Bonsai and Mochi are photo gold as I follow them around, taking photos of them in the beams of sunlight streaming through the windows. I edit their pictures as they nap on my side, exhausted from playing.
It’s midday when there is a knock on the door and I jump up, expecting it to be Benji with another package, but it’s Charlie’s dad.
“Mr. Breckenridge.” I’m sure the surprise is all over my face as well as in my tone. I tug on the bottom of my shirt, wishing I was wearing a bra. My shorts are indecent, comfortable in the heat of the apartment, but the arrival of Charlie’s father has brought a chill with him.
“Elia,” he greets me as he pushes past me into the apartment.
I close the door and follow him inside.
“Charlie isn’t here.”
“I came here to see you.”
I cross my arms waiting.
“I need to close a business deal and I need Ainsley’s father to do it.” Charlie’s father sits on the couch and disturbs the sleeping kittens, who move to the other side, away from him.
“He’s an old friend, and when the kids called off the engagement, well... Let’s just say the relationship soured. I’ll have an espresso,” he orders, in the middle of his villain's monolog.
I want to tell him exactly where he can put that coffee, but the sooner he leaves, the better.
“As I was saying. You seem to be of humble stock, state school, no further aspirations past college, no additional degrees. Your work history indicates you dabbled in office work. Your parents were blue-collar folks. Respectable. Your mother was a real estate agent who sold your father the family home before they fell in love. Your father owned a local hardware store which, you sold for a pretty penny after their deaths. The wrongful death lawsuit certainly helped bolster your savings, but student loans and a vacant apartment are quickly eating away at it. By all accounts, you were raised by honest God-fearing folks.” He leans back, sipping his coffee.
I stay perfectly still, watching him. Charlie may not have done a background check to find out who I was but his father certainly did.
“You seem like a nice girl and I have nothing against you. But you have to see that you’re just standing in the way of the inevitable. Ainsley and Charlie have been like two magnets circling each other, never the right side facing the other. But now, we have a chance to give them a real shot that they can only take if you step aside.” Charlie’s father sets the cup back on the table.
“Your upbringing did not prepare you for the type of life you will have with Charlie. Sure, you’re fine with him working night and day now, but what happens in two years when you’re lonely and you start to wonder if he really is working late, or if he’s meeting with Ainsley or some other woman? Those doubts will never stop nagging you as you wonder if your country bumpkin upbringing is enough to dazzle him when he’s surrounded by women raised like him. Women who went to boarding schools and had private tutors. Women with families that have jets and yachts, while all you have to offer him is a piece of ass. Something he can get anywhere and not have that piece nag him about how lonely she is in his penthouse apartment taking pictures of cats.”
I clench my teeth, refusing to look away.
“I’ll write you a check for however much you want. I know your funds are dwindling from the settlement and the sale of the business. Even if you wanted to keep up, you could never.” He unfolds his hands, slides off the couch, and heads to the door.
“And listen, if you want a job after, I can get you a position as an assistant at any company. You make a mean espresso and that counts for something.” Charlie’s father doesn’t wait for any sort of response before walking away, leaving me with his words.
My body is quaking as he leaves. He was right about everything: my parents, my upbringing, even my thoughts and concerns. It's as if he plucked my worst fears from my head and gave them a voice. Alone in this apartment, I try not to consider how right he might be.
Chapter 22
Thegalaistwodays away and I’m sitting in bed with Charlie as he plugs away on his computer. I lean over and kiss him gently on the neck.
“I love you, but I really need to get this done,” he says looking at me, his eyes strained from staring at the screen. It's been days since we were home together and I was awake enough to hold a conversation. Try as I might to wait up for him, I can never manage it. His father's words feel like a burden I’ve been carrying alone, despite my desire to talk to my partner about it.
Without talking to Charlie to curb the nasty voice in my head, it grows louder. This voice screams and shouts at me that I am the other woman in this love story. I can only assume that the one-sided conversation was intentionally timed. Charlie has a deal he is desperate to close and has been working nonstop on it.
I spend my days replaying the conversation, visualizing the ways I would have told him to fuck off. In most of them, I dump the coffee on his lap, doing irreparable damage to what I imagine is his favorite bit. I imagine telling him that he can’t kick out the mother of his grandchild, his only shot at it since Charlie decided to get sniped, both lies, but I enjoy picturing his face when he realizes that I’m forever tied to him. I want to be forever tied to him because I love his son, and if loving Charlie means listening to his father primp and preen, then I will do it. Maybe I should get a job to prove that I’m not a gold digger.
“Do you think I should get a job as an assistant?” I ask, broaching the subject. Charlie sighs and pauses for a moment. There is so much communicated in that one sound.
“You don’t have to if you don't want to. If you want, I can make some calls, but really, Elia, I do not have the time or energy to fight with you about money.”
I lean back away from him. “I’m not trying to start a fight.” But my words have an edge to them. Maybe I am looking for somewhere I can work out my frustration, someone I can shout at, someone to just listen to me. I go quiet, watching as he closes his computer and gets out of bed.
“I’m going to go work in my office. Don’t wait for me,” he says, kissing the top of my head before he walks out, his footfalls heavy.
I can’t sleep, leaving things like this, but I have to try. I have to hope we find time to talk before the gala. As I toss and turn, I realize that everything right now with Charlie is a waiting game. I’m waiting for the right opportunity to talk about us and about what his father said to me. But Charlie is worth it. Worth every minute and every worry because when we are focusing on each other, everything is perfect. There is no nagging voice telling me I don’t deserve him. I need that voice quieted for good.
When the gala rolls around, I have run out of time to talk to Charlie about his father’s offer to pay me off. He gets home an hour before the gala with barely enough time to get changed. At his insistence, I have a professional come to do my hair and make-up. It was a simple and direct order: ask Vivian who she is working with and schedule an appointment with them.