She playfully threw a pillow at me, then said, “Of course, they do it alone. I wouldn’t want to travel alone.”
As she curled into the bed to make herself more comfortable, it was evident that Charlotte had no intention of leaving the truck anytime soon. God, how I wanted to lie next to her. If I’d known I was taking her to a sex den on wheels, I most certainly would have rethought this truck adventure. It had never occurred to me that there would be a bed.
I stayed glued to the passenger’s seat, determined not to get sucked into the vortex.
“Can we hang out in here for a while?” she asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? It’s so peaceful.”
“I just think it’s better if we go back to the city.”
“Because you don’t trust yourself with me?”
I refused to answer that, instead deciding to turn the tables. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, like a date with . . . Blake?” His name rolled off my tongue like an obscenity.
“No . . . I’m not going out with Blake. But why do you ask . . . would you be jealous if I did?”
Not wanting to lie to her, I just chose to remain silent. My jealousy had already been made pretty clear a couple of weeks ago, anyway.
“Why should you be jealous when you know you could have me, Reed?”
“I can’t have you,” I snapped.
“Oh, but you can. You’re just scared.”
“Stop,” I said through gritted teeth, even though all I really wanted was to hear her tell me some of the things she would let me do to her. I shook my head and sighed. “Where did you come from, Charlotte?”
“You always ask me that. While I can’t answer where I originated from, I know exactly how I came into your life. There’s . . . something you don’t know. Something I never told you.”
What was she getting at?
“I’m not following . . .”
“Can I tell you the story of how we met?”
“I know how we met.”
“You think you do but you don’t. You always thought that I was playing some kind of game when I went to the Millennium Tower showing. There’s way more to the story.”
I’d always wondered how that whole thing happened, how she came to show up there in the first place. It never quite made sense. There’d been something missing.
“Why don’t you enlighten me, then. How did you come into my life, Charlotte Darling?”
She patted the spot on the bed next to her. “Will you come here? Sit next to me?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Please?”
Reluctantly, I moved to the spot on the bed next to her. Our shoulders were side by side when I turned my face to meet hers. “Okay, Charlotte. Tell me how we met.”
“It was fate,” she said matter-of-factly.
I chuckled. “Fate . . .”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’d taken my wedding dress to a consignment store to sell it. While there, I fell in love with a beautiful blush, feathered dress.”
Feathered dress.
Suddenly, this wasn’t amusing anymore. I swallowed, knowing exactly the dress she was talking about. Even though it was supposedly bad luck to see the bride’s gown before a wedding, Allison had insisted that I approve of her choice. While unconventional, the dress she’d chosen was spectacularly beautiful.
“I know the dress,” I whispered.
“So you’d seen it? She’d shown you?”
“Yes.”
“I found the blue note you’d written on your personalized notepad. It was sewn inside. That was how I got your name. I actually took the dress home because they would only give me a credit for mine. So it was an even exchange. I still have it. It’s hanging in my closet. I was curious about the man who penned the note, because it was simple yet so beautiful.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Biting my lip, I stayed silent as she continued to tell the story.
“When I looked you up on Facebook, there were some clues that maybe the wedding had never happened. Anyway, you already know everything that took place after I made the appointment. I obviously never expected everything to turn out the way it has. But that dress called to me. And now I know it was much more than just a dress. Not to mention my running into Iris in the bathroom. I’ll always believe that I was meant to find you.”
Holy shit.
I couldn’t help reaching for her hand in that moment. I’d joked about Charlotte Darling and her pixie dust. There was always something magical about her, the way she’d just appeared in my life and turned it upside down. I had to admit that this story freaked me out a little. But at the same time, it made so much sense.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re not mad at me?”