Chapter 1 Freya #2
It was certainly what had caught me off guard when I met him two years earlier.
He’d offered a private chef’s table as an auction prize for the cancer charity I work for.
And while I appreciated his sense of humor over email and was aware of the uptick in energy whenever he was discussed in our mainly female-led office, I had yet to see what the fuss was all about.
But my heart did an unexpected quickstep when he walked into the ballroom of the Dorchester hotel in his black tuxedo.
Emanating a quiet confidence, he strode up to the first group of people he saw, offering his hand as he introduced himself.
The women wilted right in front of my eyes, and I remember laughing to myself, silently berating them for being such pushovers.
He may well have been disarmingly easy on the eye, but he had to have more under the hood to sway me.
Though his rating went up exponentially when he found himself in a bidding war between a woman who was desperate to impress her friends and a husband who was desperate to impress his wife.
As Charlie watched the battle for his “services” with a look of wry amusement on his face, I wondered if the husband knew exactly what he was letting himself in for.
It faltered at twelve thousand pounds, and the man shook his head, trying to ignore the goading from his overexcited table guests and the abject disappointment on his wife’s face.
Provoked by the auctioneer for not having the balls to put his money where his mouth was, the beleaguered gentleman finally agreed to a five-hundred-pound increment, though whether it was out of pride or to avoid the inevitable earbashing he was going to get when he got home, I’m not sure.
Groans rang out from his opponent’s table, and keen to allay any disappointment, Charlie stood up, with his bow tie now undone, and raised his hand in the air.
“You can’t bid on yourself, sir,” the auctioneer joked, to much amusement.
“Well, I can’t have them fighting over me,” quipped Charlie. “So how about I do it twice?”
“You’re saying, both of them can have you?” asked the host, his tone incredulous.
“If they’re each prepared to pay the charity twelve and a half thousand, then yes,” said Charlie to raptured applause.
“Smart move,” I said as he sidled up to me at the bar later that evening.
I could have gushed and gone overboard with appreciation, but I figured fewer words were pertinent—not least because he’d no doubt had his praises sung to high heaven enough, but also because I didn’t trust myself to say more.
“You’re welcome,” he said, the corners of his mouth battling against the muscles pulling them up.
“I had no idea your skills in the kitchen were so in demand.…”
His teeth broke through his smile and his eyes set alight with mischief. “I don’t think it’s my skills in the kitchen they’re after.”
I took a sip of champagne, desperate to bat away the intense heat that was coiling through my veins. The type that rings alarm bells in your head. The type that has to be doused with cold water before it catches alight.
“I see modesty is also on your list of endearing qualities.”
“And I note that faux ignorance to the facts is high on yours.”
I allowed myself a small smile, not only because he was right, but because I enjoyed the banter.
I knew, right there and then, that I was going to end up in bed with him.
It would be a one-night stand, of great expectations, that would be wholly on my terms. I wouldn’t let him feel that he’d taken advantage of me.
That he was able to call the shots. I would be in control, and then I’d send him on his way before he even had a chance to fall asleep.
It was easier to set the boundaries—at least in my head—so as not to allow time for complicated emotions to sneak through my steel-clad pretense that one-night stands were my preferred pathway to sexual fulfillment.
Not that I did it that often—I was actually very selective in who I chose to take home—but given the alternative of falling head over heels in love, it was a no-brainer.
I’d been there, done that, and it had cost me dearly. I wasn’t prepared to be left with a broken heart again, not knowing myself for months, years, even, after the catastrophic fallout of a failed relationship.
So one-off encounters in a controlled environment were all I was capable of—and I knew Charlie was destined to be next.
We laugh about it now, because while I was thinking he was going to be nothing more than a toy to play with for a few short hours, he had apparently already decided he was going to marry me.
“So lovely to see you again,” I say to Frank now. “In your beautiful home…” I look around the decadent room with all its decorative-gilt edges and bow-throwing cherubs on the wall. You can have all the money in the world, but it can’t buy you taste.
“Please, this is Richard, my business partner and investor,” says Frank, gesturing to the tall man beside him.
I can’t help but snatch a glance at Charlie, our unspoken language able to say a million words. This is exactly what he had hoped for.
“Good to meet you,” I say, shaking Richard’s hand before turning to the woman beside him.
“This is my wife, Isabella,” says Richard, and we have that split-second indecision over whether to shake hands or kiss.
I take the initiative and offer my hand, keen to keep a sense of professionalism, now that we know this is more than just a dinner party.
She takes it and shakes it vigorously, but her eyes are already on Charlie, drinking him in, no doubt desperate to see what all the fuss is about.
“We meet at last,” she purrs, opting to kiss him instead of shaking his hand.
“Yes, you were out of town for the opening,” says Charlie, always looking to add a layer of detail, to make someone feel important. “In Barcelona, if I remember rightly?”
To an outsider—and indeed to the woman he’s making feel as if she’s the only one in the room—you’d be forgiven for thinking his overinvested manner was his modus operandi to get her into bed.
But having seen it play out so many times before, winning over equally as many men as women, I know it’s who he is: an artist at work, whether that be in the kitchen or the bedroom.
I look at both women as they fawn over him, turned on by the knowledge that what they are no doubt fantasizing about him doing to them, he’ll be doing to me in a few hours’ time. The thought of it makes me want to get this over and done with even more quickly.