The Grand Duel (The Grand Men #4)

Chapter 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

Charlie

D espite not having her dinner, Daisy shoots off up the stairs when we walk into the apartment, her nose down as she searches for her sister. Today has probably been the longest the two of them have ever gone apart.

I quickly follow her up the stairs, not wanting her to disturb Luna or get her overly excited.

When I walk into my bedroom, Daisy is just standing on the bed, looking down in puzzlement at Luna, who’s curled up in the crook of Lissie’s stomach.

“Here,” I say, and Daisy comes to sit at my side.

I don’t take my eyes off Lissie. She’s asleep, her body like a shield around Luna. There’s something oddly peaceful about watching her sleep. She’s a talker, even she wouldn’t deny it, but it’s more than just the silence. It’s her, here, in my home and my bed. Fresh faced and in my clothes.

It’s hard to explain a feeling you’ve never felt before, but as I stand here and stare at her, a warm, weighted feeling relaxing my body, I wonder if this is what contentment might feel like firsthand.

True, this-is-it, all-I-could-need-in-life contentment.

Only she can barely stand to look at me after I lied to her.

I swallow and drag my gaze to Daisy. “Dinner.”

She takes off down the stairs, and I follow, gently closing the door behind me and setting the temperature in the room higher so that they don’t get cold.

I can’t imagine she meant to fall asleep. She’d likely want to be woken. Will probably tell me of it when she wakes up, too, but there’s no amount of Lissie that could convince me to do that right now. She’s tired. Drained from weeks of working ridiculous hours.

She needs sleep, and I’m going to make sure she gets it.

I’ll unpack the selfishness of that decision another time.

I feed Daisy and order a Chinese takeaway to be delivered at eight o’clock, leaving three hours for Lissie to sleep and three hours for me to figure out how I fix what I did.

After twenty minutes of going around in circles, I do the one thing I’ve thought about doing since I drove out to Lowerwick on Thursday. Something I’ve never done before. I message the girls.

I need some advice.

It’s ten minutes before anyone replies.

Megan

Hold my beer. I’ve waited three years for this moment.

Megan? I didn’t know you were in here.

Haha Mr Aldridge. Talk to me. You know I’m boss at this.

I sigh and contemplate what I feel comfortable telling them.

Nina

Charles is in love Megs

Megan

What?!

Wonderful.

I’m not.

Nina

Charles is in denial Megs

Megan

I’m so out of the loop. Is this about the new assistant? Can we call?

I look over my shoulder and up the stairs, wondering if I should move into my office…

I can’t call

Nina

Yes the assistant we told you about.

I’m presuming you need advice about that Charles and not anything else

I did.

Lucy

I’ve got like ten minutes before my fiancé gets back from the pharmacy!

Megan

Oh god you’re not pregnant, are you?

Nina

You better not be Lucy Mae Morgan! That wedding dress does not have room for a bump.

Lucy

HE’S BUYING CONDOMS THANK YOU VERY MUCH

I’m always so much hornier when I’m ovulating. It should be a crime.

I shake my head and drop it back to the sofa.

Nina

I find that bizarre. I could happily murder Mase when I’m ovulating.

I leave the chat, wondering why I ever thought that would be a good idea.

My phone pings a moment later with three messages in a new group chat.

Nina

Lucy

Megan

I rub at my face, knowing if there’s anyone who can give me sound advice, it’s them.

I didn’t tell Lissie about our night together at the club, and she found out. She’s upset and doesn’t want to speak to me. What do I do?

Nina

Have you spoken to her at all yet?

Yes. She told me she knew, and we had a bit of a thing in my office. She tried to quit and then left.

Lucy

And you haven’t heard from her since?

Megan

When was this? When did she find out?

She confronted me on Friday and then showed up for work this morning. She’s at mine now.

Nina

WHAT?

Lucy

I actually just laughed out loud. Charles what has happened to you?

What?

Megan

It’s still really fresh, no wonder she’s not talking to you. You’ve had weeks to process seeing her again after that night and the feelings that came with that. She’s likely feeling betrayed on top of all those other things, and you can’t put a time on when she won’t feel that way anymore.

Why is she at your house now?

Luna cut her paw in the office, so she took her to the vet. I asked her to wait here with her whilst I went and got Daisy from Edna. I thought it would be a good time to talk, but I don’t know how to make it right.

She must have fallen asleep waiting for me to get back, and I don’t want to go up and wake her.

Nina

GO UP?! What does this mean??

Lucy

WHERE IS SHE SLEEPING?

Megan

You guys are dicks sometimes

My phone starts to ring, Megan’s name flashing on the screen. I get up and walk to my home office.

“Megs,” I say with a slight smile.

“I can’t deal with their mood tonight.” She sighs. “Trust me when I tell you you’ll get nowhere with them when they’re like this.”

“I should have known better. How are you? I hear the new job is going well.”

“It is,” she says, and I can hear the smile she’s wearing. “But never mind that. This thing with the assistant.”

“Lissie.”

“Lissie. What did she say when she found out?”

“She was upset that I didn’t tell her sooner.”

“That you didn’t tell her at all. You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“No. I didn’t.” I run my hand through my hair, feeling guilt coil in my gut. “It’s…I…”

“Does Lissie know much about you, Charles?” Megan asks when I don’t say anything more. “She can’t have been working for you for long. And based on the way you don’t tend to share a whole lot of yourself with anyone who’s not…”

“In my circle,” I finish for her.

“Right. You don’t tend to give up so much so soon. Like I was genuinely as shocked as the girls were when you said she was at yours. There are clearly feelings there.”

I roll my lips, turning on the spot with no idea how to respond.

“Which is fine. Great, even,” she says, and I know she’s grinning.

“What do I do, Megs?”

“Explain to her why you never told her, give her space to process that, and then the second she even thinks to let her guard down with you again, you grovel like a little bitch.”

I frown. “You think I should tell her about Phoebe?”

My friend goes silent on the other end of the line, and I pull the phone away from my ear to see if she’s still there.

“Megs?”

“Sorry,” she says, her voice softer. “I’m here. I just don’t think I fully considered why you never told her.”

“Because it’s not a simple answer.”

“No,” she agrees, a knowing silence settling between us. “I think you should give her what you can of yourself. Be that Phoebe or just the fact you don’t sleep around outside of the club.”

“It’ll lead to questions regardless.”

“And you don’t have to answer those questions.”

“No.” I don’t.

But I also don’t think Lissie deserves to be left waiting.

I can’t quite stand the idea of it.

“I think if you can give her something, even a small part and explain there’s things you’re not ready to share just yet, and then give her time—because she will be hurt, and we can’t just shut that off—I think you’ll be alright.”

“You know, this might actually be good advice.”

“Charles, please, where do you think us girls learnt it? I’m glad you came to us for help, but it makes me kind of sad. You always know what to say and do.”

“I’ve lost my head with her, Megs,” I admit out loud. “I’ve never been so off my shit.”

“I can tell,” she says. “It’s exciting.”

“Don’t get excited. She hates me right now.”

“She’s asleep in your bed,” she corrects. “Go fix it.”

“Thank you, Megan.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be home in a few weeks to see everyone. Be kind to yourself, please.”

We hang up, and I let out a long exhale.

When I look down and see the group chat has one hundred and three unread messages, I shake my head, leave the group, and head upstairs for a shower.

Lissie

I wake at the feel of something being draped over my shoulders. When my eyes flutter open and I see the bottom of Charles’s bed, his bedroom beyond, and his open door…I startle and go to sit up, only a hand on my back stops me.

“Lissie.”

I catch sight of Luna and place my hand on her as I turn and look over my shoulder. Charles is stood beside the bed, his hair wet from a shower.

“I’m so sorry,” I rasp, my voice groggy from sleep. “I had to shower because of the blood, and then when I came out, I sat down for two seconds with Luna. I must have fallen?—”

“I know,” he says reassuringly. “It’s fine.”

I allow myself to wake up fully and run my hands through my wet hair, wondering what I must look like. “I’ll leave. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” His eyes plead with me. “Please, don’t leave yet. I’ve ordered you dinner. You must be starving.”

I am. But that doesn’t mean I should stay here and eat his food.

I nod reluctantly, sliding from the bed and standing. Luna stirs, looks up at us, and then settles back down. “She’s so sleepy.”

“They said she would be.”

“I know,” I say. “I just hate to see her so…”

“Not herself.”

I look up at him and nod.

“Come downstairs. Our food should be here within the next half hour. Are you warm enough?”

I remember what I’m wearing, and a fresh wave of mortification washes over me. When I was done in the shower, I went to his walk-in wardrobe like he’d told me to. I quickly picked out a plain black T-shirt, slipping it on with my cream trousers before going to sit with Luna.

I look ridiculous, but better than I did covered in blood.

With my hair wet and my body missing Luna’s heat, I shiver.

Charles disappears into his walk-in wardrobe, appearing a moment later with a navy-blue hoodie. He slips it over my head, and I instantly feel wrapped in him, the smell of him…I wait, slipping my arms through the holes.

His eyes dart around my face, the uncertainty in them making my chest hurt.

When he finally turns around, I dip my nose into the neck of the hoodie and close my eyes, letting the smell of him fully seep into me.

How did I forget that smell?

How did I not know?

I follow him out of the room and down the stairs, feeling as if he’s restraining himself from guiding me whenever we get close to one another. As if he needs the physical touch but thinks better of it.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Nearly eight.” He turns when we reach the bottom of the stairs. “Will you stay for dinner?”

I take in his T-shirt and black joggers, the stubble across his jaw, and his eyes that plead with me to say yes.

“Okay.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“What do you have?”

“What do you want? I’ll go out.”

I frown. “Don’t be silly. Do you have any wine?”

“Red or white?”

“White’s fine.”

He heads off to the kitchen, and I take a seat on the sofa, wondering if staying for dinner is a good idea when I still feel so hurt.

My stomach growls, and I close my eyes, the feeling one I hate.

“Incoming.”

I look over the sofa just as Daisy leaps up onto the cushions. She tramples me until I rub at her chest and then sits.

Charles places the wine down on the table along with a bowl of crisps. “Help yourself, Lissie,” he tells me.

I reach forward and take a handful. “Thank you.”

He sits down on the other end of the sofa, and Daisy instantly climbs into his lap. “She’s my shadow,” he says, giving me a half smile. “I try to cuddle Luna, but she hates it.”

“She’s actually been super cuddly today.”

“I saw. She seems to trust you in a way she doesn’t with me.”

I give him a forced smile, feeling awkward and not knowing where to look with him watching me.

“Can I try and explain?”

I shrug and roll my lips. “I can’t promise I’ll react with a cool head if you do,” I tell him honestly.

“I can understand why you’re angry at me.”

“You lied to me.”

He nods, blue eyes desperately searching my face as I wait. “When you showed up that first day in the office I was in shock. I had no idea it was you who Edna employed, and I had no part in the process. At first, I didn’t know if you’d recognise my voice or if someone at the club would have told you who I was, but then when you just stood there…” He shakes his head. “You were so much more beautiful than I remembered, and yet I hadn’t stopped thinking about you for days.”

I close my eyes in a bid to clear my thoughts. To push aside the parts that just made my heart soar and focus on the way he might have been feeling in the moment. “I get why it might have been awkward to tell me there and then.”

“I thought about firing you there and then,” he admits. “I knew it would be inappropriate to bring it up at work. I spent days contemplating if telling you was the right thing to do, and when I finally decided that I had to, you bailed on me mid meeting.”

My eyes lift to his. “You were going to tell me…that was what you needed to tell me?” I think back to the day I left early. “I thought you were going to fire me.”

“I probably should have with the way you left that meeting. But I knew I had ignored you for days and made you feel like crap. I just didn’t know how to tell you, and I knew it couldn’t be at work.”

I sit and think over what he’s said. “What about after that? You still could have told me after.”

“True. I wanted to tell you again in Macca’s that first time.” He pauses, flicking his eyes around my face before he looks down at Daisy, stroking his pinkie up and down her snout as his jaw goes rigid. “But then you told me I wasn’t your type, and I figured telling you was only going to make you feel awkward about it. We were finally working out a semi-professional relationship and something in my gut told me to leave it behind us.”

I shake my head, hating that I made him feel like he wouldn’t be my type. “Behind you ,” I correct him. “I didn’t get a choice.”

He rolls his lips, nodding. “I’m not sorry for any of that if I’m honest. I was trying then. I wanted you to know,” he says, meaning his every word. “What I’m sorry for and what I know is wrong and makes me hate myself is everything after. Especially whilst we were in Italy. You deserved my honesty and because I wasn’t challenged to give it, I didn’t.”

My heart throbs, the ache in my throat unwelcome. “There are so many things I look back on that make me feel so stupid. Like you letting me speak about that night, knowing and not saying anything.”

“We would have been on the clock?—”

“I don’t care!” I talk over him. “We were having a conversation about me fucking another man. Literally fucking you. Do you not think we were already well past the professional line?”

His brow dips as he contemplates it.

“You sent me to The Montwell for that meeting. They both knew, didn’t they?”

Regret tightens his features. “I’m sorry, Lissie.”

“It’s bullshit, Charles.”

“I know.”

“You paid Bronwyn to keep me out of the rooms,” I force out.

His nostrils flare, jaw locked tight.

“You could barely speak to me at work, left me thinking the man I was with that night didn’t want me and listened to me stress that, and then paid six hundred and fifty thousand pounds to keep me out of the rooms.”

“If I thought even for a second you would’ve wanted me, I’d have told you. I had no idea we’d grow closer. I thought you were better off not knowing it was me.”

My stomach twists at his words.

“You gave your name. That night in The Nightingale, you gave me your real name. Why don’t you use a fake one?”

“I do.”

“You didn’t.”

He levels me with a stare I can’t break out of. “You were blindfolded, Lissie. It was your first time in the rooms, and you seemed nervous. You had no idea who I was. I just wanted to give you something.”

“There are other women at the club that you sleep with.”

He nods, jaw clenching.

“You told me you let your friends call you Charlie, and yet there are people at the club, women, who know you by that name. Women who have been with you.” I can’t help the way my face screws up, the idea of it making me want to be sick when I’ve never had a problem with the club before now.

“I’ve been a member for a while. There’s a handful of people at the club who have found out my real name over the years.”

I swallow the bile rising in my throat and take a sip of wine.

I need to eat something.

This conversation is too much, and I need something in my stomach other than alcohol.

“I’ve been a member for ten years,” he blurts out.

I snap my head up to look at him.

“I was twenty-five when I joined.”

“Twenty-five?” My eyes widen, everything I presumed and second-guessed over the weekend becoming clear. “The card really was yours then.”

He frowns. “The card?”

“On the day I came for my first interview, Luna had a piece of card stuck on her paw, and when I saw the name of the club, Edna told me they pay really well. I needed the money and tried my luck for a bar role.” I drop my eyes. “I momentarily thought it was yours. I didn’t know you, and it seemed plausible. But Edna made out it was hers. I guess I read the signs all wrong.”

“It wasn’t my card.”

My wide eyes find his again. “What? It was Edna’s? You’re both members?”

“No. Edna isn’t a member anymore.”

I frown.

“You should ask her. I’m sure she’d tell you.”

“You tell me.”

“I can tell you my story. Not hers.”

We sit and stare at one another, the mess between us piled and barely scratched.

He blinks, dropping his stare before bringing it right back to me. “I’ve not been with a woman outside of the club since the first week I joined as a member.”

“What?” I say, shaking my head as I try to process what he’s said.

“I told you I don’t date.”

“But…” I do the maths, my mind reeling. “That would be years.”

He nods. “It’s worked for me. There are aspects of the club that make me feel free to satisfy my needs whilst maintaining my morality.”

I frown at his choice of words. “You’ve not slept with anyone, at all, outside of club, since you joined at age twenty-five?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve not touched a woman intimately, in any way, outside of the club, since I joined at twenty-five.” His eyes sear into me, the longing in them threatening. “Until Italy. Until I met you.”

“I don’t—” I reach for my wineglass, but don’t drink from it. I can’t. “I don’t understand.”

He sits forward, running his hands through his hair before leaning back so that Daisy can settle again.

He swallows. “My sister passed away when I was twenty-four,” he says. “She was nineteen.”

My heart sinks. Aches. “Charles…I’m so sorry?—”

He frowns, looking away as his knees start bouncing. “Fuck, that came out all wrong. I’m not explaining anything. I’m just throwing facts at you?—”

“No, it’s okay,” I tell him, not being able to take my eyes off him. “Just…let it come out however it needs to.”

He runs his hand through his hair again, looking uncomfortable as he closes his eyes briefly. “I didn’t tell you it was me because I didn’t want you to know that part of my life. I don’t want anyone to know that part of my life. It’s the whole point of it. I started going to the club at a time I was young and confused after my sister passed.” He looks up at me. “Which sounds like I’m using that as an excuse, but I’m not.” He sighs. “It’s safe to me—the club. And when you showed up in that space, completely knocked me on my ass, and then walked into my office days later, a place I never want to see the women I sleep with.” His jaw locks as if he knows it’s brutal. “Two things I kept very separate for a very long time collided. I wasn’t myself, and I’m still not now.”

“Charles,” I say, leaning across the sofa. I place my hand on his forearm, needing him to relax. “I understand.”

“You do?”

I tilt my head. “I’m trying.”

His brows dip.

“You know when you said that I never told you everything either.” I purse my lips, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “In your office that day I confronted you.”

“I was talking out of my ass, Lis. I knew I had hurt you, and I didn’t know what to do?—”

I talk over him. “There are things. Things I could share with you but don’t want to at risk of going back to a time that caused me pain.” I swallow. “Especially when in the moments that maybe fit telling you more, things felt too good to spoil.”

He nods, as if understanding what I’m saying. “I knew I should have told you.”

“But telling me meant giving me the parts you aren’t ready to share,” I say, giving him a sad smile.

“I still should have told you.”

I nod. “You should have told me.” I lean back, letting go of him. “But you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Have you been to the club since that night?” I ask, needing to know. “If you don’t sleep with women outside of it?—”

“Once. I knew you weren’t working and thought it would help me forget about our night together. I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. It was the night I spoke to Bronwyn about keeping you out of the rooms. I couldn’t stand the idea…”

“Of me sleeping with other men?” I finish for him.

His jaw locks. “It’s not rational. I know that.”

“What will you do now?” I ask, not knowing where this leaves us or how a relationship would even work with him. “If you only sleep with women at the club, will you go back now that I know?”

His eyes dart around my face, disappointment making his lips thin. “Do you want me to go back?”

I look away from. “Really, Charles?”

“Lissie—”

“No. Don’t put that on me. You’ve just told me it’s a huge part of your life. If you want to go back there, you should.”

“I don’t know how to do this in any other way.”

I swallow and stare at him, desperately wanting him to tell me that he wants to.

Tell me you want to do this in a different way, and I’ll help you.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says apologetically.

My heart sinks. “So, you would?”

Charlie

If it meant I got to have you for another night.

Only what kind of a man would I be to ask that of her. To expect a twenty-four-year-old woman to fall into my ways because I’m fucked up.

“Eventually, I guess.”

Although the thought of it makes me feel sick.

I want her.

I want Lissie, not anyone else.

But if she doesn’t want me…

“Or I could find somewhere else. If it made you feel more comfortable.”

She looks away, focusing on the coffee table, her eyes shining. “What even was this? Why did you…why were you the way that you were in Italy?”

“I like you,” I say in a way of explanation and with zero hesitation. “I don’t know much, but I know that.”

“And yet you would pay six hundred grand to keep me away from other men but would go elsewhere and sleep with women?”

“What? No. I mean down the line.”

“When I’m not in the picture.”

I scrub at my face. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It feels that way.”

Because it is what I meant. Fuck . “I’m not just going to presume that you’ll want me, Lissie. You think I can go back there and be with someone else after you?” I shake my head. “I’m a mess. Is it so wrong that I don’t want you near it?”

She places down her wine and stands.

I push Daisy off my lap and follow as panic makes my throat tighten. “Lissie.”

She walks to her bag and picks it up. “Make decisions for yourself. Not for me.”

“What does that even mean?”

She turns on me at the lift. “It means that you would go back there, and that’s fine. You’d be with someone else when all this is done—it’s an end that’s so clearly inevitable to you right now.” She shrugs, and I know I’ve hurt her again.

“I—”

“It means that if you wanted me, Charles, you’d own it. You wouldn’t pay to keep me away from other men, you’d ensure I didn’t need them. You’d presume and know that if it wasn’t what I wanted, if the mess was too fucking messy, I’d use my own judgement to walk away.”

“I’ve never done this before,” I tell her, my own frustration bubbling over. “I’ve never been this man who doesn’t know what to do in a situation.”

“No one has done this before! It’s called living.” She hits the call button for the lift. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

My chest heaves, and I look around at a loss, wanting to reach out and grab her. Physically restrain her from leaving. “Where are you going?”

“Home.”

My nostrils flare, the idea of her leaving making my blood roar in my veins. “Let me?—”

“No, you’re not driving me home.”

I put my hands on my head as she walks into the lift, my gut twisted up in knots. “I don’t know what’s the right thing to say.”

She flashes a sad smile and shrugs. “Then maybe don’t say anything.”