“I expect to see you there. Do not embarrass me again. Or I’m moving in here and parading a new woman in front of you every night until you choose one.”
The front door slammed downstairs. I rushed into my room and closed the door. I stood against it, feeling my emotions rush over me. I barely knew the woman and she had the power to turn me back into a nervous, embarrassed nineteen-year-old. I listened for Charlie on the other side of the door. He wasn't coming up here to get me, was he? No, he couldn't be because he had a charity function to go to to meet some woman his mother wanted to set him up with.
My stomach turned. I felt resentment and intense dislike ball in my chest. It all came together. Niall was drunk which was why I didn't really think too much about what he had said to me, but he was right. All that stuff about Charlie's mother essentially hiring women to go out with him was true. Charlie, the most eligible bachelor in New York was being pressured into an arranged marriage by his bitchy, entitled mother. Guess you never really knew a person, huh?
Wait a minute. If she was still trying to set him up, that meant she didn't know about me.
I laughed. How fucking perfect. The thought was so absurd. I had that woman's grandchild in my body right now, and she hated my guts. Sick satisfaction ran through me. The things she said to me seven years ago completely broke me, I was reeling from them for years. The vindication was sweet.
After the night Charlie and I had sex, we were completely inseparable. Right after, when we were both spent and cuddling on top of the sheets, I asked him what this meant for us. He looked at me completely shocked, like it was obvious we were going to be a couple, what had I had in mind?
It just didn't seem real. the day before, we were still nervously flirting with each other, trying to find ways to spend the last few moments of the summer together and then boom, we were a couple. At the time, he was a lot more forward about it than I was. He felt nothing walking up off of the beach to the beach shack and kissing me in front of everybody. He'd hold my hand when we were together like it was no big deal. I blame my lack of experience with guys up to that point for how nervous and awkward I was, but then again, it was Charlie. It took a little bit more time together, by which I mean a few more times having sex, for me to be as comfortable with him as he was with me.
I was a virgin when I met him, but we made up for the lost time. We spent all the time together during the day that we could and most nights too where we did a lot more than just sleeping. It was amazing. It was the first time in my life that I felt like that about somebody else. I was in love with him, one hundred percent. It was like being in a dream. It wasn't just that this hot guy had picked me out of everybody else he could possibly have; it was that I felt so comfortable and safe and understood when I was with him.
He even gave me a key to his place. I'd go there almost every night if I wasn't doing anything else. One night, I went to his place and let myself in. The light was on inside and I just figured that it was Charlie.
Finding Charlie in Charlie's house; didn't seem like that much of a jump. I walked in and there was a woman on the couch. I stopped and looked at her, afraid for a second that I had walked into the wrong beach house but that didn't make any sense because my key had opened the door.
She was a beautiful woman, that was what I noticed first about her. She was older, but it was clear that she took very good care of herself. I could practically smell the money on her. She was fashionable and dressed in clothes that cost more than all of the money I had made in my life. Too bad her attitude stank. She was looking at me like some sort of home intruder when I had obviously used the key to get in. The resemblance wasn't apparent to me at first. She was also blonde and had blue eyes, but I guess Charlie took after his father more than her. It didn't even cross my mind at the time that she might be his mother. When he said the home belonged to a relative, I was thinking an aunt or uncle.
“Hi, I'm looking for Charlie Hampton. Is he home,” I started to say, but she cut me off.
“What are you doing on this property?” she asked me.
“I'm looking for Charlie.”
“And who are you?” she asked.
“I'm sorry if there's been some sort of misunderstanding. Charlie is my boyfriend and he gave me a key. He said this place belongs to a family member of his.”
She stopped looking disgusted only to start looking shocked. “Your boyfriend?” She laughed. “Darling, you and my son are not together.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hampton. I didn't realize you were coming to Dana Point. Charlie didn't say anything to me. It's nice to meet you. Even though these are slightly odd circumstances.”
She looked me up and down with an expression on her face like I was something stuck on the bottom of her very expensive shoe. I felt like I shrunk two feet.
“You're right, Charlie did not say anything to me about you. I think that in itself speaks volumes.”
“It probably just slipped his mind.”
“No, it didn't. Because you are not his girlfriend.”
“I get that he might not have told you about us yet. We haven't been together for very long.”
“No,” she said with a sneer on her face. She sighed. “How do I explain this so somebody like y
ou understands. You are not dating my son. My son is Charles Hampton, one of the richest men in the world. He is descended from British aristocracy on his mother's side and American Captains of Industry on his father's side. He does not date women like you.”
Out of all of the ways that I could have found out that Charlie was rich and royal-adjacent, this was the worst. It never came up when we were talking. When we talked about his family, he didn't really go into detail that much, and he never mentioned any wealthy or aristocratic connections. Maybe he thought it would change the way I thought about him if I did know that he was wealthy, and honestly, maybe it would. I knew I wouldn't have been as open with him if I knew his pedigree.
The thing that drew me to Charlie, riches or not, was the fact that he seemed so accessible to me. He seemed so regular. Even if he was rich, he didn't act like he was better than anybody because of his background. He was cute, funny, chill, goofy… he was just a guy, or so I thought.
I tried to defend myself against her. “Charlie and I are together,” I said. “If he's not supposed to be with a girl like me, then he didn't get the memo.”
“Darling,” she said, “you're mistaking him for a man with no options. For now, while he's young and sowing his wild oats, a chubby little beach rat with no prospects could do just fine. But I’m referring to his future. To the woman he brings in to be part of our family. Only a woman from a similar social standing will do and he’s perfectly aware of that. Sorry love, he must not have told you but once this summer is over, Charlie will marry the princess or heiress of my choice.”
“That's not true. Charlie would have said something to me.”