Chapter 4
Charlie wasn’t sure where this date had gone off the rails. Maybe it was when she walked out of her front door, looking stricken by the sight of him. Her fear had thrown him. The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid. Maybe it had been a mistake insisting that she go out to dinner with him before signing off on an annulment. She did look gorgeous, but she’d winced when he told her so. She seemed to be the only woman he’d met in the last few years who vexed him completely.
He had trouble forming whole sentences around her. His palms were sweaty, and not getting a hard-on when touching her lower back had been a feat. He was never this uncouth. After his ex told the whole world that he was a terrible lover, he’d tried to re-build his reputation. Never a dissatisfied customer.
But he had a formula, and he purposefully never talked about anything controversial. Nothing that could get too deep. And that was why none of his relationships ended up very deep.
He’d thought he liked it that way.
And then she had to go and ask about his family. The people who thought he was a commitment-phobic dilettante. His older brothers and his parents thought that moving to Miami had been all about putting off growing up. In reality, it had been the opposite. He wanted to settle down and have roots somewhere. But he didn’t want his roots to be underneath the stifling canopy of being a Laughlin in Chicago. His father’s reputation was so overpowering and lofty that it would always overshadow anything that Charlie did.
Her asking about them hit a nerve, and he was at a loss for how to respond.
Instead of trying and failing to make conversation during the rest of the ride to the restaurant, he brooded about his family instead. Laura sat with a serene demeanor, having no idea that she’d picked at something that had been bothering him his whole life.
His father’s shadow didn’t bother Jack, Danny, Sean, Jamie, and Michael as much. But it bothered Charlie. He wanted something of his own. And what he did might not be important journalism, but he liked the programs he was working on right now. He was letting people travel without leaving their living rooms.
He snuck a look at Laura through his peripheral vision. She was goddamned gorgeous. Elegant and utterly appealing. If she hadn’t been drunk the night of Jonah’s wedding, she never would have looked twice at him. She was the kind of woman who married a shady billionaire, not a bro from Chicago who owed his career to his dad.
He’d thought he would meet the right woman once he moved down here. Someone different from the women his mother thought he should be connected with—rather who his mother thought the family should be connected with.
He never thought he’d accidentally get married to a woman like Laura—gorgeous, talented, even Catholic—his mother would be over the moon. Except they weren’t going to be married for long. She didn’t want him, and that was a knife, deep in his gut.
When they got inside the restaurant, the maître d’ showed them to a table near the corner of the roof. He’d asked for a private table because Laura had seemed hesitant about being seen in public with him. He’d wanted to bring her here because he’d heard her when she’d said that she didn’t get many nights off, and he wanted to take her someplace special. He had to balance that against her desire to keep their brief marital affiliation private. Taking her out—even if that meant showing her off—had won out.
But when they sat down, it felt like a business meeting. Especially so when she reached into her purse and pulled out papers. Heat crept up his neck, and he clenched his jaw. This wasn’t a real marriage, and he should be surprised that she wanted out of it as quickly as possible. Still, he couldn’t help but feel rejected. He didn’t have to feel that way very often anymore—not unless he visited his family.
He chose to ignore the gauntlet she’d thrown down, disguised as some folded up sheets of paper. Instead, he picked up the menu. “The food’s good here. Do you like scallops?”
Laura ignored him and pushed the papers over. “You should look these over—have a lawyer look at them before you sign anything.”
Charlie looked up and stared into her inscrutable, nearly black, gaze. “Do you have a pen?”
She didn’t look away, but rooted around in her purse for a few moments, pulling out a black pen. He placed the menu carefully over his table setting, wanting to toss it instead. He opened the sheaf of papers, aware of her watching him the whole time. Not taking the time to read the document, he signed and dated the bottom and pushed them back at her.
He didn’t know why it bothered him so much that she’d brought the annulment papers out to dinner. In fact, he’d kind of expected it. She didn’t want to be married to him. They didn’t know each other, and he could almost feel her disdain toward him in the air when they were together. There was just some part of him that wanted to tap back into the kind of passion she’d had when she’d let go and danced with him the night of the wedding. He wanted more of that reckless abandon, that unfettered lust. Despite her cold exterior, he had the feeling that the woman he’d met in Bali was more of the real her, and he might be the only person who cared to coax her out.
The icy ballerina served everyone else—the ballet company, her family, even the dancer herself sometimes. But he couldn’t shake the notion that she’d zeroed in on him for a reason, goaded him into doing shots with her for a reason, married him for a reason. He just had to keep her hanging out with him long enough to find out.
“So, do you like scallops?”
* * * *
“You should really look that over carefully.” For a moment, when he looked at her over their annulment papers, she’d thought he wouldn’t sign them. There’d been so much anger and hurt in his gaze that guilt had rolled her stomach for a second. And then he’d signed them, pushed them away as though they were distasteful and asked her what she’d wanted for dinner as though nothing had happened. It was as though the pain shining out of him no longer existed.
He wanted to act like this was a normal date?
“Why do I need to look them over carefully? Did I just sign over a kidney?”
“No, we each keep what’s ours.”
He looked up from the menu again, this time a crooked smile on his face. His mouth was so fucking sexy. She wanted to taste him again. Wanted to pull his full lower lip in between her teeth and know she had him at her mercy. She wanted to roll around in the smell of him and fuck him. She’d never been quite so driven by the need to fuck as she was when she was around Charlie. She was a physical person, and he was objectively gorgeous—simply a well put together human—but there was something about him that drove her absolutely crazy.
She could almost understand marrying him impulsively if she were anyone else, if she hadn’t trained the spontaneity out of herself with brutal, ruthless precision.
When she didn’t stop looking at him, he winked at her, and her sex flooded. He was lethal and she would do well to forget it. She would have a nice, civilized meal with him. Keep it light—first and last date talk—and go home. She might run into him if she was hanging out with Carla and Jonah, but she didn’t hang out so her exposure to him would be limited.
She cleared her throat and looked down at her menu. Everything looked delicious. She wanted to order everything and take a bite of each dish. But that would be decadent, and she doubted her pas de deux partner would appreciate the overindulgence at rehearsal tomorrow. So she went forward as she hoped to move on with someone as scary-sexy as Charlie, she stayed safe.
“I think I’m going to get the salmon.”
* * * *
It was the worst first date that Charlie had ever been on. Awkward silences, stilted small talk, and an overly attentive server who had the gall to flirt with his date set his teeth on edge. Of course, the waiter recognized Laura. Being a ballerina was not like being a pop star, but she was a principal dancer and gorgeous to boot.
He really shouldn’t blame her for indulging the guy, but he wouldn’t fucking leave them alone, stomping all over his last nerve. But Charlie couldn’t help but want her to smile at him that way. There was no way he could charm his wife into dating him if she refused to pay him any attention.
The only saving grace was getting to watch her eat. He’d been prepared for her to complain or order something boring and healthy off menu, but surprised him. She made noises when taking the first bite and the second which curled around his dick like one of her soft hands, making it hard for him to breathe.
“Is something wrong with your dish, sir?”
Charlie shook his head, hoping to clear some of the filthy shit in his head. “No. It’s delicious.”
He put another bite of steak into his mouth, but it tasted like nothing compared to the memory of almost having Laura Delgado. Of having her panting and moaning and begging for him to finish her off. He wondered if she would let herself go like that again, or if Bali was a one-time thing. He wondered if she could give herself over, or if she’d suffered the same temporary insanity that had taken him.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, the waiter left to see to his other tables.
“Why are you so grumpy?” Laura winked at him. “I agreed to have dinner with you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you agreed to have dinner with me.” Why was he being such an asshole? He wasn’t usually an asshole. Or, at least he tried not to be. “Not the fucking waiter.”
“Jealous?”
“And if I was?” He looked at her purse, where she’d tucked in the annulment papers.
“You’re not my real husband.”
Of course, the waiter picked that moment to come back and refill their waters for the umpteenth time. The way he stumbled and just saved himself from spilling ice water all over their food gave it away. Along with his red face.
Laura blanched and Charlie’s collar seemed to tighten although he had the first two buttons on his shirt undone. They all stared at each other in a long, awkward silence.
“I’ll have another glass of wine, please.” Her request surprised him. He would have expected her to cut their evening off right there. Instead, she was volunteering to spend more time with him.
“Right away Ms.—ahem—Mrs.”
“It’s just Ms.” Laura flipped her hair over her shoulder in flirty gesture towards the waiter. “And he’s not my husband.”
He completely understood what she was trying to do, and he ought to have backed her up. But he hated her saying that he wasn’t her husband.
“Whatever you say.”
After the waiter hurried away, Laura turned off all that flirty light she’d been using on the other guy. “This is why having dinner was a bad idea.”
“Seriously, why is it so bad that some guy thinks you’re married to me?” Charlie honestly didn’t get it. It wasn’t like she’d be the only married dancer in the company. After she’d stormed into the editing room, he’d done some research. One of the other principal dancers—the guy who partnered with Laura most often according to the website—was married, too. And to a man, so Charlie felt a little less jealous about his hands all over her.
“It’s just a bad time for me in my career for this to happen.”
Maybe she was worried because she didn’t remember the wedding night? Maybe she thought that he’d lied to her about that?
He guessed the evening couldn’t get any more awkward, so he ought to clear it up. “Nothing happened the night of the wedding. You’re not pregnant.”
Again, she blanched. “I didn’t think I was.” She sighed. “But the possibility that I could be. That I could even be thinking about it is enough to doom my career.”
“Everyone raves about your performances.” He gestured towards the bar, where the waiter was presumably fetching her wine. “The waiter was practically singing you an ode earlier.”
She looked down before saying, “But I want more.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to move to New York. I want to dance for the New York City Ballet before I retire.”
“New York sucks.” Charlie hated New York. On principal because he was a Chicagoan at heart. And practically, he hated how crowded and impersonal the city was. He much preferred Miami, with its color and more chill vibe. “Why would you want to live there when you could live here?”
“But it’s the best company in the country, and I’ve always wanted it.” She threw down her fork, and it rattled against the plate. “Haven’t you ever wanted more? Better?”
He’d moved here because he’d wanted to prove something—to his parents and himself. He’d wanted to get out from underneath the shadow cast by his father’s reputation and build something of his own. Moving to New York he could have done that. But he’d wanted something smaller, that he could control without having to take heart medication. He didn’t want a sprawling media empire; he wanted freedom. But, based on what she was telling him, she wanted bigger, brighter lights.
Disappointment made its way through his system, and not for the first time that night. He’d expected the date to be fun and light. Instead, she’d just revealed the core of why the two of them were doomed before the accidental wedding—they wanted different things.
If he were a mature, sane adult, he’d pay the check and drive Laura home. He’d call her next week and make sure the papers were filed without problems and pretend that none of this ever happened. She’d move to New York, and he wouldn’t see her for a few years. By then, this whole sham marriage would be a faded memory. Hell, maybe they’d be able to laugh about it.
But part of him wouldn’t allow him to do the adult thing. He wanted Laura, wanted to be around her. It was inexplicable and irritating because she clearly didn’t feel the same way. Though, his dick and maybe his heart wouldn’t take her reluctance for an answer.
“I want more with a lot of things.” Her. He wanted more with her.
“And I’d bet you don’t let anything get in your way when you want those things.”
She had him there. “Nope.”
“And you don’t want to stand in the way of me getting what I want, do you?”
He was totally honest with her—if not with himself—when he said, “I want you to get everything you want in life.”
She gave him a beguiling half-smile. “And if I can’t get that because I married you?”
“I’d feel terrible about that, and that’s why I signed those papers.”
“But you’re not happy about it.”
The air changed between them when she left those words hanging there. No, he wasn’t happy about annulling the marriage. He was man enough to know that it was the right thing to do, but his ego was fragile enough to chafe at the fact that this girl didn’t like him.
She was right, he was a driven guy, and he always got what he wanted. He just appeared to be laid back about everything. There was more of his father inside him than he’d ever admit out loud.
She saw right through him, and that’s what got him about her. He’d always loved women who gave him shit; there was no better way to get his dick hard, if he were being completely honest. And this woman didn’t even let him get away with polite shit when it would be appropriate.
So, he decided to push her back. She thought she knew his MO, but she was wrong about him. If only he had the chance to show her that. They connected on a sexual level, and maybe that was something he could work with.
“No, I don’t like it.” He shrugged, trying to seem cool. “I’m kind of disappointed that I’ll never get to fuck my wife.”