Page 5 of Somebody's Watching Me
“There’s always time for a ride around here,” Paula McIntyre piped up from next to her husband. Randall McIntyre hadn’t created a ranching empire all on his own. He married into most of it, securing a Texas heiress with a dowry of land and horses. “It’s a great stress reliever.”
Notorious in her youth, Paula McIntyre’s exploits had often made the society pages of the Houston Chronicle before she met Randall. But all that wildness lay dormant now, suppressed in a loveless marriage. There were rumors of infidelity on both sides, and by the way Paula was eyeballing Ben as she spoke, Charlie believed them.
No longer interested in the conversation, James and Randall moved on, allowing Paula to continue her study of his brother more openly. Shewas at least thirty years his senior, maybe more, but that didn’t matter. If she wanted Ben, she would have him. James and Helen would all but wrap up their son in a bow for Paula McIntyre if they thought it might secure them more power.
Helen smiled, sensing the opportunity. “Trevor, come with me to look at a painting in the south wing.” She ran a hand down Ben’s arm as she left. A signal he and Charlie knew well. “We’ll be back.”
Charlie tugged at his fiancée’s hand, wanting to get her away before she saw something she shouldn’t. “Viv promised to show me the catering setup.”
Paula wasn’t listening. Eyes on Ben, she waved them off. “Do you like to ride, Mr. Fairweather?”
Charlie whisked Viv away before Ben replied with some sexual innuendo that suggested he was open to whatever Paula had in mind. A practiced dance his brother had done a thousand times.
With her heels tapping on the catwalk, Viv struggled to keep up with him. “Is this just another ploy to get me alone so you can have your way with me?”
“Always.”
They made their way to the rear entertaining patio, entering a tropical oasis of swimming pools and waterfalls. The caterers swished around the regular employees as they prepared the scene, and Charlie took it all in, reality seizing him by the throat.
He was going to be someone’s husband.
And not just anyone’s husband, but Vivian’s husband. In the beginning, Charlie had thought she might only be an interesting toy to play with on a visit to Texas with his father. He took her on a few dates and slept with her a few times, but then surprisingly found himself missing her when he went home.
They exchanged letters as if living some grand love affair, and Charlie’s father approached him a few weeks into it, well aware of what was happening.
“I would have rather she had gone to Ben, but if it’s you she wants, then seal the deal, Charles. Ask her to marry you.”
At first, Charlie fought against the idea and blew his way through women and booze, throwing what was nothing short of an orgy at the family beach house where Ben liked to stay sometimes.
The wild weekend left him with a black eye and produced an odd bonding moment with his brother.
“I guess this fact has gone right over your head, but we all know you’re not good enough for Vivian,” Ben had said after beating the shit out of him for trashing the beach house. “She’s the only one who hasn’t figured it out.”
“You know she will.”
“Well, then make sure she falls so far in love with you that it won’t matter, and you can keep on pretending to be a man who deserves her.”
“I do want to be a man that deserves her.”
Charlie hadn’t expected Ben to understand. So inflated with his ego, his brother practically floated through life on it, and probably couldn’t fathom someone finding him unworthy of anything.
But even Ben surprised him at times. “Then straighten up and pretend to be a decent man until it sticks.”
Pretending was something he could definitely do, and so here he was at an engagement party. His engagement party.
“Are you ready for this?” Vivian folded into him, a perfect fit at his side. “Are you ready for me to become Mrs. Charlie Fairweather?”
Pretending or not, he was excited. It wasn’t something he liked to admit, but Charlie was lonely. Growing up as the eldest Fairweather, he’d never had the luxury of keeping close friends. Trust wasn’t easy to comeby in his life, especially when people sought to use him in any way they could.
Cupping Vivian’s face, he snuck a kiss. “Definitely.”
“Enough of that.” Bianca McIntyre, the youngest offspring in The McIntyre’s clan, appeared from a side patio door. “We have two hundred and fifty-three guests arriving in less than an hour, and I need to make Viv presentable.”
While her siblings were held to a higher standard, Randall McIntyre allowed Bianca to do as she pleased, and at fourteen, the holy terror loved nothing more than to shock everyone she encountered.
Releasing Vivian, he nodded at Bianca’s army boots and gravity-defying spiked hair. Seriously, how many cans of hairspray had she used to get it that high?
“Give yourself a makeover while you’re at it, B.”
