Legal Heirs - Box Set Edition: Books 5-8 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) (23 page)

Hadley had talked Finn into letting her take a small role in the movie, and Charlotte was helpless against the two of them when they were on a mission. It was what Hadley wanted most in the world, to be an actor, but their agreement was that she would graduate from college before she pursued her chosen career. Finn had defied Charlotte, and insisted that it would do no harm to let their daughter act in one inconsequential film before she left for college. Spencer Beck was the director, and his son, Milo, had been the one to bring Hadley’s modeling pictures to his attention. Of course, who could have guessed that the obscure little movie would win top honors at the Cannes Film Festival? It had been released two weeks earlier, coincidently on Hadley’s birthday, and critics were betting that newcomer Hadley Hale would receive a best supporting actress nomination for her very first role as an actor.

Charlotte had limited Hadley’s modeling career from day one, not wanting her daughter thrust into the public eye as she had been when she appeared on the cover of American Jock. She had allowed her to appear in a few photo shoots with Skyler, who’d worked steadily as model all her life, but it hadn’t appealed to Hadley, it wasn’t the same as acting. Atticus as well, was offered modeling jobs, but he had no interest in fame what so ever. Even as children, Atticus and Hadley had drawn attention with their looks, and Charlotte, Finn, and Bly had done their best to keep them out of the spotlight. Then the call came from Spencer Beck, he insisted that Hadley was exactly as he had envisioned the teenage girl in his movie. Hadley wanted the part more than anything she ever imagined, and Finn had given in and said yes. It had always been that way, Finn couldn’t refuse anything to the children.

Bly was just as bad, between the two of them, Bly and Finn, Charlotte sometimes felt like she was butting her head against a pair of brick walls to see that her children lived somewhat normal lives. When Atticus turned sixteen Bly had handed him the keys to a brand new Camaro with an engine that sounded like a jet aircraft about to take off. Charlotte cried so hard over the thought of her little boy driving too fast, and maybe drinking and driving, or God knows what else, that Atticus had given the keys back to Bly, and instead he drove Finn’s old Range Rover. 

The bed and breakfast in Pass Christian had been closed two years before when Atticus had gone off to Annapolis to the Naval Academy. The house and grounds were now used simply as a year round family vacation spot and retreat where Atticus, Hadley, Charlie, and their friends could congregate. Bly had gone so far as to buy the estates on either side of the McCall House to insure complete privacy when the family visited. Both newly purchased properties boasted lovely antebellum homes on several beach front acres, and Bly deeded one house to Atticus, and the other to Holden and Mia. There was now an eleven acre family compound with Charlotte’s ancestral home at its center.

“Why do I have to turn my phone off?” Charlie asked, rolling his eyes and shoving the phone into the pocket of his jeans. “It’s completely unfair, I was all the way to the last level of my game.” Charlotte leaned over and kissed the top of his head, she was astonished that he had grown several inches in the last year. He would be twelve by the time the new school year started, and he was tall and handsome, with a will of iron and a rebellious streak a mile wide. Her little ‘dividend baby’ as she referred to him, was a carbon copy of his father.

“I know,” she said, smiling into his astonishingly beautiful eyes. “You’re so mistreated, my darling Charlie, it’s an awful shame.”

“Right, Mom. You think you’re so funny,” he said, rolling his eyes yet again before he tucked a pillow under his head and turned toward the window to sleep.

The pilot’s voice sounded over the jet’s intercom announcing that they had reached their cruising altitude, and a flight attendant handed Charlotte a glass of champagne. Charlotte smiled and thanked the young woman, but mostly she smiled to herself. She remembered another flight when she had been summoned to first class, and handed a glass of champagne, and kissed by an utterly irresistible man….

*

Thirteen years before…

“I suppose it all started with my bad decision,” Finn said, looking at Charlotte with equal amounts of hurt and longing. “The first sin was mine. When you asked me to choose between our love and my job, I shouldn’t have hesitated. If I’d made the right choice, then you would never have been susceptible to Bly when he showed up in your life. Or maybe I should’ve been man enough to leave you alone after Hong Kong and let you have a fairytale life with Alexander Bly. But of course it was utterly impossible for me stay away from you, just as it is for Bly, so who’s at fault here anyway? The truth is, we all are, Charlotte. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever loved in my life, but even if it is my fault, I’m still mad at you. I’m fucking furious that you ran to him and that he dared to touch you, that he put his hands on you, my wife…. You are without question,
my wife
, not his.”

“Finn, I don’t love him, I know that now. Before I thought that I….”

“THAT YOU WHAT? THAT YOU FUCKING LOVED HIM? THAT YOU FUCKING LOVED BOTH OF US?” he yelled with such ferocity that Charlotte jumped. She was sitting in the middle of their big bed watching Finn as he struggled to pull a clean shirt on over the cast on his arm. She wanted to help him, to run her hands lovingly over the fresh wounds that covered his deeply muscled chest and back, to feel his resolve melt at her touch. She couldn’t remember Finn ever raising his voice to her before, and the sound of fury and anguish froze her heart and made her sick with disgust for herself. “For someone so God-damned smart, Charlotte, that was a stupid assumption. You were
never
in love with Bly, I knew that or I wouldn’t have come back for you all those years ago. If there’s one thing I never doubted, it was that you and I are parts of the same being. Just the two of us, I guess it’s why I let it go on for so long. I put up with Bly and his fucking obsession with you because I knew you were mine down deep in your heart and soul where it matters. I still believe that, so you don’t have to try and convince me that it’s true. The problem is I don’t think I can live with what you’ve done, that you ran to him, and gave your body to him so readily. Whether it’s my fault, your fault, or the devil’s fault, doesn’t matter, it happened and now it’s done. I’m just a man, my love, and everything in me is hurting right now. My ego and my heart, and I don’t think I can overcome it, I don’t know if we can ever get it back to good.”

He walked away from her and out of their bedroom, and both of them had tears streaming down their cheeks. He slept in the extra bunk bed in Atti’s room for the next few days, and both he and Charlotte were more miserable than they ever thought they could be.

“I’m dropping Atticus at your mother’s house and then I’m catching a flight to Texas to bring Hadley home, I was hoping you would come with me, Finn. You know, the two us could spend some time alone as a couple, we could stay the night in San Antonio, and then drive out to the ranch…” she told Finn a few days later, and then she hesitated, waiting for his reaction. She prayed that his heart had begun to heal, and that he might possibly make room for her once more. He simply shook his head without looking at her.

“She’s been asking for you, Finn, your little girl needs you. I need you too, my love, more than you can imagine. I’m so deeply, deeply, sorry and if I could do anything to change it I would, but we both know that’s impossible. I didn’t go looking for him, if that matters at all. I went to New York on a whim. I was just going to spend money to… I don’t even know what… exact a little pay back because you chose to risk your life yet again, maybe. When I ran in to him, we had drinks in the hotel bar and his mother and West were right there, it’s not as if we were alone. Then Evangeline wanted to see pictures of the kids and West took my phone and they all saw a picture of Atticus. Maybe I thought Bly would be so insanely furious that he would take Atticus from us… instead, the punishment he exacted was time with me.”

“Sex,” Finn said as he stood in the living room staring out the window. He watched as Atticus kicked a soccer ball in the yard, Charlotte was gathering her purse and keys, preparing to drop their son off at Georgina’s house before she went to the airport. “He wanted sex, Charlotte, and I don’t see any bruises on your body. It doesn’t look as if you put up much of a fight, you can’t rape the willing, after all.”

“Finn…” Charlotte said and there was defeat in her voice, but she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, and even before you came back I forgave
you
for lying to me and risking your life not once, but many times. Please, please, my love, don’t do this to us, can’t you try and forgive me? I know we can get past this. You own my heart and every cell of my body, I can’t remember when I didn’t love you; you’re such an integral part of me. Without you, my life is an empty husk. If what we had is over then I’ll live for the children, but there will never be anything to compare to
us
. Life will be hollow and meaningless if you and I aren’t together. The kind of love we have doesn’t come around every day, some people never experience it; I don’t know anyone else who has what we have. Finnegan, you’re the love of my life, there’s no one else for me; there’s only you.”

“Tell Hadley I’ve missed her terribly and I can’t wait to see her. You’d better go now, Charlotte,” he said, and turned his back on her, and although his voice hesitant, his rejection cut Charlotte to the bone.

Charlotte drove to Georgina’s house with Atticus buckled securely into the backseat, he rolled his eyes in the rude way that she was sure he’d picked up from time spent with Matilda Rhodes and her shitty teenaged attitude.

“Atticus, don’t roll your eyes like that, if you have something to complain about tell me.”

“I just get sick of that old kind of music you’re always playing. Can’t we listen to somebody cool for a change?” he asked, and Charlotte smiled thinking she’d felt the same way when her mother refused to listen to any band other than Pearl Jam.

“Okay sweetie, what would you like to listen to?” she asked, and she felt like rolling her own eyes when he told her the name of the band. She played the music he wanted to hear and handed him her iPod when they arrived at Georgina’s, she told him he could make his own playlist and enjoy.

She drove toward the airport and her mind and heart were reeling with the realization that Finn was not going to forgive her. She knew that his heart was injured and that it wasn’t only because she had slept with Bly. Finn was a man of honor and he had been untruthful with her for years. He had gone on his missions for reasons known only to himself, and his last assignment to South America had cost him dearly. In Houston he had been hospitalized to reset his broken arm and he was treated for sepsis caused by the gunshot wound in his leg. The doctors had assured him that one more day in Argentina might have cost him his life due to blood poising. As well, JP was still missing, and although there was nothing Finn could have done to change JP’s mind about going to Mexico, the guilt weighed heavily on him. Intel confirmed that JP had walked away from a tiny airport in the countryside north of Mexico City, he’d simply vanished into the low-lying mountain slopes.

As well, Bly wasn’t about to forget her or the time they’d just spent together, and even though he knew that Atticus loved and needed Finn, he seemed to have hardened his heart where that relationship was concerned. Bly had sent text after text to Charlotte to let her know that he was returning from Paris with Holden and Mia and he wanted a full time relationship with Atticus. He also wanted Charlotte to divorce Finn as soon as possible and marry him. He was adamant about that, Charlotte was the love of his life and the mother of his first born son, if her heart belonged to any man; it belonged to him. Charlotte had sent him a curt message telling him they would work out the terms of his visitation with Atticus when she returned from Texas, and that unless Finn insisted on a divorce, she had no intention of ever leaving him.

Did she love Bly? Yes. Was she in love with him? No. She had been stupid to think that she could feel the same thing for two men at the same time. Perhaps she would always be vulnerable to Alexander Bly, and certainly he had been one of the great loves of her life, but Finn was the man she couldn’t live without. Now she wondered if Finn would be able to live with what she had done. He would probably never leave her, he would want to live under the same roof as his children, but would he ever touch her again with the unquenchable passion he once had for her? The thought that she had doomed herself to a life devoid of Finn’s wild and often out of control desire for her released a silent torrent of tears just as her cell phone rang. She pulled her car to the side of the road and answered, it certainly wasn’t a call she had expected. An officer from the San Diego police department asked if she had any interest in bailing her husband out of jail.

*

Finn had watched Charlotte drive away with Atticus waving goodbye from the back seat. He’d wanted to run down the street after her and tell her he couldn’t stop loving her no matter what she had done, or would ever do. He was so tied to her, to imagine a life without Charlotte was not possible, she was the air he breathed, the blood that pounded in his veins, she was the reason he existed. The house phone rang just then and when he answered it Bly began to speak before Finn had time to utter a single word.

“Charlotte, for the love of God where have you been? I’ve tried and tried to reach you, why won’t you take my calls, why are you avoiding me? I want to see my son, I want to see you; I need to be near you, Charlotte. Are you listening, Goddammit? I’m coming to get you both, meet me out front,” Bly said in a rush.