At least the numbers came out automatically, and before she really even knew what was going on, she had a check in her hand with enough money to cover everything that Preston had covered and to ensure she could open up the location on her own with operating capital for the first three months, even if the business fell through.
She took a deep breath and examined the piece of paper in her hand, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she thought over how to answer her uncle.
“Thank you. I…” She still didn’t know what to say. She felt like a fool and an absolute failure, but there was nothing much left to do other than take her uncle’s money and try not to screw this up again.
“You don’t have to thank me, Charlotte. You should have taken my money the first time, though. It might have saved us all a lot of trouble and heartache.”
“Yes, Sir.” She let out a resigned breath and moved to slide the check into her purse. She hated taking money from her aunt and uncle whether or not they could afford it. She’d wanted to do this on her own, but maybe it wasn’t something she was capable of doing. Going off on her own had lead her down a path of bad decisions and mistakes until she was here getting scolded like a child by the adults in her life. Maybe it would be for the best if she could get Preston and his money out of her life for good.
Chapter 14
It had been three weeks since Preston had seen Charlotte. She wasn’t answering his phone calls or text messages and her cart had completely disappeared from the lobby of the building starting the Monday after they’d been together. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but it must have been something serious considering the only thing he’d gotten from her was a check to pay him back for his investment into her bakery thus far and a formally written note apologizing for completely cutting him out of the business.
He could have pushed things. He could have gone back to her apartment and looked for her again. He was tempted to. He knew where to go and how to find her, but if she wanted him out of her life for good then he wasn’t going to be the person who barged back in and forced himself on her.
There was some part of him that longed to go out and look her up and apologize to her, to beg her to come back, even if it had nothing to do with her business. He missed her company. He missed the way she would chew on the end of her pen when she was thinking hard about something. He missed the way she would surprise him with something she’d baked for him to try out before she went back to the drawing board with the menus for the bakery. He missed the sound of her voice and the way that she smelled. Honestly, Preston missed everything about her.
She’d likely come to the conclusion that he was using her for his own ends, or someone had told her that he was. That was the only thing he could imagine had happened to drive her away. He’d felt like a selfish asshole the moment the check and note had arrived in his office and when he’d gone downstairs to look for her, every trace of her existence was entirely gone. It was like she’d vanished off the face of the Earth, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Money was usually the fastest way to get around any difficulties, and Preston had money in spades. This was one of the few problems he wasn’t going to be able to buy his way out of. Instead, all he could do was sit around his office and worry about what had become of his former business partner and friend. His voicemails and text messages had all gone unanswered, he drummed his fingers on his desk trying to convince himself not to show up unannounced at her apartment again.
The fact that she wasn’t even working in the building anymore was the thing that panicked him the most. He could have lived with her not speaking to him. There were plenty of women in his lifetime who had cut him off from their lives, but he needed to know that she was alright. Perhaps that was why he’d started asking around about her. He tried to be casual, but Sophie had called him on his bullshit almost immediately.
“Don’t try to even start with your excuses, Preston. You’re clearly head over heels in love with that girl and you have been for weeks. Don’t think I don’t know who’s been coming up here on Friday nights for the last few months. We have security cameras everywhere except for your office… Thank goodness for that.” She muttered the last sentence under her breath. “And she’s just as head over heels for you. I could see it in her eyes every time she came up here with another delivery. She’d glance at those double doors like they were the gates to the kingdom of heaven or something. Now I don’t know what you did to scare off that poor little thing, but you need to figure it out and fix it. I’m not going to be able to stomach working with you while you're lovesick and wandering around like a lost puppy. Now excuse me while I do a little research and figure out where she’s at, because I can’t take another day of this.”
She’d slammed the door behind her when she went out to her desk in the foyer, leaving Preston nothing to do but put his focus on sipping a glass of scotch and trying to calm his nerves. It was about an hour later when she walked back in, much more calmly than when she’d left, and slid a piece of paper onto his desk.
“You can thank me later.” With that cryptic reply, she turned and walked out of his office closing the door behind her.
The paper had some writing on it, but it was upside down. Preston couldn’t make it out. He grabbed it, bringing it up to his face and it had an address written on it along with the name Charlotte Fairweather. Nothing more. He had no idea what he was going to find at that address, but something told him he needed to head there. He picked up his cell phone, and the first thing that greeted him was a text message from Sophie that read simply “What are you waiting for?” That was all the prompting he needed.
It was a simple matter of making a phone call to get his driver to bring the car around front so that it would be waiting for him by the time he reached the bottom floor of the building. The driver only needed the address scribbled down on the piece of paper and not another word. Preston had the drive to the location to think.
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say if she was there when he got there. He didn’t even know where he was going. It wasn’t her apartment, and it wasn’t the location the two of them had picked to open up the bakery she had planned, but it was one of the places the two of them had looked at with the real estate agent. If he recalled correctly, it was one of the places that she had liked and he had decided wasn’t quite right.
Maybe she’d gone out on her own and opened a bakery. He had no idea where she would have gotten the money but Charlotte was a smart girl. It would have been underestimating her to think she couldn’t have done this without him. Apparently she had, because when the car pulled up on the street outside of the address that Sophie had written on the slip of paper, he recognized the name painted on the outside of the glass that lined the front window as the one that the two of them had picked out together.
Half of him wanted to stay in the car and let Charlotte go on with her life without him. The other half of him wanted to charge in the front door and declare his feelings for her on the spot. Maybe an approach that was somewhere in the middle of those two things was going to be the best one to take. Preston didn’t know what to expect when he walked into the room, but he had to go. He had to take this chance, even if it was his last one as far as Charlotte was concerned.
Preston instructed his driver to park the car and wait for him to come out. He didn’t know how long he’d be inside. It could be any length of time, really everything from this point on depended entirely on Charlotte.
Preston looked around the place as he walked inside. It screamed Charlotte, even if it was just getting off the ground. The display cases were empty, even though the front door was unlocked. To be fair, the sign there had been turned to say closed to the outer street. Things were getting set up and it was close to being able to open, but not quite there. Apparently, she had gone ahead with her plans without him.
He had to admit he was kind of proud of her for getting all of this done on her own. She’d done an excellent job.
He wasn’t certain he’d have been able to do this well, this quickly, himself. It was quite impressive to think she’d managed all of this in three weeks.
The front door had been armed with a bell that rang as he entered the room and let the door close behind him. No one was behind the counter out front, but there was some noise through the small door that apparently lead to the kitchen beyond. He heard a familiar voice call through it.
“Sorry! We’re closed. We’ll be opening next week.” It was Charlotte, and he could tell from the change in the pitch of her voice that she was coming towards the opening. He was probably about to get kicked out of the bakery on the spot, but he may as well go for it now.
“Well, I’m sorry. I thought maybe I could get an order of cinnamon rolls to go, and a side of I’m a jackass and screwed up the best thing that ever happened to me?”
Charlotte emerged, and froze in her tracks when she saw it was Preston there waiting for her.
“What are you doing here?” He watched her tense and freeze in place.
“I was just wondering what made you disappear so fast on me. What did I do wrong or do you just hate me? I mean I wouldn’t blame you for it. I just needed to know.”
“Preston, I…” She took a step forward and froze again, stumbling over her words as if she were scrambling for an explanation. He intended to give her some time to figure herself out, but he wasn’t leaving until she gave him a reason for disappearing. “I was scared. Who am I kidding? I’m still scared. I’m actually terrified. I don’t know what I’m doing with this business and I don’t know what I’m doing with you either. I could have just gone after you for your money, but that’s not my style. I could have just stayed with you and not even thought about the fact that you were probably just using your money to get to me. But I couldn’t do that either.”
Preston had to interrupt her there.
“You weren’t with me for my money and I wasn’t with you for your youth. I certainly wasn’t using my money to get your attention. I wanted to help you. The rest of it was just something that happened, and I wouldn’t have changed any of it except for you running away.”
“My Uncle Howard told me that you were only after me for one thing…” She couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“Uncle Howard?” He knit his brows together before it quickly registered who she was referring to. “So wait a god damned minute. Are you telling me that Howard Specter is your uncle?” That explained a lot if that were the case.
“I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted to make it on my own.” She was studying her hands now.
“Well, Howard is wrong. I wanted a whole lot more than one thing. I fought against the way I felt about of you for a long time. I went back and forth with myself every Friday night for weeks. Though, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to run away screaming, Charlotte. I’m too old for you. I’m stubborn. I’m set in my ways, and I’m far too much of everything that you don’t need. But I know one thing. I need you. Since you stumbled into my office that night, you’ve been the one thing that I couldn’t live without. I didn’t care if you were in my life in a strictly professional capacity or if you were in my arms. I needed you around. My life hasn’t been complete until now no matter how much money, success or fame I found. You were the one thing that money couldn’t buy me. I loved you for that. I loved you for the light that you brought into my life, and I loved you for just being yourself in the face of everything that I threw in your path. You don’t have to give me a chance at all, but I wasn’t going to go down without any kind of a fight. I just needed you to know how I really felt about you after all of this, and give you the option to tell me get lost to my face.”
Preston was just letting all of his thoughts fly. He was babbling, and he knew it. His thoughts just came bubbling up, but Preston was past his ability to stop them. He needed to get it all out now while he still had the chance, and the only thing left to do was to wait for Charlotte’s reply.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. Instead, she simply untied her apron and began to walk around the counter, leaving it sitting behind on the glass. She may have been about to show him out of the bakery. He wouldn’t have blamed her. What really surprised him was when she walked directly over to him, draped her arms across his shoulders and planted a kiss on his lips. He let her finish the kiss and pull away slightly before he tried to reply.
“Charlotte, I…” Charlotte’s lips on his interrupted him again.
“Shh… It’s okay. We both screwed up here. I’ve been trying to play mindreader, and you’ve been trying to keep your feelings hidden. Instead of defending your honor to my uncle and making my own decisions, I caved to his demands in fear. Between the two of us, I’m not sure who’s been the biggest screw up, as a matter of fact. So just stop talking and let me kiss you. If we’re going to screw up, we may as well do it together, right?”
Instead of talking, Preston just let her kiss him again. He had no idea if this was going to work out, but he did know that having Charlotte back in his arms felt more right than anything else in his life ever had. For now, he was just going to focus on what he had in his life, and now that he’d found Charlotte again, he had everything.
* * *
PRESTON AND CHARLOTTE’S STORY WILL CONTINUE IN SWEET SEDUCTION, COMING THIS AUGUST!
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Needing You: A Friends to Lovers Romance Book 2
How did life get so complicated?
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Things had just started to fall into place with Bridgette and Luke’s life. After 10 years of waiting and denying their love for one another, they were finally together and wow was it hotter than either had expected! It seemed like life was a fairytale and happily ever afters really do happen…until one tiny, little bump in the road. Well, tiny for now but soon the bump would grow into a full-blown screaming, crying, unplanned baby!
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Bridgette couldn’t believe it when she took the pregnancy test, they had been so responsible and careful! Sure they barely came up for air when they were together but she was on the pill! As panic turns to fear Bridgette soon realizes her dreams are shattering all around her as she struggles to cope with becoming a mother while balancing her relationship and career with new responsibilities.
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How can Luke seem so calm? And happy? And EXCITED? Convinced they’ll figure everything out and not miss a beat, Luke expresses his desire to marry Bridgette now that they have a family in the works. Convinced he’s marrying her out of obligation, Bridgette soon begins to isolate herself from him as she humorously navigates pregnancy, doubt and those raging hormones!
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First comes love, then comes…an unplanned pregnancy and complete meltdown?
Chapter 1
Bridgette stared at the ceiling unblinking, she had no idea what time it was or how long she had been staring off into space. She sighed and looked over at Luke who was sleeping peacefully, sprawled out and snoring softly. She reached over and moved his ruffled hair off his forehead, her heart felt so full and completely terrified at the same time. She sat up and flung her legs over the edge of the bed, glancing at her alarm clock which read 3:27 AM.
To say her sleep patterns had been erratic lately would be an understatement. She knew it wasn’t healthy, being pregnant and all, but she couldn’t seem to talk herself out of the stress induced insomnia that w
as plaguing her. She grabbed her journal and walked quietly out to the kitchen to make herself some tea and try to sort her thoughts.
She had taken to journaling lately, jotting down thoughts and fears that came to her mind. She hoped it would help her process things more coherently, as well as assist her in not taking things out on Luke. She had not expected Luke to be so excited about the unplanned pregnancy, he was already talking about names and nursery designs and looking at baby clothes. It was all too overwhelming for Bridgette to fully process yet.
She was struggling with guilt and shame. Guilt that she wasn’t excited about the pregnancy and shame that she was worried how it would impact her relationship. She had waited ten years to finally have a chance with Luke and barely six months in she was pregnant with a baby that would surely take him away from her. What if Luke didn’t want a future with her but now felt obligated? Or worse, trapped? These were the thoughts that kept her up at night with horrible heartburn and consistently on the verge of a small panic attack or full blown breakdown.
She took a deep breath and inhaled the warm and calming scents of the chamomile tea she cupped in her hands. She had her first official doctor appointment this week, she was nervous and a little excited. It hadn’t completely sank in yet that she was carrying a life inside her but she knew when she heard that heartbeat it would be reality. They had agreed they wouldn’t tell their friends and family until after the first trimester, although Harper already knew she promised to keep it a secret.
Sweet Temptation: A Billionaire Virgin Romance Page 9
