The problem wasn’t the kiss itself. It was that I wanted another one—and so much more. I’d spent the entire flight stealing glances at him, staring at the curve of his mouth, the dark stubble shadowing his jaw, and the way his forearms flexed when he shifted in his seat, and trying to remind myself that this wasn’t real.
Feelings weren’t part of the deal. I was a grown woman with a functioning brain, not a hormonal teenager imprinting on her fake boyfriend, but none of that mattered now because as soon as we deplaned everything moved fast.
Two black sedans idled at the bottom of the jet bridge. Men in suits waited with clipboards and earpieces like we were entering witness protection. My father’s drivers, different in every way to those my brothers and I preferred.
“Charlotte,” one said with a polite nod. “Your father asked that we bring you home.”
Trent stiffened beside me. It was nothing dramatic. He didn’t fling his arms in front of me to prevent them from pulling me with them, but I still felt it.
“Mr. Shepard,” the other man said. “Alex is expecting you at his offices.”
“Now?” I asked, turning and shaking my head. “Can’t we?—”
Trent’s jaw flexed once before he masked it. “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”
But it wasn’t fine. He looked like a man being pulled away from a fire he wanted to understand before it burned everything down. When he glanced at me, there was something conflicted and rough in his eyes. “I’ll call you.”
It was a lie. I could hear it. He knew it too. I opened my mouth to say something, but he was swept away to the waiting car before I could get a word out, his shoulders broad, his posture tight, and then he disappeared behind tinted glass before I could take a single step after him.
I stood there for a moment like an idiot with my heart thundering and my brain struggling to catch up, but my driver cleared his throat. “Miss?”
Right. Home. Whatever that means for me right now.
The city blurred past the windows as the car wound its way through familiar streets toward the house I’d grown up in. My stomach churned the whole ride. Whatever Alex had discovered, whatever thisbad newswas, it had rattled Trent.
Which rattled me.
By the time we pulled into the circular driveway, my chest felt too small for my lungs. When my father opened the front door before the driver could even knock, it got even worse.
“Charlotte,” Dad said, smiling in a relieved, slightly too warm way that told me he’d been worried I wouldn’t come. “Good, you’re here. Come in.”
I followed him inside, dropping my bag by the stairs. He didn’t waste time. “Let’s talk in my office, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. Uh oh.
That was the tone he used when shit was about to hit the fan but he was trying to soften the blow. My heels clicked down the hallway as he led me to his office, the same room where he’d negotiated millions of dollars in deals, grounded me for sneaking out at sixteen, and warned me not towaste my talentat least fifty times.
If we were talking in here, I’d been right to be rattled. He closed the door behind us and turned to me, and a fresh wave of dread rolled down my spine when his gaze met mine. Something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
He gestured for me to sit, but I stayed standing, muttering a quick, lame excuse. “Thanks, but I just got off the plane. I’ve been sitting for too long.”
“Very well.” He strode around his desk and sat down, folding his arms on the polished wooden top and looking at me like he was about to deliver a verdict. “Do you understand why our family arranges marriages, Charlotte?”
The question was so expected, so rehearsed, that it almost made me laugh.Almost. “Yes, I understand. It’s about legacy and stability. Partnerships that strengthen the family. I’ve been hearing the speech since I learned how to walk, Daddy.”
He nodded, obviously satisfied with my answer. “It worked for your Uncle Harlan. Look at his boys. Four marriages in a year. All of them successful. Happy even, from what I hear.”
I thought of thoseboys, grown men, all of whom actually loved their wives. All of whom had chosen them in the end, even if the beginnings had been complicated. My father took a breath, then dropped the name that made my chest lift before I could stop it.
“Now, Trent.”
Just hearing it sent warmth sparking through me. It was completely involuntary, but my mouth was even starting to form the shape of a smile until Dad spoke again.
“There’s no way that can happen.”
The floor vanished beneath me.
