Dedicated to Emiliamay for loving the story and suggesting 'Arms' for a song. Told you I'd reserved it for a chapter!
A/N: Hello folks! Here's the next instalment for Brandon and Charlotte. There's a lot more of them in this chapter so I hope that tides you over. People asked why I featured Jake and Tessa last time. Trust me, it isn't merely a whim. There is a purpose in Charlotte getting involved in their growing attraction, something that will allow something else to happen in the plot later. It does neither writer nor reader any good to needlessly include a segment that has no significant importance to the story.
Anyway, hope you like this one. Some things will get cleared up in this chapter. It took longer because I had to keep going back to make sure details from the previous chapters matched up.
Vote and comment! Thanks!
***
It was a rainy morning.
Despite getting home late last night—just a little over past midnight—and spending another hour on the phone with Brandon who refused to go to sleep without a long, hushed and intimate conversation—I was still wired.
The late-night phone call with Brandon relaxed me after my misadventures from the party, draining most of my adrenaline and replacing it with warm, comforting languor as he murmured achingly sweet things to me last night.
It felt odd that despite the physical distance separating us, we were more comfortable talking to each other in the dark, in different states, than we have been lately, despite being in the same room. It had been like that since the Nicole and Zach mystery cropped up.
In the dark, your troubles don’t show. If you can’t see them, you can pretend they’re not there, right?
We were practically half asleep when we finally hung up.
I drifted into slumber but it hadn’t been the least restful. I kept waking up in the middle of the night, acutely aware of the cold, empty spot next to me.
When the sunrise started to streak the sky with faint wisps of light, I tossed the covers off and got up.
Wearing nothing but a tank top, cotton pajamas and a navy blue cotton robe specked with dark red hearts, I padded barefoot to the kitchen and started the coffee machine, relieved to fill the too-quiet penthouse.
There were a lot of things to process from last night—the Jake and Tessa affair, the Don and Bessy affair—but I didn’t have the sleep-revived brain cells to deal with them at the moment.
Mindless little things I could do so I spent a good two hours sitting at my desk, doing correspondences and my other admin-like Mrs. Maxfield duties.
I’d just started to putter around in the kitchen so I could put some breakfast in my stomach when my cellphone sounded.
I frowned at the call display.
It was seven-twenty-four in the morning.
Even Brandon wouldn’t be up at this hour yet—not after the late night he had as well.
“Jake?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“Did I wake you?” he asked. “You don’t sound like I just woke you up.”
“No, I’ve been up since five in the morning,” I told him, still puzzled. He didn’t drink much last night so he couldn’t be hung over but something about his voice was raspy and weak. “How about you? Why are you calling?”
YOU ARE READING
The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield
Romance***The wrong girl is sometimes The Right One.*** Charlotte Samuels thought she'd be stuck waiting tables at Marlow's until all her debts are paid off-in about ten thousand years or so. She definitely didn't expect a marriage proposal from the arr...
