Page 74 of The Bad Wedding Date

“There’s good reason for that. The main one being that I can’t stand you.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

I took a step closer, lowering my voice. “I don’t care what you think or what you have to say, but here and now is not the place. This is where Iwork,Penn. This is my job. I know you and everyone else at that wedding might not get or appreciate that, and quite frankly, I don’t care because Idoget it. I love my life, and while you might think you all get to laugh at me on my sister’s big day, that doesn’t mean you get to track me down, step into my workplace, and laugh at me here.”

“I’m not here to laugh at you, I promise.”

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“To warn you—help you.”

“Warn me about what?” I frowned. “Wait. Let me guess. Is this about Tristan? I need no warnings about him. He’s an arsehole, just like the rest of you, and you can tell him that from me. He’s no chance of winning me over.”

“Jesus, nothing changes with you, does it? You always talk, talk, talk, not letting anyone else get a word in.”

“Screw you.” I folded my arms over my chest in defiance.

“Despite what you think, I’ve changed since you and I were together.”

“Of course you have.”

“I have… at least in some ways. I changed the day Annabelle was born. As much as I loved the life I lived before, I didn’t want her growing up with a father like mine, okay?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that without being colder than I needed to be. Penn’s father had always been the talk of the city for his cheating ways, his scandal in the press with ‘high-class escorts’, and his unwavering ability to destroy other peoples’ lives because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

“Fine. You’ve changed. Great. I’m glad for you, for Annabelle, and for the lady in your life. But that doesn’t give you the right to come into my place of work uninvited and start acting as though you’re interested in anything to do with my life. It’s been six years, Penn. Six years!”

“I don’t understand it, no. Why you’d want to do this,”—he gestured all around us—“when your parents are who they are, is beyond me, but that’s not what this visit is about. I’m not here to bash my head against a brick wall, Charlotte. I’m here to tell you what I heard at the wedding last night after you’d gone.”

I scowled. “What?”

“There were some men there. Security, I think.” He ran a hand through his hair again, something he’d always done when he’d been caught out or was nervous as hell. “This is going to sound a little fucked up, but they didn’t know I was in one of the bathroom cubicle’s doing a line.” He rolled his eyes to himself. “Don’t judge me. It is what it is. But I’d put my feet on top of the seat for a little privacy in case anyone came in. I heard two guys talking about you, so I stayed quiet.”

“What were they saying?”

“About how they knew where you worked and that they’d be sure to pay you a visit to find out who the guy you were with was. I don’t know what that man of yours is messed up in, Lott, but it sounded like they wanted to, you know…” He tilted his head. “Have a not so quiet word with him or something.” Penn paused. “Who is he?”

“A friend.” I stared up at him in confusion. “Although I’m not sure why you seem to care about my life all of a sudden or my safety.”

“I can’t be concerned about you?”

I raised my brows, waiting for him to tell me why he’d really dragged his arse here.

His eyes searched mine. “You looked good yesterday.”

I ran a hand over my forehead, and half turned away from him. “Oh, Jesus.” I laughed. “You’ve changed. Yeah, right.”

“Hey, just because we’re not together anymore, it doesn’t mean I want to see you getting swept up by some criminal you don’t really know anything about. I don’t want to see you end up in trouble.”

“Criminal? Really?”

“I know what I heard. I know what I saw in him, too. Guys like that… they don’t work in an office, Charlotte.”

“Thank God for that. Let’s save the pretentious jobs for you and your rich little pencil pusher pals, shall we? Let the criminals and low lives be the ones to get their hands dirty.”

“That’s not fair. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

“Imagine if you’d have cared enough about those sorts of things when we’d been together instead of being too busy sticking your dick in anything with a pulse whenever we were apart.”

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