Legal Heirs - Box Set Edition: Books 5-8 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles)

by Lee, Kimball

  He visited his mother, and sadly, the dementia had progressed so she didn’t recall ever having met him. Still, he drove to the outskirts of New Orleans every Sunday to spend the day with her at the Saint Ignatius Memory Care Unit. She was content there, and she was glad to welcome her Sunday caller. Christopher listened tirelessly as she told him jumbled stories about her dear son, whom she was certain would walk through her door at any moment.

  Christopher had more money than he could ever possibly spend. It was spread out in banks in the Caribbean, mostly, in offshore accounts bursting at the seams with money paid for jobs completed. Drug money, dirty money; money he no longer felt comfortable owning. Finn’s legal work with veterans gave him an idea, and Christopher embraced it wholeheartedly. Finn established an anonymous trust, with the ill-gotten and unwanted money going to the families of soldiers who had lost their lives in service to America. Charlotte said it was divine providence in a way—Christopher was Robin Hood for the new millennium, taking from the rich and greedy and giving that wealth to those who were most deserving.

  “Are you having any fun, Christopher?” Charlotte asked at the end of the summer. Her brother had been settled into the carriage house for more than two months, and Charlotte was spending one last weekend at the McCall House before returning to California. Atticus and Hadley would be starting the new school year, and Charlie was due to enter the world in less than a month. She was working at Finn’s law firm, but only part time, just keeping a toe in the legal waters, she told Finn. She loved being a mother, and she didn’t want to miss a minute of her kids being kids.

  “I bought a boat—our father bought it for me, I should say. I’m going to start doing deep sea fishing charters, since my Navy training is still intact. Once a sailor always a sailor, it seems,” he said, as they walked along the beach with Atti and Hadley darting in and out of the surf.

  “Are there any decent-looking women in Pass Christian? How about tourists? Surely you need… companionship. Do you have any desire for a family, a woman to share your life with? I mean, even just a friend with benefits? I don’t want you to be alone, Christopher. You’ve spent too many years on the outside looking in.”

  “Yeah, there are a lot tourists, nice women in town and on the beach. I’ve brought a few home,” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. They both smiled and she told him to use protection, or not, to suit himself, and to be happy.

  *

  Charlotte and Finn and the children spent Thanksgivings with Jude and Keller at the cottage in Surrey. Atticus spent most of the summer with Bly and Holden and Mia, and Mia never let an opportunity pass to look down her nose at Atticus and belittle him in any way she could. Bly bought an enormous modern “log cabin” in Aspen, and he and Finn and Charlotte spent Christmases there with the children and their assorted cousins and friends.

  Amanda had grown more and more bitter in the years after JP died and her affair with West sizzled briefly and died away. West loved Evangeline—there were no two ways about it—and she loved him, but she wasn’t the kind of woman a man could betray.

  Bly didn’t sleep with women, but he certainly had sex with them. His love for Charlotte was steady, but he wasn’t a martyr. He also kept a bottle of her perfume on the antique chest beside his bed, Quelques Fleurs. If anyone had bothered to tell him that the historic perfume was worn by both his mother and Charlotte, he wouldn’t have believed it. The fragrance was so very different on each of them. To him his mother smelled like the ever-aloof woman who’d given birth to him. And Charlotte smelled like the only desirable woman in the world—the scent was flawlessly her, a mixture of freshly cut flowers and tempestuous carnality.

  Jessie Blumberg was the woman most determined to win Bly’s love. She’d bought the estate next to his in San Diego after her divorce from a Los Angeles psychiatrist. She was an overly friendly neighbor, constantly at Bly’s gate and eventually, when Billy Kipling gave in to her requests, at the front door of his mansion with one fabricated request or another. Bly knew the drill; a lot of women had crossed both his path and threshold. He didn’t invite them, he didn’t dissuade them, he had needs and they satisfied them, and he rarely saw any of them twice. Jessie caught Bly at a weak moment one evening, just after he and Charlotte had attended a parent-teacher meeting together. He was aching for Charlotte, and he had intended to go home to his lonely mansion and stand under the pouring water in his massive shower and think of her.

  “Alex,” Jessie said, smiling as Bly stepped out of his car. She caught him by the arm and his look of impatience wasn’t lost on her. “I brought wine, a bottle I was lucky enough to win in fierce bidding at the wine auction in Napa last week. A gold medal winner, and it’s at its peak right now. How about a glass?”

  She was a beautiful woman, small and slim, with short, thick chestnut hair. He saw her running every morning when he left the neighborhood, one of those exercise fanatics, that was clear enough. She was a few years younger than Charlotte, probably thirty-one or -two, but she couldn’t leave her natural beauty alone. She was already trying to thwart nature, to keep it from tracing lines on her face or dragging her ass downward. She was beginning to look artificial, but he knew better than to hold that against her. Mostly he knew not to hold her up to his very short list of attributes that constituted the perfect woman. One requirement was all he had: that the woman was Charlotte, so none came close to making the cut.

  They opened the wine and he gave her a quick tour of the house, and being an industrious young woman, she didn’t let that opportunity slip past. She fell to her knees in his bedroom and used every trick she’d ever learned to give him a blow job he’d never forget. To pretend he didn’t enjoy it would have been impossible—the woman could’ve sucked a golf ball through a water hose. It was what he needed in more ways than one. He needed her zeal, and she was so overly fucking anxious to bind him to her through sex. She was nothing like Charlotte—she was far too skilled and eager. When Charlotte touched his cock to her soft, sweet lips, her sapphire eyes were always wide and questioning, as if to ask, “Is this how you like it, am I pleasing you?” Jessie’s touch was too sure, too practiced, but he turned those thoughts off in his mind. It was what he did when he fucked other women, compared them to Charlotte, just to make sure that his pleasure had a bitter edge to it.

  Bly began to sleep with Jessie, meaning he actually fell asleep while she was still in his bed. One morning, as she pulled on her yoga pants and sports bra, she said, “My name is Jessie. You called me Charlotte in your sleep and… while we were having sex. You do it a lot. You’d think I’d get used to it. It’s not like I’m deluding myself—everyone knows about her. The woman who holds the key to Alexander Bly, his heart, his body, to him.”

  “Time for us to go our separate ways,” he said bluntly. “My mother’s coming to stay for a while, and she and Charlotte have gotten close. This has lasted longer than most, Jessie, and I… like you. There’s no future with me, so I hope you find a man who deserves you. I certainly don’t.”

  She slapped his face hard, then she did it again, “You fucking bastard, you two deserve each other. I’ve heard she’s a frigid bitch who can’t love any man, and you’re about as warm as a wall of ice. Ugh, what a waste of time this has been! I knew you were thinking of her, comparing me to her every time you put your cock in me.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously and turning as hard and cold as the sea-glass they resembled. “There is no woman who compares to Charlotte. No other woman, period.”

  She raised a hand to slap him again, but he stopped her and held her hand as he walked with her to the front door.

  “You’ve made your point, Jessie. I’m fucked up and there’s no fixing me.”

  *

  “Our mother will be here in an hour, Amanda. Put the vodka away and make yourself presentable, please.” Bly spoke into the phone and motioned for Billy Kipling to come into his office. “I’m glad Billy ca
n be of service to you, and I really don’t mind the hours he devotes to your ‘errands.’ But, it’s time you pulled yourself together. JP’s gone, sadly, and West and Mother have come to some sort of arrangement. Bad shit happens to all of us, little sister. I want Evangeline happy while she’s here, not bitching about you the whole time. She and Atticus need quality time together.”

  “Oh, right! Charlotte and Evangeline are best buddies now that they both worship Atticus, and where does that leave me and my kids? Fuck, Alex, you really are beyond help. You’re a slave to the both of them. I feel sorry for you. Send Billy over here after he delivers Her Royal Majesty to your house, and I’ll be there with bells on. And don’t even think of locking up the liquor or downsizing my trust fund!”

  Amanda threw her phone across the room when she’d finished talking to her irritating brother. Her life had taken a decided turn for the worse in the last years. It had been a terrible shock, the reality of JP’s death, and added to that was the guilt she felt for her affair with West. It played on her mind and pulled at her sanity, knowing that while her husband was dying she was happily in the arms of her mother’s husband. Afterward she didn’t regret that West had walked away from her so easily—she simply missed JP. She had been carelessly nonchalant with JP’s love, and she never hoped to feel quite as happy again. She had loved JP, but not quite enough, not enough to keep him from turning to that little whore Lizzie.

  Lizzie had slithered into their lives, first by seducing West, and then JP. And what had that got them? Two abandoned babies, Beau and Skyler, babies that Lizzie easily tossed aside. And what a slap in the face those children, especially Skyler, had become for Amanda. JP and West loved their bastard children better than they loved anyone else. That fact colored Amanda’s life in a dark and wicked way. Amanda had wealth and healthy children and things, but she was at the far end of the line as far as favorites went.

  It had always been that way—her mother and father had crowned Alex their golden child from day one. Alex had been a wonderful big brother to her, and he continued to be, but his love for Charlotte eclipsed every other aspect of his life. And Charlotte had it all, didn’t she? Once in a while, Amanda wanted to bitch at Charlotte and ask her if she had any clue that she was the luckiest woman on earth. But she didn’t. Being Charlotte wasn’t as rosy as it seemed. The woman was in love with two men, but she had chosen to give herself to only one of them. Amanda knew that cost Charlotte in many ways, it kept her a little off balance, and vulnerable. The glaring flaw of incomplete happiness put Charlotte on the same level with Amanda, and with the rest of mankind. It allowed Amanda to forgive Charlotte for having too much when she had too little, and it allowed them to remain best friends.

  *

  “What the hell are you listening to, sister?” Charlotte asked Amanda. They had arrived on Bly’s doorstep at the same time and as per usual they were waiting for Evangeline to freshen up.

  “Freshen up my ass, that could take years at her age,” Amanda said and shooed Bly away as his eyes locked on Charlotte. Charlotte gave him an apologetic shrug and followed Amanda into one of the huge rooms that was never used for anything. “God, I was listening to this crazy song on my phone. Tell me the truth, is this just so Evangeline?” She turned the volume up and the lyrics blared:

  “She’ll expose you, when she snows you off your feet with the crumbs she throws you. She’s ferocious and she knows just what it takes to make a pro blush. All the boys think she’s a spy, she’s got Bette Davis eyes.”

  “She’s not that bad, Amanda, you two just have some bad voodoo going on. Maybe it’s time to put all that to bed. We’re not kids anymore, you know,” Charlotte said. Her heart had raced as it always did when Bly turned his electric gaze on her. She had no intention of giving in to her base instincts to sleep with him, but she was bothered by him all the same.

  “Voodoo is right, my mother is a bonafide bitch and she holds some kind of witchy power over men. But hey, look who I’m talking to. I can’t stay in love with one man or hold on to one, and you can’t fall out of love with two. But why should you when they’re both so damned obsessed with you? And the insanity of it is that you’re completely in love with both of them. Talk about Charlotte’s poor little bipolar heart.”

  “Thank you for that, like I don’t worry and analyze my freaking love life to death enough on my own. So glad to hear that it plays on your mind as well,” Charlotte said, and looked up when Evangeline glided into the room. Witch is right, Charlotte thought—the woman defied the aging process. She was either a fluke of nature or a wonder of modern science, and probably a little bit of both.

  “It isn’t obsession my son feels for you, Charlotte,” Evangeline said. “It’s love, and it’s that simple, and that intricate. He dreams of his past with you, and he absolutely believes in his future with you. The eyes truly are the windows to the soul, my darling girl. Yours have always betrayed you where Alexander is concerned. When he’s near you, your body turns to him instinctively. Some things can’t be hidden, Charlotte. It seems the only person you’ve fooled is yourself. Do you ever question your choice, or dream of how different life might have been if you hadn’t left Alexander? He’s a very powerful man and he could have stopped you from going with Finn, but he thought it was what you wanted. That’s the funny the thing about my son: your happiness has meant more to him than his own. He let you leave, not out of weakness, but out of the strength of his unfathomable love for you.”

  “Evangeline, I… what can I say to that? There’s no undoing my life, what’s done is done. Do you honestly want to know how I feel? I’m not sure you could handle it. I love Finn, and I love Bly. Differently, yes. One more and the other less, no. I convinced myself that was true for a brief period of time, and it gave my heart about two full seconds of rest. The truth is, a world without the two of them would be incomplete. I would be incomplete, Evangeline. Do you want to hear that I dream of your son, or that I drive along in my car with tears streaming down my face just thinking of him? Well, I do. Then I go home to my husband and it seems that no other man exists but him. I am not a woman at peace in the world, Evangeline. They say it’s impossible to love too much. A woman must have said that, a woman who wished for one perfect man and never had to choose between two.”

  Bly stood in the doorway and was stunned by Charlotte’s words. The three women never looked his way, so they must not have realized he was there. Charlotte cried for him and dreamed of him? It broke his heart and galvanized his resolve to take her away from the half-life she was leading. Finn could go fuck himself or get fucked, it really didn’t matter. Bly was ready to say fuck everyone else, only he and Charlotte and Atticus mattered. He owned an island in the southern Caribbean, they would go and live there…

  “Alexander, darling, do wipe that look off your face,” Evangeline said as she looped her arm through his and led him to the dining room. “Even when you were a little boy, I knew serious trouble was brewing when that mischievous look appeared. Now, let’s have a nice dinner, and then I want to have Atticus all to myself. He really is so very much the image of you, Alexander, in looks and in his absolute determination to set the world right. I must say, if I could name my favorite person, it would be Atticus, and he’s only a boy. Can you even imagine what a superb man he will become? And you know why, don’t you? Because he’s been blessed with three parents instead of just two, and you all want what’s best for him. Isn’t that right, Alexander?”

  *

  The years passed. Some were good years, and some were even better. The children grew up, and Atticus, being the eldest, was the first to leave home and begin his new life at the Naval Academy. Finn’s brother, Jude, decided to spend his summers in America when Keller was accepted into the pre-med program at USC, and Charlotte helped him look for a small house to buy. She could have offered him the use of the cottage she and Finn kept as their lover’s hideaway, but that was sacred ground. When she picked him up at LAX, she turned away from the h
igh-rises of Los Angeles. They drove along the 101 past beach communities that dotted the coastline like a strand of pearls. In San Clemente they had lunch and stopped by a realty office to ask about small houses available in the area. Half an hour later they stood on a cantilevered deck that jutted out over the Pacific, and Jude had found his second home.

  “I might decide to live here full time in a year or two,” Jude told Charlotte as they walked through the airy rooms of the 1950’s-era house. “Keller intends to stay in California after college and medical school, and I don’t have any other hard and fast ties to Surrey.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea, although Charlie will miss coming over for the Manchester United games. You and Finn have turned him into a fanatic about British football, you know. Will you sell the cottage in Surrey? I can’t imagine Thanksgiving dinner anywhere else, even if our family has outgrown the house somewhat,” Charlotte said, holding onto his arm as they stood on the deck for one more look before they headed to the realtor’s office.

  Jude turned to her and in his eyes she saw a look she’d seen years before. It was when she’d stayed with him in London, waiting for Finn to come back after their honeymoon. She was newly pregnant then and here they were, nearly twenty years later.

  “Charlotte,” he whispered, his fingers grazing her cheek and trailing through her hair as the ocean breeze lifted it away from her face.

  “Don’t… just don’t, Jude. I have no place in my life for another complication, but I’m flattered by the look, after all these years.”