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“This isn’t like Philip, Charlotte. I don’t understand what my brother is thinking. He’s never this rash.”
I couldn’t say anything, because the man she is describing is virtually a stranger to me now.
5
Philip
I lean back on my chair, my arms folded across my chest, not hearing a word of what the man presenting at the front of the room is saying.
The thin, spectacled man, wearing a suit two sizes too big for him, points at something on the colorful pie chart behind him, and I give a faint nod, knowing my assistant is taking notes.
My mind is on the gray envelope in front of me, and my hands are itching to tear it into pieces. I can’t understand where all this fury is stemming from.
Charlotte sent the annulment papers this morning, three days after our conversation at the café. I’d heard nothing from her in the meantime, and it pisses me off how easy it is for her to disregard me.
The papers are still droning on about our marriage, and how both parties are not available for comment. A part of me feels guilty, knowing that if the press is hounding me so relentlessly, then they would be breathing down Charlotte’s neck even more heavily.
However, I know that Agatha is handling the whole situation. My sister won’t let anyone get past her to Charlotte, and she has assured me of the same with great conviction.
I eye the papers again, like one would eye a poisonous snake. If I sign these, I can put this whole thing behind me.
My instincts tell me to do so. But, I can’t.
I don’t know what is stopping me. But I don’t want to sign those papers.
My mistake all those years ago cost me Charlotte’s friendship, and I gleaned enough about her intentions when we met recently to understand that, the minute I sign these papers, she wants nothing more to do with me.
I can’t have that. Missing her is like a physical ache in my soul.
I grit my teeth. How could one woman be such a thorn in my side?
This is why I had never wanted to attend that damned wedding, to begin with. Seeing her brought all my unresolved feelings to the front, and I can’t control my actions when it comes to her.
I had seen her all for half an hour, and I ended up marrying her!
Charlotte McCoy.
My pen taps on my knee furiously as I try to contain my satisfaction at that title.
It suits her.
I can see her by my side, and it infuriates me that she is making me act like a damned teenager.
It has always been like this, ever since I came back from college.
While I watched over her protectively when she was a child, I was blown away by the quiet woman she became, her big dark eyes now holding a different sort of awareness when they look at me.
I was determined to enjoy my early twenties. While I flirted and dated with a wild abandon, whenever she would walk into a room, I would be drawn to her. My eyes would follow her every move and, at times, I would wonder if I had become a stalker. Her presence had drawn out a side of me that I rarely showed anyone.
The first few times had been awkward when I had run into her, but she hadn’t said anything, just gave me that small smile of hers, the one that spoke of secrets I wasn’t aware I would yearn to know.
Her bruises had still been there, only she had learned to hide them better, under her full-length sleeves and modest clothing.
Charlotte held on to her pride like a lifeline, never once accepting any money or clothes, no matter how much Agatha and Grams tried to force them on her. She would wear those faded clothes that I never knew where she got from. But I did know that she was quite skilled at mending and stitching. That little secret of hers I discovered when I mourned the tearing of my favorite jersey and she asked me to hand it overto her.
Sitting on one of the garden benches, her nimble fingers had moved deftly over the material, as I sat there shirtless. Maybe that was when we actually struck up a friendship?
I did wonder at times how it would have been if I never acted upon the strange sensation I felt for her.
