Which was also fine.
Made evenfinerwhen Sutton nudged at Charlotte’s ankle under the table and gave her an encouraging smile.
“So, how is the book going?” Katherine asked as Jack volunteered to assist Sutton in bringing out dessert.
“I thought we weren’t discussing work?” Ethan teased his mom from across the table. Charlotte had never had a younger sibling, but she appreciated Sutton’s in this moment.
“I saidpolitics, you little…” Katherine trailed off, pointing her fork at her son in a playful threat.
It was crazy, really, to see the difference in Katherine’s tone and look in her eye when she was talking to someone she cherished like her children.
Charlotte cleared her throat, folding her hands over the napkin in her lap. “It’s going well; we’ve gotten up to two thirds of the way through the initial proposed content. Sutton’s been amazing.”
Katherine nodded in agreement at that, at least. “I always love when she writes; such incredible talent.” Still, intense blue eyes ran over her face. “What exactly is the schedule like? I’ve never approached writing for this sort of project.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but feel like she was walking into a trap, though, to Katherine’s immense credit, she couldn’t quite see where her feet were about to be yanked out from under her.
She answered cautiously. “Well, we meet in my office twice a week, generally Tuesdays and Saturdays. Review the contents, timelines, anecdotes, that sort of thing?—”
“Not always in your office!” Lucy interrupted. Charlotte had no idea when she’d started paying attention to them rather than being immersed in a conversation with her uncle about video games.
“Lucy, sweet, manners,” Katherine gently admonished her granddaughter.
Lucy looked sheepish for all of three seconds. “Sorry.” She paused, before saying, “’Scuse me… notalwaysin your office!”
Charlotte wouldnotblush.
“Oh no?” Katherine asked, looking at Charlotte, but it was Lucy who answered.
“Nope! Sometimes, um, sometimes Charlotte came here for dinner. And we got lunch out at a café! And Charlotte met us at the park once?—”
“Yeah, and wasn’t the park on a Thursday afternoon? Not Tuesday or Saturday,” Regan interjected from farther down the table, tapping at her chin in “thought.” Emma’s arm, draped around Regan, tightened, but there was a small smirk on her face.
Clearly, since they’d gotten together, Emma found Regan’s commentary more entertaining than she had back in the day.
Charlotte maintained her smile even as she could feel the strain of it. She could do this. “You’re right,” she acknowledged.
And it was true. Two weeks ago, she had met Lucy and Sutton at the park for a half hour. The weather had been unseasonably warm, and they’d been only a ten-minute walk away from where she’d been having her afternoon meetings.
“Ah, I see.” There was a look in Katherine’s eye now, likethishad always been her line of questioning.
Oh, why had Lucy been with them? If this was a professional relationship, why did it so often break into other parts of their lives?
Charlotte should have seen it coming, and she felt foolish for not having done so. She wasn’t sure if she thought Katherine Spencer was evil, a genius, or both, for having brought it up under the guise of casual conversation among everyone else.
Likely both, she admitted to herself, with a grudging respect.
She steeled herself for whatever would come next—she was no stranger to answering to intimidatingly strong women, having essentially been raised by one—though it, admittedly, was not what she’d been looking forward to today.
Sutton, in that moment, walked out of the kitchen, pie carefully held in her hands. Though she was in conversation with her father, she locked eyes with Charlotte and smiled brightly at her. Charlotte felt that smile in her chest, hitting and landing so warmly around her heart at the same time that it gave her that feeling in her stomach, the feeling she didn’t quite know how to describe, that only felt with Sutton.
And that, she acknowledged, was why she was here.
She was saved from further questioning as Jack and Sutton retook their seats, and the conversation began to revolve around the food.
“Though the pies are delicious,” Charlotte started, toward the end of the dessert, facing Sutton as she did, “No lemon cakes?”
Sutton flushed extremely appealingly as she shrugged. “Those are going to be just for me. And maybe some for Lucy.”
