“What’s wrong?” Xavier asked her, holding her hands and looking into her eyes tenderly when she got to their seat. She almost fell for the look of concern on his face, but reminded herself he was only worried she would make the plan to fail and not because he cared about her. However, at this point when she now knew that the only people she thought cared about her had actually hated her from the start, she was ready to take anything. “I’m fine,” she said, plastering a smile on her face. “I almost fell down outside.” He nodded, although it was obvious he didn’t quite believe her.“I should have told you about the engagement party. I shouldn’t have just sprung it on you. I’m sorry,” he apologized, thinking that was the reason she was mad. “It’s fine,” she waved her hand and the smile on her face widened. Charlotte felt the opposite way about her engagement now. Nobody felt bad for her after being dumped by her jerk ex-husband but had berated her and praised him for finding someone
The rest of the party went by smoothly and the few people who were allowed to speak to her only congratulated her. No one mentioned what happened the day before with Jonah and she was thankful for that. Unfortunately though, everyone was interested in hearing the story of how they met, who she was, and what family she was from. Charlotte assumed they wanted to know how affluent her family was before she met Xavier. In response to their prodding questions, she just smiled each time and scooted closer to Xavier who faced anyone that questioned her too much. He didn’t have to say anything. Just a stare from him and they were gone immediately. When she wasn’t meeting new people, she was sipping a glass of champagne. Without knowing, she had downed more than five glasses of potent champagne or even more. She didn’t mind. It made her feel freer and soon, she was dancing and not having to attach herself to Xavier like a second skin anymore. At this point, everybody was mixing together an
It took Xavier a short while to realize that his wife to be was no longer close to him. This would be the second time she was disappearing from his side that night. Unfortunately, Carlos, his bodyguard had gone on leave for a few days, so apart from the general guards that were stationed around, no one was particularly looking out for her. The worst imaginations came to his mind. What if something bad had happened to her? She wasn’t used to this kind of life so anything could happen. It was even worse because she had been drinking a little too much. He wanted to stop her, but she seemed less controlled and more comfortable after each drink that he just let her carry on. It had been so easy for him to take her into his home after she fainted the day before. That meant it would equally be as easy for someone else with the wrong intentions. The thought of someone taking her away and doing things to her scared him. If anything bad happened to her. Then the sole aim of doing all of thi
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked him, finally settling on confusion. “I asked you to marry me because you have just as much as I have to lose if the truth behind this arrangement gets out. We’ve both been at the receiving end of being betrayed so right now, you, like me, will want to do this right so we can get what we want without hurting anyone,” he said, “or soiling your name in the process.”She turned away. His words did not relieve her. He chose her particularly because of who she was and what she would stand to lose if she tried to turn against him. He chose her because he believed she wasn’t a trouble-maker, one who would end up becoming greedy and suing him for everything he had. He knew she was afraid of what everyone else thought of her and was willing to use it to his advantage. He hadn’t said those words precisely, but it was easy to deduce the hidden meaning behind them. Charlotte hated how disappointed she felt. She knew what she was getting into when she agreed to
Charlotte had heard him perfectly, yet she asked “What?” “I know you heard what I said, but I’ll repeat it for your sake,” he said, moving closer to her, until she could feel his breath on her neck. She felt her heart dip a little as the rest of her body reacted to him. “I didn’t lie about anything back there. You looked so good, it wouldn’t have made sense if I didn’t kiss you.” “Xavier,” she whispered, knowing they were playing at dangerous waters, yet not wanting it to end. “And guess what,” he continued, taking her warning as a prodding to go further. “You look even better under these lights.” Oh.“So what does that mean?” She challenged, craning her neck for him to have more space. He wasn’t touching her anywhere, was only fanning her neck with his warm breath, yet her body was on fire already. What would happen if he actually touched her? He smiled. She knew because his lips curved up on her neck. “You looked too good to resist back then, but now, you look and smell good e
When Charlotte saw her ex-husband, she was filled with so much hate. He had the guts to show up here, to her engagement party after what he had done to her. And to make it worse, he brought Valerie. She flipped her intricately styled hair and turned away, focusing instead on walking back to her seat with Xavier. Jonah was still there, staring at them but so were the rest of the guests. She felt so irritated, unable to do anything while he watched her. “Why did you invite him?” She asked Xavier. “Invite who?” “Jonah,” she hissed. Even saying his name made her sick. “He’s my nephew,” he answered like that was supposed to make everything make sense at once. “And my ex-husband. If he’s here, people will talk.” “Do you still like him?” Xavier asked drily. “What? Of course not,” she snapped. Why would he ask her that? “Then why do you care if he’s here or not? Just ignore him and he’ll leave with the others.” How could she ignore him when he was glaring at her? When she could fee
Xavier and Charlotte left shortly before the party officially ended. When she got home, all she wanted to do was sleep. It was two hours past midnight when they made it back home and go say she was tired would be an understatement. She took off her clothes and showered quickly, before returning to the room she had converted into a sleeping room. When she lay down on the bed though, sleep refused to come. There was no sound coming from anywhere else. It was just what she had been afraid of. It was way too silent and lonely. She wondered what Xavier was doing in his side of the house. Did he have some extra work he had to do? Was he even in the house? Had he gone to sleep immediately they got home? She wondered if he was thinking about her like she was, thinking about the night they just had. She doubted he replayed their kiss over and over in his head like she did. She didn’t think that thoughts of her kept him up at night. He probably had a whole history of women he had done more w
If Charlotte thought her side of the house was big before, then coming to the main house made her rethink her opinion. It wasn’t the first time she had ever been in the main house, yet it looked way bigger than she remembered. It was truly a mansion in every sense of the word. There were so many rooms she saw while they passed that at some point, she could not longer keep counting. “How many people live here?” She asked the maid when a few minutes later, they still hadn’t reached the appointment room, wherever that was. “Just Mr Roman most of the time,” she answered. “Then what does he need all this rooms for?” She asked a little too loudly. The maid gave her a look. Ugh, she hoped the woman did not think she was complaining because she didn’t live with her husband but somewhere else. She wondered what the woman thought about their relationship. She was almost tempted to ask her if Xavier had ever had such a relationship before, but thought better of it. Whenever she got a phone,