Page 135 of Between the Lines

He looks at Charlotte. “What are you doing here?”

Charlotte is frozen in place. I push around the table, trying to reach them. There’s a guy around my age standing next to Jeff who looks vaguely familiar. Deep tan, thick sandy-colored hair. He’s handsome in a Hollywood kind of way, which is always less striking in person.

“I’m… I’m… working here,” she says.

“You’reworkinghere?” Jeff asks. There’s a sharp incredulity in his voice that makes my teeth clench. “As what?”

I reach her side. “She’s working with me.”

The man by Jeff’s side smiles at her. “I haven’t seen you in forever,” he tells her. He’s got a British accent. “Man, it’s been an age! Look at you.”

Charlotte looks between them, but her gaze keeps snapping back to the blond guy. “Blake?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says again. He snaps his fingers in the air, like he’s trying to remember something. “Sugar Puff!”

She makes a small, pained sound that makes me want to punch someone. Jeff turns to look at me. His eyes are wide, true confusion in them. “Mr. Hartman? Charlotte Richards is working with you?”

“Charlotte Gray,” I correct him.

“Charlotte. That’s it!” Blake says. “How’ve you been? You’re looking good.”

Jeff looks back at Charlotte, and his bushy eyebrows scrunch together. “Charlotte here was on the first season ofThe Gamble. Helped the show’s ratings soar after her dramatic exit,” he says.

“You were good,” Blake says, his smile widening. “I remember that.”

I hate him.

“You changed your name?” Jeff asks her. “How come? You got famous off that season. We made you a star.”

Her face is so still, so carefully blank that it looks like she’s wearing a mask. Her eyes flicker to me only for a moment before she nods at both men. “I have to go.” She shifts on a heel and darts out of the room.

I stare at Jeff. “What do you mean, she was on your show?”

“She was onThe Gamble. Remember the whole media storm during the first season? The sky-high ratings? That was all her.” He inclines his head toward the door she just escaped through. “‘But I’m your little Sugar Puff,’and all that.”

“That was legendary,” Blake says, still smiling wide. He’s got a slightly dopey look on his face that he probably thinks ischarming, and I dislike him intensely. He’d forgotten her name? I can’t see how anyone who meets Charlotte could ever forget her.

“You’re not making sense,” I say. “Either of you.”

Jeff lifts his hands up as if he’s sayingyou do you, but…“She was blonde back then. Just google Sugar Puff andThe Gamble, and you’ll find her.”

I walk to the door. Behind me, I hear Allison calling my name.

“Start the meeting without me!” I yell.

The hallway outside is deserted. Damn it. I shouldn’t have lingered.

I stride down to the other side of the executive floor. But she’s not in the small conference room that’s become her office, and her bag is gone, too.Fuck.Eric is not at his desk, and there’s no one I can ask if they’d seen her.

I hit the elevator button so many times it’s a wonder it doesn’t break. Charlotte’s not in the lobby, either, but I find her outside the building.

She’s on her phone, standing at the curb. Trying to get a rideshare? We’d driven to the office together, and her car is back at the house.

Her shoulders are rising and falling rapidly. I take her forearm. “Charlotte.”

There’s horror on her face, her eyes distraught. She’s breathing fast. Her eyes flick from me to the building behind me.

“Are you okay?”

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