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Jared stumbled out from the doorway, his brows furrowed as he glared back inside at what I could only assume was Hunter. His hand caught himself against the far wall of the hallway, his gaze flicking to me briefly. Words spilled from his mouth but didn’t reach my ears over the ringing, and as he righted himself, his lips curled into a sickening smirk.
Hunter stepped out of the room, looking so handsome in his perfectly tailored, all-black suit. He didn’t notice me as he stepped toward Jared. His sights were too set on grabbing him by the collar and shoving him toward the entrance of the chateau.
“Hunter,” I said, but I couldn’t hear my own voice in my head. Anything could have come out of my mouth and I wouldn’t know it.
Deep green hollowed eyes met mine in a flash.
Jared disappeared out of sight as Hunter took a step toward me. “Hunter,” I said again, the sound barely cutting through the ringing now.
His nostrils flared. “Get inside.”
None of it is real anyway, Lottie. Calm down. He can’t be that angry.
My body finally broke free from its invisible shackles, my feet carrying me into the room before I could tell them to. I could hear the clicking of my heels, his heavy breaths, and when the door slammed shut behind me, it sent a shock through my system.
“Does any of it even matter?” I asked. The burning in my throat from the acid had died down a little but speaking still felt like glass cutting me. “I’m just a business transaction to you.”
Hunter stepped around me, his eyes glued on mine. He wouldn’t even look at my dress. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The anger behind his stare was enough to send me back into that place of panic. I knew he’d be upset, but this much anger wasn’t Hunter. He looked the same as he did when I’d told him about what had happened with my ex in confidence back in Austin. He didn’t know it was Jared at that time. His anger wasn’t directed at me then.
But now, it was.
Chapter 29
Hunter
There wasn’t a single part of me that could appreciate how beautiful Charlotte looked as she stood in front of me, small and coiled in on herself as if she were a child who had just been caught drawing on the walls. I was too pissed.
The suspicion I’d felt when I’d found the two of them behind the delivery truck outside of the offices was accurate to some degree. I should have trusted my gut then, should have seen the signs instead of letting my feelings paint her in a rose-colored light. I’d been fucked over again.
“You were working with him.” It wasn’t a question. “How much did you tell him, Charlotte? How much was he paying you?”
She blinked at me, confusion warping her features. If she could fake feelings for me, then she could fake that, too. “What are you talking about?”
The possibilities were endless. Maybe every piece of it, from the very beginning, had been a lie. Maybe they were never broken up. They could still be together for all I knew, and Jared could be happy as a clam to have his partner married off for a year if it meant taking over the Harris Agricultural Empire.
“Hunter—”
“How much did you tell him about the fucking business?” My breaths came too quick, too shallow. We were meant to be walking down the aisle in two minutes, and yet, I wanted nothing more than to take myself home and hide away until I could forget her. No matter how long it took.
She took a small step back, her heel clicking against the tile floor. “Nothing,” she said. “I wasn’t working with him, Hunter.”
The room suddenly felt too small. They called it the library, but a library was a place of calm, somewhere to relax. If only that was the case.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I’ve never lied to you.”
A sick, angry laugh snaked up my throat. How did she expect me to believe that? “Bullshit.”
“Where’s that empathy you had back in Austin?” she spat. Her arms crossed over her chest, forcing my attention for half a second to the gown that covered her skin. The fact that I liked the sight of her in a wedding dress made me feel nauseous. “You know that’s who I was talking about, right? Jared?”
The words hit me like a storm, knocking me back half a step. I’d almost forgotten about that in the wave of chaos that had followed; the way she’d sobbed and gasped for breath through tears, the way she’d bared everything to me at that goddamn table. She hadn’t given me a name when I’d asked, and before she could, Dana had called about her father.
But was any of that real?
I pushed my hand through my hair, likely ruining whatever the stylist had done to it earlier. “I want an explanation.”
