Page 56 of Guarding My Love

“I just said my mother liked surnames and different names. And my parents reversed it.”

“So she thinks your name is Foster Mitchell, not Foster Mitchell Carlisle.”

“I don’t know what she thinks,” he said.

“Don’t give me that crap. At some point, you’re going to have to tell her. If you like her enough, what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

“If the bridge doesn’t collapse before then.”

“Very funny,” he said.

“We’re going to want to meet her if it gets to that point,” Laken said. “A point where you don’t feel as if you’re being used.”

“See,” he said. “You know that. You understand it. We’ve all had to deal with it. Well, not Braylon. Lily knew right away who he was.”

“Jamie knew who I was,” she said. “Don’t play that.”

“But Abby had no idea who West was. And you and Braylon worried too. Braylon got lucky because Lily didn’t care about that. The wealth actually made her want to go in the other direction.”

“Do you think Charlotte only wants a wealthy man? I know you finally broke down and said that she had a history of dating older wealthy men and said she was done.”

He was surprised he’d said what he had. He was careful because if things did get more serious with Charlotte, he didn’t want his family to judge her. He’d told West who Charlotte’s brother-in-law was, just so his brother had that information.

He was right. West did have some dealings with the Bonds and had met Drew before. Said they were very down-to-earth people who didn’t flaunt their wealth.

Meaning they weren’t dickheads.

“I don’t think she does,” he said. “She was actually laughing when she found out I was a year younger than her and admitted that she needed to change her outlook on life. I asked her if she was testing things with me. If I was her experiment.”

“Of course you asked that,” Laken said. “Good for you for being straightforward.”

“Why play games?” he said. “I don’t like them.”

“What did she say?”

“She seemed appalled that I’d ask that and then said no. I’m not sure what is going on with us, but I’m taking her on the boat Saturday.”

“You never take anyone other than family on your boat,” Laken said. “To me, that is very telling.”

“Not telling enough,” he said. “Baby steps. And I’ve got work to do so I can get the hell out of this place.”

“Bye,” Laken said. “I’m sure Braylon will be down to see you in the caves.”

Laken always called the server rooms the caves.

Hours later he was thrilled to be out of the City. Or trying to be out of it. He’d cleared most of the traffic in his eyes.

He shouldn’t have waited until Friday to do this, but he wanted to do it when he had the weekend to run it if there were any issues.

Braylon had stopped down to see him and not brought up one thing about Charlotte. Either Laken hadn’t had a chance to talk to his brother or Braylon was being considerate and not chatting like a chick. Braylon was laid back enough that he wasn’t so nosy.

It was a good enough time to call Elias and he hit the button on the dash.

“Hey,” Elias said on the second ring. “What’s going on? Do I need to get out of my computers or something?”

“No,” he said. “You’re good.” Elias had people on site dealing with issues, but the servers were in Merrick with most of the other ones.

---