Page 10 of Brazen
Dawn broke sooner rather than later, and I jumped up. I would do anything to save my home. If I took Charlie’s offer, it was temporary and paid the entire bill.
And I wasn’t stupid. I just needed to keep my heart in check, and I would be fine. Pretending was one thing, and at the end of the day, I needed fast cash.
So I cleaned myself up and took my time with makeup. I needed to look my best to negotiate everything. As I finished with blending my face creams, my phone beeped.
Charlie’s text was there: Coffee where 5th meets your street. I can send a car.
It was time to give my final answer. I texted back fast: Playboy… but his text was pretty bland and not flirty. I needed to lower my guard if we were to pull this off. So I deleted that. I tensed, unsure how to tell him. Finally, I just wrote, I’ll meet you in half an hour.
Done. I grabbed a white dress with yellow trim. This might be the last time I would be comfortable in white, so I decided to go out in style. The thought was hard, but if I wasn’t hard on myself, who else would be?
I grabbed a pair of heels, stuck the bill in my yellow pocketbook, and headed out. The streets were busy, as they always were, but as I neared Fifth Avenue, my stomach grumbled. I couldn’t let him hear me like this.
No man would want me if I ate too much in front of him. Patterson would have said, "You’re getting a balloon belly again." If I was going to camp out with Charlie for more time, his opinions might start mattering. He hadn’t cared in Paris, but he was a man, even if my heart believed he was different.
I grabbed a muffin from a street vendor and opened the plastic. The chocolate chips were on my lips, and I sighed. The sugar might help, too, as I needed energy to tell him yes.
Then the crowd in front of me parted, and he stared back at me. I froze with crumbs on my face. As he approached, I tossed the rest of the muffin in the trash and tried to look like I hadn’t eaten anything.
He kissed my cheeks in greeting.
“Charlie, hi.”
He offered his arm. I shook my head—we weren’t there yet. I was sure if we agreed to the plan, there would be more touching, but not yet.
He stayed at my side. “You look rested.”
I laughed and glanced at his profile. “I look a wreck.”
We walked to the corner, and he held my door as he said, “I was on my way to meet you from a meeting, and here you are. Ready to get the coffee?”
I let him pay for the overpriced coffee. If we had no agreement, at least the meeting was a one-time thing. I grabbed my medium mocha and took a seat. When he joined me, I said, “Yeah, I had questions on being your fiancée.”
He sipped his coffee. “Shoot.”
A photographer snapped a picture of us. Charlie tensed and blocked me as the intruder asked, “Is Hope Williams your new girlfriend or just another fling you’ll toss aside like Gina?”
“Who's Gina?” he asked.
My job was to reform him.
I smiled. “This playboy is off the market for a while, at least until after our trip to Italy.”
“Italy?”
“I mean, it’s the next place to go after Paris, no?”
They took another photo of us, but we dashed to a table as management directed the man out the door. Silence clung to our table for a moment. Adrenaline rushed through me. I met his gaze and tried to focus on how sweet he’d been since the second I met him and not on how everything would end in disaster.
After another sip of my coffee, I took a deep breath. “Would I have to live with you?”
“It would be best.”
I rocked in my chair. I needed to just get the terms, but maybe agreeing meant I was as needy as I’d been labeled. Or it was just my lack of real employment that had rattled me. I kept my lips sealed on my thoughts, and I asked, “What’s your butler’s name?”
Charlie tilted his head. “I should have introduced you. He’s Mr. Michael Fuller and has been helping me out for years, but if you don’t want a butler, I can reassign him.”
Firing him wasn’t going to weigh on my conscience and keep me from ever sleeping for a second at night. And my friends were going to love coming to see me with someone else serving the drinks. I shook my head. “I’ve never had. He can stay.”
