The Best Next Thing

by Natasha Anders

“I have a professional cleaning service coming in tomorrow morning. One of Daff’s connections, they’re doing us a huge favor coming in on a Sunday. But the place has to be shipshape by start of business on Monday.”

  “You must be terribly excited.” He grinned, his eyes crinkling boyishly at the corners, and she caught her breath at the welcome sight of that familiar dimple.

  “Right now, I’m more excited about seeing you,” she told him honestly. His smiled faded, and she mourned its loss. Not sure why her words had made it disappear.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He was so somber, and it scared her. Miles was a naturally reserved man, but a lot of his reticence had melted around her during their time together. She wanted that relaxed, happy man back.

  She followed him mutely to the door, her movements stiff and mechanical as she juggled her purse and the tray to lock up behind them.

  George was waiting for them outside. It was a lovely summer’s night and, despite the late hour, there was still a fair number of people out and about. George grinned when he caught sight of Charity and Miles. He looked insufferably self-satisfied.

  “Nice surprise, right?” he crowed, his rugged brown face beaming beneath the streetlamp. “I had you fooled, hey? You didn’t have a clue what we were up to.”

  “Nobody likes a gloater, George.” Charity chastised, but there was only warmth in her voice, and George chuckled.

  “I following orders. Miles wanted it to be a secret.”

  “Miles?” Charity mouthed at the silent man hovering beside her, and Miles rolled his eyes with a short shake of his head.

  “He and my mother have spoken every day since she left,” he explained beneath his breath while George loaded the platters in the back of the SUV. “I can’t very well expect my mother’s long-distance boyfriend to call me Mr. Hollingsworth.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know what else to call him. They’re—”

  “I’ll take this one, Mrs. Cole,” George interrupted their hushed exchanged cheerfully, returning for the tray in Charity’s hands. She had asked him time and again to call her Charity, but for some reason, he always slipped back into the habit of calling her Mrs. Cole. It was funny that he found it easier to call Miles by his given name than he did Charity.

  Miles lightly grasped her elbow. His warm hand on her naked skin sent goosebumps skidding up her spine. She had missed his touch. Thirsted for it. When he released his hold on her seconds after she had settled in the back seat, she disguised her disappointed groan behind a cough.

  He rounded the back of the vehicle and climbed in next to her, but remained on his side of the long bench seat. There was a yawning chasm between them…and Charity was tempted to bridge the gap by scooting across the seat and snuggling against him.

  She was on the verge of unbuckling her seatbelt and doing just that, when he dumped his briefcase between them. Leaving her with not only a chasm to cross but a mountain to climb.

  In the end it was simpler to stay on her side of the car.

  George was humming beneath his breath and seemed oblivious to the simmering tension in the back seat.

  They sat in silence for the entirety of the drive. Charity wasn’t sure what to say. Now that he was here, she found herself uncertain, overwhelmed, nervous, and excited all at the same time.

  She toyed with her phone, needing something to occupy her restless hands, and sent Faith a quick message. Her sister’s almost instant reply made her grin.

  OMG! Duck! I mean DUCK! That’s so DUCKING fantastic! HAVE FUN!! Call me first thing in the morning!

  She sent a second message to her mother to let her know where she was.

  Her mother responded with a comical open-mouthed emoji, followed by:

  Let us know how it goes. We love you, angel, and we want you to be happy.

  After learning about Blaine’s abuse, her parents had been understandably mistrustful of the men Charity had dated since her return from Riversend. But they had also understood that Charity had had years longer than them to deal with everything. And she was ready to trust again.

  In fact, she did trust again. She trusted Miles. And so much of her future happiness hinged on what they would say to each other tonight.

  The car took the turn toward the house, and Charity’s tension ramped all the way to the stratosphere.

  And—if his nervously tapping foot and erratically bouncing knee were any indication-- so did Miles’s. His head was turned toward the window, where he appeared to be staring out into the darkness. Possibly to avoid eye contact with her.

  They were at the house and parked in the garage less than five minutes later. Charity’s heart leaped at the sight of the familiar, brightly lit garage. When she had left here all those months ago, she had never dreamed she would see it again.

  And now, here she was, so happy and grateful to be back in this large, open space. They hadn’t replaced the dying fluorescent lightbulb yet. It had been on her to-do list, but she had been so distracted by Miles and everything happening to her, that she had forgotten about it.

  For some reason, the sight of that flickering bulb added to her sense of familiarity and homecoming.

  The sound of the escalating, high-pitched barking from upstairs made her smile.

  “You brought Stormy.” Her first words to him since they had left town.

  “She’s a bit of a jet-setter these days,” he informed, still alarmingly grim, despite the adorable subject matter. “She even has her own pet passport. She’s been to Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, and Tokyo.”

  The information delighted Charity, whose smile widened at the notion of the former stray living such a glamorous lifestyle. Miles may look like the sky was going to cave in at any moment, but Charity was so elated to be back in his company, that she refused to allow his surly disposition to affect her sunny one any further.

  She preceded him up the stairs, and when she opened the door into the kitchen, she squealed when Stormy launched herself practically into her arms.

  “Oh, there’s my good girl! Did you miss me? I missed you.” She hugged the dog’s excitedly wriggling body tight and planted kisses all over her endearing face. “Nobody brought me presents. Nobody. No socks, no boxers, not even a hankie…”

  Stormy whined happily and licked her face enthusiastically.

  “Ew…stop,” Charity giggled and, after one last squeeze, handed the dog over to Miles, who was lavished with the same sloppy kisses.

  Miles grimaced but, wonder of wonders, a reluctant smile lifted his lips. Nobody could stay surly beneath such a determinedly adorable onslaught.

  “Yes, okay. We’re all happy. No need to carry on so,” he admonished without heat, and put the dog down. Stormy turned her attention to George, dancing around his legs while he deposited two of the platters on the kitchen counter.

  “Keep the third one, George. You seemed to really enjoy those smoked salmon mousse bites.”

  “Don’t mind if I do. That Libby certainly knows how to cook.”

  He continued to stand in the kitchen, making no move to leave. That was unusual for George. Unless he had some other task to perform, he rarely lingered after he dropped whomever, or whatever, off after an errand. He leaned against the kitchen counter, whistling a cheery tune, and helped himself to a canapé from one of the trays, while Miles and Charity awkwardly stood staring at each other and then the driver.

  The reason for his dawdling became apparent seconds later.

  “Charity, my dear, how lovely to see you.” Charity’s eyebrows raised when Enid Hollingsworth flitted into the kitchen. The older woman gave her a warm hug, enveloping Charity in a cloud of fragrant Chanel No. 5. Enid was dressed in a loose, colorful, patterned muumuu that floated around her plump frame, and her bottle black bouncy curls were held away from her face with a silk scarf. Her badly applied bright red lipstick stained her teeth and was smudged in the hollow above her lip.

  Charity liked Miles’s mother. She was bold, brassy, a
nd loud. The complete opposite of her reserved, quiet son. There was no artifice about her. She dressed in off the rack clothing and didn’t seem at all affected by her son’s hundreds of millions.

  The older woman beamed at George after releasing Charity, and gave him a smacking kiss.

  “Hello, luv! I’m ready. My bag is in the hallway.”

  “Where are you going?” Miles asked in some consternation, seeming surprised by his mother’s words.

  “You didn’t think I tagged along to spend time with you, did you, my boy? I love you, but you have other things to take care of.” This, with a pointed look at Charity. “I’m staying with George. And we’re taking Stormy with us tonight.”

  “But…”

  “I’ll take good care of her, Miles,” George promised, with an almost lascivious wink. “Oh, and Stormy too, of course. I’ll have the pup back first thing in the morning.”

  Enid picked Stormy up, planted a kiss on Miles’s astonished face and sailed out of the kitchen with an airy wave. George followed, carrying a large, brightly patterned hard-shell suitcase.

  “G’night,” he said, with a nod and smile, leaving Charity and Miles to stare at the closed basement door in bemusement.

  Well, Charity was bemused, Miles—on the other hand—looked comically horrified.

  “So, it looks like your mother found a reason to overcome her fear of flying,” Charity said, trying to keep her amusement at bay, but it was hard when Miles looked like he had just swallowed a live eel.

  “I knew they were texting each other. But I didn’t think it was this serious already. Mum was very keen to join me on this trip.” He shook himself and lowered his serious eyes to hers, before deadpanning, “Their text messages must have been a hell of a lot more interesting than ours. Less cat memes maybe?”

  “Oh my God. What do you have against the memes?”

  “Aside from the fact that they don’t give me a single goddamned clue about what you’re thinking, or how you’re feeling? Not a thing.”

  Oh my.

  “And you wanted to know those things?”

  The sound that clawed its way out of his throat was the mutant offspring of a growl and a sigh. “What do you think, Charity?”

  He shook his head and turned away from her to slam his way around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards at random and seemingly without purpose.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked tentatively.

  “Where’s the bloody tea?”

  “Right beside the kettle,” she supplied. She slid onto one of the barstools and watched in fascination as his eyes darted to the electric kettle. He glared at the tea, snugly situated between the sugar and coffee.

  “Thanks,” he grumbled.

  “Why are you in such a bad mood?”

  He leveled a black look at her. “I’m not in a bad mood.”

  “Then talk me through what’s going on with you. So that we can get past it and move on to what really matters.”

  Her words made him pause, and he seemed to forget about the tea and, instead, took a step toward her. His eyes laser-focused on her face.

  “What do you think really matters, Charity?”

  “I’d like for you to know exactly what I was thinking and feeling while I was sending you those texts.”

  Another step closer. “Please…continue.”

  “I was thinking any contact was better than no contact. And I was hoping that…” It was hard not to lose her nerve with those unblinking, steel gray eyes piercing into her soul.

  “Hoping that what?”

  “Hoping that it could be the framework—the foundation—for more.”

  More.

  Miles couldn’t take his eyes off her, terrified that if he diverted his gaze, if he so much as blinked, he would miss something crucial in her expression. Some tell that would unravel the mystery that was Charity Cole.

  He took another step toward her, this one brought him right to the island…an unwanted physical barrier between his body and hers. He flattened his palms on the marble and watched her as she continued to speak. Waited for her to elaborate on that tantalizing more.

  The tip of her tongue peeked out to nervously wet her succulent lips, and he bit back a groan at the temptation offered by that nimble tongue and that ripe mouth.

  It was hard to believe he was in the same room with her. All he wanted to do was wrap her in his arms, kiss her…love her. But that could wait.

  It had to wait. He refused to touch her until he knew there was a future in it. Because he couldn’t do finite with her anymore.

  He needed forever.

  “More what?” he prompted impatiently, when it seemed that she wouldn’t continue.

  “Miles…” she placed a hand on the counter and slid it across the cold, smooth surface toward one of his. When she covered his flattened hand with her smaller one, he shuddered at the contact. “You know that I love you, right?”

  His breath snagged in his chest. Trapped by the weight of his expanding heart. The words, long awaited, much coveted, hit him with the force of a ten-ton truck, and he swayed on his feet as his entire body absorbed the impact.

  “I did not know that,” he managed to squeeze the words out despite the expanding heart and trapped breath. They sounded rough, taut…even surly.

  “Oh. Well…I do. Love you, I mean. I’ve been in love with you since”—her eyes went hazy with the recollection—“the day we took Stormy to the beach. Somewhere between our first kiss and the chickens at the restaurant, I fell head over heels in love with you. Only I didn’t know it. Because in my mind loving a man meant being weak and helpless. But I didn’t feel weak or helpless around you, so it took me a while to recognize the emotion for what it was. The love I feel for you…” She laughed. It was a sound filled with wonder and awe. “The love I feel for you strengthens me. It makes me a better person. It’s taken a long time for me to like myself again, Miles. But I find that I like myself even more when I’m with you.”

  His hand flipped over to take her palm in his. He hoped the gesture would tell her everything he currently could not say.

  He swallowed, trying to dislodge the obstructive lump in his throat that prevented him from replying. She had stopped speaking and was staring at him with huge, vulnerable eyes. She had laid herself bare, opened herself up to potential rejection and pain. But trusted that he would not hurt her. Or reject her.

  Always so fucking brave.

  “Thank God for that then,” he whispered shakily. The words heartfelt and not exactly what he would have planned to say in response to a declaration of love from the woman of his dreams, if he had been thinking clearly.

  He rounded the island, not letting go of her hand, and turned her barstool until her back was to the counter, and he was standing between her thighs.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t love me the way I love you. Probably gone back to London brokenhearted…again. Only last time, even though it hurt like hell, I told myself I was doing the right thing. Despite my best intentions, I know I wasn’t always graceful about it—I was in pain—but I understood that letting you go was the only option available to me. Telling you how I felt would have been manipulative. Unfair. I couldn’t do that to you.

  “But when you started messaging me, I hoped it meant something. Only you wouldn’t stop talking about Stormy and sending me stupid jokes and dumb videos and asking me impersonal questions about fucking work, and I was so damned confused!”

  In his eyes was an echo of the frustration and bewilderment he had felt at her bombardment of silly messages. Charity wrapped her arms around his neck and stroked his nape in apology.

  While her heart joyfully soared out of her chest and flitted around the kitchen like a drunken, happy butterfly

  He loved her.

  Despite her regret at her poor handling of the situation with the texts and impersonal calls and voice notes, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning at his confession.


  “You love me,” she murmured.

  He was smiling. A beautiful, broad, fully dimpled smile. “You love me.”

  “I do,” she confirmed. “So much. But you were right to let me figure it out on my own. I needed the time apart to recognize my feelings for you as deep, genuine, and irrefutable.”

  “And apparently you needed to shop around too,” he muttered, eyeing her askance.

  She laughed, “I confess, I had to kiss a few toads before I recognized that I’d already found my frog.”

  “Waaait a second…” He frowned at the analogy. “That’s not how that goes.”

  “No, it is,” she maintained earnestly, before getting up and plastering her chest against his. She hugged him and whispered her next words directly into his ear. “Once upon a time, I had the perfect golden prince, and he was rotten to the core. I don’t need a perfect prince, Miles. I need you. You’re imperfect and you’re beautiful and I love you exactly the way you are.”

  He made a choked sound in the back of his throat and turned his head, his hawkish nose bumping hers in his haste to kiss her. She giggled but was abruptly silenced when his lips latched onto hers fiercely. All thought of laughter fled when he swung her into his arms and carried her from the kitchen without releasing her mouth.

  When they next came up for air, they were both naked, sweaty, and sated. Charity was curled up against his chest, her fingers tracing lazy circles through his silky chest hairs. Everything about him was so damned perfect.

  “So now what?” she wondered out loud.

  “Hmm? I don’t know…a shower maybe? I must be getting ripe.”

  “I love the way you smell,” she said on a yawn. “Warm and musky and delicious. You smell like home to me. But that’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean then?”

  “What happens next? With us? I can’t leave, Miles. I have the practice opening on Monday. My life is here.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to leave,” he placated. “No, this is partly what all the restructuring at the company was about. Initially, it was for the reasons I gave, I needed to take things easier, needed my life to be about more than work. But after you contacted me last month, I started hoping that we could somehow find our way back to each other. The company represents my life’s work, Charity. I will continue to chair. And consult. I will probably need to go back to London a few times a year for meetings, but I can do a lot from here with just a laptop and Wi-Fi—barring storms and blackouts of course. In fact, I may have to invest in a satellite phone and a stronger generator. Minor details. The gist of what I’m saying is that…I’m happy to move here, on a semi-permanent basis.”