Page 64 of The Bad Wedding Date

He stared back out through the windscreen, deep in concentration. “Fine. There’s somewhere I need to take you.”

20

Fraser

We drove for another thirty minutes in relative silence, apart from her asking me the odd question here and there. Were we being followed? How long until we stopped? Were we safe? But as the sky lit up with a myriad of warm colours, Charlotte sat back in her seat, relaxed her shoulders, and looked up in wonder. Every time I caught a glimpse of her under the orange and pink glow, I had to force myself to look away. Like she wasn’t beautiful enough without adding the sunrise to her face.

That small, almost serene smile did things to me, and the light against the tones of her hair made it hard not to steer the car to the side of the road, turn off the engine, and pull her lips to mine.

Fan-fuckin-tastic.

In less than twenty-four hours, she’d turned me from a solid man of unwavering resolve to… this, whatever the hell this was.

Eventually, I pulled my car into the bay of Leigh-on-Sea. The small, quaint seaside village just outside of London that my mother used to bring me to on the few occasions she wasn’t with some random arsehole boyfriend during the summertime. This place held some of the happiest memories of my life. It had been my escape for thirty years.

The Gypsy Bridge was only a short walk away, and I got out of the car, knowing Charlotte would follow. She glanced over the roof at me when she shut the door. I caught her taking in her new surroundings while I led us to the concrete pathway of the bland bridge I’d looked out from as a kid, pretending I was at the top of some castle, able to rescue the princess from the ocean below.

Maybe I’d always wanted to be a hero, and this was my fucked-up version of it.

The fun a shrink would have with that one.

When we reached the highest part of the curve of the bridge, I grabbed the metal railings, leaning back as I took a big breath of the ocean air and watched the soft, barely-there waves rippling away in front of us.

Charlotte didn’t say anything as she waited for me to speak.

“My mum once sat me down and said, ‘There’s money to be made from the rich and famous, Fraser. Especially when you’re willing to do the jobs they won’t do for themselves.’ It came right after she took a cleaning job for someone with money. I’d asked her why she wanted to spend her life wiping up someone else’s mess, but that’s all any job is really. Cleaning up someone else’s shit. Aside from the cleaning job she worked in a bar and part-time in the local laundrette to earn whatever extra cash she could get her hands on. They were all low-skilled jobs, she said, which worked for her because the only skill she had was of no use to her once she’d had me.”

“What skill?”

“She had the most incredible voice,” I said, my voice wistful. “I mean, that woman couldsing.”

“How wonderful.” Charlotte smiled softly. The sight of her just standing there, listening to what I had to say, made my chest pinch. I tried to rub it away; to get a grip of this weird feeling taking over me.

I ran a hand over my eyes, squeezing them shut before I sighed and dropped my hand back to the rail. “Life doesn’t always let us make use of our talents, though, and the guy she ended up cleaning for was Matteo Vega.”

“He treated her badly,” she guessed.

“He sexually assaulted her on more than one occasion, so I’d say so, yeah.”

Charlotte’s hand went to cover her mouth, her sadness and surprise like a knife to my heart as her eyes instantly filled with tears. She cared… for someone she didn’t even know, and that a little sprig of hope bloomed in my chest that good people still existed. People like her.

“At first, he was nice—took care of her, paid her on time, and paid her well. After six months, Mum started to smile more, and it wasn’t because of one of her idiot boyfriends, either. I loved seeing her so content. Ireallyfucking loved it. For the first time in my life, I thought things were going to be all right. We had more money than usual. Matteo used to slip her the odd bonus here and there, and Mum stashed it away in her holiday jar so she could bring me places like this. But suddenly, out of nowhere, that spark in her eyes faded again. Like someone had just flicked a switch and turned her smile off.”

“Fraser, you don’t have to tell me this.”

“I want to,” I said, feeling a weird satisfaction at the weight of my words falling free. I’d held them in my chest and in my head for so long, putting them out there was like taking that first breath after being under water.

Charlotte reached out to slide her hand over mine on the railing. That point of contact encouraged me to go on.

“He was subtle about it, apparently. It began with little things. The odd touch here. An inappropriate comment there. Asking her how much of a bonus she’d need to polish something else while she was on her hands and knees; that sort of thing.” My grip on the metal railing tightened beneath her palm. “But then the talking turned to action, and he put his hands on her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

“Did she stay working for him?”

“For far too long.”

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