Page 108 of Ardently Yours

My brain is on a single track. I don't absorb his words at all. “You have to call the cops. I know."

“ThefuckI do.” He leans away from me so he can look into my eyes. “What did I say to you? I will love you until my last breath. And Iwillprotect you. Nothing is hurting you, Charlotte. Not your body or your heart. I’ll fight Satan himself to keep you safe. And I’m not about to be thwarted by a dead asshole whose very existence was a stain on humanity. Right now, you don't need a prince. I’m more than ready to be your villain.”

My sobs dry, and I stare back in shock.

“The body is going to disappear like it was never there. Where’s his car?” Arden asks.

“It’s in the Susquehanna. We didn’t want to put his corpse in it though because if someone found it, it was pretty obvious he was hit in the head,” I say.

Metal clinks as Reese lets Rochelle go. She stands with a scrape of her chair legs and sobs noisily.

I turn to look, ready to hold her, but Reese already has her wrapped in a hug. She clings, with her arms around his neck.

“All right, spitfire. We’re going to take care of everything.” Reese rubs her back.

I look at Arden. “How?”

“One of the women on the team is wearing your clothes, a wig, and is strategically peeking through the curtains of my brownstone every hour or so. The press also know the children are in the house. I spoke briefly to the paparazzi before I went inside the gates in the Hamptons. They don’t know I left fifteen minutes later hiding in the back of Phyllis’s minivan. The guy from the masquerade remembered your name, but since the only thing he knew about you was that you lived in the city, their focus is on New York and on waiting for you to make a statement. There are 512 Charlotte Millers with New York listed as their residence. The press is busy filtering through them. It’ll give us enough time.”

I shiver. He takes off his suit jacket and lifts and eyebrow. I nod, and he drapes it around me.

“You two are going to stay here. Dump your clothes and shoes into the plastic tote with strong bleach water in the attached garage and leave them there. Someone will arrive to clean this location within an hour. Go straight from the garage to the bathroom upstairs. Don’t retrace your steps. Stay away from rooms you’ve already been in.

“Shower and change. I’ll leave a go-bag with clothes and specific hygiene products and instructions for you. Follow them to the letter. Help each other, so you don’t miss a single spoton your bodies. Then you’re going out the back door and up to the main house. They’ll be expecting you. My aunt only uses this place as a vacation home most of the time, so she’s not here. The staff think you’ve had a water line break in your house,” he says.

My mouth drops, and I look over to Rochelle who appears just as shocked.

“I called your dad,” Arden says.

Behind me, I clutch the back of the chair.

“Reese will deal with RealFreedom and the basement cleanup. No one will be the wiser. We’ll give Greg the concrete floor he wants. I can access resources quickly.”

I lick my bottom lip. “Have I mentioned that kind of power is a little scary?”

“Somehow, I think you can handle me,” he says. “Your dad and brother know how to operate a backhoe and a cement mixer. Reginald is getting a bigger coop with a nice, extra-thick concrete pad under it. He needs a castle to match his big cock energy. We’ll take care of it before morning.”

“I didn’t want to involve them in this.”

He cups my face. “If, one day, Bronnie has some asshole come after her, would you want to help her?”

Unable to speak, I nod.

“Nobody’s the sacrificial lamb tonight. Everybody but Polford gets a happily ever after,” he says.

I lift my hand to touch his jaw. When my filthy nails come into view, I pull away without touching him. “How could you arrange this before you knew who was in the backdrop and why?” I ask.

“Because if Charlotte Miller hid a body, there was a one hundred percent chance he needed to die.”

I'll Stand by You

Charlotte

Bronnie and I havebeen hiding at Arden’s aunt’s estate in Blackwater for a week. No one has figured out the connection between Arden and his aunt, so no one has bothered to look behind those wrought-iron gates for me.

When Arden realized the protection the estate offered, he stopped talking about keeping us in the Hamptons and decided to leave me in Blackwater for the duration of the media blitz. He estimates five more weeks of hiding. Nevermind that his PR people say if we address it now, it’ll be over in a week.

I sit on the back patio sipping sweet tea with my sister, Teresa. Bronnie’s Close Protection Officer, Margot, stands nearby as Bronnie chases her cousins, Dierdre and Marie, in the backyard, attempting to “tag" them.

---