Page 20 of Love He Denied
He'd never called her Charlie. Not once in six months of dating, a four-month engagement and a wedding that detonated on the altar. She'd always been Charlotte to him. Formal, elegant, suitable. The name on the place card. And now, six months after she'd walked out, he was using the name that belonged to her real life, the life he'd never been part of, and he was using it to walk back in through a door she had firmly closed.
Kate was watching her. The clipboard had been set down. Her hands were flat on the table.
"Charlie?" Delaney said. "You okay? Do you want to take the meeting?"
Charlotte's heart was hammering. She could feel it in her throat, in her wrists, in the tips of her fingers where they pressed against the table's edge. She should say no. She should tell Delaney to assign someone else, or explain the conflict of interest, or simply refuse, let Kate do it and never walk into a room where Dominic Weston was waiting on the other side.
But P.S. 34 needed the money. Oliver needed new art supplies. The school needed everything this grant could provide, and Charlotte was the fundraiser committee lead. This was her job, and she was not going to let Dominic Weston take one more thing from her. Not her dignity, not her school, not her work.
She loosened her grip on the table. Straightened her shoulders.
"I'll take the meeting," she said.
Kate's mouth opened. Charlotte met her eyes and shook her head: a fraction of movement, invisible to anyone else.Not now.
Delaney clapped her hands. "Wonderful. I'll confirm with the Gallison Foundation. Meeting's Thursday at four. I'll reserve the conference room."
She swept out. The lounge door swung shut behind her.
Kate waited three seconds. "Charlie."
"Don't."
"You know who that is."
"I know exactly who that is."
"Then why did you just agree to sit across a table from him?"
Charlotte picked up her seating chart. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady, and steadiness was what she had. Steadiness, stubbornness and months of learning how to stand in a room without Dominic Weston and not fall down.
"Because this school needs that grant," she said. "And I'm not going to let him take that too."
She went back to labeling tables. Kate watched her for a long moment, then picked up her clipboard, and neither of them said his name for the rest of the afternoon.
CHAPTER 10
DOMINIC
The conference room at P.S. 34 had a water stain on the ceiling and motivational posters on the walls.BELIEVE IN YOURSELFsaid a cartoon cat hanging from a branch.TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORKsaid a group of anthropomorphic pencils. The table was rectangular, scarred, and had someone's initials carved into the corner.J.R.inside a lopsided heart.
Dominic sat in a plastic chair designed for someone significantly shorter and waited for Charlotte to walk through the door.
He'd prepared for this. Days of preparation. Reviewing the Gallison Foundation's program structure, memorizing enrollment data for P.S. 34, reading every article he could find about arts integration in public schools. He'd spoken with Amrita Kapoor, the foundation's program director, for over an hour, asking questions he would never have thought to ask a year ago. What did the teachers need? What did the students respond to? What was the gap between what the school had and what it should have?
Amrita had been surprised by his interest. "Most corporate donors just want to know the tax implications and the photoops," she'd said. Dominic had said, "I want to know what the kids need," and meant it, and the meaning had felt strange in his mouth — unfamiliar, like speaking a language he was learning late.
He'd also prepared himself for Charlotte. Or tried to. He'd rehearsed what he'd say, how he'd sit, where he'd put his hands. Professional. Respectful. No ambush, no manipulation, no angle. He was here for the grant. The fact that the grant connected to her school, her classroom, her world… that wasn't a coincidence, but he was trying to make it more than a strategy. He was trying to make it genuine.
The door opened.
Charlotte walked in carrying a folder and a coffee cup with a lid that didn't fit properly, and his preparation evaporated like water on a hot pan.
Her hair was down. All of it. Curls past her shoulders, loose and unmanaged, the way he'd never seen it during their engagement because she'd always pinned it up for his events, tamed it into something sleek and appropriate. This was Charlotte unpinned. Charlotte in her natural state. She wore a cardigan over a blouse, dark jeans, flats. No jewelry except a watch with a leather band. No makeup that he could detect, though her cheeks were flushed: from the stairs, or from knowing who was waiting in this room.
She looked beautiful. Less polished and more devastating. She looked like a woman who'd stopped trying to be someone else, and the person underneath was so vivid it hurt to look at her directly.
She saw him and stopped. One beat. Two. Her brown eyes went hard, and then she crossed the room, sat down across from him, opened her folder and said, "Let's get this over with."
