He didn’t finish.
Because Charlie stepped closer, and the space between them shrank to something dangerous.
“I don’t work here,” Charlie said calmly. “But I don’t need a paycheck to call out a predator.”
Marshall scoffed. “This is rich. You think you know something?”
“I know what cornering a woman looks like,” Charlie replied. “And I know what fear smells like.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said, voice quiet but firm. “But I am done.”
Marshall turned to me, mouth opening, but I raised a hand.
“I came in here to get away from you, Marshall. Not to relive every manipulative second of our relationship. You don’t get to hijack this moment. You don’t get to hijack me.”
Something flickered in his eyes—hurt or fury or both.
He reached for my wrist.
Charlie moved faster.
He caught Marshall’s arm mid-air, grip tight enough to turn knuckles white.
“Don’t,” he said.
One word. Deadly.
Marshall yanked his hand back like he’d been burned.
“This is ridiculous,” he spat, adjusting his collar like the problem was a wrinkle and not his personality. “You two deserve each other.”
He stormed out, blazer flapping, ego limping behind him.
Silence fell, thick as the tension that still clung to the walls.
I didn’t speak.
Neither did Charlie.
Finally, I broke the silence. “You’re him.”
His head tilted slightly, trying to piece together whatever puzzle I’d just spilled across the floor.
I stepped closer, every nerve raw.
He wasn’t just the man from the ball.
He was the one who’d picked me up from the airport in a beat-up truck and a T-shirt, quiet and unreadable, while I’d sat in the passenger seat silently judging him. I’d assumed he was blue-collar, beneath me.
And yet—he was also the man who’d arrived at Lydia Langford’s masquerade in a helicopter.
The man who’d left without a word after wrecking my body and my sense of reality.
The man who stepped in on King Street like violence was second nature and protection was instinct.
The same man. All of them.
And I had no idea who the hell he actually was.
