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Chapter 16

It had been, undoubtedly, one of the best weekends of Torr’s life.

They’d spent every moment together under the guise of him protecting her from the rogue Cheld.

Neither of them had slept Friday night, which they’d spent alternating between talking and fucking.

Saturday was little different. He made brunch for her, wearing her apron and naught else, while she laughed hysterically, and then they ate together, Charlotte claiming his eggs were the best she’d ever eaten. And he ensured that wouldn’t be her only superlative sentiment toward him that day.

They ordered dinner to be delivered, ignoring most of the texts and phone messages blowing up their phones, with the exception of those from Alessandra and Toni. Even then, they simply assured her friends they were fine. By then he’d admitted to himself their weekend had little to do with him protecting her and everything to do with him taking the excuse not to leave Charlotte’s side.

He’d been so wrong about her. She may hold her shoulders back and enunciate her words clearly or wear those damn blazers everywhere, but he’d never met someone less uptight in the ways that mattered. Perhaps because of her past, Charlotte did not pass judgment. Not on him nor his siblings, even after some of the horrible things they’d done in the past. She remained nonplussed for nearly every story with the exception of any time a woman from his past was invariably mentioned.

He even found her possessive streak a turn-on.

On Sunday afternoon, they got the all-clear. Alessandra hadn’t felt anything for days, so if, indeed, another Cheld had passed through, he or she was clearly gone.

No need for him to stick around any longer.

Except . . .

“Come to the bar with me.”

Charlotte sat on her couch in stretch pants and his T-shirt, his favorite look of hers, he’d just decided. She leaned over to glance at her phone. “A bar, at four o’clock—”

“The bank,” he clarified. “It’ll just be Lawrence and Toni, maybe Laria. They got the rest of the furniture delivered yesterday and are meeting there later. Grabbing takeout—”

“OK.” She bounded from her seat and approached him, standing on her tiptoes to reach his mouth. “Let me just go change—”

He wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes as she did the same. He’d gotten used to holding her like this—and to the way they fit like they belonged together.

I want you to be yourself.

She’d disarmed him with those six simple words. For the first time in many, many years, Torr had tried to strip away all his witty comebacks, all his pretenses. And as his reward, he’d discovered this woman who’d ensorcelled him had so many layers he’d need another seven hundred more years to uncover them.

And, God help him, he wanted to.

Far from the pampered princess he’d first mistaken her for, Charlotte was instead a wounded but independent woman who wanted only to stand on her own two feet. She didn’t wish to ever rely on anyone as surely as her mother had relied on her father. Her father and his business partner had stolen money, but the true damage they’d done went deeper than the loss of wealth.

Charlotte had admitted to an inability to fully trust others. And when her trust had been broken by Alessandra and Toni, or so she’d thought, every emotion from her fragile teen years had come rushing back.

They’d talked about her childhood in South Carolina and his travels. About family and life and death. He’d explained to her that vampires could die—decapitation or aspen wood, the same wood used for his brother’s coffin, would do the trick. He also told her more of the Cheld and his duties as a hunter. They could be hidden only by wearing the stems of wild roses—the same flower Lady Isobel had placed on Alec’s coffin.

There was a sad beauty about some aspects of the curse and countercurse, and the way it had sprung into being, powered by that powerful lady’s grief and goodness.

Reluctantly, he let Charlotte go. But instead of moving away, she reached up and ran her hand along his cheek. “I like it.”

He hadn’t shaved this weekend. Although he’d gone home briefly to grab some clothes, the house had, thankfully, been empty. Not wanting to answer the questions he would be forced to face later today, he’d taken what he needed and quickly left, his goal simply to get back to Charlotte.

“Then I’ll keep it.”

Torr suspected he would do much, much more for this woman than not shave.

Her smile faltered for the briefest of moments. He knew what troubled her—the future, which they’d not talked of by mutual consent—for it troubled him too. Cupping her face in his hands, he made a decision in that moment.

“I’ll stay as long as I can.”

Her sweet face froze. Had she possessed the same heightened senses the curse had given him, Charlotte would have heard his racing heartbeat as he awaited her response.