Married to a Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 8

The apartment sat on the third floor of a brownstone on Clinton Street.

Ethan unlocked the door and stepped aside.

"After you." He held the door open with one hand.

Charlotte walked in slowly.

The living room opened into the kitchen. Two bedrooms sat beyond a short hallway. Dust lined the corners of the floorboards. The walls needed paint. The hardwood beneath her shoes had survived better than everything around it.

She crossed the room and stopped near the window.

The garden behind the building filled most of the view, and late-afternoon light stretched across the floor.

Her gaze moved from the second bedroom to the closet before returning to the main room.

"What do you think?" Ethan rested one shoulder against the doorway.

Charlotte turned once more before answering.

"It needs work." Her phone was already in her hand.

"Yes." Ethan slipped both hands into his pockets.

"A lot of work." She opened a notes app.

"Yes." The corner of his mouth moved.

Charlotte looked around again.

"I like it." She slid her phone back into her bag.

Ethan nodded once.

"I'll get Paul." He headed back into the hallway.

They signed the lease at the kitchen counter.

Paul spread the paperwork across the bare surface while Ethan read through each page.

Charlotte signed where she was told, and Ethan signed beside her.

Paul handed over two sets of keys.

"Congratulations." He shook Ethan's hand first, then Charlotte's. "The place is yours."

The apartment door closed behind him.

Charlotte looked at the lease still sitting on the counter, then she looked at Ethan.

"Twelve months upfront?" She folded the agreement closed.

"I had the money." Ethan slipped his copy into a folder.

"That's a lot for a firefighter."

"I've been saving." He tucked the folder under his arm.

Charlotte watched him for a moment before resting her hand against the counter.

"Ethan, I can help if—" Her fingers tapped once against the surface.

"I've been saving." He reached for the keys.

The conversation ended there.

"Fine." She adjusted the strap of her bag. "Then I'll handle the interior."

Ethan looked up.

"Whatever it needs." She held out the bank card. "Use this."

He glanced at her.

"You trust me with that?" He took it but didn't put it away.

Charlotte folded her arms.

"You've been planning furniture placement since we walked through the door." He pocketed the keys. "I noticed."

Charlotte opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Ethan headed toward the second bedroom, she followed behind.

The bathroom taps worked.

The windows opened.

The locks held.

Charlotte made notes while Ethan checked everything else.

By the time they stepped back into the living room, her phone held three pages of measurements and a list of contractors.

~~~

The following morning settled into a routine neither of them had discussed.

Charlotte came out of the bedroom to find a travel mug and a lunch box waiting on the counter.

Ethan stood at the stove.

"Morning." He moved a pan off the heat.

"Morning." Charlotte picked up the travel mug and took a sip.

Ethan glanced at her briefly, and she pretended not to notice.

A few minutes later they headed downstairs together. Ethan's truck was parked at the curb, and when they reached it, he opened the passenger door for her before walking around to the driver's side.

By four o'clock she was still thinking about the card she saw on Ethan's dashboard yesterday.

The invitation sat beside her laptop.

The last email of the afternoon disappeared from her screen.

Charlotte closed the file.

At five she left Bennett Holdings, stopped briefly at the apartment, and changed.

The dress she chose was dark and simple.

By six-twenty a taxi was pulling up outside Engine Company 224.

Music drifted through the open bay doors,then voices followed.

Charlotte paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Inside, folding tables lined the walls and food covered nearly every available surface.

People stood in clusters with drinks in their hands while conversation rolled through the room.

The nearest firefighter saw her first and stopped mid-sentence, drawing several heads in her direction.

Charlotte smiled.

"Hello." She adjusted the strap of her bag. "I'm Charlotte Calder."

For a second nobody moved.

Then introductions began arriving from every direction at once, across the firehouse Ethan stood beside one of the tables.

His bottle remained halfway to his mouth.

Charlotte walked toward him.

"Babe." She stopped in front of him. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"You were busy." Ethan lowered the bottle.

Someone nearby muttered, "Newlyweds."

A round of laughter followed.

Ethan rubbed the back of his neck.

Charlotte's mouth twitched, he pulled out the chair beside him, and she sat.

The stories started almost immediately.

A firefighter named Torres leaned forward across the table.

"You know he crawled into a collapsed building on Atlantic Avenue?" Torres pointed at Ethan with his bottle.

Ethan looked down at his plate.

Another firefighter took over before Torres finished.

One story led to another, moving from commendations to rescues and buildings Charlotte recognized from newspaper headlines.

Ethan spoke very little.

He spent most of the evening staring into his drink or studying whatever happened to be on the table.

"Has he always been like this?" Charlotte rested her elbows lightly on the table.

Torres laughed.

"Since day one." He shook his head. "You tell him not to do something and five minutes later he's already doing it."

Charlotte turned toward Ethan.

"I can believe that." Her fingers circled the rim of her glass.

Ethan looked at her, the corner of his mouth moved.

Torres launched into another story.

The conversation rolled onward.

Later someone cleared space in the middle of the room.

By the time the music grew louder than the conversations, a small crowd had gathered on the open floor.

Ethan stood and offered her his hand. Charlotte studied him for a moment before accepting it and following him into the space between the tables. It took only a few steps for her brows to lift.

"You can dance?" Her hand rested against his shoulder.

Ethan's grip remained steady at her waist.

"I manage." His eyes stayed on hers.

"You've been hiding talents."

A small smile touched Ethan's mouth as he guided her across the floor. Around them the evening carried on uninterrupted, conversations rising and falling between bursts of laughter while other couples moved to the music beneath the bright lights of the firehouse.

Charlotte's phone vibrated and she glanced down. Julian's name appeared on the screen. Her thumb moved across it before she slipped the phone back into her bag.

The music continued around them, carrying them through the rest of the song, until the vibration came again. Julian's name appeared on the screen for a second time. She rejected the call without hesitation.

Ethan's gaze dropped briefly toward her bag before returning to her face. He did not ask who it was, and Charlotte offered nothing.

By the time the song ended, applause had broken out around the room and someone was already making another round with fresh drinks.

Near the end of the gathering a group of women pulled Charlotte into their circle.

Most of them had been sitting together all evening.

One introduced herself as Rosa.

"My husband is Torres." Rosa tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "We have a group chat."

Charlotte laughed.

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is." Rosa held up her phone. "We do dinners. Birthdays. School events. Emergency babysitting."

"And mutual complaining," another woman added.

Everyone laughed.

Rosa held out her phone.

"Can I add you?"

Charlotte hesitated for only a second.

"Sure." She recited her number.

Rosa entered it immediately.

A notification appeared on Charlotte's screen moments later.

The gesture settled somewhere quietly inside her.

Nobody asked about Bennett Holdings or inheritance clauses. They wanted her number because they wanted her in the group chat, and the simplicity of that sat with her longer than she expected.

By the time the gathering began winding down, Charlotte collected her jacket and joined Ethan at the door. He held it open for her and they stepped out onto the sidewalk together.

The evening air was warm, and the street beyond the firehouse was quiet with only a handful of cars moving through the intersection.

Charlotte had taken only a few steps when she saw him.

Julian stood near the curb, his hands were in his coat pockets.

His attention was fixed on her, then it shifted briefly to Ethan.

"Charlotte." His jaw tightened. "How cheap of you."

Charlotte stopped a few feet away from him and kept her eyes on his face.

Behind her, Ethan remained where he was, neither stepping around her nor inserting himself into the conversation.

A moment later his hand settled against the small of her back.

Julian's gaze dropped to Ethan's hand, then rose slowly.

His eyes met Ethan's and the words he had arrived with seemed to abandon him. Julian's mouth opened, then closed again, while the silence on the sidewalk settled between them.