My Forbidden Obsession

Chapter three

“What the f**k is wrong with you, Charlie?” Jayden snaps immediately he saw Charlotte pull up with her windows down.

Charlotte’s jaw clenches as she climbs out of her car and slams the door behind her. She glanced around to be sure there was no one in the neighborhood who was watching her swallow down the humiliation of hearing her stupid ex-boyfriend berate her on the front lawn of his new house.

“f**k you, Jayden,” Charlotte muttered through clenched teeth. “Just give me half of the deposit, so I can be on my way.”

Jayden stops in his tracks between the pickup truck and the front door of his house with a moving box in his arms. “I wish I could, but you weren’t at the final walk-through with the landlord, so they sent the money to my dad. You’ll have to pick it up from him.”

“Your dad? What? Why?” Charlotte fired back angrily.

Jayden carries one of the boxes into the house and drops it on the floor next to his TV before returning to the truck. It was barely two weeks after their breakup, and he was renting a new place with his best friend.

“Yes, Charlie. My dad. He was listed on the lease as our co-signer, and when you weren’t around to pick up the deposit, they sent it to him.”

“f**k,” Charlotte cussed under her breath. “Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Jayden, but I was busy working.”

“Serving Americano and espresso coffee hardly makes you the responsible one in this relationship.”

“At least I could pay the bills,” Charlotte snapped.

“Nah, I'm not doing this with you again,” Jayden shouts as he slams the tailgate of the truck closed.

“You started it,” Charlotte seethed through her teeth. “So, what am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Well, if you want half of the deposit, I guess you’re going to have to get it from my dad,” Jayden said as he continued with his unpacking while ignoring her presence.

“Can’t you just get it for me?” Charlotte mumbled as her face squeezed into a tired expression.

Jayden was always like this. He just had a way of making her feel worthless and desperate for any positive attention from him, so much so that Charlotte spent more time trying to please him than actually being happy—something that became very clear after they broke up.

“You know I don’t talk to that asshole anymore,” Jayden replied.

“So, you’re not going to get your half of the deposit back?”

“Not worth it,” he snaps.

“Well, I can’t afford to lose that money, Jayden.”

With a long, annoyed sigh, Jayden turned around while rolling his eyes. “Fine. Here.” He pulls his phone from his back pocket and types something quickly with a furrow in his brow. A moment later, Charlotte's phone vibrates in her purse.

“That’s his address. Take it up with him.”

Immediately, Jayden walks away, leaving Charlotte with her jaw hanging open. “Seriously? That’s it?”

Jayden didn't so much as spare her another word, and Charlotte realized that there was no getting through to him. “You’re an asshole,” she mumbled, before turning and leaving him to unpack his s**t in his new place.

Climbing into her car, Charlotte's forehead drops to the steering wheel as she fights the urge to cry.

“I have no clue where this guy even lives,” Charlotte muttered as she raised her head and fished out her phone from her purse.

As she clicked on the address in the text, it pulled up the map app and showed a red pin on a street directly next to the seaside. “That can’t be right. There's no way Jayden's dad would be living in the Aqua Vista estate.”

Jayden rarely spoke about his family when the duo were together, and whenever Charlotte asked about them, he would just change the subject, as if he was ashamed or embarrassed.

Charlotte didn't push further on the topic because she also had a passionate disdain for her own father, and if Jayden’s dad was anything like hers, then she was in for a long f****d up ride.

******

“This can’t be right,” Charlotte gasped as she pulled up in front of the house on the map.

The house staring back at her was a three-story Spanish-style mansion with manicured palm trees, arched windows, and a cobblestone driveway.

There’s no way this was where her ex's dad lived all along while she was barely struggling in a tiny apartment with Jayden.

Climbing out of the car, Charlotte felt very out of place in the bougie neighborhood on the coast. She brushed the dog hair off her black velvet skirt and walked up the paved steps toward the front door.

She rings the doorbell, but it goes unanswered for about thirty seconds. Normally, Charlotte would be relieved that nobody was at home, and she'd be spared the awkward encounter of having to speak to her ex's dad, who is most likely to be an asshole, but right now she's too broke to be relieved. She needed the cash.

So she knocked again.

“A second please, I'm coming!” a soft feminine voice called from the inside.

Charlotte could hear high heels click against hard stone floors, and when the door was pulled open, she stared into the big blue eyes of a woman with wavy brown hair and full pink lips.

“Hi… I’m here to see Mr. Parker.”

The lady freezes with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Then she glances down at her watch. “Oh, okay…I didn’t know you were coming today, but it’s fine. Come in, come in.”

“She didn’t know I was coming? I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here,” Charlotte thought to herself. Maybe Jayden gave his family a heads-up that she would be picking up the check.

The lady guides her through the expansive living room with high ceilings and marble floors to the open French doors on the other side. It led to a large office with bay windows overlooking the ocean. Charlotte was awestruck for a moment as she gazed out at the open water.

“Wow…” Charlotte whispered, freezing in the doorway.

“That is a cute outfit. I think he'll like it,” the woman said, looking down at Charlotte's all-black attire.

“What?” Charlotte asked, but the lady walked out of the office almost immediately, leaving Charlotte confused.

As creepy as that comment was, at least the office was beautiful. Unlike the cold, sterile feel of the rest of the house, the floor in the office was covered with a rich, scarlet-red rug and the mahogany desk was large with two deep gray armchairs facing it. Charlotte lets her fingers graze the fabric of each one.

“He’s coming,” the woman snaps. “You should get your blindfold on and be on your knees.”

Assuming she had misheard the lady, Charlotte glanced back with a look of confusion on her face, but the lady had already scurried out of the room and slammed the French doors shut.

“Wait, did she seriously just say I should get a blindfold and be on my knees?” Charlotte muttered with a furrowed brow.

Now she was starting to understand why Jayden didn’t want her to meet his dad. She just needs to get her check and get the hell out of here. But if a harmless blindfold will sort out the check faster, then she doesn't mind.

Slowly, she walked towards the deep gray armchair and found a blindfold. She put on the blindfold while her heart hammered against her ribcage.

She had never even seen Jayden’s dad in pictures, so she had no idea what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

Charlotte could hear firm footsteps approaching the office, and immediately he entered the room, it was as if everything in it shrinked, including her.

After closing the door behind him, he stood still, looking at Charlotte, who stood awkwardly in the middle of the office.

“Hi, I’m Charlie,” she began. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she was feeling so skittish.

“You should start by kneeling. Whenever I come into the room, I shouldn't find you standing. You don't talk unless I demand you to. And when you do, you will only address me as Sir. Is that clear?" His voice is deep and chilly, as if it came directly from the ocean.

Charlotte was focused on his words, attempting to make some sense of them. That voice was strikingly familiar, but her memory was too blurred to place where she had heard it from.

“Excuse me?” she stammered. He froze in his spot, Charlotte could feel his eyes skating over her body head to toe, and suddenly a flush of warmth ran up her spine.

“On your knees,” he barks out. Her breath is punched out of her body. This should be the point where Charlotte takes off on her feet, running and screaming, and definitely not considering lowering to the floor for him.

“Why?” Charlotte asked with newly found courage.

“Well, you want your money, don’t you?”

Jesus-f*****g-Christ!

Charlotte could feel him watching her with fire in his eyes, as if he was waiting for her to obey. And soon, her knees actually start to bend, and she cannot believe herself.

When her knees hit the carpet, she expected to be utterly mad at herself, but she found herself waiting to see what this psychopath had in store for her next.

“He doesn’t want me to…you know…have s*x with him just to get my thousand bucks back, does he?” Charlotte cringed as the thought crossed her mind.

“Normally, I’d want your eyes on the floor, but I want to look at you.” He tilts her chin up as he examines her face.

Charlotte couldn’t breathe. His presence was so powerful that, even without seeing his face, she knew that in this man's hands, she was nothing but a defenseless prey.

“What is your name?” he asks slowly.

“Charlotte Foster. I’m here to pick up a check from you.”

“Charlotte? What check—" There is a strain in his voice at the exact moment he realizes something is wrong. His hand fell off Charlotte's chin, and she felt a pang of disappointment as cold air whipped across her face.

“Jesus, get up,” he breathed out as he took two quick steps away from where she knelt down.

Charlotte immediately jumped to her feet and took her blindfold off.

She watched as he rubbed his brow line, looking pensive and distraught. “You’re Jayden’s girlfriend,” he says with a groan.

“Ex,” Charlotte corrected.

Charlotte rubbed her eyes and glanced at his face for the first time and, almost immediately, Mr. Parker's face turned white in horror.

“You.” He gasped in shock.

Charlotte's forehead creased as she rubbed her temple as though she was trying to remember where she had heard that voice. And then it struck her.

The muscular tanned skin. The beautiful emerald green eyes and the straying salt and pepper hair which she had mistaken for a dark brown color.

Like a torrent, her blurred memory came rushing back. Clearer and more vivid. There's no way this was happening.

Charlotte's breath hitched in her throat and she pointed at Mr. Parker. “You… you're Hillary. The one-night stand guy from the club.”