19. CHARLOTTE
19
CHARLOTTE
A t first, I felt exposed when Alex and I were alone and I had to get out of my wet clothes. We’d seen each other naked more than once, but somehow without the heat of the moment and lust driving us, it was different.
But Alex was a complete gentleman about it, turning his back so that I could get undressed without him looking, and when my blanket slipped a little, he averted his eyes.
There was so much about him I’d misjudged. Part of which was who he was as a person.
“You know, that first morning when you told me who you were… I was so mad at you.”
“Why?” His eyes were a light blue, and his face serious.
“Because I thought you did it on purpose.”
“Well, I did,” he pointed out. “Just not to fool you. It was more to protect me.”
I thought about it. “I can imagine you have trouble when you tell people who you really are. People act like you’re a celebrity of some kind.”
“Yeah,” he said and chuckled. “Except I’m not famous for people thinking I’m so great and so kind and they want my autograph so they can say they rubbed shoulders with me.”
I frowned. “Why, then?”1
“Money,” he said with a shrug.
His blanket had slid down enough that it exposed his broad shoulders and chiseled pecs, and leaning back against the tarp, he was completely at ease. It made him look like a god of some kind. An Adonis who’d been sent to Earth, except he didn’t seem invincible like a god would be. He seemed open, and there was a side to him that seemed vulnerable.
“Money?”
“That’s all they want from me. No one wants to date me because of my bright personality or my ability to do business. They want to date me because of what it will mean for them. Even not dating, just spending one night together… most people use it as social clout, you know?”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “That must be horrible. And then I was such a bitch to you about it all.”
Alex chuckled. “Actually, that was refreshing.”
I blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“You were the first person who didn’t have an agenda with me. You were angry about sleeping with me, where all the others are usually thrilled.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said dryly, but Alex shook his head and chuckled.
“I’m serious. It was such a breath of fresh air to just be treated like a human being.”
I swallowed. I hadn’t exactly treated him like a human being. I’d treated him like shit, pissed off at him, and accused him of lying to me, trying to take me for a ride.
“It sounds like a lonely life,” I said softly. “Being used all the time.”
“It is,” Alex said. “Not that people generally notice something like that… it’s pretty lonely at the top as a rule, or so most people at the top would tell their friends if they had any.” He cocked a grin at me, and I giggled.
“Well, you’re not completely alone, right? You have your brothers and Gabe.”
“Yeah, my brothers are good guys. We work together, though, so there’s always some form of competition. Gabe is a good friend. There are no buts involved with him. He’s just himself, and I think that’s why I like hanging out with him so much. He doesn’t know what it’s like to come from a shit ton of money, so he doesn’t act like he shits gold.”
I laughed at his description.
“That’s not entirely true, you know.”
“What?” He widened his eyes. “Are you telling me he does shit gold?”
I burst out laughing. “What the hell, Alex.”
Alex just grinned at me, closing down a little again.
“I’m serious, though,” I said, my laughter fading. “We came from money. I mean, we’re not Blackwood billionaire rich”—I nudged him a little—“but we didn’t have nothing.”
Alex watched me, staying silent so I would tell him more.
“My dad had a lot of money. He was one of the big guys in town, you know, someone with a say about which way the town went.”
“That was in Texas?”
I nodded. “Didn’t Gabe tell you where we’re from?”
“He doesn’t like talking about home,” Alex said.
I didn’t blame my brother.
“Aransas Pass. It’s a coastal town close to Corpus Christi. It’s the kind of place where everything is warm and charming and sweet and bad things don’t really happen, you know?”
“It sounds really beautiful.”
“It is,” I said. “Or at least, it was… I don’t know what it’s like now. I haven’t been home in years. You see, they were going to open some factories, and the cash injection it would give the town would be pretty good, but it also meant that it would heavily impact the environment and be a threat to the fishing industry, in particular. The tourism, too. My dad was the one who had the power to stop it, but instead he advocated for the change.”
“Oh, wow,” Alex said softly.
“Yeah… it was the first time I realized that money trumps everything else. I mean, we’d all grown up with the environment being a big deal. When your town relies on tourism and fishing, keeping the water and the beaches clean is everything. It was almost everyone’s livelihood.”
“And that’s why you were so upset with me, saying that I was just chasing money.”
I nodded and bit my bottom lip. “Yeah. I know it wasn’t fair. I just haven’t had the best luck with people who have a lot of money, people who think that their checkbooks make the world go round. Because for so many people, it really does, and they don’t care about who they have to step on to keep their perfect little world turning.”
Alex put his arm around me and squeezed a little tighter. We’d been huddled up together, but now he held onto me, a welcome warmth flowed from him.
Not just physical warmth but emotional, too.
“You know about our mom?”
Alex nodded. “Yeah, Gabe mentioned that she left. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “It’s okay. I mean…” I chuckled bitterly. “It’s not really okay, but it’s what we had to deal with, you know? But I keep thinking that if she’d stayed, maybe my dad wouldn’t have done it. Maybe he would have done things differently, would have thought twice about it.”
“People can be assholes when they’re hurting.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you see… if he wanted someone to be good for, someone that he felt like he had to be a better man for… he had me and Gabe, right? He could have done the right thing for us. We just weren’t enough.”
A lump rose in my throat, and my eyes suddenly stung with tears.
“I have no idea why I just said that,” I said quickly and tried to blink the tears away.
“Hey.” Alex put his hand under my chin and lifted my head up to look at him. “Just because he was a dickhead and couldn’t see what he had right in front of him doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough. It meant he wasn’t good enough. You’ll always be good enough. You’re a good person, Charlotte. You’re too good for this world.”
That just made me want to cry more, and I turned my head away so he couldn’t see me crying. I sniveled and wiped away my tears.
“This got really serious really quickly.” I forced a laugh, feeling silly.
“It’s not a bad thing to feel something, you know.” Alex’s voice was gentle.
I didn’t clap back and tell him he was one to talk because of his iron mask and stony facade. Because the more I got to know him, the more I realized why he was like that, and I couldn’t blame him for it. He had so much pressure on him, so many people expected him to do the right thing that he couldn’t do a thing wrong.
“Thank you,” I finally said in a soft voice.
“For what?”
“Being kind.”
Alex squeezed my shoulders. “Just being honest.”
I looked toward the window where the storm raged outside. “I know this whole situation isn’t ideal, but I love this storm.”
“Do you want to see it?”
I frowned. “You mean, go out there?”
“No,” he said. “Come.”
He stood and helped me up, taking my hand. When I stood, he didn’t let go. I held my blanket tightly around my body with my other hand, and Alex led me to the narrow spiral staircase that led to the next floor above us.
The lantern room was just a room with a huge lantern in the middle and nothing but glass all around. The lantern was off—Alex had said the lighthouse had been out of commission for years—and the glass was fogged up and misty with years of dust.
Still, with so much glass around us, it felt like we stood at the center of the storm. The rain pounded onto the windows, the thunder and lightning danced overhead, and I felt so small.
I stepped forward and pressed my hand against the glass, feeling the cold rain beat against it through the glass.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed. “Alex.”
He stepped up behind me, his body pressed against mine, and I shivered at his closeness. He held me, his hands wrapped over my blanket, and he dipped his head to my neck. He pressed his lips against my shoulder.
Lightning struck again, and the electricity danced all around us. Shivers ran down my spine, not just from the lightning and the sheer power of the storm all around us, but because of Alex, his lips on my skin, the scrape of his stubble as he kissed his way up my shoulder toward my neck.
I tilted my neck to the side, giving him more space, and he nibbled and kissed his way toward my ear.
“You have no idea how incredible you are,” he murmured. “You’re fighting all these demons, looking for a way to prove your worth when, Charlotte, you’re already everything.”
I turned in his arms, and his eyes fell on mine, deep and dark in the dim light of the storm. Lightning lit up his features for a moment before we plunged back into near darkness again.
“Alex,” I breathed, and he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine.
My breath caught in my throat, and thunder rumbled, trembling all around us, but with his arms encircling me, I was safe.