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I walk over to the small washroom and close the door behind me. Staring at myself in the small mirror above the basin, I murmur, “You’ve been through much worse than this, Charlotte. If you got through all that, you can get through this.”
It is easier said than done, but I haven’t spent the last decade building my life piece by piece, only to be broken down at being abandoned at the altar.
My blood is boiling.
No.
I am not going to throw away everything I’ve worked so hard for.
But as my eyes burn with tears and my heart aches, I know that it is going to take some more time to bounce back from this. Words aren’t going to be enough.
I wash my face with cold water from the tap, feeling the layers of makeup come off. Wiping my face dry, I step out and see Philip standing there, worried.
I am not ready to face him yet. I am not ready to acknowledge what he just did for me. I need time to process, and time to get my affairs in order. I need to figure out how to handle this whole mess.
When he takes a step forward, I raise a hand.
“Don’t.”
Philip presses his lips in a thin line.
“Charlotte…”
I shake my head, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the pain, forcing my voice to remain steady.
“I don’t know why you did this. But my whole life has just been turned upside down.” He takes a step forward and a crack appears in my armor. I take one step back. “Please, go away. I have to figure this whole mess out and fix it.”
“There’s nothing to be—” I glare at him through the tears that are in my eyes again, my voice thick when I interrupt him.
“I don’t want—you can’t use me to get what you think is some sort of payback on Erik. This marriage is – I don’t even know what this is, I—” I take a deep breath to calm myself down, and say evenly, “You need to leave. Give me a few days, Philip. I need to sort through this whole mess and figure things out. You’ve just made things worse.”
Philip just stares at me, his jaw muscles tight, and then he turns around and marches through the door.
I walk over and lock the door behind him.
My knees give way, and with my back against the door, I slide down to the ground. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I just weep.
3
Philip
I stare at the numbers on the laptop screen, my eyes not focusing. All I am able to see is the way Charlotte looked as she wept in my arms, her delicate frame trembling against my body.
Anger flows through me, and my eyes fly to the newspaper that lays on my desk, the headlines screaming at me.
My younger sister is a whizz at PR. She is right now running her own company, her services in high demand.
Agatha quickly took over and manipulated the news to suit my needs. Instead of claiming Charlotte to be a jilted bride, the news described their secret romance as being off the paper, and how Philip McCoy, the CEO of McCoy Security Enterprises, a billionaire and a bachelor, crashed his beloved’s wedding and tied the knot with her instead.
And Philip McCoy already has a reputation for taking what he wanted.
There is a slight mention of Erik Mason, the successful businessman, who was jilted by his fiancée upon seeing the man she was truly in love with. Despite the fact that Charlotte haven’t contacted me in two days, I smirk at how this must eat at Erik.
There is no doubt in my mind that the man did this solely to humiliate Charlotte. Although I haven’t pieced all the pieces together, I did research on the man, and the woman he left with.
Madison Williams was Erik’s girlfriend. And according to the investigation I conducted, in the two years that Charlotte and Erik had been together, Erik had still been seeing this Madison.
The media had tried to reach out to Erik, but he flew off to Venice for the honeymoon he was supposed to have with Charlotte, with Madison at his side.
