Page 87 of The Bad Wedding Date

I raised a brow. “A business transaction.”

“Yep.”

“You can’t possibly believe that.” I scowled.

“Why not? EveryloveI’ve ever known has been that way. It’s fact. Science, almost.” She turned her head on the pillow to face me. “And you don’t get to argue with science.”

“Right.”

“You don’t believe in science?”

“I’ll believe whatever you tell me is true.”

“Why would you do that? You’ve only known me three days.”

“Sometimes all a person needs are three minutes to know that the face they’re looking at won’t ever lie to them. You’re a three-minute kind of woman, Charlotte.”

Her cheeks flushed almost instantly, and her eyes searched mine again, seeking out a lie I assumed she had always seen in the eyes of everyone else who’d ever said something that meant a damn thing to her.

“But…” I began, “I’m going to need you to tell me why you think love is nothing but a myth.”

She blew out another breath. “Erm. Well, I suppose it started when I was young—really young. I used to read a lot. Romance seemed to be a part of every story, no matter the genre. It was always there, either in the forefront or background, whether a horror, thriller, or crime novel, so it became this expected thing in my life. Something I’d get no matter how much I did or didn’t want it. Like a wisdom tooth, you know. But as I grew older and saw things clearer, I began to realise how wrong I’d been. No high school Romeo was going to walk down the corridor, accidentally knock into me and sweep me off my feet. I saw that love in life didn’t work like it did in fiction. It was a transaction. A business deal. A convenience for whoever was involved. A top high school athlete dating the popular girl in school made both their lives interesting and easy, even if that athlete secretly preferred the nerdy girl the rest of the crowd ignored. A well to do woman marrying a businessman who could keep her in the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed.” She shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Most declarations of love are nothing more than a way to climb the ladder or maintain social status, and so, in a bid to be a part of… something… I agreed to date Penn when I was sixteen and didn’t know any better. I did it to keep everyone else happy. To be a part of the easy life. To at leasttrythe convenient kind of love.” Her eyes dropped down to my chest for a moment. “And guess what?”

“It sucked.”

She nodded. “Itsucked.”

“Did you love him at all? Even in the convenient kind of way?”

“No. He irritated me. He made me feel small when I should have been growing tall, both literally and metaphorically.”

“Can’t forget metaphorically.” I smirked, and her eyes rose to meet mine again.

“We all make mistakes, right?”

“Some of us more than others.”

“Have you ever been in love, Fraser?”

I paused, my eyes narrowing a little as I took her in. There were so many answers I could give, but instead of giving her the long version of the story and risking her getting up and walking out on me, I decided to give her the truth in as few words as possible. “Not properly, no.”

“That sounds like there’s a story to tell. Don’t worry. I won’t pry. We all have spaces in our hearts that no one else can sit in but us.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You should know that, for a stranger I’ve only just met, I do like you, though,” she whispered. “You’re far less irritating than most men I’ve encountered.”

“I like you, too, Charlotte.”

“Show me.”

It was all the instruction I needed. I wasted no time in leaning over for a kiss, my finger still stroking her skin tenderly. She took my kiss without pause or fight, her arms still by her side as she let me play with her body however I deemed fit.

In the cold light of day, sex with Charlotte was somehow impossibly better than the night before, and I took my time once inside her, staring down into those big round eyes that I could tell had shed too many tears over the years, and held far too many more back.

I hadn’t lied to her when I said that she was the kind of woman a man could trust from the very start. She held innocence and truth in her every feature. A purity of personality so rare in this world, it seemed mad to me that she hadn’t been scooped up by a thousand willing men and proposed to a million times over.

I held her head as I watched her eyes flutter, her lips part, and those breaths grow wilder with me inside her. When she came, it didn’t take me long to follow, and the two of us stayed staring at each other, lost in this thing of ours which was never meant to be.

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