36. Charlie
Ithink I set a world record for how fast I opened my baby shower gifts.
I took pictures with every guest in an impressively short amount of time.
And now after what feels like hours later, with Simon’s letter, and bank statement, burning a hole in my purse, I’m walking into the home I’ve missed more than I realized.
“Simon?” I say as I step through the front door. “Hello?”
I look around, slipping off my shoes as I walk down the hall. When I enter the kitchen, I see a sprawling bouquet of flowers on the island, and a card in front of it that just says “Bug.”
Happy Baby Shower Day. I love you.
For a man who has made his name for being over the top, it’s the simple things that hit me in the heart the hardest when it comes to Simon.
I take in a whiff of the beautiful arrangement of roses before continuing to walk back to his office. The living room hasn’t changed—not that I expected it to in three and a half days—but seeing the dark gray furniture in contrast with the light gray walls somehow gives me a sense of calm.
I’m not sure what to expect when I walk into Simon’s office. So when he slowly turns around in his expansive executive chair, in a full suit and glasses on, I’m somehow not surprised.
Though I am surprised at one thing.
“Since when do you wear glasses?”
“This is the last of my secrets,” he says, making a show of adjusting them. “I use them when I’m reading contracts and going over the small details.”
I smile. “Is that what we’re doing today?”
“It is.” He stands up and comes around the desk, putting his hand on the small of my back as I sit into the chair. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
He kisses the top of my head before sitting back down.
“So, Miss Bennett, is it?”
I smile and laugh, realizing this is the bit and apparently I have to go along with it. “Correct. Charlie Bennett.”
“Charlie? That’s an unusual name.”
“It’s short for Charlene. Not many people know that. I’m actually quite guarded with my name.”
He smiles. “Well, it’s beautiful. Should I call you Charlene? Charlie? Perhaps another nickname that you hold near and dear to your heart?”
I swallow my laughter. “Charlie’s fine.”
“Good. Well, I hate that it’s taken me this long to introduce myself. But I’m Simon Banks, head of Magnolia Properties and the landlord of the building that you operate your restaurant, Mona’s, from.”
He extends his hand, and I meet it. Because why not.
“Very nice to meet you.”
“And you.”
“May I ask how far along you are?”
I put my hand on my stomach. “Just about twenty-nine weeks.”
“Congratulations. I hope the father realizes how lucky he is.”
I smile. “I think he does.”
Simon sheepishly looks down at the desk before nodding.
I sit back and take him in for a moment. If anyone else were to be watching him right now, they would think this is normal Simon—cocky, confident, and owning the room with his brand of humor and wit.
But I’m not just anyone.
He’s nervous. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the man nervous. His hands are fiddling with a pen. He’s rocking back on the chair. His smile isn’t as bright as it normally is.
Somehow, that makes me feel at ease. He knows this is serious. He knows this is a moment for us. But he also knows that he had to do it in his way. The Simon way.
And as much as the Simon way sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out, it’s what makes him, him.
And I love him.
Cocky smile and all.
“Well then,” he says, giving himself a little shake. “I brought you in today because Emmett told me you might not be happy with some conditions of your lease.”
“That’s correct.”
“Well, then, let’s take a look,” he says. “According to your original agreement, you signed on to pay thirty-five hundred dollars a month, is that correct?”
“Yes, which frankly is a steal for a space like this. And at the time it included the apartment.”
“Oh yes, I remember Emmett telling me about that deal,” he says with a wink. “We were happy to help you in that area.”
“Yes. And if my memory serves me right, Emmett said you were a softie and would be happy to help me.”
“Oh, did he now?”
“He did. But I should say thank you. Your generosity was really the only way I was able to accept the lease terms.”
“We’re glad to help. Here at Magnolia Properties, we always want to be able to work with our tenants to make sure they are able to achieve their dreams. That’s actually what we do. We make dreams come true.”
“I thought that was Disney?”
“No. That’s the most Magical Place on Earth. Very different.”
“My apologies.”
“I do have a guy, though, that can get you quite a deal on a Disney vacation, if you’re ever interested. Maybe take the child there one day?”
I laugh, suddenly having the image of Simon pushing a stroller around the Magic Kingdom wearing Mickey Mouse ears. “Good to know.”
“Anyway, back to the arrangement.” Simon leans back in his seat, assuming a thoughtful position. “Do you feel that the rent is too high? Do you need to renegotiate?”
I shake my head. “No. That’s not the problem. I’m not paying enough.”
“Oh really?”
I know this has been playful, which I’m somehow appreciative of because confrontation is never fun, but this is the heart of the matter. The real stuff. He needs to know how I feel, and how it can’t go on. I need to stand my ground, no matter how charming he is.
Or how good he looks in that suit and glasses.
“Since I began leasing the space in September, I thought I was paying rent to Magnolia Properties. At first, my checks weren’t being cashed.”
“Really? That’s interesting…”
“I thought so. I brought this up to Emmett, then suddenly they were. It just seems strange.”
Simon’s cocky smile starts forming. Apparently this acting skit of ours is going exactly how he wants. “Miss Bennett, are you trying to ask me how I was using the money you sent as rent each month?”
I let out a breath. “Yes. I am.”
“Do you have the gift?”
“The bank statement?”
He nods. “That’s where the money went.”
I grab my purse and look at the paper I received earlier.
“You’ll see that there’s twenty-one-thousand-dollars in the account. Which, if the math is broken down, is the rent you have paid Magnolia Properties these past six months.”
“Why is it in a separate account?”
“Because once Baby Bug is born, she will be named the beneficiary of this account.”
“She….what?”
He smiles, takes off his glasses and comes around his desk, turning me slightly so he can sit in the other chair across from me. “I would have given this restaurant to you for free, but I know you would have fought me tooth and nail.”
“You would have been right.”
“And for those first few months, I honestly didn’t know what to do with the money. It felt wrong taking money from you. Which I know it shouldn’t have, because business is business. I didn’t know what to do, so I just didn’t cash them.”
Simon takes my hands in his, which I don’t fight him. In fact, feeling his touch is needed in this moment more than anything. “Then I got the idea to open the account. I know I should have told you about it, but I thought maybe you’d be less mad when you found out knowing that every penny will go toward our daughter.”
My jaw drops slightly. “All of it?”
He reaches over and takes my hands in his. “I know money has always been a weird and touchy topic for you, but I need you to know something if we’re going to be together. I have money. A lot of it. More than I should probably have. And do you know what I like doing with that money?”
“Buying overpriced baby furniture?”
“Besides that,” he says with a laugh. “I like helping the people I love achieve their dreams.”
“Is this something you’ve done before?”
“I have, they just knew about it.”
“May I ask who?”
He nods. “Maeve’s first interior design client was this house. I gave her the money to buy everything she needed to create the space. Before she knew it, she was designing every bachelor and recently divorced man’s house in Middle Tennessee.”
“I’m sure that’s a lucrative business.”
“You have no idea,” he says. “Oliver and Izzy’s wedding? I took care of your catering bill. For Stella’s wedding I’ve paid for the honeymoon. She’ll find that out at her shower. And don’t get me started on the amount of shit I’ve bought Magnolia for her YouTube channel.”
“Mag…wait…is that who you named your company after?”
“She might not be blood, but the first time someone calls you uncle, you don’t forget it.”
Okay, now I’m going to cry. “Simon, why didn’t you just tell me? And I know why you didn’t tell me you owned it to begin with. You’re right, I would’ve run. Hell, I would’ve never even come down here to look at the place.”
“And then you would have never had your diner. The diner you were meant to have.”
“You’re right. I probably wouldn’t. But after? After we were together? There had to be times you could’ve told me?”
I see him wrestling with that decision, even now. “There were times. I’ve sat here for the past three days thinking of every moment I could have. And I wanted to. But I was scared.”
“So scared that you risked me finding out like I did?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “I went fifteen years thinking you disappeared off the face of the Earth. Every time I thought about telling you, knowing you’d be pissed, all I could think about was my life without you again. Without our baby. Just knowing you as the one who got away again. It scared me so much I was willing to take the risk.”
Shit…I never even thought of it from that angle. “Simon…you know I’d never take the baby away. You’re her father. No matter what happens between us, now or in the future, this baby will never not know you.”
He hangs his head for a second before looking back up to me. “I know. But more than once in my life you’ve made me a desperate man, Charlie Bennett. And a desperate man doesn’t do rational things.”
How is that romantic? I don’t know how, but it is.
“I’m still mad,” I say. “You have to promise me, right now, that there are no other secrets or things you did without my knowledge.”
“The glasses were the last of the secrets. And I have a PowerPoint listing all the things I did for your review, in case I forgot any.”
“A PowerPoint?”
“Yes. Long story.”
I shake my head because I don’t know if I want to know. “Promise me, Simon, from now on, you can’t go behind my back like that.”
“I won’t.”
“And if you want to help, talk to me so we can figure out a rational way of doing it.”
“I’ll talk, but not promising rational means.”
“I can live with that,” I say. “But we need to talk about the money. And Mona’s.”
We both tense slightly, knowing this is going to be the true battle.
“Will you finally let me just give you the restaurant?”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”
“Well I’m not letting you pay me rent,” he says. “And as I said at the beginning of this meeting, the ball is in your court. I’m here to help make your dreams come true.”
I take a breath, hoping that my suggestion will be one he can agree to.
“Would you be open to a rent-to-own contract?”
“Interesting,” Simon says as he leans closer to me. “Please tell me more about this brilliant idea.”
The weight immediately lifts off my shoulders. “While I love Baby Bug having a nest egg, if I keep contributing to that, she’s going to have more money than me before she’s two.”
“Agreed.”
“But I don’t want to take that from her either.”
“I can invest it wisely, and with that her college will be covered.”
“I like that,” I say. “But going forward, I’ll continue paying my same amount of rent, only now we work on a deal where I eventually buy Mona’s. I know you own the whole building, and you can do whatever you want with the apartment and the space next door, but if I were working to buy Mona’s, I’d…I’d really like that.”
“Yeah?”
I can’t help but smile, thinking about actually owning the space. “I never thought I’d be able to own anything, but I always dreamed of it. And if you’re about making dreams come true, this is one you could help me with. And we could do it, together.”
Simon claps his hands. “Well then, Miss Bennett, I think we have a deal.” He takes my hand and pulls me over so I’m now sitting on his lap. “And I don’t know how you’ve done other deals in the past, but I like to seal deals with a kiss instead of a handshake.”
“Really? You do that with all your clients?”
He gently brushes his nose over mine. “Only the ones I’m in love with.”