“Bless. Good on him. What for?”
“Picking up litter, I believe.”
“He’s such a good boy.”
“I know.” Pride made her heart swell. “Your day?”
He drank half of the wine then placed the glass down heavily. “I told you my half-brother is coming for Christmas?”
“That’s Winnie’s son from a previous marriage?”
“Right.”
“You hate the guy,” she said with a nod, remembering previous conversations from over the years. “Alex, right?”
“Yes. He’s such an arrogant shit, and the way he treats her…he’s truly vile. I hate that she cares.”
“He’s her son,” Charlotte pointed out. “I don’t think she has the option.”
“He might be her son, but he treats her like dirt. It’s as though he’s here only to torment her. And that just makes her try harder, because she’s so desperate to fix whatever’s broken between them. As for how he is with me—,”
“No one could hate you,” she said, nudging him with her shoulder.
“Oh, he’s too cold to really hate anyone. You need to have a heart to hate, right?”
She nodded, silently encouraging Caleb to get it off his chest because she could tell he simply needed to vent.
“This guy is—unbelievable. He hasn’t seen her in over a year, even when she went to Rome especially for his birthday, he made a point of going to Sydney with his girlfriend—some supermodel or other. It’salwaysa supermodel,” Caleb added with bitterness. “Mum arrived, so nervous and excited, and he just didn’t show.”
“I remember her trip,” Charlotte said quietly, because Winona had returned downcast but not speaking about it at all. “That’s awful.”
“He’s awful. I know he’s only here for a week, but God help me, it’s going to be a long week. I suppose I should just be grateful he’s not staying with mum.”
Something prickled on the back of Charlotte’s neck. A moment of realisation that happened at the exact same time she had a sixth sense she was being watched. Her thoughts scrambled into order, as the dots connected one after the other in rapid succession, and she turned her head over her shoulder, with the appearance of casual disinterest, scanning the near empty bar to find Alessio standing with one arm propped on the counter, his eyes locked to Charlotte with a possessive heat that unspooled in her belly.
“Speak of the prick,” Caleb muttered, so all the little dots that had been forming inside Charlotte’s mind became one huge, distracted red flag.
“You said his name is Alex?”
“Yes. Alessio, technically, but mum calls him Alex. I call him asshole.”
Charlotte’s stomach dropped to her toes, and she turned back to Caleb quickly, her pulse in overdrive now as the sense of betrayal grew.
She drank her wine then replaced the glass.
“Just pray he doesn’t come over.”
Charlotte’s pulse spiked.
“I should get back to Dash. I told him I’d only be twenty minutes.”
“Come have dinner with me tonight,” Caleb suggested, putting his hand on Charlotte’s knee beneath the table, the gesture one of friendship.
“I can’t,” she said, breathlessly. “I promised Dash a movie and his favourite pasta.”
“I could join you?”
Her heart squeezed. Any other time, she’d have probably agreed. They loved hanging out with Caleb. But right now, she felt like she’d unwittingly walked into something way bigger than she knew how to handle.