“Oh, my gosh. You should also see Tahlia. She took part in a talent show the other day and she decided to be a mime. It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”
Immediately picking her phone up again, she scrolled through her gallery and proceeded to show me more videos ofthe girls. Charlotte herself was in some of them, chasing after them during a fun day or posing with them after getting them ready for prom or some other event.
I learned more about her in a couple hours than I’d ever known, and I’d known this girl for a damn long time. We finally left the coffee shop together, walking side by side. Charlotte’s hands were wrapped around her coffee cup and she was still talking a mile a minute.
She had a way of filling the air with her stories and little observations about the people around us, and I found myself listening without interrupting, letting her voice pull me along.
“You know,” she said after a story about one of the girls in her Big Sister program. “It’s exhausting, but it’s so worth it. Even when they’re driving me completely insane.”
I shook my head slightly, grinning. “Keep talking at your own risk. Your energy is so contagious that you’re making me feel like I should be doing something productive with my life instead of just managing bulls and pasture schedules.”
She laughed, glancing up at me. “Bulls and pastures? That sounds epic. You’ve got some real cowboy stuff going on, huh?”
“Except for the part where the rugged cowboy now also has to deal with corporate finance and shipping logistics.”
She tilted her head, studying me. “Wait, so is that why you’re in Chicago?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. I’d rather keep hearing about your stuff. I just thought I should warn you that if you keep talking, I might show up there tomorrow.”
Suddenly, she stopped walking. “Shit, I’ve been talking your ear off and I just realized I haven’t even asked what you’re doing here. Whatareyou doing here?”
Before I could give her some brief version of what Alex and I were planning, her phone rang. As if his ears had been burning, I saw his name on her screen. She winced slightly. “I should go.”
“I understand,” I said. “It was good talking to you, Charlotte.”
“Yeah, you too, Trent.” She slid her thumb across the screen and turned, ducking into the flow of pedestrians and disappearing.
As the city swallowed her up, I felt my chest tighten and I wondered why my heart was pounding faster than it had for a long time. Finally turning to go in the opposite direction, I shook my head at myself.
This was ridiculous. I barely knew her, and on top of that, she was Alex’s little sister and Jameson’s baby cousin. There was absolutely no way anything could ever happen between us, and yet, somehow, I already couldn’t get her out of my head.
CHAPTER 9
CHARLOTTE
When I walked into the dining room for dinner, I froze. Usually, I ate here alone. Sometimes, one or more of my brothers would join me, but our father rarely did. He was almost always out or at the club.
Tonight, however, he was sitting at the table with a glass of wine in his hand, looking unusually expectant. I was used to seeing that look on his face when my brothers were around. Particularly Alex, but I didn’t think I had ever been on the receiving end of it.
“Charlotte,” he said when he noticed me. He smiled and waved me into the same chair I sat in every night. “Good of you to join me, honey.”
“Yeah, of course.” I cleared my throat and gracefully sank into the chair one of the servers pulled out for me at the table.
That was different too. They knew they didn’t need to be around when it was only me. I could pull out my own chair and dish up my own food. But it looked like we were fully staffed tonight.
Someone else came out to pour a glass of wine for me while Edda, the housekeeper who’d been with us since I’d been a baby,brought out our appetizers. She smiled warmly, but there was a resignation in her eyes I didn’t quite know what to do with.
“Here you go, darling,” she said quietly. “It’s my grilled salmon. I even made that sauce you like with it.”
I blinked a few times rapidly, returned her smile, and watched as she hurried out of the room. The salmon with her special sauce was usually reserved for my birthdays or graduations. My brothers weren’t partial to it and Dad didn’t mind it but he was here so rarely that his vote didn’t often count.
Edda knew everything that was going on in our house, though. Between this, Dad waiting for me, and Alex acting so weird recently, I had just enough time to get to full-blown suspicion before Dad came straight out with it.
“We need to talk, Charlotte,” he said, his fingers laced together on the table and his sharp blue gaze intent on mine. “What do you think of Gregory Van Allen?”
A half-nervous, half-surprised giggle came out of me. “Gregory? I don’t know. I’ve only met the guy twice.”
“Yes, but surely you must’ve formed an opinion about him.” Dad kept staring right at me in a way he hadn’t done for a very, very long time. This kind of scrutiny came my way even less often than the expectation. “Come now. Tell me. What do you think of him?”
