Chapter 10 Charlie #2
Rosie gripped my arm while Mrs. Berry called him.
I noticed that he answered her right away—which, yes, she was his receptionist, so it made sense.
But he was on a break, yet hadn’t taken the time to call me back, even though he had at least five missed calls from me.
I checked my phone again just to make sure. Still no calls. Not even a text.
“Charlotte is here,” she said into the phone.
“Can I send her back?” She paused, then answered, her voice even sunnier than before.
“You have fifteen minutes until your next call. It’s a good time to sneak in some of that pasta I brought you.
I’ll warm it up while you chat with your beautiful fiancée.
” She winked at me, and I tried to smile.
Greg was always complaining about Mrs. Berry and how overbearing she was.
She’d always seemed more nurturing than overbearing, but what did I know?
Maybe more than you give yourself credit for.
“Go on back, honey,” she said to me.
“Want me to come with you?” Rosie asked.
“No. I’ve got this.”
“I know you do.” Rosie’s quick hug infused me with confidence, and I rushed back to Greg’s office before I could change my mind.
I knocked once and pushed his door open, coming face to face with Greg lounging in his office chair, eating one of his protein bars he swore by.
I placed my hands on his desk and leaned forward. “You have to stop—”
“Charlotte. I thought you were teaching today.”
“I was, but Greg, I just heard that—”
“Couldn’t resist seeing me one more time before the wedding?” He raised his eyebrows teasingly, and I growled in frustration. If he’d just let me get a full sentence out …
“You can’t let them put Molly down!” I nearly shouted the words in one long stream so he wouldn’t have the chance to interrupt me again.
Greg leaned back in his chair, a contemplative frown on his face. “How did you hear about that?”
“It doesn’t matter how I heard about it. It needs to stop.”
“The dog bit me.” He showed his still-healing arm. “Actions have consequences.” He sounded so cold. So dispassionate. Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them back furiously. Greg saw any display of emotion as weakness. As proof that I wasn’t able to make big decisions. The crack widened.
I started again. “If you had listened to me—”
“If you hadn’t been so irresponsible—”
“Irresponsible!” If he was going to interrupt me, then maybe it was fair game. Maybe I’d lain down too long and let him stomp all over me. Maybe it was finally time to start talking back.
“Yes,” he said, in the same infuriatingly condescending tone of voice. For the first time, I understood the phrase blood boiling. I felt like my skin was going to roil over my veins with how steamed I was getting.
“I saved that dog. I can’t believe you’d threaten the family unless they put her down!” My tears were getting harder to hold back.
“And I can’t believe you’re not more upset that a dog you brought into my parents’ house attacked me.” The coldness in his voice was in such a stark contrast to the heat searing through me, it was hard to believe we were able to exist in the same room together without completely combusting.
“She was acting on instinct. You put an animal in a corner where it feels threatened, and it will fight its way out!”
“And again, there are consequences to actions. Even instinctual ones.”
You know what? Screw it. I allowed the tears fall down my cheeks. They were a mix of anger, fear, frustration, and sadness—and it felt good to let them free.
He exhaled impatiently. “You don’t have to be emotional about this.” Like emotional was a bad word. A flaw in the system that kept it from functioning at full capacity. “I know it’s hard now, but you’ll get over it.”
I wouldn’t, though. I absolutely would not get over Greg being responsible for Molly’s death. Or even, if by some miracle me and Rosie and Bennett and I did save her, that Greg was willing to let her die. Not just let her die. Push for it.
The crack became a full-on shatter. If my heart were on the outside of my body, pieces of it would be all over the room—red and still hot, sticky like melted glass. Completely impossible to put back together. Compositionally changed.
Greg took my silence as agreement. Like yes, I’d get over it. Yes, it was fine if Molly died because of consequences. And suddenly my suspicion that our theoretical future daughter would never be celebrated—or even welcomed—by him at his work felt less like a realization and more like a tragedy.
A tragedy I could prevent.
“You’re right.” My tears sizzled against my burning cheeks, evaporating to nothing.
I was outside of my body, looking in, as if the part of me that made decisions and saw and felt was all wrapped up in my heart (currently shattered and molten around the room), and what was left was the emotionless robot Greg always wanted.
“Hm?” he asked, already riffling through some papers on his desk, his phone screen alight in front of him.
“There are consequences to actions.” I wriggled my engagement ring from my finger.
He looked up with a smug grin. “I knew you’d see it my—”
I set the ring on his desk.
“Charlotte—”
“I can’t be with someone who would do this.” I backed up a step as he stood.
“This is ridi—”
“I won’t be with someone who would do this.”
“You’ve got to be kiddi—”
“I’m not.”
“Let me speak!” he roared, and despite myself, I flinched.
It took all my self-restraint not to apologize.
I clamped my mouth shut against the words, not letting them out.
I’d apologized to him for so many years to keep the peace, I didn’t know how to not do it.
He swore under his breath, and his nostrils flared as he continued.
“Our wedding is this weekend. We have family and clients already in town. We have a camera crew coming to film us. Did you forget about that? It’s Married in the Wild, not newly single in the wild. ”
His words nearly leveled me. “Is that what you’re worried about? What people are going to think? That this might make you look bad?”
“The only person who’s going to look bad is you,” he said with so much confidence, it was hard not to believe him. “How are you going to get the money you need for your mom, Charlotte?”
“I’ll find another way.” My voice was smaller. No, Charlie. He doesn’t get to make you feel like the bad guy.
He snorted. “And the contracts you’ve already signed? Pretty sure there’s a fee for backing out.”
“They can’t force us to get married.” Right? No, they couldn’t. I didn’t know much about law, but who I married seemed like a pretty ironclad right. They could force me to pay back all the nonrefundable plane tickets and filming equipment they’d already rented.
“Charlotte, please,” he said in a soft tone, picking up my ring and staring at it in his palm.
The princess cut was gorgeous, and I loved wearing it.
Even now, I stifled the urge to snatch it from his hand and put it back on my finger.
The representation that I belonged with someone.
That we were a team. An inseparable duo.
That no matter what, in the loneliness of this world, I had him.
He held the ring out to me. “Enough with all this nonsense.”
Nonsense.
I turned and left, ignoring as he called after me. He didn’t chase me. Was that a relief? A disappointment? There were too many feelings going through me to label them.
I found Rosie outside talking on the phone. She pulled it back from her ear. “Is he going to stop it?”
I shook my head, the words locked in my throat.
“Well, Bennett has a dang good plan B. And it looks like it’s going to work.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward my car. Into the phone, she said, “Jules, I’ve got to go.”
“Wait!” I said. Jules was one of Rosie’s older brothers, and more importantly, a lawyer. “I need to talk to him.”
She handed the phone to me without question as she started my car and careened through the parking lot toward the shelter. For the first time, I was grateful for Rosie’s dramatic driving. Especially as I thought about Greg hearing the tires peel out of his parking lot.
“Hey, I have a question,” I said to Jules, the emotion thick in my voice. I clipped my seatbelt in, because even in the middle of a crisis, I knew how fast Rosie took a turn.
“Sounds like you’ve had quite a day, Charlie. What can I do?” His firm, take-charge tone was exactly what I needed to hear. Wishing, once again, that I was a Forrester wouldn’t help anything. But dang, did I wish it.
“Jules, if I sent you a contract I have with a national network, could you read it and tell me how much trouble I’d be in if I broke it?”