The Billionaire's Temporary Bride (Scandal, Inc #3)(38)

"Charlotte," her mother called from somewhere behind the next-door neighbors, "put some pep in your step. We have hours of pressing to go."

Charlotte slipped her hand against Jack's and helped him turn the press. He tangled his fingers through hers and smiled. The look on his face was pleasant and genuine, as if saying, See I told you we should stay.

The sweet smell of apples clung to the air like perfume. The sun had burned through the morning clouds and hung bright above the neighborhood, spreading a warm, rich light over the scene, as if it were casting everything in amber. Charlotte liked that idea, holding this moment in time and preserving it.

When she had arrived at her parents' house, Charlotte had wanted more than anything to turn around and go back to DC. Now she just wanted to make this moment last. So often, figuring out which side of Jack was real confused Charlotte, but she knew the sort of man he was when he was pressing cider with all her childhood neighbors was someone she could imagine as her fiancé. The way he had held her the night before, the way he looked at her now, it all just felt so right.

Charlotte grabbed an apple and dunked it into the cold water. She followed it with another and another. Within a few minutes, her hands were numb, and her shirt was soaked up to the elbow. One by one, Jack moved the apples into the next bucket, while friends and neighbors took them to the press. Soon the cold had soaked through her, and Charlotte realized that she'd need to change into something warmer.


"I'm going to grab another shirt from inside. See if you can keep pace without me," she said.

Upstairs, she found an old flannel shirt and pulled it on. It was good to be home again. It was good to be there with Jack. Charlotte walked over to the window and peered out at him. He was standing next to her mother, helping the neighborhood kids dunk the apples. As she watched, she felt a strange wistfulness rise up inside her chest. She hadn't realized how much she wanted Jack to be the man she saw now, like he was part of her family.

She was getting ahead of herself. He was just good at public relations, and that's what this was, more PR. Charlotte turned from the window and headed back.

A few hours and more than a few hundred apples later, Charlotte surveyed the scene. The last few bees of autumn buzzed around the pomace left over from pressing, and the whole yard had that shabby, ruffled look everything has after a party. Everyone else had gone inside the house, with neighbors and friends trading cider for a late lunch.

Charlotte could feel the blisters forming on her hands from her turns at the press. She knew her arms would be sore the next morning, too.

A few kids played in the side yard, and Jack sat grinning in a chair next to the press.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Charlotte said, "but sooner or later, they're going to ask you to help clean up."

"Ahh," Jack said, "I was wondering why they wanted us to stick around."

"They were pretty upfront about it. They'll do anything for free labor."

Jack got up and looked at the press. "I'll have to look into getting one of these for myself. Maybe I should just take this one. Do you think it will fit in the trunk?"

"That press has been passed down through my mother's family for over a hundred years. I don't think it's going anywhere."

"I guess we'll just have to come back next year," Jack said. He picked up an apple from the lawn that must have rolled away to save itself and offered it to her.

"Are you trying to tempt me?" Charlotte asked.

"Get your mind out of the garden," Jack teased.

"Oh please," Charlotte said. He was right though. She was turning this morning into something it wasn't, no matter how much being with Jack felt like forbidden fruit.

Jack walked around the press, examining it like it held the answer to the question they had both avoided. What about the year after that? What will we do then?

"Hey, honey, will you come over here and help," Jack said, shooing the bees away from the pomace as he approached the press, "or do I have to do all the heavy lifting myself?"

"I see how it is," Charlotte said. "You want all the credit and half the work."

"Why do you think I asked you to marry me?" Jack joked. "Come on."

Charlotte didn't know what the weeks and months ahead held for her. She didn't know how deep Jack's feelings for her went or whether or not the marriage plan would work, but for the moment, that didn't matter.

The sun was shining, and he was by her side. Charlotte rolled up her sleeves and joined in.





Chapter 14

It wasn't fair.

Charlotte was smart and funny, and she was beautiful. She could really light up a room with her presence. That was something Jack hadn't expected. She wasn't extroverted. She didn't demand attention like other women he had been with. Instead, she was happy to sit in a corner on a quiet evening and read, but still, whenever she was around, his life felt fuller. He felt himself gravitating toward her, like she was altering his orbit away from power and prestige toward something more important, something more closely resembling real life. When he looked at her and she smiled back, the broken machinery of the outside world, all of the meetings and conference calls and late night flights, all quieted down for a moment.

At least for as long as the contract lasted.