Chapter 2
Two
Charlotte Delaney
Isign my name across the bottom of the contract with a flourish that feels pretty damned good, if I do say so myself.
After weeks of client wooing, the Crescent City Film Festival after-party is locked and loaded. Twelve hundred guests, an open bar with signature cocktails, a seven-course tasting menu, and a planning fee that will cover my mortgage for the next four months.
After the summer from hell, things are finally looking up.
For me, and my favorite city.
I lean back in my chair, the leather creaking softly, feeling grateful.
Outside my second-story home office window, my staff is busy prepping for Parker and Makena’s engagement party.
The air is filled with the cheerful clink of champagne flutes being arranged on tables, snippets of live music as the band tests the sound system, and Molly’s bright laughter as she directs the food truck into position.
The weather gods have blessed us with a high of seventy-eight with no chance of rain, the decorations are perfection, and the photo booth, lawn game station, and couple-themed trivia challenges should keep the fun flowing.
So far, the setup is going off without a hitch, every piece falling seamlessly into place.
This is clearly an event planned by a woman who has her shit together.
I do have my shit together.
Finally.
After years of prioritizing the wrong things—and people—my life is smooth, happy, peaceful, and filled with folks who treat me well and never take my friendship or generosity for granted.
Life is good.
And then, as if warning me not to drop my guard just yet, my phone buzzes on the desk beside me, bringing tidings from the world beyond…
It’s Dara, a lovely woman who happens to be married to my very unlovely ex-boyfriend’s college roommate, Vick. I would have called us friends back in the day, before Teddy and I ended our on-again-off-again relationship, but I haven’t heard from her much in the past year.
I’d assumed she’s been forced to choose Teddy in the “friend divorce,” due to Vick’s closeness to him and his well-connected family.
But maybe I was wrong.
Maybe Dara wants to reconnect and be closer than we’ve been in the past year…
I should have known better, of course.
Things have been going well lately, but Teddy always seems to come back to haunt me, sooner or later…
Dara: Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this! The nerve of that man. I can’t believe he opened his mouth and let THAT come out. Call me when you can? And seriously, just say the word, and Vick and I will both skip the wedding. Fuck college friends, and fuck Teddy.
My stomach drops.
I stare at the link at the end of the text, sitting there like a snake coiled in the grass.
I don’t want to click it. My every instinct is screaming that I should delete this text, jump into the shower to get ready for the fabulous party I’m throwing for my fabulous friend, and pretend Teddy Delacorte doesn’t exist.
But I’ve never been good at looking away from ugly truths.
I’d rather feel the pain than stay in the dark, waiting for reality to ambush me when I least expect it.
So…I click the link.
The page loads, and there they are, Teddy and Madison, my ex and my former protégée, wrapped around each other in the New Orleans Botanical Garden, all soft focus and golden hour light.
Madison in a white couture sundress, I know she can’t afford on her second-tier wedding-and-party-planning company salary.
And Teddy in the lux, Italian linen shirt I bought him three Christmases ago, the one he said made him feel like he was “trying too hard,” when I asked him to wear it to my aunt’s wedding.
Apparently, he doesn’t mind getting caught trying now…
The headline—New Orleans’ Newest “It” Couple Opens Up About Love, Life, and the Unstoppable Magic That Makes Them… Well, Them—threatens to trip my gag reflex, but I force myself to keep reading.
The journalist coos about their “compelling energy” and “refreshingly earnest approach to modern romance.” Madison is then quoted as gushing, “I finally understand what all the love songs are about. They’re literally about this feeling.
Love. The real thing, though, the kind you don’t find very often these days.
I’m just so grateful God led me to this incredible man. ”
“Wow, love songs are about love. Who would have thought, you intellectually deficient traitor,” I mutter, feeling uncharitable.
But it’s Teddy’s quote that sends the “woman scorned” energy inside me surging to previously unimagined heights.
I have to read the section twice to believe the man had the fucking gall…
Madison reaches for Theodore’s hand as we settle onto a sun-dappled bench, framed by Spanish moss that drifts toward them on the breeze, as if it, too, longs to get closer to their magnetic energy.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” Theodore says, with the quiet conviction of a man who’s found his way home.
“What Madison and I have… She’s shown me what real partnership is all about.
What it looks like to build a life with someone who truly sees you, all of you, and welcomes your light and your darkness with open arms.”
He pauses, glancing at his fiancée with unmistakable tenderness. Madison squeezes his hand, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I’m genuinely grateful now that I didn’t settle down earlier, before I was ready,” Theodore continues.
“It’s given me perspective. Looking back at those previous relationships, even the longer ones that felt so significant at the time…
Well, I can see now they were more style than substance.
About what looked good on paper, not what felt right in my heart, my soul.
This is different. Madison is different.
This is real in a way I didn’t realize was possible before she came into my life. ”
Style than substance?
Good on paper?
The words blur on the screen.
Eight years. I gave this man eight years of my life. Most of my thirties, the decade everyone said I should be using to “settle down” and “get a ring on it,” I spent navigating Theodore James Delacorte’s emotional minefield.
But I didn’t mind. I was so certain he was the one. I never shied away from any part of him, including the darkest darks.
The memories come rolling in with the force of the storm surge that left NOLA in shambles this summer.
Teddy, in a dark suit at his mother’s funeral, his hand gripping mine so tight my fingers went numb.
I cancelled three client meetings to be there, held him while he cried, and stayed up with him until he’d cleaned every dress out of her closet and “the mother smell” was banished from the giant Victorian he’d inherited.
I couldn’t have done this without you, Char. I couldn’t have lived through it. This would have destroyed me.
Move in, baby. Please. You can have the entire top floor for your home office, your workout room, whatever you need.
Just don’t leave.
Seven months later, he was back to pulling away again, saying he needed “space to finish grieving.”
I had to move all my belongings into storage and myself into a short-term rental until the people I’d leased my house to were ready to move out.
But I’d still been there for him, even when he said he wanted to break up and be “just friends” until he’d dealt with all the stress associated with his mother’s estate and the recent downsizing at his law firm.
How could I tell him to go to hell when he’d just been fired and was having panic attacks almost every day? Instead, I helped him research therapists, made appointments he’d cancel at the last minute, and coached him through breathing exercises at two in the morning.
I’d also celebrated with him six months later when he finally landed the partnership at Russo & Klein—I couldn’t have done this without you, angel. You saved me. I mean that. You’re just…everything, Char. Absolutely everything.
Things were good for the next year, but eventually he needed “time” again. Time to decide if he wanted biological children too much to settle down with someone who couldn’t conceive. Time to decide if he was “good enough for me,” and could give me “everything I deserved.”
I gave him time.
Eight years, in bits and pieces. I followed the breadcrumbs of affection he trailed behind him, clung to hope through years of being treated like a goddess he couldn’t live without one month, then downgraded to “buddy” status when he ran out of bandwidth for a relationship “as serious and intense” as ours.
And now I’m “style not substance?”
My hands shake as I set the phone down.
The humiliation is worse than the heartbreak. At least heartbreak is private, and I finally woke up to what an emotionally abusive jerk Teddy was about eighteen months ago when I said “goodbye” for the last time.
My heart has healed from that part. Thoroughly. Completely. And faster than I would have thought possible when I was still swept up in his narcissistic drama spiral.
But this? This is public erasure, in black and white, for all our friends and clients to read. He’s taken eight years of my life—eight years of love and support and patience and loyalty—and dismissed it in a glossy magazine profile like it never mattered.
Like I never mattered.
And Madison? Well, she can eat rocks.
She met Teddy through me while planning his firm’s holiday party.
God had nothing to do with it. I hired her straight out of Tulane, taught her how to build a business from nothing, took her to industry events, and introduced her to everyone I knew.
I even helped her launch her own company when she was ready to spread her wings and fly.
And she repaid me by fucking, bagging, and tagging the only man in New Orleans she damned well knew was off-limits.
The only one who could hurt me like this…
I stand, pacing to the window. Outside, my team is nearly done transforming the backyard into something incredible. Special. Beautiful. All by simply following my explicit directions. I’m unmatched at what I do, the queen of unforgettable experiences that shape the fabric of people’s lives.
Maybe I should start using my skill to shape my own life into something even more beautiful than it is already.
Something crafted to exact maximum revenge…
Makena’s voice echoes in my head, from the day Teddy’s cruel wedding invitation arrived—What about Nix? I mean, think about it. Gorgeous professional athlete who’s clearly into you. Bring him to the wedding. Make Teddy regret every stupid decision he’s ever made.
I’d dismissed her at the time. Decided it was too petty.
But right now?
Petty is starting to sound pretty good…
Nix.
Baylor Nix.
Six-feet-two inches of pro-athlete man meat with a sexy as fuck laugh and a surprising degree of intelligence. He has a philosophy degree from Boston University, dark brown eyes that look at me like I’m his idea of perfection, and a mouth that…
No.
I press my palm to where my pulse flutters at my throat, willing it to calm down. If I reach out to Nix, it won’t be for that. It will be purely business.
Makena told me just last week that he was in some kind of trouble, his reputation hanging by a thread after a bar fight or something. I hadn’t paid much attention to the gossip at the time, but now…
Well, I imagine Nix is in a place where it could be good for him to seem more stable. Settled.
And I’m in a place where a hot, adoring, successful, clever, younger man on my arm would make me feel a whole lot better about showing up at Teddy and Madison’s stupid wedding…
It would be transactional. Professional, even.
The fact that we have chemistry—undeniable, fuck-me-until-I-scream-and-I’ve-never-been-a-screamer chemistry that’s been haunting me since June—is irrelevant.
We’re adults. We can handle this.
My phone buzzes again.
Dara: I’m serious. That article is garbage. You deserve so much better than that, Charlotte. Are you okay?
Charlotte: I’m fine! Great, even. Honestly. But thank you for the heads up. And for the offer, but you should go to the wedding. I’ll be there, too. Teddy invited me, and I’m going to call his bluff. And bring a plus-one…
Dara: Oh, yeah?! That’s amazing news! Who’s the lucky guy? I bet he’s way cuter than Teddy and nicer and still has all his hair.
Charlotte: LOL. Totally! I’ll share more soon. Gotta run. I’m hosting my girlfriend’s engagement party tonight.
Dara: Okay! Have fun. And tell her congrats from me!
Charlotte: Will do.
Iset my phone down and check the time. Four-thirty. The party doesn’t start until six. Plenty of time to shower, do my hair, and transform into the version of myself who has everything under control.
The version I suspect will be equally accomplished at plotting revenge…