Married to a Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 2

The answer arrived before Charlotte finished looking at the date on the screen.

May 18th, at the Mezzanine Club in the Meatpacking District.

Olivia Carter was still on the sofa across the room, her chest rising and falling steadily beneath the haze of smoke gathering overhead.

She was alive.

Charlotte crossed to her. Running was out of the question. Her ankle had settled that argument an hour earlier on Gansevoort Street when she stepped off the curb to pull Julian away from a cab that hadn't seen him.

Her heel had caught a drain cover. She had gone down hard. Julian had looked at her and said, "How careless." He adjusted his cuff. Olivia took Charlotte's arm while Julian walked ahead checking his phone.

Charlotte had spent the rest of the block teaching herself how to keep her weight on the other foot.

She grabbed Olivia by the shoulders. "Olivia. Wake up. We need to go."

But Olivia didn't nothing. Whatever she'd had to drink had taken her somewhere deep. Charlotte got her hands under Olivia's arms and pulled her steadily, and Olivia's heels dragged across the floor while Charlotte's ankle filed its final objection.

She got Olivia to the door and pressed her palm flat against it. Warm, not hot yet. She turned the handle.

The door swung open.

Julian was already there.

Julian was younger, exactly as she remembered him from the beginning of their relationship. He wore the navy jacket she had helped him choose the year they became engaged, back when she believed every promise he made about the future.

His eyes settled on her first.

They remained there for a full second before moving to Olivia.

He stepped past Charlotte and crouched beside the sofa. Olivia's head tipped against his shoulder when he lifted her into his arms. She turned her face into his neck without hesitation.

Julian looked at Charlotte over Olivia's shoulder.

"Keep up." He shifted Olivia higher against his chest.

Then he walked through the door.

Charlotte remained where she was for a moment, her hand still extended toward the doorway.

Seven years suddenly looked different.

"How careless."

"Keep up."

"I see."

Comments she had accepted without examination now returned one after another.

She turned sideways and moved toward the exit with one hand against the wall. The surface was already warmer than it should have been.

A hand seized her wrist, it was nothing like Julian's. It pulled her upright and forward before she'd decided to move.

She got one impression before her face was pressed into his chest: very tall, very broad, the breadth built rather than inherited. His gear smelled of smoke and sweat and beneath it all, faintly, plain soap.

Through the face mask, Charlotte caught a glimpse of his eyes.

They moved quickly across the room, from the ceiling above them to the doorway ahead and back again.

His palm pressed the side of her head and guided her face into his jacket just as something cracked overhead.

A shower of debris struck his back and shoulders.

The force of his grip never changed as he carried her forward.

They went through one door, then another. Then outside, and the May air hit her like a correction, cold and indifferent to everything that had happened inside.

Julian stood near the crowd with Olivia beside him while a first responder wrapped a foil blanket around her shoulders.

Olivia's face was wet with tears.

Julian's hand rested at the back of her head.

Charlotte watched him smooth a loose strand of hair away from Olivia's face.

The gesture lasted only a few seconds before the stranger lowered Charlotte onto the running board of the nearest truck and crouched beside her ankle.

One tear tracked down her cheek. She didn't wipe it. She let it reach her jaw and drop, and that was all she allowed.

The stranger examined her ankle without asking how she was doing. She was grateful for this in a way that surprised her. Then the dark came in from the edges, and she closed her eyes.

~~~

She came back to consciousness in layers.

First the ceiling, ivory, hairline c***k above the window, her mother had always called it character. Then the smell of bergamot. Then her mother's hands, pressing a cool cloth to her forehead.

Charlotte turned her head toward her mother.

Margaret Bennett was alive.

Six months after the wedding in her first life, Charlotte had stood in a Connecticut cemetery staring at two closed caskets.

Now her mother sat beside the bed holding a cool cloth.

Charlotte wrapped both arms around her before she could reconsider it.

Margaret made a startled sound and immediately held her back.

"All right, darling." Her hand moved slowly across Charlotte's hair. "All right."

Charlotte pulled back and said nothing.

"Thank goodness Julian reacted so quickly." Margaret adjusted the blanket across Charlotte's lap. "Getting you out."

Charlotte went very still. She looked at her mother's relief and did not correct it.

"Mom." Her hands were steady. "I'm not marrying Julian Mercer."

Her mother's hand stilled against her hair. She stared at Charlotte as though she'd spoken in a language she didn't recognize. Then she exhaled slowly.

"The cathedral is booked. The reception is arranged. Invitations have gone to half the city. You can't decide this now."

Charlotte leaned into her, resting her forehead against her shoulder the way she used to coming home from boarding school.

"I just can't bear to leave you," she said quietly.

Not a lie, but simply not the whole truth.

Margaret stroked her hair, indulgent despite herself. "You've adored Julian for a long time. You said you'd marry him one day and live in this house forever." then she paused. "Why this sudden change of heart?"

Because in her first life, she did marry him.

Because she knew what the years after the cathedral and the champagne looked like.

Julian had grown up under the watchful eye of Charlotte's grandfather and father. Brilliant, disciplined, careful in ways that impressed men who built fortunes from discipline.

When he returned from Harvard Business School, her father handed him projects senior executives competed for. Six months after the engagement, Julian was already being discussed as the future of Bennett Holdings.

A knock at the door. Mrs. Calloway's, the housekeeper, voice from the hallway: "Madam. Miss Carter has returned. Mr. Mercer is with her."

Margaret's expression softened immediately. "He must have come to check on you. And to discuss the rehearsal dinner." She squeezed Charlotte's hand. "Wash your face and come downstairs. It isn't polite to keep him waiting."

Olivia had only just returned.

Of course she had.

In Charlotte's first life, Olivia died in the fire and Margaret mourned her for months. Olivia was Eleanor Carter's daughter. Eleanor and Margaret had been friends since college, and Margaret treated Olivia as family from the moment she returned from London.

If Charlotte received a dress for a charity gala, another appeared in Olivia's wardrobe. If Charlotte received jewelry for a holiday, Margaret made certain Olivia received something comparable.

After her parents' plane crashed in her first life, alone in her father's study sorting through his papers, Charlotte had found something that made her hands shake.

For years, funds had been quietly transferred from subsidiary accounts to offshore structures. The final destination was always the same: an account under Eleanor Carter's name. The sum was not modest. By the time she uncovered it, Eleanor and Olivia were dead, her father was gone, and Julian had consolidated control. There was no one left to question.

She never learned why.

This time, she would not wait.

Mrs. Calloway brought the wheelchair without being asked. Charlotte let her push it to the second-floor landing and rested her hands on the wrought-iron railing, looking down into the living room without going down.

Julian stood in the center in a dark bespoke suit, posture straight, expression composed. Olivia was beside him, pale and neat, her hair drawn back as though nothing extraordinary had happened the night before. Charlotte's parents stood opposite them. Julian inclined his head.

"Uncle Richard, Aunt Margaret," he began, voice measured. "I came today to escort Miss Carter home. There is also another matter I need to address."

He didn't hold anything back.

"The wedding between Charlotte and I must be called off.”