Charlie was gone. Not gone forever (she didn’t think so anyway), but he’d left in a huff and Carolina had no idea what she’d done to push him over the edge. She shouldn’t care. But she did. They’d been giving each other grief like they always did—she’d laid a great zinger on him, he’d given her one back just as good, situation normal. Exc ept all at once, his face had closed in and he’d taken off. Which did not bode well. The house shouldn’t feel so empty without Charlie in it. He’d only lived here for a few days. But she couldn’t settle, prowling around like a restless lion who couldn’t find even one antelope to devour. What was wrong with her? She wanted to poke her head into his room, just to reassure herself that he hadn’t packed all of his belongings. To see his rumpled bed and know that he’d sl ept in it because he lived here and was coming back to be her roommate for a while longer. Exc ept he wasn’t just a roommate, no matter how much she might try to convince herself of that. There was something between them. She didn’t mind admitting that. What she did mind him knowing was how big and thick that something was, how it flowed into every corner of her existence until she thought she’d drown in him. What kind of example was that for her viewers? She couldn’t even handle a man paying a little bit of attention to her without falling right back into bad patterns. Namely the one where she started making up a happily ever after where none existed. Love didn’t last. And it certainly didn’t ke ep people from hurting each other. She saw example after example, day in and day out, of couples who should have ended things. Callers in abusive situations. Those who hung on, even after the guy had moved on. Some who fell into relationships as a panacea to other types of pain. She’d never let herself get in so de ep that she couldn’t find the door. Never let herself be on the wrong side of it when that door slammed closed. Like her mom had been. Charlie finally blew back through the door nearly four hours later. Not that she’d been watching the clock well enough to know precisely how long he’d been gone or anything. “If it isn’t his excellency. Did you get your errand taken care of?” she called out from her place on the couch, where she’d been pretending to read while staring at the ceiling. Hopefully she’d infused enough ennui in her tone that he wouldn’t realize she’d been half out of her mind. Now that he was home, everything in her world righted. Which meant she could go back on the defensive. He didn’t do her the favor of vanishing to his room, which would have been preferable. Then she didn’t have to worry about him catching the way her lungs hitched as she drank him in. It must have been a little windy outside because his inky hair had blown every which way in a delicious mess that begged to be rearranged by a woman’s fingers. “If I’m an excellency, you are too. We’re married.”
As if she’d needed the reminder. But she didn’t get a chance for her own comeback because she swallowed whatever she’d been about to say the moment he plunked down on the couch, levering her legs up to drape them across his lap. “What are you doing?” she squawked as her thighs made the acquaintance with his, setting off tingles of the variety that would get her into trouble very fast. “You were taking up all the room. This was the only way I could sit on the couch with you,” he r eplied with maddeningly calm logic. “Why do you need to sit on the couch at all?” Where his very presence sucked up all the oxygen in the room. Besides, wasn’t he mad at her? He’d been gone for four hours. Doing what? Staying away deliberately to teach her a lesson or something? “So I can show you my new tattoo.” “Your what?” Shock shot her eyebrows so high it hurt. “If this is your attempt to become an irresistible bad boy in hopes I’ll fall all over you, one tattoo is not going to cut it.” Sudden intrigue painted itself all over his face. “Are you saying more than one would do the trick? Because I’m here to tell you that getting a tattoo is the second most painful thing that’s ever happened to me, but if that’s what it takes, I can buck up.” “That is literally the opposite of what I’m saying,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm. “Tattoos are not my thing.” “You’re not even curious what it is?” Of course she was. Charlie was the poster boy for clean-cut all- American. It was almost as shocking that he’d managed to spell tattoo well enough to locate a place that did them as it was that he’d let someone permanently alter his skin. “I guess.” With a cryptic expression on his face, he hooked the V of his T-shirt and pulled it down to bare his upper pectoral. Scarcely an extra two inches of skin showed, which shouldn’t qualify as risqué. Tell that to her mouth, which had gone drought dry. Two intertwined letters in a de ep royal blue had been inked onto his body, just above his heart. A C and a K. As in her initials. Her. Initials. “What in the name of Christmas did you do, Charlie?” she cried, her gaze stuck on the letters. No amount of squinting changed what they were. “This is me showing you that I’m serious.” That quiet admission arrowed straight into her heart, piercing her irrevocably. He’d done this thing to show her that he was serious. About her. The one thing she’d banked on him never doing. “You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game.” Yes, that would be a note of panic in her voice, and he didn’t miss it. “A little like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” he countered with so much serenity that she wanted to punch him.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I didn’t change the rules.” “You’ve been on my case since day one about my lack of seriousness, and me telling you I am wasn’t good enough. Marrying you wasn’t enough. So here’s a visual.” He tapped his chest hard. “Carolina Kline is carved into my heart. Can’t get more serious than that.” That was the romantic in Charlie, and her stupid heart did a little swan dive at the notion. A need to rile him like he’d so easily done to her took over. “I never asked you prove you were serious about me.” “Didn’t you?” He cocked his head, gaze narrowed in challenge. “This was my errand. No deflection. Just me, wide open like a book for you to read.” “That’s just...” She didn’t know what it was. Dirty, rotten, table-turning, and a slew of other things that her brain couldn’t sort fast enough because gah. Charlie had tattooed her initials near his heart. Over a bet. Exc ept even she couldn’t make herself connect those dots. There was something else going on here, something bigger than a bet. Something wild and thrilling with echoes of eternal longing that she’d suppressed. She could not fall for false promises. Or him. He was dangerous to her state of mind, her soul. Wasn’t he? She couldn’t think, couldn’t process any of this. So she rolled from the couch and fled. “I have a show,” she mumbled to the door before slamming it closed with her husband on the other side. Boy, he was going to feel really dumb when she won the bet and filed for annulment. It was a testament to how screwed up Charlie had gotten her that two tears splashed down on her cheeks before she’d fully realized that prick at her eyelids wasn’t caused by dust. She cursed everyone on the planet with a Y chromosome and spent ten frantic minutes in the bathroom trying to get herself camera worthy. Charlie’s “errand” had put black streaks of mascara under her eyes. Big, fat jerk. How dare he try to beat her at her own game? Next thing she knew, he’d try to convince her that the mysterious d epths she’d glimpsed during Scrabble also had her name on them. And like a big dumb dummy, she’d believe him. Blindly, she set up her laptop and clicked up the program she used to broadcast Ask Carolina. Within moments of signing on and smiling brightly for her viewers, callers flooded the queue, and she almost cried again—this time with relief. This world she understood. Women trying to survive their emotional pain, hoping to get help processing. They came to her for this help. What kind of relationship advice guru would she be if she let men get off the hook after they’d treated a woman like dirt? She tapped the key to speak to the first person in the queue. “Caller, you’re on with Ask Carolina. What relationship problem can I help you solve today?” “Turkey or ham?” the male voice asked. Charlie. She rolled her eyes with as much exaggeration as she could muster. How had he gotten into the queue first? The man was a sorcerer of the highest order,
wielding his magic tricks so proficiently even someone with her healthy dose of sk epticism couldn’t see how he’d accomplished it. “I’m doing a show. Which you should know because you just called in to it.” “I did know,” he admitted cheerily. “I’m making you lunch and I need to find out what you want on your sandwich. Since you’re on the air, voila. Two birds, one stone.” Making her lunch. What in the world? She’d neither asked him to nor expected it. “That’s not what that metaphor means.” Normally she wouldn’t get this testy on the air but her viewers would forgive her. Especially since it was her husband who was currently messing up her show. “Both birds have to be working to achieve the same goal for you to kill them with one stone.” “So, you don’t want to use your on air time to discuss relationship problems?” “I do,” she said through gritted teeth. “Which is why I asked what problem you wanted to solve, only to get a deli menu.” “See, that’s because you weren’t listening. Turkey and ham are married, let’s pretend. One thinks that the only way to make a sandwich is with white bread, mayo and three slices of meat. The other one thinks there are all kinds of ways to make something delicious. Wheat bread, multi-grain wraps, pumpernickel. Then you add tomatoes, pickles, lettuce. Maybe you put both kinds of meat on your bread. Wouldn’t that be something?” “Or it would ruin it because there’s just too much stuff on there,” she corrected him sweetly. “What’s your point? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have one. I’m not that rigid, Charlie.” “Who said you were the boring, plain sandwich? Maybe I’m talking about someone who called in to my show, and I’m begging for your female perspective.” She nearly laughed out loud. “You’d never consider anyone else’s perspective other than your own. Admit it.” “Let’s put that to the test, shall we?” He didn’t wait for her to agree. “How would you advise a poor lovelorn guy who loves his wife but she ke eps throwing up all these barriers that he can’t seem to knock down?” “No one called in with that problem.” “You’d be shocked how often I hear that exact issue,” he said with stubborn sincerity. “Lay it on me. Advice. Yours. Go.” “So, in this scenario, turkey is the one with the barriers? Or ham? You’re confusing me with your metaphors.” “Then let me remove all confusion. Why is it so hard for you to believe that my feelings for you are real?” A giant hook sank right through her heart. And then tugged. Painfully. He was reeling her in so fast she was nearly powerless to stop him. “That’s where you were going with all of this?” She laughed to cover the way her lungs had stopped working like they were supposed to. “I get it now. Lunch meat was just a distraction.” And he was the master of it. “No. It’s legit. You are that rigid. There’s only one way to fly for you.
All men are not evil. I’m not even in that category, but you’ve never given me a fair chance, have you?” No. Nor would she. It was far easier to be on the offensive than to spend months—years even—recovering after someone you trusted ripped your heart out and then k ept it, which didn’t even allow for any sort of healing. What was she supposed to do, break down and just let herself be taken in by him? All men had the capacity to destroy a woman’s psyche. Her father had just been the first in a long line of examples. “I’m giving you a chance to prove that your tools work. Don’t you dare come on my show and accuse me of not playing by the rules.” “Exc ept you’re not,” he countered smoothly because of course he was watching her video stream and could easily see that he’d gotten her agitated. And being Charlie, his MO was to pull on that rope until she crossed the line over into his territory, where he’d take shameless advantage of her proximity to the enemy camp. “Do tell,” she invited him coolly. “I’m sure all of my viewers would love to hear how I’m being unfair when you’re living in my house and I married you. What is that but a chance for you to ply me with enough tools to give me a root canal?” “Because you missed the essential point, sweetheart. I’m not here to prove my tools work. I’m here to convince you that I’m in love with you.”