She leaned in. “With my grandson . . . it’s a battle between who he really is and who he thinks he should be . . . between what he really wants and what he thinks he deserves. He has his reasons for how he acts sometimes. But one thing I can tell you is that Eve Lennon doesn’t hold a candle to you. And if Reed is shooing you away and letting that woman near him, he’s using her as a human shield from something he otherwise can’t resist.”CHAPTER 18
REED
I was goddamn rude to Charlotte, and it was eating me up inside.
She’d left my office like a dog with its tail between its legs. She normally bit back at least once. Not this time.
It was bad enough that Eve had been all over me when Charlotte walked in. Even though there was nothing going on between Charlotte and me, I could tell catching me with Eve made her uncomfortable. But I’d volunteered to usher Eve around to three properties for that very reason, hadn’t I? To show Charlotte that I had no interest in her and to try to steer my dick into a different direction. After my freak-out over her date with my brother, I’d felt a major diversion was necessary. That diversion was currently trying to rub her foot against my leg under the table at Le Coucou.
I wished I wanted Eve. Because she was exactly the type of woman I needed in my life—one I knew would want nothing more from me than sex and expensive things. One who didn’t want inside of my head and heart, one who didn’t want anything long-term.
Eve had two divorces under her belt and had no desire for marriage and kids. Perfect. But as I sat across from her at lunch, I was more than preoccupied.
“So which property are we going to see first?” she asked.
My eyes met hers, but her words hadn’t registered. “Hmm?”
She repeated, “Where are we going first?”
“Right. I was thinking the Tribeca loft since it’s the closest to here.”
She flashed her bright white teeth. “Great.”
When Eve got up to go to the ladies’ room, I decided to check my phone. Out of habit, I clicked on Instagram and pulled up Charlotte’s profile. There was nothing new from today, so I scrolled mindlessly through photos from the past week, coming across one from a week ago that showed a shot of her television while her feet were up on a coffee table. She was wearing fuzzy slippers. The photo was captioned, It’s 9:00 p.m. on a Wednesday night. You know what that means! Blind Date. Best show on TV.
Everything started to piece together in my brain. The nine p.m. entry of “Blind Date” in her schedule. The fact that Max hadn’t waltzed into my office the first chance he got to tell me that he’d snagged a date with Charlotte. I’d thought that was so unlike him, and I’d been too angry to even confront him long enough to feel him out.
Charlotte had lied.
She’d completely fabricated the date with Max to get me to agree to go to the tryout tonight. I didn’t know what was worse, the fact that she’d conned me into agreeing to go or that she’d known what kind of reaction threatening a date with Max would garner from me.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur as I ushered Eve to the three showings when all I could concentrate on was confronting Charlotte.
After dropping Eve back at her condo, I slogged through rush-hour traffic, hoping to catch Charlotte if she hadn’t left the office yet.
Her office was dark, the only light coming from a small desk lamp. Mostly everyone had left for the day, but Charlotte was sitting at her computer, looking like she was surfing the net rather than working.
When she noticed me standing in the doorway, she jumped a little. “Shouldn’t you be heading to Brooklyn? The tryouts are at seven. You need to head out there.”
“No,” I said as the door latched behind me. “I won’t be going to Brooklyn.”
Charlotte got up from her chair and crossed her arms. “I thought we had a deal.”
“What kind of a game are you playing with me, Charlotte?”
“What do you mean?”
“You lied to me . . . why? So you could see me lose my mind? You knew what kind of a reaction you were going to get. Is that how you get your kicks?”
The guilt on her face was apparent. “How did you know I lied? Did Max tell you?”
“He’s in on this, too? Great.”
“No . . . I just asked him to . . . um . . .” She lost her train of thought.
I took my phone out of my pocket, opened it to her Instagram post, and placed it in front of her face. “Figured it out. ‘Blind Date at nine.’ Plus, Max would never keep something like that quiet. He’d look for the first opportunity to rub it in my face. It all makes sense now.”