From the corner of my vision, movement—Quentin, stepping silently out of the shadows beneath the portico, arms folded, watchful but not intervening.
Charlie clocked him with a single glance and nodded once, acknowledging the silent sentinel before turning fully back to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough. “I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”
“You didn’t just leave,” I said. “You vanished.”
“I needed time to think,” he said. “To keep from doing something reckless.”
“Like what?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached out, fingers brushing my arm, then sliding down to take my hand. The contact was electricity. It melted every defense I’d rebuilt in his absence.
“I saw Marshall tonight,” he said quietly.
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“He followed me,” he said. “To a bar on Shem Creek. Walked in like he owned the place.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted me to back off. Said you were his. Said some dangerous people have a special interest in your mother.”
The blood drained from my face. “He threatened you?”
Charlie’s mouth twitched. “He threatened everyone. You. Me. Your whole goddamn family. All while acting like he was too good for the place.”
I swayed slightly. He caught me.
“He said something about a marriage of convenience. You and him. Like you’re part of some deal.”
I stiffened, bile rising. “That’s insane.”
“He spelled your name out, Sloane,” Charlie said, jaw tight. “Like he was branding it. Like it already belonged to him. It doesn’t.”
I pulled back slightly, heat rising in my chest. “I don’t even live in Charleston. I have my own life. My own business. My ownplace in Palm Beach with a view of the damn ocean and a staff I hired myself. I didn’t claw my way out of this city just to be pulled back in like some pawn in a deal I never agreed to.”
Charlie’s eyes didn’t waver. “I know. That’s why this pisses me off so much.”
“Look,” I said, shaking my head. “My parents wouldn’t?—”
Charlie pulled me in then, arms firm around my waist, grounding me against his chest. “Something’s not right here. Something big. I think it goes way beyond what your mother told you.”
I buried my face in his shirt, his heartbeat thundering against my cheek.
“I believe you,” I said. “I do. But if what you’re saying is true—then my whole life, my family—it’s not what I thought.”
Charlie leaned back just enough to look me in the eyes. “That’s why I need to talk to her. Your mother.”
I tensed. “Charlie?—”
“I need to know the truth,” he said, voice steel. “About her and my father. About why they think they can trade you like property.”
I nodded slowly, heart pounding. “She’s in the solarium. Drinking gin like it’s 1952.”
His lips curved, barely. “Of course, she is.”
We stood there a beat longer. His hand came up, fingers threading into my hair, eyes burning into mine.
