RAGE (The Rage Series Book 1)

by MJ Riley

  “I did.” His voice was surprisingly level when he spoke to her, and she arched a brow. “Hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  He would have to force the food down.

  “This place has amazing meatballs. Wait until you taste them.” She passed him a menu, but as he took a seat and attempted to read it, the words ran together.

  He was angry.

  He was angry, he was lost, and he was upset.

  And Charlotte...Charlotte was everything right with the world. She didn't deserve his lies or his tricks. “Hey.” He looked up to see her gazing across the table at him, her blue eyes concerned. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine.” His answer was curter than he'd intended, and at the hurt look on her face, his stomach clenched. Instead of apologizing, he merely looked back down at the menu.

  “You are not fine.” Her proclamation drew his gaze upward to her again, and this time, her expression was irate. “What's the problem?”

  “I'm just hungry,” he said, working his throat to keep emotion from coloring his words. “I need to eat, and I need to sleep.”

  “So...you don't want to come back to my place afterward?”

  He groaned inwardly as he was assaulted with images of her riding him, her head thrown back, and her lips parted in pleasure. “I'm not feeling well, Charlotte.” The words were emitted through gritted teeth. “I need to go home.”

  “Is it something I've done?” The sincerity in her tone startled him. It was the last thing he'd been expecting. He’d expected rage, a tantrum, or indifference but certainly not compassion.

  “Why would you think that?” he inquired, genuinely curious.

  “I don't know. It's just that I know the way that things happened after the ball was sudden, and company policy is against us doing what we're doing. It's a lot of pressure. Perhaps I haven't been taking it as seriously as I should have.”

  She was blaming herself?

  Raising fingers to his temple, David massaged the headache growing there. He searched for the right words to say, torn between wanting to push her away and wanting find safety and acceptance in her arms. “There are....things. Things about me that you don't know. They're not pretty and I don't want to hurt you.”

  It was true. He didn't want to; but, ultimately, he may not have a choice in the matter.

  To his surprise, his statement didn't deter her empathy. Reaching across the table, she took his hand in hers warmly, gazing up at him earnestly. “So, you have secrets. Who doesn't? I've done a few things that I regret...and I certainly can't help my family. No one's perfect. I'm not worried about it.”

  He only stared at her in disbelief.

  “Now...have dinner with me. And then we'll go to my place...and talk. Just talk.” Slowly, David nodded. He was no surer of things than he had been a minute ago, but somehow, her expression, her kindness, and her nearness soothed him.

  There was no rush.

  He could take his time.

  Everything would come to him in time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lying in bed in the aftermath of their lovemaking, Charlotte stared at the ceiling. Despite the fact that she had sincerely hoped to talk with David after their meal, he'd merely torn at her like a man starved when they'd entered her house. Of course, she hadn't complained, and now, as she reclined next to him, her body sated, her thoughts turned pensive.

  How much did she really know about David? She knew that he'd graduated from MIT, that he'd worked a lot of white collar jobs, and that he was brilliant. She knew that he was kind, patient, and caring. She knew that he was a great lover and had a shrewd mind, and now she knew that he had his problems, as well.

  She wasn't too terribly interested in what the problems were exactly. All she knew was that he'd gazed at her in the restaurant like a man lost, and all she'd wanted to do was help him find his way. How on earth had she gone from promising herself that she wouldn't touch this man to falling in love with him? It almost like rolling down a hill. First, starting slow, and then gradually gain momentum, going faster and faster until there’s no way to know which way’s up and which way’s down.

  She had no idea how they were going to get around company policy. She supposed that if they could keep their hands to one another during office hours, they'd be alright; but, if Adeline ever caught wind of what was going on between them, she'd be furious. It wasn't as though her friend didn't want her to find love, she was just one of the strongest proponents for adhering to rules. Both she and Charlotte were leaders in the office, she had attested, and they had to lead by example.

  Yet, here she was.

  What, she wondered, could be so horrible about David that he thought it would hurt her to know it? There was no way he could be a rapist, a murderer, or something horrible like that. It wasn't in his nature. Certainly, he wasn't going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom. If he was going to do that, he'd have done it already. They'd certainly been alone enough. He couldn't be working for her father. In fact, the few times she'd mentioned the man to him, he'd seemed to react with extreme prejudice, making sure that he guarded his expression carefully. She knew that any man her father would have been foolish enough to hire would have gone about praising him like a loon and trying to win him to her side.

  David would never do any of those things.

  He might be troubled, but his heart was good.

  Charlotte always had pretty good instincts when it came to matters of the heart. She'd seen through Adeline's rough exterior, and that was no small task.

  “Tell me about Switzerland.” David's sudden request caught her off guard. Turning over, she leaned against his chest, looking down into his relaxed face. His eyes were closed, but he was visibly awake.

  “Switzerland? Well...” Rather than questioning him, she merely began her recount. She could sense that it was what he needed now. “It's super cold in the winter but amazing in the summer. My dad sent me there for boarding school when I was fifteen, and at first I was pissed as all hell. It seemed to me like he'd been trying to pawn me off on someone else for my entire life; but, after a few weeks there, I loved it. I made lots of friends and got into lots of trouble,” his lips curved slightly at the revelation, “but, most of all, I learned that not all wealthy people are stuck-up idiots.”

  David's gray eyes slid open as he looked up at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “I met my friend, Amina, there.” Charlotte smiled in remembrance and thought about how despite the ocean separating them, she was still close to the daughter of a prominent tribe in Nigeria. “She's African. Every cent her father sent her to buy nice clothes or gelato she donated to the various groups that worked with the school. She went without her pâtés, petit fours, and teas to give back to those who were suffering from AIDS, yellow fever, and malaria in her country. She was utterly selfless, extremely opinionated, and I adored her. I still do.”

  “Is she the one who got you into charity work?” David asked.

  Charlotte nodded and said, “I never realized how good it would feel to help others. No Birkin bag, Louis Vuitton purse, or spa facial will ever compare.”

  “But you still like one every once in a while.” His smile was teasing, and she rolled her eyes, blowing a strand of hair from his face playfully.

  “Every once in a while.”

  At that moment, a low buzzing drew both of their attentions to her phone on the bedside table.

  Scowling, the young woman reached over to retrieve it, groaning when she realized that it was her father calling.

  “I have to take this, I'm sorry.” She slid from bed, wrapping a sheet around her to cover her nakedness. Quietly, she left the room, closing the door behind her before she answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “I heard you left the charity ball early last week.”

  Pursing her lips, the young woman folded her free arm over her chest. “Hi to you, too.”

  “Who were you with?”

  God, he was insufferab
le. “Why does it matter?”

  “It matters when you're so goddamn careless about who you take into your fold. The man could be out you get you, Charlotte! He could want to blackmail me.”

  “Everything isn't always about you, Dad.” Charlotte actually took the phone from her ear to glare at it angrily. “I want you to take your surveillance off me, and I want you to do it now.”

  “I'll do no such thing until you're grown up enough to realize the danger you're putting yourself in.”

  “You don't even care about me!” She was practically shouting as she gave him her reply. “All you care about is your money and your precious company! I've done every goddamn thing you've ever asked of me, and I can't even get a 'Hello, Charlotte. How are you?' or a 'Did you have a nice day running the company I shoved down your throat?'”

  “You ungrateful little brat! The money from that company has given you everything you ever wanted!”

  “Except a father!” Her words rang through the empty rooms of the apartment— an apartment that was two stories and five thousand square feet of ostentatiousness gifted to her from a man she didn't even know. “All I ever really wanted was you.”

  For a moment, there was silence on the other line and, embarrassingly, Charlotte felt tears pricking her eyes.

  “Everything I have ever done I have done to protect you.” Her father's next words were low, firm, and steady. “Even if you don't realize it.”

  “Protect me from what?” she demanded, her voice trembling slightly. “You tell me that.”

  The phone clicked in her ear as the line went dead.

  For a moment, Charlotte stared at it in disbelief before she hurled it down the hall and listened to it come apart somewhere at the bottom of the staircase. At the din, the door at her back opened and David emerged, his expression grim. When Charlotte turned to face him, her eyes were red as she blinked back tears.

  “Charlotte,” he said. Then, he hesitated; but, she didn't let him say anything. Without a word, she merely threw herself into his arms and clutched him tightly, as if he were her only anchor to the world she knew. His arms came around her, and he embraced her. In that embrace, she was warm, safe, and home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “What's going on?”

  The next week at work, the young woman found herself constantly flanked by Addy, as the woman interrogated her. “Charlotte, answer me. You haven't been yourself at all lately.”

  “I'm fine, Addy,” She professed, refusing to meet her friend's gaze. “And I'm also very busy. Don't they need you in the tech lab?”

  “Don't brush me off.” In her typical manner, the redhead took the blonde's arm in a firm grim and pulled her aside in an alcove near the elevators. “Look at me, Charlotte.”

  When the woman finally managed to meet her gaze, she was fighting back tears.

  “Shit.” With that hushed explicative, Adeline quickly drew her into her embrace. Burying her face in the older woman's shoulders, Charlotte finally let herself sob. She cried for the way her father demeaned her, for the man who seemed utterly lost without her, and for the years she'd worked to run a company that wasn't hers. “Talk to me, honey.” Rubbing her back gently, Adeline lowered her voice to a much gentler version of her normal growl and asked, “What is it? Did David do something to you? If he hurt you I'll break his face.”

  Despite herself, Charlotte laughed through her tears. “He didn't do anything. Addy, I'm sleeping with him.”

  To her surprise, the redhead didn't immediately draw back and begin berating her. Instead, she merely held the blonde closer to her chest. “Well, that's obvious. Is that the issue? Is he that terrible in bed? I would have never guessed.”

  Charlotte offered her a watery smile. “No. He's perfect in bed.”

  “Then why the tears?”

  “Because he's broken...and I'm broken...and I don't know how to fix it.” Fresh sobs broke from her throat, and Adeline shushed her and patted the back of her head gently.

  “You're not broken.” She returned under her breath, drawing back for a moment so their gazes locked. “Everyone's a little battered, Charlotte. You're only broken if you give up.”

  How she would love to give up—to give up this mammoth of a company and to give up the ostentatious gifts and frills that her father flourished to make her feel more loved. She wanted to give up the fear that she wasn't enough to help David come to terms with whatever it was that haunted him.

  “You're not a quitter,” Adeline insisted firmly. “I know you're not, so don't act like one.”

  Nodding, Charlotte tried to stifle her tears. From the bag she wore over her shoulder, Adeline produced some pocket tissues, and she gratefully took them. “Now, what can I do to make you feel better?”

  Charlotte laughed forlornly. “Switch jobs with me.”

  “I don't think that would turn out well for either of us.”

  “Ship my father to Timbuktu.”

  “Tempting, but impossible. I don't think UPS runs people these days.”

  By this time, Charlotte was smiling slightly. “Help me figure out what's bothering David.”

  Though she'd thought before that she didn't need to know about the man's demons to love him, she'd quickly realized that if she was going to vanquish the damn things, she was going to need him to talk to her. Unfortunately, all her attempts to get him to open up were halted before they even left the gate. When it came to talking tech, the company, and lovemaking, David was an open book. However, when it came to his personal life, getting even the tiniest detail from him was like squeezing blood from a turnip.

  “Now, that, maybe I can help with.” Charlotte looked to her in surprise, and the redhead shot her a confident smile. “He works in my department. I'm his boss. I'm sure I can find out a thing or two.”

  “Don't be obvious, please, Addy,” Charlotte begged. “I want to help him, not scare him off.”

  “Apparently, what you want to do is screw him, and I'm sure a lot of that's been happening.” Blushing crimson, the young woman quickly glanced around to make sure no one beyond the alcove had heard her companion's statement. “Don't worry, your secret's safe with me.” Charlotte turned back to face her, her expression grateful. “But after we fix your little boyfriend, you are going to get the lecture of your life.”

  Sighing, Charlotte merely shook her head.

  What was she going to do with her tech specialist?

  Be grateful, she supposed. It was really her only option.

  The rest of the week passed without incident. Charlotte continued to meet with David for their late night lessons every weekday, though more and more he seemed reluctant to talk about anything that went beyond his college education and his job history. Try as she might, Charlotte couldn't get him to open up. It didn't help that the man seemed so engrossed in some of the projects that they were working on that he completely tuned her out at points. He did continue, however, to be a wonderful connection between her and the tech department. He'd been with the company for about four months, and she had a file of new projects three inches thick.

  One day she'd gone down to watch him work in the design room, and she'd been astonished at the rate at which his hands had flown over the paper— measuring, drawing, and correcting calculations as he went along. The man multiplied numbers in his head and even took cosines and tangents at an incredible clip. She'd often wondered how the best minds of their time worked, and it was amazing to watch David in action and learn.

  No matter how troubled his personal life was, the man didn't let it affect his work one single iota. He was in the office ten minutes early every day, and he often worked through his lunch breaks. Plus, he always stayed late, even after she'd gone home. He was one of their most dedicated workers, and that fact, coupled with the efficiency of their tech department, was going to give them an edge that would take the market by storm in a few years.

  She often wondered what David did when he worked straight through his lunchtime and late at nig
ht. It appeared the man worked quickly, so there didn't appear to be a need for him to work as much overtime as he did, but whenever she mentioned it, he merely told her that he felt at home in the lab. It led her to believe that maybe there was someone or something in his apartment that was causing his suffering.

  Addy was apparently on the case.

  She hadn't reported anything to Charlotte yet, but she'd said that she'd had some men discreetly following the man. Apparently, he was slippery. They always lost him on the train, and his apartment building had visitor rules so strict that they weren't allowed anywhere near it. It figured, Adeline had huffed, that he would live in the Lower East Side among all the hippies. As free as they were, they definitely didn't let strangers into their houses.

  By the time the end of the month rolled around, David was staying at her apartment two to three times a week. The fact that he'd never invited her to his place only further cemented the notion that whatever was causing his distress was there; but, she didn't press him on the issue. Hopefully, he would eventually trust her enough to reveal things on his own.

  Her father, however, was a different story entirely.

  The man was relentless.

  He was now quite obvious in his efforts to have her followed, and whenever she encountered his pairs of men, she angrily told them to go away. Emerson Mathers' paranoia knew no bounds. He was more invasive than the media, and there were few things Charlotte hated more than the biased, untruthful media.

  She needed a break, and one day, while flipping through a magazine at her desk, she realized exactly how she would take one.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “A vacation?” David was more than a little surprised.

  Ever since Charlotte had taken an interest in his past and his troubles, he'd tried to monitor his conversation with her as closely as possible. Every sentence was one that he perused for signs that he was giving something away. As the days wore on, and he found himself more and more entangled with her, the charade was beginning to become exhausting.