Page 55 of The Billionaire's Angel

“Charlie, I don't need you interfering in my sociallife.”

“Really?” Charlie asked with a laugh. She made a swirling motion with her finger, encompassing all of us in the room, and said, “After this little scene you're going to lecturemeabout not butting into people's personallives?”

“No, just about not butting into mine.” Aiden stood from behind the desk. “Sophie, consider Charlie's wedding your night off. I can keep Amelia out of trouble. It will be a good distraction from having to watch my baby sister get married to LucasJackson.”

He came out from behind the desk and hooked his arm around Charlie's neck, pulling her in for a quick hug and a kiss to the top of her head before stalking out of theroom.

“I thought he liked Lucas?” I asked, my chest warm at the sight of the tears in Charlie's eyes. Aiden could be a hardass, but Charlie always brought out his softside.

“He does,” she said, with a watery laugh. “I think he just imagined me with someone a little… gentler. But I think he also thought I’d spend my life arranging flowers and doing charity work, so he's had to make someadjustments.”

“He's interested in Sophie,” Gage said out ofnowhere.

“What?” Charlie and I both said in unison. I might be a little rusty when it came to dating, but I definitely did not get theinterestedvibe off of Aiden. At all. Aiden saw me as an employee and a female living under his protection. As a romantic interest? Not achance.

“Gage, no,” Charlie said. “I really don'tthink—”

“Then why is he so concerned with her personal life?” Gage challenged. “He's been telling me to stay away from her since I got back. Sophie and I had barely met at that point, so why bother warning me off unless he was trying to protect his owninterests?”

“Gage, you're reading this wrong,” Isaid.

“Then how should I read it?” he asked, his temper flaring. His eyes were hot, blue flame, but he sat very still, as if making a concerted effort to contain his roilingemotions.

“I don't know,” Charlie admitted. “I’m not even going to pretend that I understand whatever's going on with you and Aiden. He's missed you all this time. When we thought you weren’t coming home, he was a mess, and now that you're here he's being a dick. Sometimes I really do not get the way menthink.”

Agreeing with Charlie, I said, “Gage, this isn’t aboutme.”

He stood up, taking my hand and tugging, so I rose along with him. He pulled me into his arms, and I whispered against his chest, “Really, Gage, if he were interested in me, why would he have said he'd take Amelia to the wedding? He had the perfect excuse to keep usapart.”

“I don't know,” Gage admitted, rubbing his chin against the top of my head. “Aiden is tricky. Whatever he's doing on the surface isn't necessarily what it seems to be. He's always got a masterplan.”

“Well, that's true,” Charlie said. “What you see isn't necessarily what you get with Aiden, but I still think you're wrong. This isn’t about Sophie. It's about you,Gage.”

Gage kissed my cheek, and we started toward the door, Charlie falling in step with us. “I don't care what he's up to,” he said, “as long as he stays away from mygirl.”

I shook my head, not bothering to respond. I was with Charlie. I did not get the way menthought.

Whatever was going on between Gage and Aiden, they'd have to deal with it on their own. Between my job running herd on Amelia, a brand-new relationship with Gage, the break-ins at Winters House, and now a phone call from my dead husband, I had my handsfull.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gage

Sophie letout a squeak of surprise as I tugged on her hand and pulled her behind the curtain, drawing her into my arms. Winters House was packed with wedding guests, and we hadn’t had a second alone allday.

Charlie's wedding had been planned with only six weeks notice and was on Christmas Eve, but that hadn't stopped most of the guest list from scrambling to attend. She was a Winters, after all. On top of that, her departure from Winters Inc., plus hooking up with a guy like Lucas, had made for some seriously interesting gossip as far as Atlanta society was concerned. She and Lucas had only invited a hundred people, but the house was bursting at theseams.

I’d pulled Sophie into the living room, looking for a quiet corner. The curtains would have to do. As children, we'd hidden in these curtains more than a few times. Reaching from the floor almost to the high ceiling, they were made from layers of heavy, rustling silk. The perfect hiding place—a dark cocoon of privacy—the sounds of the party muffled through thesilk.

I needed Sophie to myself for a few minutes. She was my date for the night, but too many wedding guests were intrigued by my return, and it had been impossible to get a momentalone.

Time alone with Sophie had been a constant challenge for the last two weeks. During the day, Winters House had been a hive of activity. Charlie and Mrs. W had every available hand pitching in, and we did whatever she and the wedding planner told us to: rearranging furniture, setting up seating, carryingequipment.

Amelia claimed old age and set up a chair in the front hall to supervise the proceedings, gaining scowls from everyone working, but entertaining us with her comments. Sophie was somehow able to help with the wedding and keep an eye on Amelia at the sametime.

When I was a child, both my mother and aunt Olivia had claimed that Mrs. W had eyes in the back of her head. I still wasn't sure about that, but I was beginning to believe that Sophie might. More than once she'd stopped what she was doing, marched over to Amelia's chair, stuck her hand in the pillows propped behind Amelia, and withdrawn a package of cookies or candybar.

Someday she would make a great mom. Our kids would get away withnothing.