Last Resort: Marriage

He didn’t budge. “Charlotte, please tell me you didn’t marry Brody just to hang on to the resort. I feel responsible. If I hadn’t hurt you so badly before, maybe you wouldn’t have rushed into this marriage so quickly.”

Swallowing her disgust, she stared him straight in the eyes. “I didn’t rush into anything. I’ve been in love with Aaron for three years,” she lied.

“You’ve been having an affair with this guy that long and never mentioned him to Edward?” He laughed. “What can someone of your upbringing have in common with a guy like him?”

“You couldn’t possibly understand.” Being rejected by a woman he didn’t want for a man he considered rungs beneath him had to be a blow to Perry’s sizable ego. She walked around the desk, opened the door, and gestured him out. “Anything else?”

He swallowed, shook his head, and left her in blissful silence.

She shut the door behind him and leaned against it to regain her composure. Six months of this?

Perry was a poor loser. And as shrewd as he was unscrupulous. He might fool everyone else with this caring pretense, but not her. He had something up his sleeve and whatever it was, it had more to do with his quest for power than his heart.

She buzzed Zelda and asked her to bring in coffee. Although, the way her head pounded, she wasn’t sure coffee was going to be enough today.

Remembering Aaron’s “cure” of black coffee, she nearly choked. He’d seemed completely at ease with his nudity this morning. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine herself traipsing around her bungalow in the buff. Not in this lifetime.

Blinking Aaron out of her mind, she grabbed her purse and rummaged for her bottle of aspirin. Finally, she gave up and dumped the contents on the desk. What was that? A check made out to Aaron from her grandfather in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. On the notation line it simply said, Best Wishes.

She folded the check and stashed it in her wallet to deal with another day. Aaron had every legal right to cash it, but he’d left it in her purse?

Popping the top off the bottle, she shook two tablets into her hand and laid them aside, waiting on the coffee.

What had Perry really been doing in her office? If he got wind of the prenuptial or the loan she’d taken out, the game was over.

She shuffled through her lap drawer, and then flipped through the caddy where Zelda left the mail.

“Maybe I lucked out this time.” When the documents arrived, she’d store them in her safe deposit box and have all the locks changed on the office. She drummed her fingers on the desk. The snake had already charmed the keys out of either Edward or Zelda.

The savory aroma of steaming coffee followed Zelda into the office. Bless the girl’s efficiency.

“Have a seat, Zelda.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Zelda tugged at her miniskirt and wiggled into the wing chair.

Charlotte noted her tight blouse and lime green skirt and made a note to discuss proper office attire—tomorrow.

Zelda had only been in the position two weeks. She had to be better than the last girl who quit to stay home with her baby. Baby or not, how could a woman trust a man enough to be solely dependent on him? Charlotte would never give any man that much control.