Chapter Fourteen
For as long as she’d known Jane, Charlotte had always understood that one’s happiness directly affected the other, and when she went back to the flat, several days after Dante’s declaration of love, because she needed fresh clothes, it was to find Jane huddled up on the sofa, surrounded by an absolute sea of used tissues, ashen and, well frankly, a mess.
Jane.
Her Jane.
Jane whom she’d presumed had stuck to their arrangement and come home and simply gotten on with her life. Jane whom she’d been wanting to tell her exciting news to, just as soon as she was ready to step out of her love bubble and incorporate someone else into it.
Jane who’d gone to Greece to do Charlotte a huge favour and was now absolutely, completely destroyed.
The first thing Charlotte did was message Dante:
Change of plans. I have to stay here a couple of days.
Dante had responded, I’ll come over.
She’d replied, And risk this lumpy bed?
Anything for you.
Charlotte had taken one look at Jane and known there was absolutely no way she couldn’t make Jane her complete and utter focus. She and Dante had their whole lives to live and Charlotte would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t find a way to fix whatever had gone wrong for Jane.
Only Jane wouldn’t talk.
She was almost catatonic.
From time to time, Charlotte was able to get some toast into her, or a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, but only if she sat there beside Jane and kept reminding her to lift whatever it was to her lips and eat or drink.
Finally, a few days after Charlotte had come home and found Jane like this, her best friend had come out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, sobbing and started to talk.
She told Charlotte everything, body wracked with the force of her grief, as she explained how quickly she’d realised that Zeus was so different to what they’d imagined.
How gentle and kind he’d been to her. How much he’d brought her back to life.
How much he’d fooled her into thinking he was her safe place and always would be.
How she’d fallen in love with him. And finally, how cruel he’d been to her on their last morning together.
Oh, Jane hadn’t called him cruel. She’d berated herself over and over, for how much she’d deserved it and how she only hoped he would be able to find happiness, but for Charlotte it was like a red rag to a bull.
She could hardly see straight she was so incensed.
Not only that, but she was also missing Dante like a limb.
Two things became abundantly clear to Charlotte, after Jane’s confession. One: she had to see her fiancé again. Two: she had to make that pig of a man Zeus pay for what he’d done to Jane.
A quick phone conversation with Dante and the plan was made—they’d leave for Athens the next morning.
* * *
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ he offered, at the base of the Papandreo offices, with their shiny marble tiles and tall ceilings.
She squeezed his hand. ‘I appreciate the offer, but this really is something I have to do on my own.’
A frown smudged across his lips. ‘But you don’t.’
‘I do,’ she replied. ‘I love you, in every way, but this is my problem, my mistake, and I’m going to fix it on my own.
’ She kissed him quickly. ‘But wait here, because I’m pretty sure I’ll need a drink afterwards.
Or something even more distracting,’ she said, kissing him again, her gut rolling because she knew she would never, ever get enough of him.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Whatever you need, I’m here.’ And he always would be.
She took the lifts to the executive floor and approached a bank of elegant receptionists. One glanced up and made eye contact, offering a tightly dismissive smile.
‘I’m here to see Zeus Papandreo,’ she murmured.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Papandreo is busy.’
‘Busy?’ she repeated, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘If you’d like to leave your name and some details regarding your concerns, I can...’
‘Do you value your job?’
The woman compressed her lips.
‘I ask, because I have a feeling Mr Papandreo will have no hesitation in firing you if he finds out you didn’t let me see him.’
‘I—I’m sorry,’ the woman said.
‘This is an urgent family matter,’ Charlotte said, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘Now, which office is his?’
Only, that was obvious, by the way the receptionist glanced towards it.
‘Excellent.’ She began to stride towards it, but the receptionist was standing. ‘Wait, wait!’ She called. ‘At least let me notify him that you’re here.’
Jane slowed her walk—it was the only concession she’d give.
She heard the receptionist’s rushed explanation to Zeus, and then a quick call of, ‘You can go in, but he only has a few minutes!’
Charlotte didn’t even think about the fact she was coming face-to-face with her brother. She couldn’t.
She didn’t think about the fact that the man she was about to meet shared half of her DNA. That she’d wondered about him for years.
All she cared about was the hurt her best friend had suffered and how much they were both to blame.
She pushed the door inwards, her anger at fever pitch.
From the moment he turned to face her, it was obvious that Zeus hadn’t expected Charlotte. ‘You,’ he exclaimed, staring at her with a tense line across his shoulders.
‘You! Well, if I didn’t hate you before, I sure as hell have a reason to now.’
His laugh was dark. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Nothing about this is remotely amusing.’
‘You’re telling me!’ She saw the moment he registered her engagement ring and what it meant.
She’d won the race. Though she wasn’t technically married, she was engaged and short of obtaining a special exception—almost impossible to have granted—Zeus would have to wait out the same month-long period that she and Dante were.
Meaning that if he hadn’t already filled out the legal paperwork for a wedding, there was no way he’d beat her down the aisle.
She’d won. The company was, legally, bound to be hers.
‘You’re engaged?’ he demanded.
‘And you’re utterly vile,’ she threw at him, worry for Jane making her unable to think straight.
He looked indignant. ‘You sent your best friend to Athens to seduce me so you could steal my company and I’m vile?’
Shame made her blood curdle. She’d done that.
She’d really done it. She couldn’t even recognise the woman she’d been that day, after the appointment with the lawyers.
She’d been so devastated, so angry, so furious.
She hadn’t thought anything through, least of all the potential for collateral damage.
When heaven knew there’d been enough of that already.
But his accusation put her on the defensive, so she said, ‘Yeah, well, you sent her home utterly messed up, so what are you going to do about it?’
He visibly recoiled, his features showing shock, pain, hurt, worry. Yes, worry. Only then, he stood straighter, tightening his features into a mask of non-concern, as he said, dismissively, ‘I’m sure she’ll recover.’
Charlotte was furious. ‘Are you? Well, that shows how well you know her, because I’ve never seen Jane like this.
Not even after Steven,’ she threw at him, referring to the man who’d date raped Jane years earlier and ruined her ability to trust any man afterwards.
But then, she closed her eyes, because Charlotte had known how vulnerable Jane was and she’d still asked her to do this.
‘And it’s my fault,’ she continued. ‘I’m the one who begged her to do this.
I’m the one who pushed past her objections.
Who pleaded with her because I knew that she would never say no to me.
I used her,’ Charlotte now was guilt-stricken.
She crossed her arms but it didn’t keep the chill at bay. ‘And now, I have to fix it.’
His features were like storm clouds. ‘Some things can’t be fixed.’
She was appalled. How could anyone not love Jane? How could he not appreciate what a gift she was?
‘You’re not even going to try?’
‘Why would I?’ he demanded.
‘So, you don’t love her?’ she threw down the gauntlet.
‘I can’t see what business that is of yours.’
There was something in that, that caused Charlotte to hope, because it wasn’t an outright denial. ‘I’m making it my business.’
‘That’s not your prerogative.’
God, but he was a smarmy, arrogant piece of work.
‘This makes it so,’ she said, taking great pleasure in showing him her engagement ring, then narrowing her eyes. ‘You care about this company.’
He glared at her.
‘You want to keep it?’ she pushed.
He thrust a hand onto his hip.
She sucked in a breath, surprised by how easy she found it, in the end, to give up on her plans. Anything for Jane, though. ‘Well,’ she said, carefully, intentionally. ‘I will walk away, sign whatever I need to in order to give up my stake in it, if you promise to at least go and talk to her.’
His features, momentarily, showed surprise, but then he was all arrogant, unreadable man-mountain again. ‘I thought you wanted the company badly enough to do anything?’ he challenged.
‘I want my best friend to be happy more,’ she said, with a withering and derisive scowl. ‘I would give up anything for her, as she would for me. Did you even know that’s what she was planning to do?’
He didn’t respond, so Charlotte pushed on.
‘She was coming home to tell me that she loved you. That she thought I’d love you, too.
That she wanted us to be friends. She knew it might mean losing you, but she was going to put you and me first, because that’s the kind of person she is.
And if you truly don’t see that,’ she glared at him one last time before stalking towards the door and wrenching it open. ‘Then you don’t deserve her.’
* * *
‘Wait.’ Zeus caught her at the elevator bay, and his voice was as imperious as it was commanding. But Charlotte was suddenly exhausted. And worried about Jane. And wracked with guilt. Nothing—no revenge, nothing—was worth this. What had she done?