Chapter Fifteen
Lucas
Iwas sucked into work, eyes focused on my laptop as I burrowed my way into line after line of code for a client. Beside me, my phone beeped an alarm. The security system. Not Charlie's, mine.
Proximity alert on the driveway.
I tapped the app on my phone and watched Aiden Winters unfold himself from what I knew was a very expensive and almost impossible to get Aston Martin. Damn, that was a gorgeous car. One of the perks of being a billionaire.
Didn't bother me. I wasn't a billionaire, but I had enough money socked away to buy my own Aston Martin if I really wanted one. Someday, maybe. For now, my capital and my attention were on building my business and playing around with rehabbing houses. An expensive luxury car didn't fit in.
With a sigh of annoyance, I logged out of my laptop and closed it. This particular client wasn't in a rush, but the job was taking longer than I'd estimated since Charlie's life had intersected with my own.
I didn't have to guess why Aiden Winters was here. After William Davis's visit, I'd been expecting Aiden to stop by. If he thought he was going to roll in here and scare me off Charlie, he was very much mistaken.
Charlie was mine for as long as she wanted to be, as long as this thing between us stayed good, and nothing her brother had to say would change that. I knew guys like Aiden Winters. Rich, entitled, used to thinking the world existed to serve them.
When you work in my business, you run into more than your share of men like him. I let him ring the doorbell and took my time answering it. When I swung the door open, I was taken aback by how much he reminded me of Charlie.
In pictures, they didn't look that much alike. Her blue eyes were so striking, they overshadowed the features she shared with Aiden. It was disconcerting to see her lower lip and those defined cheekbones in a male face.
Aiden met my eyes with a direct stare and said, "Lucas Jackson?"
I nodded, affirming his guess.
"May I come in? We have things to talk about."
I stepped back, holding the door open. "Charlie is at Winters House," I said. I'd dropped her off myself not more than an hour before.
"I know," Aiden said with a quirk of his lips that was almost a smile. "She's playing with Maggie's dog. I told her I would do it, but she said I wouldn't spend enough time letting him drool all over me. She was probably right. You drove her?"
"I did," I said. It might be overkill, but I was serious about not leaving her on her own. She was behind a gate at Winters House, protected by multiple layers of security. I still didn't like her being on the other side of town without me.
Echoing my thoughts, Aiden said, "I'm surprised you let her out of your sight."
So was I.
Which was a problem. It was supposed to be easy to let go of Charlie. That was the whole point of our arrangement.
No relationship. No attachments.
I wasn't sticking very well to my own ground rules. Until I knew what Aiden was getting at, I wasn't going to respond. I gave a half-shrug and waited.
"I talked to Evers this morning. Brennan told him about the note. I can't help but notice that no one told me about the note."
"Charlie specifically asked Brennan not to tell you," I said. "He's doing his job, which is to build a case against whoever is after her while they look for the guy. His job is not to keep Charlie's family posted on his progress."
Aiden narrowed his eyes at me. I stared back with a level gaze. When he realized I wasn't going to give him anything else, he said,
"I'm aware of what Detective Brennan's job is. Evers assures me that the system he installed on her house is as airtight as he can make it while it's being renovated. I still don't like it."
"Are you going to try to force her to move home?" I asked. I crossed my arms over my chest, bracing for his answer.
"Do you think it would work?" Aiden asked, raising an eyebrow at my stance. He went on, "Charlie's already angry with me. Trying to strong-arm her into moving home when she obviously doesn't want to would be an exercise in futility. I don't like to waste time."
"Why did you fire her?" I asked. The change of subject was a one-eighty, but I needed to know.
"Because it was the most efficient way I could think of to start making up for my mistake."
"And what was the mistake? Hiring her in the first place?" I asked. Every report I dug up about Charlotte Winters said she was exceptionally good at her job. Firing her didn't make sense.
"No. Not exactly. But that was part of it. And this really isn't any of your fucking business."
"Humor me," I said.
"No. I'm not in the habit of talking to strangers about my family."
"Smart, considering your family. But I'm involved with your sister. I'm not a stranger. And I'm curious. You two are close. She poured her life into that job. Before I trust you, before I tell you things that she may not want me to share, I have to know why you would do that to her."
Aiden absorbed my words in silence, words I hadn't been aware I was going to say. Aiden might be here to warn me off his sister, but since he'd led with Evers and Brennan, I was thinking he was also here to find out how Charlie was really doing.
I wasn't going to let him in until I understood his relationship to Charlie better. He took a breath and seemed to come to a decision.
"It's a little early for beer," he said. "Do you have any coffee?"
"Follow me," I said, leading Aiden through the front rooms of my house into the kitchen at the back. My house was smaller than Charlie's overall, but the lower level was about the same size and laid out in a similar way—living room and dining room off the front hall, kitchen in the back.
Where she had the office and bathroom, I had a family room with a flat screen open to the kitchen. And unlike Charlie's mess of construction, my house was mostly finished.
The front rooms didn't have furniture yet.
I hadn't had time to deal with them. But the kitchen was done and it was just about perfect.
Dark cabinets, a custom poured concrete counter and matching island, high-end appliances, a wine fridge, two farmhouse sinks, and a wet bar in the butler's pantry beside the family room.
It was good-looking enough to make a decorator happy and functional enough for a guy, whether he liked to cook or just liked having cold beer close to his TV. It suited me, and I knew if I ended up flipping it, buyers would love it.
I had the same style single-cup coffeemaker Charlie did, and I had Aiden's coffee brewed a few minutes after we hit the kitchen.
He took it and said, "You redid this place?"
"You don't already know?" I challenged. I was curious to see if Aiden Winters could cut through the bullshit. It turned out, he could.
"I was going for polite, but if you'd rather do it this way, I'm good with that too."
"I don't like to waste time either," I said.
"Fine. I know you redid this place practically from the studs. Nice job, by the way."
I acknowledged his complement with a nod but didn't interrupt.
"You paid for the house, and all the work, in cash. You have zero debt. According to your tax return, you made well over a million dollars last year. It would've been a lot more if you hadn't gotten sidetracked avenging your brother, for which you took no money at all.
"You're former Army, and even Cooper couldn't find out what you were doing for them after you transitioned out of the Rangers, but whatever it was, they didn't want to let you go.
You're trained in security and protection, but as you've built your business, you've left that behind in favor of hacking jobs that are mostly white hat.
What I don't know is why a guy like you is rehabbing a house in the Highlands. "
"I thought you were going to ask what a guy like me is doing with your sister," I said.
I wasn't thrown by his recitation of my history. Aiden Winters was tight with the Sinclairs, tightest with Cooper. I knew Cooper Sinclair, knew all of them. Cooper could find out anything. He was almost as good with the keyboard as I was.
I was surprised that Aiden appeared to be dodging the issue of my fucking Charlie. If she were my sister, I would've started with that. I probably would've started with a punch to the jaw.
"I don't have to ask what you're doing with Charlie," Aiden said, shaking his head.
"Charlie is a beautiful woman. She's smart, and funny, and any man would be lucky to have her attention.
When I heard about this, I didn't wonder what you were doing with Charlie.
I wondered what it was about you that made Charlie stop and look.
"She has men after her all the time. If she were ugly and dull, she'd still have men after her all the time because she's a Winters, which makes her a target.
But she's not ugly and dull. She's Charlie.
She can fend off attention from men in her sleep, and most of them, she ignores. So what's she doing with you?"
Annoyed at his tone and the question, I shrugged. "Maybe she's just slumming," I said.
Aiden laughed, amusement bringing his austere features to life.
"Don't ever make the mistake of underestimating Charlie," he said. "She's not slumming."
"How do you know?" I challenged. "You're not going to tell me I'm her type."
"I don't know if Charlie has a type. God knows, the men she's dated haven't worked out. I think she's still trying to figure that part out. But I know she's not slumming because no one she'd bother to spend this much time with would be a step down. Do you get me?"
I wasn't sure I did. Not that I considered myself beneath Charlie. All of that was bullshit. But I knew most people looking at us would see it that way. William Davis certainly had. Charlie didn't, but I'd assumed her brother would.
Apparently, I'd been wrong.
"If you respect her judgment that much," I asked, "then why did you fire her from a job she loved?"