Legal Legacy (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) (10 page)

“No,
I won’t,” she whispered, shaking off her irrational longing for him to hold her again, to insist that she stay. “I might like to join you for one of the games. He does love his time with you, Bly, thank you for…”

“You don’t need to thank me, I enjoy his company,
he’s a little bit of you and Finn and Atticus thrown together. How could I not love him? I promised Finn…” Bly stopped short, he wasn’t quite ready to tell Charlotte that he and Finn had talked last summer at the beach and then again in Las Vegas when Finn had given him the letter for Charlotte. “As far as going to a game with us, that’s up to Charlie, you’ll have to get his permission.”

“What did you promise Finn?
” Charlotte asked, studying Bly’s face. She was in love him, that wasn’t something she’d been able to control or get past even through all the happy years with Finn. But Finn had pointed her toward Jude and she owed it to his memory to give his brother a chance. “I’m seriously confused, Bly, when did this happen, in Las Vegas? Obviously Finn asked you to handle the details of his memorial service, but why would he ask you to be a father to Charlie and then tell me that I need to make a life with Jude?”

“Charlotte, what are you saying? T
hat Finn told you to date his brother? No way, no no no. A man would never want his wife sleeping with or marrying his brother. That’s a major fuck up, you misheard what he said, Charlotte. Fuck, it goes against the laws of God and nature, I would imagine. Isn’t there something about not coveting or sleeping with your brother’s wife in the Bible?” Bly said and he was so irate that Charlotte wondered if he was right.

“Mr. Bly,
there’s a man at the door who wants to see Miss…” one of the maids started but Bly cut her off.

“You can send that man away, why the fuck did Billy allow him on the property? Never mind
, I’ll send his ass on his merry way myself. What a dick! If that arrogant fuck thinks he can slip in here and steal his brother’s family…” Bly shouted and left the room in a hurry.

“Miss Charlotte, it’s your brother Christopher at the door, he’s here to see Miss Amanda,” the maid said and she and Charlotte both breathed a sigh of relief.

*

Evangeline and Amanda hadn’t meant to stay on at Bly’s
for four months but they had some major issues to discuss and the room service was great. They started arguing by the end of the first week and they hadn’t slowed down so Bly banished them to the far reaches of the mansion. They were there to have quality girl time with Charlotte but Evangeline spent her days dodging calls from Charles Tremont and enjoying nightly visits from West. Amanda was attempting to resolve a lifetime’s worth of grievances with her mother but she was horribly upset about her son Jack’s quest to follow JP’s career path. She was prone to hitting the liquor bottle after lunch each day and she usually added just a drop or two to her morning coffee to start the day off right.

“I’m not ready to go home
to an empty house,” Amanda said as she sipped a vodka tonic then spit it out when she realized her mother had filled all the liquor bottles with water. “Ugh, maybe I am ready to go home, what are you, Mother the cocktail police?”

“Where you’re concerned, yes I am. Do you have any idea how monumentally ruinous alcohol is to your health, Amanda? It has an immediate dehydrating effect on your skin as well as adding pounds to your already rotund figure. Honestly, do you simply have no regard for your appearance? Obviously you don’t
, which means the chances of you ever landing another husband are slim to none,” Evangeline said as she lowered herself gracefully onto the sofa and spritzed her face with a mist of mineral water.

“Mother, what is up with you and your spray-on fountain of youth? I swear to God I’m gonna snatch that fucking atomizer away from you
and run screaming down the street!”

“I dare you to try, young lady, and I rather doubt that you could run anywhere.”

“Oh my God! I try to love you, Mother, but how can I? I don’t even like you! What did I ever do to suffer your unending wrath? Was my father a garbage man who you screwed in the bushes once and now you can’t look at me without feeling severely ashamed?”

“Amanda, I hate to burst your bubble but you and Alexander have the same father. I simply had an axe to grind with
my philandering husband so I let him think otherwise.”

“Ugh! You are the most insane woman who has ever walked this planet. Way to fuck up my life for your own selfish pleasure. By the way Mother,
men do not find my curves the least bit undesirable. I happen to have a delectable love affair happening right here under your disgustingly perfect snooty snobby nose!”

“With whom, pray tell?
I’d pay good money to know who finds you the least bit attractive, Amanda. And please understand that I only say these things so that you’ll raise yourself up out of the quagmire that has engulfed you.”

Bly walked into the media room where his mother and sister were bickerin
g in their usual loving way. He had seemed almost buoyant in the months since Charlotte and Charlie had been living in the mansion, but now he looked deflated.

“Christopher Tremont or McCall or who the fuck cares is here to
see you Amanda. Charlotte’s leaving, if that matters to either one of you,” he said and his hand stopped before he brushed the hair from his forehead. He slumped into a wide leather chair and lay his head back, resting with his eyes closed, trying to release the tension before a full-blown migraine set.

Ah, Charlotte. Why didn’t he just show her Finn’s letter and wipe those insane thoughts of Jude from her mind? It was clear that she loved him, it was there in her eyes
now that she didn’t have the strength to conceal it. She fit so perfectly against him when they had curled together the night before, like she was a piece of him that had been missing and together they were whole, together they made sense. He had decided he would never show her Finn’s letter. If Charlotte loved him with all her heart and soul she would make the choice to be with him. He would live without her otherwise, he couldn’t simply be the man her late husband wanted for her. He wouldn’t settle for being her consolation prize, she had to decide for herself that to live without loving him was impossible.

“Mother, Amanda, time for the both of you to go home,” he said without raising his head or opening his eyes, “I’m putting this ridiculous house up for sale, my broker will be here this afternoon, it’s time
for me to move on.”

*

“Hey, Charlotte, how’s it going today? Something’s on your mind, what’s going on, is Bly being unhospitable?” Christopher asked when Charlotte stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek then led him into the sunroom.

“
No, of course not, Bly is great, he’s an honorable man. The maids are packing my things now and Charlie’s, too. I’m going home, I can’t think straight anymore. Why are you here, Christopher, are you and Dad still at my house or the cottage, it’s slipped my mind?”

“Dad’s at your house but he’s ready to go back to New Orleans. You’d think he’d be done with worrying about women but he’s been back on this Evangeline kick and she’s driving him crazy. He stays in a constant state of agitation over their
on-again off-again love life. Charlotte, I meant to tell you yesterday… I’ve slept with your friend Amanda, more than once actually and I think I’ve fallen in love with her.”

“Chr
istopher!” Charlotte said and wrapped her arms around his immense shoulders, “That’s the greatest news. Amanda and I have drifted apart lately but she’s my very best friend, I couldn’t be happier for you. What about her, have you told her you love her or asked how she feels?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly said the words, but
she seems to be happy, I’ve spent every night with her since I got into to town.”

“Well hello lover
,” Amanda said and she and Christopher were in entwined so fast and so completely that Charlotte might as well have not existed. They kissed so ferociously that after a while Charlotte felt like spraying them down with a water hose.

It was definite
ly time that she went back to the real world, Charlotte decided, she was glad for Christopher and Amanda but she wasn’t up to witnessing a great love affair blooming before her eyes.

“Amanda,
” she said, “I had no idea, this is wonderful, good for you. I don’t mean to be a killjoy but I’m going home to my own bed and I’ve got to get back to work,” she said and she might as well have been talking to the furniture because the lovers didn’t stop kissing.

*

“No need for you to worry about your homestead, Charlotte. I’ve taken care of both your houses, my maids have put them in perfect order, and the gardener has been there every week,” Bly said louder than was necessary when Jude arrived to pick her up, he was pacing and more than mildly irritated. Charlotte thought he might be drunk and he was definitely primed for battle.

Jude
tossed a nonchalant thank you over his shoulder as he held the car door open for Charlotte and his hand slid to her lower back and rested there.

T
he barely restrained anger in Bly’s sea-glass eyes blazed like a wild fire. He blocked the convertible Jaguar so that Jude had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting him. Then Bly jerked him out of the car and let him fall onto the flagstone driveway. But he didn’t want to piss Charlotte off to the extreme so he helped him up, dusted him off and shoved him back in the car. He wished him well and told him to behave himself with his widowed sister-in-law or he would cut his dick off and mail it to England where his Jaguar driving ass belonged.

*

That had been at the end of February and other than Charlotte waving from the porch when he picked up or dropped off Charlie they hadn’t seen each other since. Winter made way for spring and April arrived with gorgeous weather just in time for Atticus, Holden and Jack to graduate from BUD/S.

“
Is there any possibility I can get an appointment with you, Charlotte?” Bly asked, when Charlotte finally answered her phone. He’d tried to reach her for days but she was constantly in court. She had gone back to work at Finn’s law practice and she’d just hired two young attorneys to handle part of the case load. Charlie told Bly that his mother couldn’t concentrate on her work but she pushed herself to stay with it.

“
We should discuss plans for our son’s graduation party, Charlotte. It’s an achievement that calls for a celebration. He’s graduated with the highest score ever recorded at Naval Air Station Coronado, its truly amazing. He beat Finn’s score by two points, that bothered him a little but I told him that no one would be more proud than Finn. So can you meet me at my office in half an hour?”

“Not unless I can get to the Starship Ente
rprise so Scotty can beam me up,” Charlotte said, and a surge of joy rushed through her over her son’s victory and the delight she heard in Bly’s voice.

“Good, then you are
free this afternoon. Are you at your office? Drive over to Citi Bank Tower and tell security you need to go to the Helicopter Pad on the roof. Billy will be there to pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“Why do we have to meet at
your office? I have to admit, the thought of trying to get comfortable while you sit behind your desk with that dangerous look in your eyes makes me nervous. It was enough to make me run from you when I was twenty-one, some things are better left alone Bly.”

“You thought I looked dangerous? I was the one
who was in real danger it turns out,” Bly said and she heard him laugh for the first time in months. The deep joyful sound caused an eruption of need at her very core and she hated to stir those feelings up. She was a widow, Finn’s widow and it was important not to forget that, not to betray him out of her own human weakness.

“
I want to watch as you walk across my office and sit down and slowly cross those mile-long thoroughbred legs. But that’s all, Charlotte, you are in no danger from me any longer. You’ve pledged your heart, or at least your body, to Jude, I accept it. It makes me sick, Jude isn’t half the man his was brother was. But, it’s your call and I’m done beating my head against a brick wall to make you see that I’m the part that’s missing from your life. So, come to my office, let me admire you since I’m a glutton for punishment and then we’ll take another Helicopter ride up to look at an excellent party venue in Santa Barbara.”

*

“Who is that?” Lucy Archer asked, pinning her security clearance badge to the
front of her blouse. She shielded her eyes from the sun and stared as the tall black-haired sailor walked with long, confident strides and she sensed that beneath his control lurked a wild and reckless spirit.

“Hmmm, you have a very good eye, that’s Atticus Hale. He’s the top of the heap, perfect scores across the board. The candidates who trained with him designated him the ‘Man of Honor’ for their graduating class,” the Chief Petty Officer said, her own heart beating a little faster as they watched him cross the quad. “He’s the son of Finnegan Hale, so he has the assassin’s gene, I suppose.”

“I want him,” Lucy said and her voice belied her cold government agent composure.

“You want him for your CIA Black Ops team or… personally?”