The Man I Thought I Trusted - E. L. Todd Page 0,57
the time, she gets it. Since she couldn’t care less about your money, she’s not going to hesitate to sign. She knows what you’ve been through already. You’re overthinking it, man.”
The weight left my shoulders, and I felt a million times lighter. If it were just me, I might not do the prenup, but the fact that it affected my sister made me feel differently. By not asking Carson to sign it, I felt like it was a declaration of my love for her, that after what Rose did to me, I completely trusted her. It was a testament to what we had. I felt like shit that I couldn’t give that to her, that I couldn’t prove my love in a really powerful way.
“Do you feel better?”
I nodded.
“Good. When she and Evan got divorced, she didn’t take any of his money. He wasn’t a billionaire, but he had quite a bit of assets. She just doesn’t think that way. That’s not who she is.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t want to ask her to sign anything—because I trust her implicitly.”
He shrugged. “You’ve got a lot of assets to protect, not to mention the runaround Rose gave you before. Asking Carson to waive her rights to your wealth is not ridiculous. Don’t stress about it. It’s not going to affect your relationship at all.”
I nodded before I finally took a drink of my beer. “You’re right. She will understand.”
“She’ll totally understand. With absolutely no resentment.”
I nodded again.
“Now go back to being ridiculously happy. I prefer you better when you have a stupid smile on your face.”
I released a light chuckle, my body relaxing now that the subject changed. “You have the same stupid smile too, you know.”
“Oh, I do know. It’s nice.”
“How’s the apartment?”
“Even nicer.” He grinned before he took a drink of his beer. “It’s nice to have my own space. Denise is her sister, so it’s best to keep those two separate.”
“Yeah.”
“But I think tomorrow I’m going to try to talk to Kat again.”
Honestly, I’d forgotten about her. I was so happy with Carson that Kat wasn’t on my mind. Carson seemed happy too, like she hadn’t been thinking about the situation either. “Do you think that’ll do any good?”
“I have to try. I think if she knew that Carson was engaged, she might feel differently. Girls get emotional over stuff like that.”
“That’s true.”
“And if she does nothing, I just won’t mention it to Carson. But hopefully it’ll make a difference.”
I had all the money in the world, so I could give Carson anything she wanted. But I was powerless to give her the one thing that actually mattered to her.
Hopefully Charlie could. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”
20
Charlie
When I arrived at her doorstep, I felt helpless. The whole thing seemed pointless, so I’d already accepted the defeat. But I had to try anyway.
For Carson.
I knocked on the door loudly and waited.
Her movements were audible in the apartment, her bare feet thudding against the rug and then turning silent when she was in front of the door.
I wondered if she would just walk away and ignore me.
She opened it.
She kept her hand on the door as she stared at me, not nearly as angry as she was when she spotted us in the bar last week. Maybe some time had cooled her off, and now she was just in pain. “What do you want?”
“To talk to you, if that’s okay.”
“I don’t know what there is to say, Charlie. You and Denise are happy together, and that’s fine. I really don’t want to talk about it for an hour.”
Now that I was finally with Denise and I was really happy, it dispelled my regret about meeting Denise when she moved here. However, it did make me regret being with Kat in the first place. While Kat was important to me and I loved her, I never felt with her what I did with Denise.
Denise would be my wife…someday.
But I would never tell Kat that. “I understand things are complicated now and it’s difficult for you. But we are all still friends if you want to be. You have to take that chance now because it may not come again.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, becoming guarded.
“You’re important to all of us, and we want you back in our lives. You haven’t been replaced. You haven’t been forgotten. But we also can’t change what happened. We can never make it better. And we’re gonna eventually stop trying.”