Married to a Billionaire Firefighter

Chapter 11

"I'll be leaving for Boston this morning." Ethan picked up the travel mug from the counter and tightened the lid before setting it beside her lunch box.

Charlotte stepped out of the bedroom and stopped when she saw the neatly packed container waiting for her.

"I need to see my grandmother." Ethan lifted his bag from beside the door. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

Charlotte's eyes moved from the lunch box to his face.

"Is she okay?" She pulled out a chair and rested one hand against the table.

"She has good days and bad days." Ethan adjusted the strap on his shoulder. "Yesterday was a bad one."

Charlotte nodded once.

"Okay." She reached for the lunch box and slipped it into her bag.

The drive into Manhattan passed quietly.

Ethan pulled up outside Bennett Holdings at eight forty-five and climbed out before she could reach for the door handle.

"Have a good day." He handed her the lunch box through the open door.

"You too." Charlotte took it from him and stepped onto the sidewalk.

The truck merged back into traffic before Anna reached the building entrance.

"Good morning, Mrs. Calder." Anna matched her pace.

"Morning." Charlotte adjusted her bag on her shoulder and pushed through the revolving doors.

The memo sat on top of the morning stack.

Anna had placed it there before anything else. Charlotte had learned to trust that instinct. If Anna put something first, it was usually important.

She lowered herself into her chair and picked up the document.

A vendor contract.

Her eyes moved down the page until they stopped on the approval signature.

Deputy Director of Legal and Compliance.

Olivia Carter.

Charlotte continued reading.

At first glance, the supplier looked ordinary. Bennett Holdings worked with dozens of companies like it every year. The problem appeared three pages later.

The vendor had been named in a federal lawsuit eight months earlier.

Breach of contract.

Pending litigation.

By signing the agreement without flagging the issue, Bennett Holdings had now been pulled into the filing.

Estimated exposure: five million dollars minimum.

Charlotte placed the memo flat on the desk, her eyes remained on Olivia Carter's signature.

A muscle tightened along her jaw.

Are you always like this?

This bitter?

Her thumb tapped once against the edge of the paper before going still.

"I'll show you what bitterness looks like."

She picked up the phone.

"Anna." Charlotte turned her chair toward the window. "Can you ask Ms. Carter to come to my office right away?"

Olivia arrived seven minutes later.

She knocked twice before entering and settled into the chair opposite Charlotte's desk.

"Good morning." Olivia folded one leg over the other. "You wanted to see me?"

Charlotte slid the memo across the desk.

Olivia lowered her eyes to the document, the pause lasted only a second.

"I reviewed that contract thoroughly." Her fingers remained on the paper.

"The vendor has an active federal lawsuit." Charlotte folded her hands on the desk. "Southern District of New York. Filed eight months ago."

Olivia looked up.

"I used our standard review protocol." She pushed the memo slightly forward.

"The standard protocol includes a federal litigation search." Charlotte opened a drawer and removed the compliance handbook. "Page twelve."

She placed the handbook beside the memo.

"Did you read it?"

"Of course." Olivia's shoulders remained square.

"Then you missed it."

Olivia's jaw tightened briefly.

"These things happen." She lifted her chin. "We're processing hundreds of contracts."

"Five million dollars." Charlotte turned the memo toward herself. "That's the minimum exposure."

Olivia remained silent.

"The board will want every contract you've approved reviewed again." Charlotte closed the handbook. "I'll be presenting this to Director Monroe this afternoon."

A few seconds passed, then Olivia spoke.

"Is this about Julian?" Her fingers tightened around the armrest.

Charlotte looked at her.

"Who's Julian?" She returned her attention to the memo.

Olivia's mouth pressed into a thin line.

"This has nothing to do with him?" She leaned forward slightly.

"This is about a five-million-dollar liability created during your second week in the role." Charlotte stood from behind the desk. "If you'd like to prepare a written explanation before the Monroe meeting, I suggest you start now."

Olivia stood as well.

"You know this looks like retaliation." Her hand closed around the folder.

"It looks like compliance management." Charlotte walked toward the office door. "Which is your job."

She opened the door.

"Or at least it was supposed to be."

Olivia left without another word.

Charlotte returned to her desk and opened the next file in the stack.

~~~

She left the company around five.

The apartment was quiet when she arrived.

The door opened onto a small, clean space. Neatly arranged. A towel on the rail, folded with the specific precision of someone who had been doing it alone for a long time. His razor on the edge of the sink.

She stood in the doorway for a moment.

He had been sleeping on the couch and using this bathroom and making her breakfast and not once mentioning any of it.

She closed the door and ordered pizza.

She ate it on the couch, while watching a show on the TV, then her phone rang.

She picked up before the second ring. "Hi babe."

"Hi darling." His voice had the quality of someone in a quieter place, a different kind of room. "How was work?"

"Productive. How's your grandmother?"

"Better today. She wants to talk to you."

Charlotte sat up straighter. Before she could respond there was the sound of movement, a rustling, and then a different voice came on the line, older, warm, with the texture of someone who had been watching people her entire life and had decided to be direct about what she saw.

"Charlotte."

"Yes. Hello—"

"Ethan showed me your photograph. You're very beautiful. When are you coming to visit?" It was Nora’s voice, Ethan's grandmother.

Charlotte smiled before she could stop it. "Soon. I promise."

"Come quickly," Nora said. "So I can die in peace."

"I'll come soon, grandmother. I will."

"Good." Then she paused, "I want to tell you something about him before anyone else does."

Charlotte said nothing and listened.

"He doesn't know how to be loved," Nora said. "I want you to know that in advance. Not as a warning. Just so you know what you're working with."

Charlotte looked at the pizza box on the small table.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Thank you for telling me."

“Come soon," Nora said again, and then there was another rustling and Ethan was back, and she could hear him moving, footsteps, the sound of a door, like he had walked away from the room.

"What did you eat?"

"Pizza."

"Why pizza."

"Because I ordered it."

"You should have cooked something."

"Ethan." She looked at the box. "I have never cooked in my life."

A few seconds passed before Ethan answered. "You're Bennett after all." His breath brushed the receiver.

"Excuse me?" She said with a smile.

"I'll plan ahead next time. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. The pizza was good."

“What are you doing now?"

"Shopping. For the apartment." She picked her phone up. "Send me your email. I'll forward you some options."

"Just tell me. What colour do you want?"

She said nothing.

"Send me the colour when you find it," he said. "I'll handle the paint."

"You pick. I trust you."

"Charlotte."

"Fine. Blue. Something around navy. Not too dark."

"Okay." Ethan adjusted his grip on the phone.

A few seconds passed.

"Goodnight, wife." His voice softened at the last word.

She put the phone down and sat with it.

There was no board member watching, and she called him a pet name.

She had never given Julian a pet name. Not once in seven years.

Sloane called later.

"Hanging out tomorrow? Derek says there's a—"

"We're moving into a new apartment tomorrow. Come help. Bring Derek."

"Oh I'm absolutely bringing Derek." The warmth in Sloane's voice had a specific quality that Charlotte filed for future reference. "Send me the address."

Charlotte sent it and said goodnight, and continue to watch the TV without seeing it and at some point the credits rolled and she was still on the couch, and it was two in the morning and she closed her eyes for just a moment.

~~~

When she opened them the room was different.

The light had changed. Morning light, coming through the window.

Ethan crouched beside the couch, still wearing his jacket. His travel bag rested near the armrest.

His eyes moved over her face, then to the blanket tangled around her legs, before returning to her again.

"You're back." Charlotte pushed herself upright and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"What time did you go to sleep?" Ethan rested his forearms on his knees.

"Around two." She glanced at the television before pulling the blanket off her lap.

Ethan's eyes moved to the pizza box on the coffee table, then to the paint samples scattered across the floor.

"Sleepyhead." The corner of his mouth lifted.

Charlotte looked at him for a moment.

The smile reached her before she could stop it.

She was about to stand when his phone buzzed on the table. He glanced at the screen.

Something in his face changed, not much though, just enough that she noticed, and he picked it up and walked to the kitchen window.

"Sylvia," he said quietly, and turned his back.

Charlotte's eyes moved from the pizza box to the paint samples scattered across the floor.

At the kitchen window, Ethan kept his back to the room while he spoke into the phone.

Her fingers paused on the edge of a navy paint card.

She realized she could only hear one side of the conversation.