Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Hope
As I stepped back into his world, it was like stepping into another universe. I knew people lived in the fancy buildings, but I'd learned to never judge a man by the suit or the job. In New York, people pretended to be who they weren’t all the time, and I had a liar magnet when it came to men.
He pressed his hand on my shoulder and I jumped. Touching was a bad, bad idea. I turned, and he pointed at the shoe rack I’d found my shoes on earlier. I tugged off my flats and placed them there.
As we finished breakfast, the butler, dressed in all black, came in. Charlie nodded to him. “Michael… Mr. Fuller, this is Hope Williams. Please call a jeweler so we can go get her a proper ring as my fiancée.”
“Yes, sir,” he said quickly.
Honestly, he was Britney’s type entirely, from how he dressed to how he spoke. I waved. “Hi.”
“Hello, ma’am,” he said then left.
My nose wrinkled, and I turned to Charlie. “I’ve never been a ma’am .”
He walked me to the room I’d woken up in. I stared at the white sheets I’d jumped to get out of yesterday.
“Well," he said, "I already had a small wardrobe delivered, so you can go and change before we go to the Diamond District.”
My heart beat faster. If my clothes I’d taken my time to pick weren’t good enough, I was in serious trouble. I tugged on the fabric near my chest. “My dress isn’t good enough?”
His eyes widened. “It is. I’m just used to women constantly changing clothes to match the occasion.”
I blinked. Right. Perfect . We were never going to be together for real. I rubbed the back of my head. “We’ll do that later. Can I ask why we’re jumping right to engaged? Most people would scale from boyfriend-girlfriend and then up when the time is right.”
“I’ve only ever told my parents that if I bring home a girl, then she’s the one for me. I’ve never done well with being conventional.”
“I believe that. Let’s go take a walk. I can’t just sit yet.”
He shrugged. “Sounds good.”
I marched back to the door. The penthouse needed some accents and things, but generally speaking, Charlie had good taste.
I tugged my shoes on, and he did the same. Then he opened the door, and neither of us said a word. I could hardly breathe until we were in the elevator. When the doors closed, I said, “I think we should make some rules about our relationship."
He faced me and tapped his pocket he’d put my letter in. “I’m listening, and I promise I’ll get this bill paid right away as a token of trusting you.”
The doors opened. People were waiting to get in. We filed out, and I waited until we'd passed security. As we headed to Central Park, I said, “I don’t think we should ever kiss again unless we’re in public.”
He folded his hands. “I liked kissing you, and you liked kissing me.”
I wrinkled my nose, though memories of us in my hotel room replayed in my mind. He wasn’t alone with that, but I shook my head. “That was when we didn’t mean anything to each other. Now everything about us fake.”
He shrugged as we went on a path that eventually would lead to the famous fountain from the opening credits of Friends. My friends and I had all taken a selfie day last year where we took pictures of ourselves all over New York like tourists might.
“You meant something to me," he said. "You were like a magnet for me right away.”
“That’s a recipe for getting burned.”
“Tell you what—I won’t kiss you first in private.”
He hadn’t quite agreed to my rule, and he was probably right. We were going to kiss. My lips ached for him already. However, I straightened my spine. “And no touching unless we’re trying to prove we’re in love.”
He stopped moving. I turned around, my heart thumping, and gazed up into those dark-blue eyes that stirred in my soul.
Then he said, “That sounds unduly hard.”
Rules made this temporary thing last. I shook my head. “Charlie…”
He stepped closer to me. He wasn’t touching me, but I was drawn to his lips, and I was half aching to go on my tiptoes and break my own rules.
“I hate rules, if I’m being honest.”
This was a horrible idea. I would lose myself entirely in the game. I stepped away then took a breath of cold air. “I need parameters so I can breathe.”
We continued just strolling in the park, but that smoldering look of his that made my toes curl as he said, “And we both need you breathing.”
In Paris the first time I took him to my hotel room, I’d stopped him from kissing my nipples for the same reason.
I hugged my waist. He would never believe who I was; there was just a fantasy version of me in real life.
We continued walking. “So your brother is giving you a hard time, so you just decide you need a fiancée. I’d like to understand your reasons with a little more detail. ”
He shrugged. “My mother wants us all happily married, but I’m not even sure I’m good enough to do my job.
Kir says I’m supposed to be like some of our other brothers and come up with a big idea for a company, but all I ever wanted to do was fly away.
If I quit now, then I never proved I was a good choice for a son. ”
I wasn’t sure why a trillionaire took a job as a pilot on commercial airlines. Working like that made him nothing when compared to his bank account, but I listened. “Do your parents want you to prove yourself?”
He shook his head. “No. But I look at my older brothers, and I see men who accomplished their goals then married. But I don’t have goals. I don’t have some missing love, and six months sounds like the perfect amount of time to figure me out without pressure.”
Okay, so I'm a buffer.
As we walked, a young girl who was probably in college waved at him. He walked around her. All of my exes would have probably left my side for someone like her. Goosebumps grew on my arms.
“I still don’t understand.” I tensed but then let myself ask him, “Did you even see the pretty blonde back there?”
He turned around. “Who?”
The last thing I would do was sabotage our fake relationship. I pointed us to go backward. “Never mind. Let’s go back to your house.”
“Our place,” he corrected.
Living in luxury wasn’t my life, but I only said, “I don’t have anything there.”
He rubbed his neck. “We can go pick up some mementos or whatever you want to make you feel at home.” Then he took out his wallet. “Or we can go shopping so you can pick out whatever you want in furnishings.”
He took out a credit card like he was about to give it to me. I shook my head. "Temporary" meant I would make do with what he had already. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
He shrugged. “I took the day off.”
I pressed my lips together. Part of the job was reforming him. I looked him up and down. “That’s not showing your stability at all.”
He placed his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to be here for you.”
Space was a good thing. We stood near his building, and I said, “Look, go to work. I’ll move in by the end of the day.”
I needed to leave before I decided to rip off his clothes and pick up right where we'd left off. My desires were clouding my otherwise-smart rules I’d set in place.
He raised his eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. It wasn’t that late, so no one would question him too much. “As long as you told your butler to let me in, we’re fine.”
His face blushed a little, and he nodded. “Okay. I hate letting my father down. He truly is great.”
I had no idea what that was like as Grandpa only ever wanted to protect me, which was suffocating sometimes, but he'd cared.
Charlie turned to go inside his building. “Wait. What about the rings? And you should use one of my cars.”
I rocked on my feet. “I want to walk back and pack myself. We’ll pick the ring before dinner.”
He offered to shake my hand but didn’t move. “I’ll tell Michael…”
I came closer but gently swatted for him to stop him from doing anything so formal. A spark of memory rushed through me. “Why do you call him Michael? Aren’t most butlers Mister something, or are you two friends?”
Charlie whispered in my ear like we were still lovers, but he didn’t touch me at all, making my entire body tinge with desire. “He’d like it if I kept my distance, which is what he’d prefer, I suppose. Familiar isn’t comfortable for the Brits, but I’ve never been formal.”
“This, I believe.”
He laughed and backed toward the door. “Fair enough. Michael wants us to call him Mister, so for you, I’ll try.”
“But not for him?”
“No. You’re the lady who calls the shots.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that line for when I need it.” I waved.
We weren’t quite on call, but I was tempted to kiss his cheek like everything I'd said was a lie to both of us. And part of it was. I walked briskly to my home, so I had a few hours of sanity that wasn’t mixing everything up and complicating my life even more.