Winning, yet again.
Charlotte avoided another interaction with Katherine immediately after dinner. Her saving grace came in the form of Lucy, who insisted Charlotte play her in a game of Chutes and Ladders. She’d never played the game in her life, but she was more than happy to oblige. And then obliged to play Go Fish. And checkers, which had personally been her favorite?—
“My grandparents brought me this,” she said as she held out the box to Charlotte, having tugged her by the hand to the dining room after everything had long been cleaned up. “But I dunno how to play.” She looked up at Charlotte. “Do you?”
Charlotte smiled indulgently at the pout on Lucy’s little face that appeared as she didn’t know what to make of the game presented to her. “I do. Do you want me to teach you?”
Lucy nodded enthusiastically, and as they set it out, Charlotte found herself saying, “When I was a little younger than you, my grandmother taught me checkers.” She bit her lip, smiling at the memory. “Granted, she did it to get me ready to play chess, but still.”
She could remember her grandmother telling her how to think strategically, even before Charlotte could properly say the word. And she remembered wanting, more than anything, to impress her grandmother. To win. Then she’d bought Charlotte a chess board at seven, and their games evolved.
“What’s chess?” Lucy asked, staring at the board.
“It’s… similar to this. The boards are the same. Only all of these little pieces”—she held up a checker—“look different. One is called a queen, one a king. One is shaped like a horse. And they all move differently across the board.”
“I want to play the one with the horse!” Lucy exclaimed, lifting her little hands full of the round pieces as if she could trade them in.
“We can work up to it,” Charlotte had answered with a chuckle.
She was saved yet again when she was subsequently drawn into a conversation with Ethan about green energy. This was a true surprise to her, but it was apparently something he was very interested in.
She tried to find Sutton then, after having been separated from her for the few hours since they’d eaten. First, Sutton had been whisked away by Regan when Alex’s boyfriend—name still unclear; Charlotte had yet to hear him truly speak—and Ethan had started cleaning up. She’d then been having an intent discussion with her father.
Charlotte didn’t find Sutton when she stepped into the kitchen. She did, however, find?—
“Charlotte! Just who I’ve been wanting a word with.” Katherine Spencer caught her before she could duck back out of the room. Her tone was somehow genial steel; in an alternate universe, Charlotte might have enjoyed spending enough time with her to learn how to emulate it.
Her luck could only take her so far, it seemed, but Charlotte Thompson didn’t run from a difficult situation.
She nodded, straightened her spine, and walked into the kitchen. “Ah, yes? Do you need… assistance?” She peered around; if she knew Sutton—and shedid, she knew she did—the kitchen would be getting deep-cleaned as soon as this was all over.
“I was just starting the second load for the dishwasher,” Katherine elaborated, bumping it closed with her hip.
Charlotte nodded. And waited. She might as well.
“Why did you ask my daughter to write your biography?”
“You’ve said it yourself; she’s very talented,” Charlotte shot back quickly, evenly.
Still, Katherine’s look was unwavering. “She is, very much so. And yet, for a project like yours, you could have gotten many other writers. Ones with more experience writing political biographies. It seems like a very…personalchoice to make.”
Charlotte swallowed back an easy rebuttal; she had many that she’d given to her publisher. They’d worked, too, to get them to this point.
Instead, she drew in a deep breath and latched onto her fortitude. “Itwaspersonal. Yes. I wanted Sutton because she knows me. And I think she will write a fair portrayal of me.”
“And it had nothing to do with anything more personal?”
Charlotte’s stomach twisted in revolt at the sharpness of her voice, the inquiry of something so, yes, personal to her. “I’m not really certain that’s any of your business, if I’m being honest.”
“It maynotbe my place to say this much,” Katherine acknowledged easily, “but I think that you are a woman who would appreciate a direct approach rather than to dance around anything, and I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell you that I have concerns.”
Charlotte bit at her inner cheek as she nodded slowly. “I do appreciate a direct approach.”
In a situation like this, yes, she did. No games were really needed here.
“The reality, Charlotte, is that as an individual, as a human, I think you are lovely. I’ve followed your career, and I find you a very impressive woman. In that way, I always have. I don’t think you’re a bad person, and, as a matter of fact, I think you are in many ways quite a decent one.”
Charlotte knew she didn’t hide her reaction well. Her eyes had widened because that wasdefinitelynot what she’d expected to hear. “Thank you… I think the same of you,” she returned honestly but cautiously.
