Chapter 4
1364 Words
"Before we go in," Ethan said, "I think we should clarify a few things."
Charlotte had been about to say the same. She gestured toward the bench along the wall and they sat.
"Three conditions," she said. "This will be a marriage of convenience. Our finances stay separate. And no deception between us — whatever this is, it needs to be honest."
He listened without interrupting. Then: "Agreed. All three."
"Your conditions?"
"One condition." Ethan rested his forearms on his knees. "The marriage lasts a minimum of fourteen months. My grandmother believes it's real."
Charlotte watched him.
"Why?"
"She's dying." His gaze remained on the floor for a moment before returning to her face.
"Fourteen months," Ethan said. "And she believes it's real."
She extended her hand. He shook it. They went inside after.
~~~
The forms were straightforward. Name, date of birth, identification. Two witnesses from the staff pool. She signed, he signed, the clerk stamped it.
Outside on Worth Street, Ethan reached into his jacket and held out a bank card.
Charlotte looked at it.
"We agreed on separate finances." Her fingers remained curled around the marriage certificate.
"This is my salary account." Ethan held the card between two fingers. "PIN is six nines. All the men on my crew hand over their salary card when they get married."
Charlotte took it.
"It's what a husband does where I come from." Ethan slipped his hands into his pockets.
She took it. The gesture was genuine and she understood the difference between a gesture and an amount.
He called a car for her. Then he turned and walked toward the subway entrance without looking back.
She stood on Worth Street with a marriage certificate and a stranger's bank card, and got in the car and told the driver her parents' address.
Her mother opened the door, looked at her face and said: "Come in. I'll make tea."
Charlotte sat at the kitchen counter and put the marriage certificate between them.
Margaret picked up the certificate and read it from beginning to end before setting it on the counter.
"Ethan Calder." Her fingertip rested on the signature.
"Yes." Charlotte wrapped both hands around the mug.
"You broke your engagement yesterday." Margaret looked up from the certificate.
"I know." Charlotte lowered her eyes to the tea.
"And now you're—" she stopped herself.
"Married." Charlotte met her gaze. "Yes."
Margaret looked at her daughter's face. Whatever she was searching for, grief, desperation, the fracture she'd been waiting to see since the living room, she didn't find it.
"Who is he?" Margaret asked.
"He's a good man. He saved my life in the fire. That's what I know about him. It's enough for now."
Margaret was quiet, then she put her hand over Charlotte's and didn't ask anything else.
Richard found them in the kitchen. He picked up the certificate, then read it. He sat it down with less care than her mother had.
"A firefighter?"
"You married a firefighter." His voice had the quality of a man trying to locate the angle of something that made no sense to him. "Charlotte, you had a future—"
"That was what?" she said. "Arranged? Managed? Julian walked past me in a burning room, Dad. He had Olivia in his arms and told me to keep up and left me there. Ethan came in after me. He didn't know me. He didn't have a reason to. He came in anyway."
"You don't know this man."
"I know what he did."
"Charlotte, a firefighter's salary—"
"I have my own salary. I have always had my own salary. I don't need his."
"That's not the point." He set the certificate down. "Your grandfather's will. The marriage clause. Is that what this is? You married a stranger to trigger the forty percent before your birthday?"
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Is that what you think?" she said.
"I think you made a decision in one day that conveniently activates an inheritance clause worth forty percent management authority of this company." His voice had lost its disbelief and found something colder. "Your grandfather wrote a second clause. The marriage must be genuine. Not a filing. Not a convenience. If the board determines it was entered into solely for financial purposes, the forty percent reverts."
"I know about the second clause."
"Then you know what's at stake."
"Yes." She held his gaze. "Do you?"
He straightened his jacket. "I hope you know what you're doing." He left.
Her mother refilled her tea without being asked.
"He's not wrong that you don't know him," Margaret said.
"I know. But I knew Julian for seven years and didn't know him at all. I'd rather start from the truth."
"Is he kind to you?"
Charlotte thought about the bank card. "Yes."
Margaret nodded. "Those are sometimes the best kind. Bring him for dinner. When you're ready."
"Not yet. We're still finding our footing."
"I just want to see his face."
Charlotte almost smiled. "You want to see if he's frightened of you."
"Everyone should be a little frightened of their mother-in-law," Margaret said. "It keeps them honest."
~~~
Carroll Gardens, the third floor. He'd left a key in an envelope in the mailbox.
The apartment was small and clean, a kitchen, a bookshelf, a desk, a worn reading chair with a copy of John Donne on the arm.
The second room had a window facing the garden, clean sheets, and a spare blanket at the foot of the bed.
She sat and listened to the street below doing its ordinary Brooklyn business.
Charlotte lowered herself into the reading chair and looked around the apartment.
Her father's expression returned first, then her mother's hand closed over hers in the kitchen.
The second clause lasted longer than either. She looked toward the spare bedroom.
The apartment was small, yet it was clean and orderly.
For now, that was enough.
Her phone had been buzzing since she sat down. Sloane had sent a link.
A gossip account. A photograph taken through the Civil Bureau's glass partition, slightly blurred but clear enough. Ethan beside her, the white dress, the clerk beaming in the background.
"Charlotte Bennett — yes, THAT Charlotte Bennett — married a stranger at Worth Street Civil Bureau this morning. The groom: Ethan Calder, firefighter. A day after her broken engagement to Julian Mercer. Thoughts??"
Four hundred and seventy-three comments.
She put her phone face-down. It rang immediately.
"Charlotte. The filing is public. Three board members have called in the last hour. Director Hargrove is requesting an emergency meeting, he's invoking the second clause review."
"Ok."
"Charlotte—"
She hung up, then heard the front door.
Ethan walked in wearing the same clothes he had worn that morning. He stopped when he saw her.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then Ethan moved into the kitchen and filled a glass with water.
"Derek called." He rested one hand against the counter. "He told me about the will and the clause. The board is calling a meeting."
"Are you disappointed?" Charlotte turned the phone over in her hands.
"Derek told me before this morning." Ethan set the glass down.
Charlotte watched him.
"And you married me anyway?" Her fingers tightened around the edge of the phone.
"Yes." Ethan met her gaze.
"Why?" Charlotte remained where she was.
Ethan looked at her for a moment before reaching for the glass again.
"We both needed something."
Ethan set the glass down. He looked at her for a moment, then crossed the kitchen.
When he stopped, there was less than a foot between them.
"We start with this."
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear slowly. His hand dropped but he didn't step back.
Charlotte didn't move, her heart was doing something her face was not going to show.
"The board will watch us." Charlotte kept her eyes on him. "They'll ask questions."
"Let them." Ethan remained where he was.
Her hand tightened around the edge of the counter.
"And if it becomes real?" Charlotte looked up at him.
Ethan held her gaze.
"We'll see." He turned back toward the stove.
- Writer
