The winter sky was already turning to dusk as Greg, his mother, and his fiancée approached the revolving glass doors in the lobby.
“Am I driving with you?” Rita inquired, pausing at the sidewalk just before the reserved parking section, where Greg’s black sedan was seated in its usual spot.
Greg hesitated. He needed time with Charlotte: time to prepare her, time to get facts straight. “If you wouldn’t mind taking my car, I’d like to ride with Charlotte.”
Rita frowned. “Why don’t I just call a driver?”
“Because I need my car back at the house tonight, and Charlotte and I took separate cars here,” Greg explained. “If I had known you were going to change your travel plans, I would have personally picked you up from the airport this morning.”
Rita smiled and patted his arm, and for a moment, Greg felt shaken. When she wanted to be, his mother could be sweet, even a little nurturing. But those moments were sporadic, usually leaving him unnerved when she reverted back to her hard self so quickly.
“Give me the keys.” Rita sighed as Greg handed them over. “I suppose I should let you two lovebirds have some time alone,” she added, but something in her tone seemed forced, reminding him his mother didn’t really care if he was engaged or not. All she cared about was appearance. And Greg being engaged was convenient for her.
Idly, he wondered if she would be okay with the fake engagement, the pretense of something real for show. So long as it met the end goal, he couldn’t see her having an issue…He stopped himself. This was not a time to be taking risks. His mother was fired up, frazzled over her impending retirement and likely to do something rash on her way out the door. On the off chance they didn’t land the Burke’s account, his last hope of taking over as CEO was having Charlotte at his side until it was safe to let her go.
Let her go. He didn’t like the sound of that.
Greg continued to watch his mother until she slipped into the car and turned on the headlights. He turned to Charlotte. “Where’s your car?”
They hurried over the pavement, still slick despite the dusting of salt, in silence. Only the tapping of Charlotte’s heels against the concrete could be heard echoing through the darkening evening, or the occasional beep of a car lock in the distance. Finally they slowed, and Charlotte stopped in front of her car.
Her car. Greg closed his eyes and counted to five. He had completely forgotten in the chaos of everything that Charlotte drove a beat-up navy sedan that was at least twenty years old and looked it.
He dragged his hands over his face and held them there. This couldn’t be happening. A fiancée was one thing. A fiancée his mother didn’t approve of was another. Charlotte was a middle-class Misty Point local. He could just imagine how his mother would respond to that.
Luckily for him, she wouldn’t have a chance. This was a fake engagement, he reminded himself. And his mother didn’t have to know anything about the real Charlotte.
Not that she would have any interest, anyway.
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked, unlocking the driver’s side with a turn of her key.
“Nothing. Let’s just get in.”
Charlotte frowned but didn’t argue as she slid into the driver’s seat and reached over to pop the lock on his side. Greg rolled back on his heels and began wandering around the back of the car to the passenger door when he spotted it. Amongst the overflowing loot from the Frost warehouse was the car seat, sitting proud and confident, as brazen as a throne.
His breath caught. The baby!
Greg quickly swept his eyes over the parking lot, past the people straggling from the office, shoulders slumped, wearily walking to their cars. There was no sign of his car or his mother. She’d probably already pulled out and was on her way. Hopefully.
But just in case…
Greg opened the back door and reached over the wrapping paper rolls to the car seat, clutching it in two hands. He tugged hard, but it didn’t budge. He gave it a little shake. Still nothing.
“What the hell are you doing?” Charlotte cried from the front seat.
“We can’t let my mother see this,” he said firmly. He jostled the giant plastic thing a little more. Still nothing.
He had started to sweat. Little beads of perspiration dotted his forehead, and the air in the car suddenly felt stale and thick, despite the cold temperature. He pulled back, straightening his back. He had to get a grip. This was his mother, after all. His mother. He should be able to have an honest relationship with her. He should be able to appeal to the side of her that loved him and cared for him and had raised him.
But then, she had barely raised him. The nanny had.
He slammed the back door shut and opened the front, sliding into the passenger seat. “Sorry,” he said.
After a pause, Charlotte said, “Here. We’ll cover it with this blanket.” She leaned over the armrest and, from the floor on the backseat, retrieved a purple baby blanket that she draped over the car seat like a tarp. Greg watched all of this with an increasing level of doubt, but there was nothing more he could say. His mother had seen her. The Burke’s team had seen her. She was it. His future wife.
He grinned. He could have done a hell of a lot worse.
Charlotte turned to him, her green eyes sharp as she reached for her seat belt. “Better?”
Greg glanced in the direction of his reserved parking spot. It was empty. “We need to beat my mother to the house,” he said. “Take the back roads instead of the highway.”
“Yes, boss,” she replied, but she was grinning.
Greg settled back against the headrest as Charlotte pulled out of the parking lot, both hands gripping the steering wheel as she peered straight ahead. It had started to snow, and she flicked on the windshield wipers. Christmas music bleated through the speakers.
“So, that was a surprise,” Charlotte finally spoke. She chuckled softly, but there was an undercurrent of tension in her voice. “I assumed I was just going to the warehouse, picking out decorations. I had no idea Stacy would bring me into the office to show me photos from last year’s party.”
He would have to talk to Stacy immediately. She was discreet—everyone at the company was—but there was no doubt that gossip this juicy would fly through the office like a swarm of bees in a hive. He didn’t think she’d overheard the conversation between Charlotte, his mother, and the Burke’s team, but one could never be too careful, and the last thing he needed was his mother discovering through casual conversation that Charlotte had been introduced to Stacy as the event planner. One misstep and the entire plan would be a bust.
“Fair enough. I had no idea my mother would invite herself over to the house. She doesn’t like to come there.”
“Bad memories?”
Greg had never thought of it that way. “Perhaps,” he mused.
“I take it you two don’t get along?”
Greg considered this statement carefully. “It isn’t that we don’t get along. More that we aren’t very close.”
Silence fell over the car as they joined the traffic nearing the next set of lights. Greg shifted in his seat, agitated. At this rate, they would never get back to the house first. And it would be just his luck if Rita was standing at the garage, shivering in the cold, greeting them when they pulled up the driveway. Hopefully she brought her keys or Marlene was there to let her in.
“We need to talk about tonight. Where’s Audrey right now?”
“With the sitter,” Charlotte explained.
“Good. Hopefully she can stay a few extra hours, through dinner. Let’s call ahead and make sure there isn’t any evidence when we walk in.”
There was a long pause. “She stayed at the sitter’s apartment today, so she didn’t make a mess in your home. I’m sorry that my daughter is such a problem for you.”
Aw, damn. He hadn’t meant it like that. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly, hoping she believed the truth in his words. “Right now all I can think about is pulling this charade off. I’d rather not complicate things or bring your daughter into it. That’s all.”
Charlotte nodded. “I understand. Frankly, I’d rather my daughter not be used as a pawn in this scheme.”
“Then we’re in agreement.”
“So what do you need me to say?” Charlotte asked. She took a right turn at the light. They’d be in Misty Point in twenty-five minutes if they didn’t hit more traffic.
“As little as possible,” Greg said. His mother would have just as little personal interest in his fiancée as a person as she did her own son; chances were high that conversation could be controlled. “Just stick to the story we agreed on.”
“Did your mother ever meet your last fiancée?” Charlotte asked. “The real one?”
Greg felt his jaw tighten. “Maybe once. When we were dating. I doubt she gave it much thought, though.”
“But you told her when you proposed?”
Greg didn’t like talking about Rebecca. “In passing. I don’t think she connected the details.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said softly.
“Don’t be. It’s just the way my mother is.” In a way, he was fortunate she hadn’t cared to get to know Rebecca. If she had, he’d be in more trouble now than he already was.
Charlotte turned up the music and tapped her thumb against the steering wheel as a Christmas carol blared over the speaker, and with a flicker of panic, Greg glanced at her nails, relieved to see that she had finally scraped off the remnants of that purple polish. One less thing to worry about, at least.
His mother had to like Charlotte. Or, better put, she had to not dislike her.
Rebecca, he knew, would have immediately impressed his mother. She was cool as a cat, tall and blond with ice-blue eyes and professionally maintained hair. She dressed and spoke impeccably, and more than that, she knew how to hold her own with the likes of Rita Frost.
Maybe it was because she was so much like her, he realized, chagrined.
But Charlotte was different. Charlotte was beautiful in a more wholesome, natural way. Her appearance wasn’t store-bought or artificial, and when she talked, she said what she meant.
Charlotte was almost exactly the kind of woman he would have proposed to, if a few circumstances, like the fact that she had a baby, were different.
Strange then, how the person who until recently had truly been his fiancée wasn’t anything like Charlotte. At least, not in any way that mattered.