Chapter 1 #2
My pulse spikes as I walk straight across the room and drop my phone onto the table in front of them.
“What the hell is this?” I ask, my eyes focused directly on Wes. I slide my phone across the polished surface. It stops in front of Jesse. He glances down at the screen then up at me, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“She’s seen it,” he says.
Ford pinches the bridge of his nose like a man who has already had enough of this morning. Wes turns around to face the room. Unlike me, he looks completely, annoyingly calm.
His eyes meet mine, steady and unreadable, a cool gray that somehow manages to feel sharper the longer I hold his gaze.
I take in the way he makes a plain black T-shirt look so good.
The fact that he’s standing there looking totally unbothered and so damn attractive makes me feel even more frustrated.
I realize I’ve been looking at him a second too long and force myself to re-focus. I can’t forget the reason why I’m here.
“Morning, Lottie.” His eyes take in every inch of me, making my skin shiver.
My eye twitches. “Morning?” I repeat. “That’s what you’re leading with?”
Jesse presses his fist against his mouth, clearly trying not to laugh. I jab a finger toward my phone. “Care to explain why the entire internet thinks I’m your wife?”
Wes steps closer to the table and glances down at the screen. The headline is still open.
COVE CO-OWNER WES WINTERS SECRETLY MARRIED TO CHARLOTTE HART.
He studies it for a second before he lifts his eyes back to me. “I never said we’re married.”
“You didn’t deny it!” I shout.
Wes’s expression doesn’t change. “All I said was that I wasn’t commenting on my personal life.”
“That is basically the same thing as saying it’s true!”
“I’m with her. It kind of is,” Jesse chirps.
I whip my head toward him. “Stay out of this.”
He lifts both hands into the air like he’s surrendering. Smart choice. I’m a woman on a mission, and there’s really no stopping me when I get started.
Ford finally speaks. “You two clearly need to talk.”
I gesture wildly toward the phone. “You think?”
Wes reaches for the phone and scrolls through the photos. His gaze pauses on one. “You’re wearing a wedding ring,” he says, looking up at me.
I look down at my hand where my grandmother’s rings gleam innocently on my finger. “They’re not wedding ring,” I snap.
“They’re on your wedding finger,” Wes says.
“That doesn’t mean anything!”
“I think it means something to the internet,” Jesse says.
I glare at him, wishing there wasn’t a desk in my way and a room full of witnesses. He shrinks back in his chair, but doesn’t manage to hide the fact that he’s getting a kick out of all of this.
“Wes,” I demand, returning my focus to him. “Why would you let reporters think we’re secretly married?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, you didn’t say we weren’t!”
Wes sets the phone down on the table and for a second, he studies me like he’s thinking something through. Then he says, very calmly, “It’ll blow over.”
I stare at him. “Blow over?”
“Just give it a day or two.”
“That’s your solution?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “To do nothing? You’re not even going to try to fix this?”
Jesse raises his hand. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but to be fair,” he says, “you two do look married in those pictures.”
“Not helpful,” I snap. “Wes, I’m serious. This is out of control. My phone is blowing up with people asking me about our marriage. My own sister woke me up this morning to ask me about it. You need to shut it down. Today.”
The muscles in his jaw flex. Wes is big, with broad shoulders and an athletic build. It’s the kind of build that should not be paired with that face. If I wasn’t so mad right now, I’d be having a completely different reaction to him.
My agitation is clearly obvious to Ford, who shifts slightly in his chair, his attention flicking between us, something thoughtful settling into his expression. He looks like he wants to say something, but he stays silent.
Wes exhales slowly, like he’s got all the time in the world. “Listen, I can understand why you might be upset—”
“Upset?” I interrupt him. “I am way past upset. Upset was an hour ago.”
Another pause. Another measured look. And that’s when something in my chest tightens. He’s not arguing. He’s not taking action. He’s not doing anything.
“Wes,” I say again, quieter now. “You must have some high-priced PR firm to handle stuff like this. Get them on the phone. Just issue a statement denying it.”
Noah leans forward slightly, like he’s watching a scene play out on TV. Ford’s gaze sharpens. Wes looks at each of them before turning his attention back to me.
“It’s being handled,” he says.
“Okay. And exactly what does that mean?”
“It means,” he replies slowly, “that it’s not that simple. I can’t just deny it because these three—” he pauses and nods in the direction of his brothers “—think it’s a good idea. They want it to appear like we’re married.”
My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “What? Why?”
“They think it’s the better option, better than correcting it. It’s just a narrative. Although to be honest, I think they’d prefer it were true.”
I stare at him, then at Ford, Noah and Jesse. “Are you all out of your minds?”
“Don’t worry. You don’t need to be pulled into it,” Wes tells me. “I’ll handle it.”
I let out a short, disbelieving breath. “That’s interesting,” I say sharply. “Seeing as I’ve already been pulled into it. Seeing as I’m apparently your wife now.”
Jesse snorts.
“Sorry, that just slipped out,” he says when I shoot him a look.
I take a step closer to Wes. “You listen to me,” I say, pointing a finger toward his chest. “You don’t get to decide this for me. This—” I gesture between us, “—this is my life too, and you are not dragging me into whatever this is.”
He holds my gaze without agreeing or arguing. He just stands there steady and unflinching and that’s when it finally clicks that he’s really not going to fix this.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You are actually unbelievable.”
“Oh,” Jesse says under his breath, sitting forward as his chair legs hit the floor. “This just got interesting.”
I ignore him.
“Fix it,” I snap one last time in Wes’s direction. “Or I will.”
Turning on my heel, I storm out of Cove without waiting for a response. The nerve of him. As if I’d ever go along with a plan like this.