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“I see.”
She waits for a moment, and then continues, “I already have a very low profile, so it shouldn’t have that much of an impact. I’ll have the papers to you by the end of the week. I—” She hesitates. “What you did for me, I’m grateful. I certainly didn’t expect it. But you and Agatha kept me together and I want to thank you for it.”
She is about to stand up, and I speak in a low voice, my anger thinly veiled.
“That’s it?” She looks at me apparently, startled at my tone. I grit my teeth. “We’ve been friends our whole lives, and suddenly you decide to treat me like some bug you can’t wait to get rid of?”
Charlotte blinks.
“What are—”
“You didn’t even invite me to your wedding.”
There. It is out. I hadn’t realized how bad it had stung me.
Even though I hadn’t wanted to attend, the fact that she deliberately excluded me had hurt.
She must have seen the flash of hurt on my face, because she straightens in her seat, and studies me.
“Would you have come if I had invited you?”
Would I have? I am not sure.
Charlotte studies me, and then struggles with something, almost physically, before asking, “Why did you do it?” My jaw tightens. Surely, she can’t be referring to—? “Why did you marry me? There were a number of ways you could have handled the situation. I spent these past few days thinking of all them. But you chose to marry me, knowing how it would complicate both our lives.”
This woman has a way about her that makes me lose my composure. That was the way it was always with her.
Nobody else could make me lose my cool faster than she could. Her words, her expressions, her actions, they pushed at me in a way that made me reckless.
It took me ten years to ditch my playboy lifestyle, to become a successful businessman and take over my father’s empire. Five of those years I spent on setting up and establishing McCoy Security Enterprises. I became more calculating, and put a tight leash around my famous temper, honing that leash until I was one of the most dangerous opponents in the boardroom.
And yet, this woman drives me insane, throwing all my years of hard work down the drain.
“The words your fiancé threw at you, I disproved them.” My words are chosen slowly, with great care, as if I have not spent the past few days forming this reply to the same question that Ian posed to me.
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” My eyes widen at the words she so casually throws my way. Charlotte gives me a look.
“You can fancy up your suits, Philip, and you can wear your civilized veneer like a second skin, but you haven’t changed that much. You’re still the same Philip that I grew up knowing. But me? I changed. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve anymore.”
I stare at her; her words are harsh, and I realize she is right about one thing.
She has changed.
The woman giving me that cold look might no longer hold any feelings for me.
And just like that, my plan changes.
4
Charlotte
Coming into the coffee shop, I never expected my heart to skip on seeing Philip sitting there. His dirty blonde hair all messed up, a cup of coffee in hands.
I put up my shields and barriers before I approach him. And right now, as I tell him in so many words that I no longer love him, the look of shock on his face shifts to something more calculating.
I came here with the intention of ending this relationship, this faux-marriage, but as he studies me now, that air of arrogance that he wears so well eats away at my shields.
