Page 13 of Brazen
He stopped moving. I turned around, my heart thumping, and gazed up into those dark-blue eyes that stirred in my soul.
Then he said, “That sounds unduly hard.”
Rules made this temporary thing last. I shook my head. “Charlie…”
He stepped closer to me. He wasn’t touching me, but I was drawn to his lips, and I was half aching to go on my tiptoes and break my own rules.
“I hate rules, if I’m being honest.”
This was a horrible idea. I would lose myself entirely in the game. I stepped away then took a breath of cold air. “I need parameters so I can breathe.”
We continued just strolling in the park, but that smoldering look of his that made my toes curl as he said, “And we both need you breathing.”
In Paris the first time I took him to my hotel room, I’d stopped him from kissing my nipples for the same reason. I hugged my waist. He would never believe who I was; there was just a fantasy version of me in real life. We continued walking. “So your brother is giving you a hard time, so you just decide you need a fiancée. I’d like to understand your reasons with a little more detail.”
He shrugged. “My mother wants us all happily married, but I’m not even sure I’m good enough to do my job. Kir says I’m supposed to be like some of our other brothers and come up with a big idea for a company, but all I ever wanted to do was fly away. If I quit now, then I never proved I was a good choice for a son.”
I wasn’t sure why a trillionaire took a job as a pilot on commercial airlines. Working like that made him nothing when compared to his bank account, but I listened. “Do your parents want you to prove yourself?”
He shook his head. “No. But I look at my older brothers, and I see men who accomplished their goals then married. But I don’t have goals. I don’t have some missing love, and six months sounds like the perfect amount of time to figure me out without pressure.”
Okay, so I'm a buffer.
As we walked, a young girl who was probably in college waved at him. He walked around her. All of my exes would have probably left my side for someone like her. Goosebumps grew on my arms.
“I still don’t understand.” I tensed but then let myself ask him, “Did you even see the pretty blonde back there?”
He turned around. “Who?”
The last thing I would do was sabotage our fake relationship. I pointed us to go backward. “Never mind. Let’s go back to your house.”
“Our place,” he corrected.
Living in luxury wasn’t my life, but I only said, “I don’t have anything there.”
He rubbed his neck. “We can go pick up some mementos or whatever you want to make you feel at home.” Then he took out his wallet. “Or we can go shopping so you can pick out whatever you want in furnishings.”
He took out a credit card like he was about to give it to me. I shook my head. "Temporary" meant I would make do with what he had already. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
He shrugged. “I took the day off.”
I pressed my lips together. Part of the job was reforming him. I looked him up and down. “That’s not showing your stability at all.”
He placed his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to be here for you.”
Space was a good thing. We stood near his building, and I said, “Look, go to work. I’ll move in by the end of the day.”
I needed to leave before I decided to rip off his clothes and pick up right where we'd left off. My desires were clouding my otherwise-smart rules I’d set in place.
He raised his eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. It wasn’t that late, so no one would question him too much. “As long as you told your butler to let me in, we’re fine.”
His face blushed a little, and he nodded. “Okay. I hate letting my father down. He truly is great.”
I had no idea what that was like as Grandpa only ever wanted to protect me, which was suffocating sometimes, but he'd cared.
Charlie turned to go inside his building. “Wait. What about the rings? And you should use one of my cars.”
