I wasn’t as quiet and withdrawn as I was. I wished I didn’t think about things as much, or calculate everything as many times, or stay in when I could be going out talking to strangers.
Maya’s life was very different from mine because she was outgoing, and she wasn’t scared to march up to strangers and introduce herself… and they liked her for it.
“Come on, Lottie,” Maya said when I poured another glass of wine. She held her glass so I could top her up, too. “Don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not.” Although I was grumpy. “I just don’t know what to do.”
I sat back.
She studied me. “About what?”
“About Alex,” I admitted. “I keep running into him, and then I can’t help it, I’m just so drawn to him.”
“Maybe it’s not the worst thing.”
I stared at her. “What?”
“You don’t get that kind of feeling with just anyone, you know. If you’re meant to be together… We don’t get to choose who we fall in love with.”
“Oh, no, no.” I shook my head. “First of all, this isn’t love. Far from it.” Lust was a much better term, although that didn’t completely cut it, did it? “Besides, did you miss the part where I told you we’re against each other? He’s a Blackwood, and I have the campaign. And then there’s my brother—”
“The campaign won’t last forever, you know. And he was right about you not knowing anything about his company. You could always go check it out. Ask for a private tour.” She waggled her eyebrows and giggled. “But seriously, go and find out. Maybe he’s one of the good guys, and then everything is fine and dandy.”
“What about Gabe? He will always be my brother, no matter what.”
“Yeah, and have you seen Friends ? Chandler ends up with Monica, and Ross was fine with it.”
I rolled my eyes. “My life is not a sitcom, Maya. Things don’t work out that way. People love that show because they can get lost in a world that never really existed in the first place.”
Maya groaned. “Don’t be so negative. I’m just saying, Gabe can come around if you’re open with him about how you feel.”
“I don’t feel anything! I need you to tell me this is a bad idea, to be the angel on my shoulder telling me to keep the moral high road, not the devil telling me to sleep with him again!”
Maya’s freckles shifted as her grin broadened. “I didn’t say anything about sleeping with him again.”
My cheeks burned bright red, and I put down my wine and covered my face with my hands.
“Oh, my God, Maya.”
She giggled with glee, enjoying every second of my mortification.
“Why is everything in your life always so simple?”
Maya shrugged. “You can do a lot when you don’t overthink, Lottie.” She grinned at me when I dropped my hands and glanced at her. “Seriously, you think too much. You make your life way too complicated. Just let go, you know?”
If only it were that easy.
I drank more wine. It was starting to go to my head, making me dizzy, making all my troubles seem just a little less important.
Good, that was what I was after. I didn’t usually drink a lot, but today I just might.
“I have to focus on the campaign,” I said to Maya. “I came here with a goal, and I can’t let a guy like Alex distract me.”
“You know you can do both, right?”
“Both?”
“Work and play.”
I shook my head. Clearly, I couldn’t do that. But it wasn’t just about that. I had a campaign to run. I was here for a reason—the greater good was calling my name. I couldn’t forget what I’d come here to do. It had been years since I’d decided that doing the right thing was more important than giving in to what I wanted. After all, if I just followed what I wanted, it didn’t help anyone. Turning my back on my cause for something I wanted for myself was selfish. That would make me just like my dad, and I hated that idea.
He’d chosen money over doing the right thing. He’d chosen his needs over everything else.
And my mom… she’d been just the same, choosing herself over her family and leaving.
I couldn’t be like them. The world was already such a screwed-up place, and we owed it to ourselves and to future generations to do something about it. Not to focus on carnal wants and needs but on the bigger picture.
Unfortunately, painfully so, choosing Alex, trying to have him in my life, would mean I was focusing on myself, and I refused to be like them. I had to be bigger than that.
Maybe no one else understood it, but if I was the type of person who would give up what was right for the sake of fulfilling my own wants and needs, I would hate who I’d become.
This was the right thing to do. Alex had been a wonderful thing for one night, but that could never happen again. I just had to keep my head straight, keep Alex at arm’s length when I ran into him—which would probably be a few more times during this campaign before it was over—and focus on the bigger picture.
Easy as pie.
Right?