Preface.

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Buttons was yours long before Charles ever was.

Buttons found you, cuddled up to you when he was nothing but a kitten in a shelter, unmoored and homeless, tiny and terrified. You'd gone to the shelter with your brother and his girlfriend, tagged along because they were in the process of adopting a dog and you wanted to meet her. While they signed papers and settled the adoption you wandered into the cat kennel, aimless and bored. But Buttons found you almost immediately, stared up at you with his dark green eyes and purred into your chest and made it impossible for you to walk away without giving the shelter your phone number.

You came back three days later, and Buttons came home with you.

Charles found you too, four years after Buttons. He found you in a hotel bar in Monte Carlo, sipping a French 75 and waiting for a date who would never show up. He'd been with friends, four shots deep and celebrating someone's birthday and he saw you trying not to stare at the door, your eyes darting back and forth between your drink and the empty space where your date should have been. He sauntered right up, tequila coursing through his veins, and asked if you were okay.

"You've been here a while," he said, eyebrows knitting together, concern tugging at the sharp corners of his lips. "Are you okay?"

"I think I've been stood up," you told him, even though it was embarrassing, even though you knew exactly who he was. Everyone did, in Monaco. "I'm okay, just feeling a bit stupid."

"He is the stupid one," Charles sat down in the empty seat across from you, taking up the space you'd been saving for someone who'd never come. "Or she?"

"He," you smile, eyes dropping to your drink. "Thanks for saying that."

"This is a nice bar," Charles tilted his head a little, caught your eyes with his own, bright green and sharp. "You look nice. You're not stupid for being stood up, but it would be stupid to let this night go to waste. Want to come to a birthday party?"

You followed Charles to his friends' table, and that night Charles took you home with him.

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