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Necessary? Absolutely.
TWENTY-ONE
SEBASTIAN
My mind was still swimming as I let the cool water rinse the soap from my hands. I almost hated to wash her off of me. And the way she’d sung my name when she came was even better than I imagined. I’d never, ever forget that sound. I rolled my head back with a sigh. Finally, some relief from her beautiful torture. I’d only been away from her for a minute and my body was craving more of her. I dried my hands and hurried back to the woman who’d awakened something inside me that I was too afraid to name.
The room was quiet. Almost too quiet. No sign of life anywhere. Where was she?
“Charlie?” I called, and I peeked in the hall bathroom but it was dark and empty. A creak above signaled her whereabouts. She’d left. Why would she run off?
Flitting my gaze over the scene of our fondling, I recalled her resentful words—This changes nothing—the taste of her tongue the moment she let me in, and the hot tears in her anguished eyes when she explained about her parents. I hate you, she’d said with such deep animosity.
Fooling around didn’t change the fact that she saw me as the enemy. Not for the first time, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. But what choice did I have? My chest ached. I didn’t want to hurt her.
What was I doing?
From the moment I spotted this Second Empire shack from the road, I’d been champing at the bit to tear this place down. But thinking about that look on her face, the dimple in her chin as it trembled, I didn’t know anymore. When I stacked up all my reasons for going through with it against the pain written on Charlie’s face, I didn’t know if I could do it to her.
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fist. Damnit. This was supposed to be simple. Clean. Transactional. This was exactly why I didn’t want to get involved. Especially with her. But like it or not, now I was. I couldn’t help the little thrill I got seeing her face every day. How her mouth drew my gaze, even when she was snapping a quippy comeback my way. And the way her brow furrowed when she was determined to do what she stubbornly thought was right.
I glanced around the apartment in an attempt to see the place through her eyes. She loved this place. It wasn’t just four beat-up walls to her. It was her home, the place where she was loved and wanted for the first time in her life. Maybe her passion wasn’t about preserving structures from times gone by, but what they meant to the people they sheltered.
Even if I wanted to keep these walls upright, my hands were tied. I made a deal. Theo wanted the land Radcliffe House Apartments sat on. Without it, there was no deal, which meant there was no buying my dream company. And if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be able to give my mother back what she lost in the fire. I wouldn’t be able to wash my hands of everything that had happened in this town all those years ago. Wash my hands of Lydia Radcliffe.
Charlie had nothing to do with any of that. So was it right to take from her in order to give back what my family had to leave behind in New Elwood? Could I live with myself if I hurt a person I cared for to spite another that I hated?
Then, through the thin floors, I heard a sob and a door slam shut. Charlie…
Deal or not, I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t be the cause of her misery after everything she’d been through. There had to be another way. I grabbed my phone from the countertop. Theo wasn’t going to like it, but he’d just have to build his wine manor somewhere else.
Just as I was about to dial, my gaze flicked to the microwave. I could still hear the outlet pop-crack from last week.
Conflict froze my movements. I couldn’t do this to Charlie—but what was the alternative? Let her live in a death trap? She might be upset, but nothing had changed.
At eleven, I’d woken up to my mother’s screams as she dashed into my room. Horror had filled her eyes when she shook Rex and me out of bed. Our house creaked and groaned as walls collapsed from the fire’s wrath.
I’d never been so frightened in my entire life. Not then. Not now.
I remembered the fine tremors in my hand as she led us to the window. The air was thick. Everything was too hot. My legs shook as we climbed out the window and onto the shingles, then shimmied down the wooden patio posts until our feet were safely on the ground outside. Flames roared inside as I stood there transfixed.
I watched the fire blaze—watched our whole life go up in smoke—and I still didn’t understand what we’d just escaped. When I remembered my beloved pet, I bolted toward the front door, but Mom tackled me before I could reach the melting knob and pulled me back.
Decades later, the memory still made a cold sweat run down my spine, even though I knew we’d been lucky to get out when we did. A few more minutes and we could have easily met a different fate.
Charlie was on the third floor—escaping a fire wouldn’t be so easy for her. And if those events taught me anything, it was that it only took one second. One flicker for things to change forever.
As much as my heart ached for Charlie’s wishes, this place had to come down. I couldn’t call Sinclair. Couldn’t renege on the deal. So I took a breath, tossed my phone on the counter, and walked upstairs to Charlie’s closed door.
I knocked and waited, heart pounding. There wasn’t a single sound. No movement. So I knocked again. “Charlie, I know you’re in there.”
She didn’t answer.
“Charlie. Please. Am I going to have to punch another hole in the ceiling of my apartment?”
“You wouldn’t,” she grumbled. Her voice sounded close to the door, and relief swept through me.
“Let me in.”
