Page 159 of The Nanny and the Hothead
That woman didn’t twist, and she didn’t mold herself to another’s expectations. That woman embraced her true self. She trusted and thrived in the knowledge that she was enough.
Charlotte took in her friends, the women who had been in her corner since she was five years old.
“I need to pack.”
“You’re leaving for Kentucky?” Harper blurted, incredulity coating the words.
The old Charlotte would have. But that’s not who she was.
“No,” she answered. She didn’t reply to the man’s message with a single word. Clear-eyed and with conviction pumping through her veins, she took a page from her father’s playbook—with a little variation. Her finger hovering over the screen, she blew out a steady breath, then tapped the thumbs-downicon.
Charlotte Ames was done settling for scraps.
“Then where are you going, Char?” Penny asked as an airplane crossed the sky. Bright white, it soared across the expanse of blue.
There was her message. The plane was the sign.
“I don’t need a Mr. Cheesy Forever waiting to greet me at the airport with a sign,” she said, studying the sky as the plane disappeared, heading east toward the rising sun. Sure, what she’d witnessed at the baggage claim back when she was a girl was a sweet and heartfelt gesture. But it didn’t define how she viewed love anymore.
“Char, are you okay?” Libby asked, moving from the bench to kneel in front of her.
Her friends leaned in, surrounding her with love and support as tears, happy tears, trailed down her cheek. She smiled. Ralph was right. Wiping the happy tears away with his handkerchief, she focused on her friends. “Girls, I’m better than okay. I’m going to London.”
Twenty-Seven
Mitch
“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”
Mitch stared at the pad of paper, scribbled across the line of text he’d written, then exhaled a tight breath. He was an utter wreck. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the rush of water as it danced through the rocky creek and the mountain air, rustling the leaves of the aspen trees that dotted the landscape. He’d left the cabin to clear his head. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.
Charlotte.
But it wasn’t just any image replaying in his mind.
He saw Charlotte’s face before she got into the car. And the depth of emotion in her emerald eyes nearly killed him. It wasn’t only the grief but the searing disappointment that had ripped apart his very soul.
And there was one person to blame for this living hell.
Himself.
This is what happened when he opened his heart and let someone in. This is why he needed the walls. This pain was the catalyst that transformed him into a seething hothead. Like with Holly and Seth, he hadn’t seen it coming. The betrayal had hit him like a one-two punch. It left him gasping and aching in misery just when he believed a life filled with love,real love, was within his grasp.
Charlotte was the reason he’d gotten his career back on track, and now she was the reason he’d been holed up in Holly’s cabin for the last three days. It was Wednesday. Hell if he knew what time! Probably the afternoon. It wasn’t like it mattered. He’d already missed the Tuesday food truck stop and had no plans to make the Thursday stop either. He hadn’t showered. He’d barely eaten. His phone rang—almost incessantly—and it pinged with text after text. Erick, Sergio, Louise, Ines, Gwen, Madelyn, Rowen, Raz, Landon—these people wouldn’t stop blowing up his phone.
Where are you?
Please call me!
This is important!
If he didn’t have to monitor the damned thing for Oscar’s camp, he would have thrown his cell into the creek. Of course, it didn’t help that he hadn’t replied to anyone. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have any answers. He’d gone back to the beginning, but he didn’t know where to go from here.
How did he move forward?
Or, in his case, how would it end?
He stared at the page of crap ideas for his book’s final chapter. Nothing gelled. Nothing flowed. He was in a world of shit and spiraling fast. Without Charlotte by his side, he was lost. And what was worse was that she knew he needed her. And still, she’d been poised to leave. With days to go and his career in the balance, he was here, sitting on a rock next to a creek, cursing his very existence.
