4. Charlie
FOUR
CHARLIE
The sound of moving furniture echoed from the hole. I frowned at the blue towel I’d draped over the opening before turning back to my laptop. I didn’t have time to worry about what my rude, arrogant, infuriating, full-of-himself neighbor was doing.
Another rude, arrogant, infuriating, full-of-himself man required my attention. I’d just sent off a quick email to tell him his theater renovation application was under review, hoping he could glean the not-so-subtle subtext that the chances of approval were slim to none.
I didn’t have the authority to touch the Radcliffe Apartments demolition permit itself, but as soon as the heritage approval application came across my desk, I’d get my favorite red stamp ready. DENIED .
I glared at the laptop screen, papers scrunching under my butt when I adjusted myself in my bed. I’d covered my abused behind with my biggest granny panties and my comfiest sweats, then did what I’d promised and sat on a bag of ice.
Another place I could sit, he said. The jackass. The girls would love that one when I got over the mortification and managed to tell them about it.
The ice didn’t cool my temper in the slightest, especially not when I returned to the email that had started it all. Sebastian Anderson was pond scum. Not that he’d ever want to incorporate green space or water features in his development proposals. He was pondless pond scum, so I guess that just made him plain ole scum.
The man really wanted to tear this place down. His application suggested that the oldest Second Empire home in town presented no historic value. He was a menace.
Wood screeched against wood downstairs. Huffing, I glared at the towel. “What are you doing?”
There was a pause. Then, “Nuh-uh-uh,” he singsonged. “We don’t talk through the towel, remember?”
Ugh! Slamming my feet on the wooden floor, I made sure to stomp extra-loud on my way to the hole. I kicked the towel aside. “Is this really the time to be dragging furniture around?” I asked the void at my feet.
A dark head appeared below. My neighbor glanced up, the warm, low light of his bedroom caressing his jaw and cheekbones. Damn him for being handsome. He knew it too, the jerk. That’s why he acted like such an arrogant asshole. “Your bath is a solid cast-iron beast. It probably weighs five hundred pounds.” He arched his brows meaningfully at me, then at the jagged wood lining the hole. “I’m not sleeping somewhere that thing can fall and crush me in my sleep.”
I rocked onto my heels. That made sense. Apparently, the man could rub his brain cells together and make a coherent thought. Life was full of miracles.
He crossed his arms and lifted his gaze back to mine. The fabric of his tee clung to his shoulders and arms in a way that was far too distracting for someone so insufferable. “Will that be all, Your Majesty? I’ll have you know I also have an important meeting I should be preparing for.”
“Are you aware that you’re a colossal dick?”
For some ridiculous reason, the question made a giddy sort of smile light up his expression. “It’s been mentioned once or twice.”
Sick of his stupid face, I replaced the towel, then cast about for something more substantial to cover the hole with, finally dragging over the side table I used for the bath. That would have to do.
My mood was marginally improved with the application of a few hours of sleep and an unhealthy amount of caffeine. Ignoring the hole—and the man moving in the apartment below—I prepared for battle.
I dressed in my favorite navy skirt suit and most luxurious white silk blouse. I tied my hair back in a low bun, smoothing all my flyaways until I looked like someone who couldn’t be bullied into anything by anyone.
In the early days of my career, I’d found I got more respect from men and women alike when I wore shapeless suits, sensible shoes, and ill-fitting blouses. But as I got older, I realized that life was too short for sensible shoes. If a man couldn’t respect me wearing makeup, heels, and a fabulous skirt, he simply wasn’t worth my time. I could do my job just fine no matter what clothes I wore.
And when things got serious, I wore designer stilettos. My favorite pair cost as much as three months’ rent, which had been a rare indulgence with an even rarer dash of irresponsibility. They were as comfortable as six-inch pumps could be when they had a needle-thin heel, and they made me feel invincible. Today, invincible was exactly what I needed.
I clip-clopped my way down the internal stairway, out the house’s front door, and past the quaint, weathered sign that read “Radcliffe House Apartments.” Pausing for a moment, I frowned at the warped wood and faded lettering, then straightened and moved on. Nothing a lick of paint couldn’t fix. It wasn’t like it needed to be torn down.
A midnight-blue Maserati was parked in front, which was strange. Perhaps the new neighbor’s? He seemed like the kind of man who needed a fancy car to feel important.
Snorting, I turned the corner and got into my own vehicle, Ted. Ted was an unpretentious 1998 Toyota Corolla that had seen me through my entire adult life. We’d been through a lot together, me and Ted. His familiar rumble and vague scent of decades-old dust and burned rubber eased my nerves. Today’s meeting would be a piece of cake.
The town council offices were located in a beautiful stone building that doubled as the local court. New Elwood had a population of approximately ten thousand residents, and we boasted our own courthouse and full-time judge. Sure, Judge Harold Kane was a crotchety old bastard who won the election every six years by default because no other applicants wanted to move here for the year required to qualify for the position, but he was fair and he was ours.
The man in question burst into my office—a repurposed storage closet in the basement of the building—and slammed his meaty palms on my desk.
I rolled back in my chair a scant few inches before my seat-back hit the concrete wall behind me. The important thing to do when faced with someone larger and more powerful than you was not to flinch. Something I should’ve remembered later, when meeting another man.
“What can I do for you, Harold?”
Judge Kane was a tall, wide man who was intimidating even when you knew he hid a heart of gold behind his steely gaze. He still had all his hair, a shock of pure white which he proudly coiffed to add another two inches to his already considerable height. That morning, he regarded me with piercing blue eyes, no sign of the kindly grandfather I knew him to be. “You meeting that Anderson fella today?”
I checked the time and nodded. “In twenty minutes.”
“Give him hell, Reeves.”
My lips twitched. Judge Kane’s wife, Gladys, was one of the curators at the local museum. Both of them believed in preserving the town as much as possible. “You know I will.”
“Good.” He gave me a curt nod, then whirled out of my office and went to bark at someone else. His voice echoed in the narrow underground hallways until he disappeared into an elevator.
After reviewing the notes I’d prepared one last time, I tapped the sheets to line them up, then slipped them into my leather-bound zipper folder. I grabbed my stamp and ink pad, and my favorite pen—red, of course, as was appropriate for a man of Anderson’s ilk—and stood. It was time I went to meet my enemy.
I took the stairs to the third floor, using the walk to center myself. Brick by brick, I built my fa?ade and ran through my arguments in my head. Being in this beautiful building helped.
For a small town, our council building and courthouse were surprisingly grand. I took in the marble steps, listening to the echo of my fabulous shoes and the chatter of other public servants starting their workday. My fingers drifted over the smooth stone balustrade, tracing the curlicues at the bottom and top of every landing. The floors were off-white, shot through with veins of black. The leaded windows let in the late-spring sunshine, bathing the stairwell in gold.
By the time I made it to the third floor, I was ready. No overconfident, mediocre man would bully me into destroying a single one of my town’s landmarks, including my home.
As soon as my foot hit the third-floor landing, a harried-looking woman in her fifties hooked her arm through mine and hissed, “He’s early, the rat bastard.”
“Guess we can’t add tardiness to his sins.”
“Shame,” the woman replied, pursing red-painted lips. Minnie Shepherd had worked as a clerk in the council offices almost her entire life. She knew every inch of the building better than the architects who’d designed it, and she made sure things ran smoothly. She was a gem.
She was also a huge gossip, but that was the price to pay to cut through red tape with the efficiency of a middle-aged woman who’d decided long ago she wasn’t putting up with anyone’s shit.
“He’s younger than I imagined,” she informed me. “Real snooty-like. If you were planning on muscling him into submission, I don’t think it’ll work. I think you’re going to have to be more subtle than that. Catch him out with your cleverness.”
I nodded. “No chance of appealing to his softer side?”
Despite our year-long email acquaintance, part of me had hoped Sebastian Anderson would see reason when he finally visited New Elwood. Naive of me, I know. But I’d entertained tiny, quiet fantasies of him driving down Main Street, seeing the gorgeous Monticello Theater, and deciding he didn’t want to raze it, after all.
“Hon, if that man has a softer side, there’s only one person who’s ever going to see it: his wife.”
“That’s an interesting angle,” I mused. “Can we make contact?”
“His future, hypothetical wife,” Minnie amended, grimacing. She met my questioning gaze. “No ring.”
“Ah,” I said. There went that idea.
“You and the girls coming to the Hooker’s Paradise tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” My girlfriends and I weren’t big on crocheting, but my mom had started the club a couple of decades ago, and it had turned into a bi-weekly ritual that we only skipped in dire circumstances.
“Evelyn knows a good recipe for tea that’ll make Anderson shit his brains out for three full days. Nearly killed her second ex-husband with it.”
My lips twitched. “We’ll keep that one in our back pocket.”
Our steps echoed as we walked toward the meeting room I’d reserved for this confrontation. I chose a beautiful room, but not the most beautiful room. It had a gorgeous aspect looking out on the green space in front of the building, but it was out of the way.
The message: You ain’t that important, Anderson, and we ain’t going to let you push us around. You’ll see a hint of what we’ve got to offer, but we’re not rolling out the red carpet for the likes of you.
The door loomed. I could hear voices—the mayor, Regis Greene, and someone else. Someone familiar.
My steps slowed as I frowned. Did I know Anderson somehow? Why did his voice sound like I’d heard it before?
“Don’t lose your nerve, Charlie, hon,” Minnie chided. “He’s just a man, and men can be worked. All else fails, just plant an idea in his big, dumb head and make him think he came up with it. Works like a charm.”
“It’s not that,” I answered, but there was no time to explain, because Minnie was pulling open the door the men had left ajar.
“Ah! Here’s our superstar clerk,” the mayor boomed, but I barely heard him.
Because the man standing next to Regis Greene was tall, dark, handsome, and clothed in a three-piece suit.
For a change.
My downstairs neighbor’s face showed an infinitesimal inkling of surprise when he took me in. His eyes widened as they met mine, then his face quickly went blank as his gaze dropped to my lips and lingered there for a second. Then he took in my outfit, all the way down to the bare legs below my knees and the fabulous six-inch heels. He adjusted his silk tie.
All this happened in slow motion while my brain shut down and rebooted, trying to make sense of what the hell my new neighbor was doing in my meeting room, and why he was looking at me like that.
The mayor prattled on, probably introducing me, but all I could hear was the howling in my head.
My brain came back online. The penny dropped.
“Sebastian Anderson,” I gritted out, clutching my leather portfolio so hard it creaked.
Last night, I’d heard him say my name. I half-convinced myself I’d heard wrong, since I hadn’t actually introduced myself, but now I knew he’d spoken it aloud. He said it right after I emailed him a curt response to his ridiculous updated development application.
Had he known who I was the whole time?
His green eyes were sharp as they flicked from my shoes back up to meet my own. He’d shaved. That sharp jaw showed no hint of the stubble that had shadowed it the night before. The suit made him look broader and more imposing, and I hated that my stomach quailed.
I realized I was clenching my teeth when an inelegant growl slipped through my lips.
Amusement sparkled in his gaze. “ This is a surprise. Minnie, was it? That’s truly shocking but also delightful. Minnie,” he repeated, then guffawed. My shoulders eased slightly. He hadn’t known who I was last night. But then I tensed right back up when he added, “Get us a coffee, sweetheart. Strong, with a dash of cream. My neighbor kept me up last night. The floors are so thin sometimes I wonder if they’re there at all. Need the caffeine.”
While I stood there, stunned, he gave me his best devilish grin—and winked.
Winked .
A black, murderous rage blanketed my senses. Both fists clenched so hard my nails bit my palm in one hand and the leather portfolio in the other.
I would claw his innards out and feed them to him, the arrogant, self-serving, condescending, dick-swinging ass.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the bastard turned his back to me, dismissing me, and added, “Say, Regis, when is Charlie getting here? Bad form, being late to his own meeting. He doesn’t show up soon, I’ll take it as a personal insult.”
The howling in my head went abruptly silent. I sucked in a slow, deep breath.
To his credit, the mayor looked vaguely panicked. Minnie let out a low chuckle beside me, like she knew the man had signed his own death warrant with those words.
Which he had.
That’s when the pen in my hand snapped, bleeding red ink all over my leather folder and my favorite silk blouse.
Damn this man, his applications, and his stupid gigantic penis. Er—ego. You know what? Damn his penis and his ego. One had probably caused the other, because he was a useless lump of a man who had absolutely no reason to be as cocky and condescending as he was. He was a boil on this town, and I would be the one to excise him.
I stared at the red in my palm, then lifted my gaze just in time to see Sebastian turn to face me, a hint of confusion beginning to enter his expression.
Regis cleared his throat. “Um. Hah. That’s the thing about our Charlie, Sebastian. He’s a she. That is, she’s always been a she. Charlie—Charlotte, that is, you see. You’re not the first to be confused, so don’t feel bad about it. Ha—she’s?—”
“Oh for crying out loud, how did you win that election? A donkey would be more qualified to run this town than you are,” Minnie snapped at Regis, whose face turned purple. Minnie ignored the mayor and gave Sebastian a smile full of teeth. “The thing about Charlie, honey, is that you’re looking at her.”
Sebastian’s brows drew together so suddenly it almost made me laugh. A deranged, manic sort of laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. He stared at Minnie, baffled. “ You’re Charlie?”
Minnie paused long enough that Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. She grinned evilly at him and shook her head. “No, not me. Try again, Big Brain. I’m sure you can figure it out.”