No one was more shocked than him that he’d fallen hard for Charley.
It took Colm a few minutes to get himself under control.
“You finished?” Alex asked as the guffaws started to die down.
Colm nodded. “Yeah. But damn.”
“Good. Because I screwed up and I need help.”
“You got it.”
They spent the next hour figuring out his next move.
Getting Charley to Baltimore and the game was step one.
Then it would be time to start executing the rest of the plan.
He was going to call in every favor ever owed to him.
And then, he was going to pray.
“I’ll get the car and meet you out front. You settle up the tab,” Colm said. “My retainer fee for this is tonight’s dinner.”
“Deal.”
Alex paid the bill, then headed outside.
“Remember me?”
He turned at the sound of the female voice, a beautiful blonde stepping close and slipping her arm through his.
She looked vaguely familiar.
Then the light went on.
The barracuda.
Alex tried to extract his arm casually, but the woman had a strong grip.
“I was just heading out,” he said coolly, hoping she’d get the picture. He didn’t want to have to manhandle her hand off him, but he would.
“Hey, Alex!” someone called out.
Alex glanced over as several cameras flashed.
He hated paparazzi. He shook off the woman’s arm before the hounds could descend.
Mercifully, Colm pulled up just at that moment. Alex climbed in, anxious to escape.
“Gun it,” he said to Colm.
He glanced back briefly to check on the barracuda. She was talking to the photographer.
Shit.
Charley closed the refrigerator door after grabbing a PBR. It had been three days since she’d texted Alex to say she wouldn’t make it to Baltimore until the weekend, and with each passing day, her anxiety had only grown.
Time apart had given her way too much time to think.
Actually, thinking was too mild a word. What she’d been engaging in was one long, never-ending panic attack, plain and simple.
She had played the fool twice in two weeks—once with Ben and then again with Alex. Her pride and her heart were beaten, battered beyond all recognition, and she was done.
She had gone to the librarian’s conference and managed, thanks to the hectic schedule, to put Alex out of her mind.
Well, sort of out of her mind.
Okay, so basically, he’d been placed on simmer, always there but contained.
Her ability to forget about how stupid she’d been ended three seconds after she’d gotten home on Monday and, in a state of panic, she had taken the coward’s way out and texted him, telling him she couldn’t make it until the weekend.
One night she could handle with him—maybe.
Six days?
Nope.
No way.
Now it was Thursday. The clock was ticking, and her heart was in no better shape.
She took a swig of the beer and then looked around her kitchen. It had been cleaned to within an inch of its life. Same for the rest of the apartment.
Whenever she was stressed out, she cleaned. Bella had taken one look around last night when she’d stopped by to check on her and suggested Charley bring her stress-ridden clean freak over to her place for a few hours.
She’d laughed last night, but now, Charley was out of stuff to clean and sort of considering it.
Her eyes landed on the fridge and she smiled. That could use a scrub.
She’d just pulled out the Formula 409 when there was a knock at the door. She glanced at the clock. It was just after five. Bella must’ve knocked off work early today.
True to her word, her best friend had been right by her side since her return on Monday, listening as she talked way too much about Alex and the one glorious week they’d spent together.
The one thing Charley hadn’t told her friend about was the elopement.
She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t. It wasn’t like it would make her look any less like a lovesick fool, but for some reason, that secret felt like something meant for just her and Alex.
She walked to the door and swung it open. “You’re earl—”
Charley appeared to have surprised Ben as much as he surprised her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I—” He paused at the sound of her hostile tone.
While she was crying her heart out over Alex, all she could summon for her cheating ex was barely contained rage.
Ben girded his loins. “I came to pick up the rest of my stuff.”
“Oh. Fine.” She turned around and pointed to a pile of boxes in the corner of the living room. Packing up his stuff was the first thing she’d checked off her cleaning-frenzy list. “It’s all there.”
“You packed it for me? You didn’t have to do that.”
Charley shrugged.
“How have you been?” he asked.
She stepped aside, sighing heavily as she waited for him to enter. She was not in the mood to make small talk with him. “Might take you a few trips to get it all to your car. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Charlotte, wait.” He stepped into the apartment and closed the door.
She whirled around on him. “Charley. My name is Charley, Ben. It’s always been Charley. You know that.”
He ran his hand through his hair, and for a second, he appeared almost nervous. “I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved at the wedding last weekend. I got a little intoxicated and…I said some things I shouldn’t have.”
Charley had overheard the things he’d said to Alex at the bar, encouraging him to find a hotter, sexier woman.
At the time, she’d been drunk enough—okay, horny enough—that the sting hadn’t been that bad.
Right now, it hurt like hell.
“I’m not in the mood to talk about any of—” God, she was suddenly too tired for this. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She hadn’t made it two steps before Ben blurted out, “Beverly dumped me.”
Charley wasn’t sure what response Ben was expecting from her, but it was obvious she took him by surprise when she glanced over her shoulder and simply said, “Sorry,” and kept walking.
The fact that Ben followed her to the kitchen just confirmed how shitty her life really was at the moment.
“She was pissed off at me for the way I behaved at the wedding. Charlo—Charley. I made a mistake.”
“We all had too much to drink at the wedding,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not that. I mean with us. Beverly said I clearly wasn’t over you. And…she’s right. I’m not. I don’t think I ever will be.”
He wasn’t seriously here to try to get her back.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice…
“There is no us, Ben. That’s over.”
“I just thought…after seeing what Alex did to you…it made me realize how horrible I’d been.”
“What Alex did?”
Ben pulled his cell from his pocket, clicked a few buttons, and handed it to her. “You know how I read a couple of hockey blogs. This popped up this morning and…”
On the screen was a picture of Alex with a very voluptuous, beautiful, fake-as-hell blonde on his arm.