Sexy Stranger(53)

"Uh, hi," I said. "Maybe you could explain-"

Charlotte stalked toward the man beside me and finally seemed to find her voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Look, you might have left me but that doesn't mean I stopped caring. You posted on Instagram, so I did some-"

"Snooping," she spat out, cutting in.

"Research," he said, correcting her, "and I came here to make sure you're okay. Which, obviously, you are." 

This time, his eyes found mine and something clicked.

"Speak of the devil."

I scrubbed a hand over my face and stood from my bar stool. "The girl you were talking about is Charlotte?" I asked, and he gave me a clipped nod. "I thought you were an investor-"

Charlotte let out a humorless laugh. "So, you lied to him to get to me? That's low, Prescott. Who put you up to this? My parents?"

"You said your name was Scott," I muttered, my gut clenching in shock.

Prescott? Prescott Billingsley was the guy sitting next to me-the guy who had apparently been nothing to write home about? Except that wasn't true either, because she'd been fucking engaged to the guy. The whole time she'd been here, she'd been engaged. And she'd left him high and dry, just like Sarah had done to me. Worse than that, Charlotte had lied to me.

"I use the name in business so there's no confusion. My father is named Prescott as well. And nobody put me up to anything." He shook his head, then glanced at me. "I'm sorry. I hadn't had a chance to explain, and I've never turned down a free glass of whiskey, which-considering you know Charlotte-I'm sure you can understand."

My head spun again as twin urges warred inside me-one to knock this guy's fucking head off for talking about my woman like that, and the other to tear my hair out at the lunacy of this situation.

"What the fuck is going on, Charlotte?" I shouted.

The whole time she'd been here, she'd been hiding. Hiding from Prescott and from her parents, and lying to me and my family about why she was here. She obviously hadn't felt that she could trust me, that she didn't know me well enough to confide in me. And here I'd bought a ticket to go to her and try to make this work.

Honestly, I wasn't sure which part of it stung the most.

Little snippets of memories played through my mind-the way she'd snapped at me when I'd pressed her about her ex, how angry she'd been when she'd slammed down her phone in my kitchen, the way she always looked at her cell like it was about to detonate at any moment.

"Nothing to write home about?" I asked quietly, and then forced myself to look at her, wondering if I'd ever be able to do that again without feeling sick.

Charlotte's gaze darted between Prescott and me, her eyes brimming with tears. "You have to understand-"

I wasn't interested in hearing it. I turned on Prescott, now remembering the things he'd told me before she walked through the door. He'd talked about what a pain in the ass his fiancée had been. How he didn't love her. How he'd only gone after her to make sure she cleaned up her own mess back home before moving on with her life like nothing had happened.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I demanded, my hands balled into fists at my side.

Prescott's eyes narrowed. "What the fuck is wrong with me? What's wrong with you?"

"You couldn't just leave her the fuck alone?" I growled. "You didn't think she'd been through enough?"

"Ah." Prescott nodded. "So that's how you know each other."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you fucked her. Not to put too fine a point on it," he muttered.

All I had to do was swing. One punch and he'd be on the floor-that was the one advantage of growing up without having money to fix all my problems, I supposed. But he was smaller than me, obviously just as confused, and the fight wouldn't have been a fair one.



       
         
       
        

No matter how much I wanted to teach him a fucking lesson.

"Don't talk about her like that. Or better yet, how about you don't talk about her at all?" I started, but then Charlotte's hand was on my chest, pushing me back toward the bar.

"Look, I couldn't tell you," she said, her eyes pleading. Then she turned to Prescott. "You didn't have to come here and do this to me."

"Do this to you?" This time it was his turn to let out a humorless laugh. "Do you have any idea what I've been dealing with? Your parents are all over me, and I had to handle the fallout of your big break for freedom. The least you could've done was return my calls."