Say You Love Me
Also by Z.L. Arkadie
A Dark Billionaire Family Romance Series - Asher
Seduction
Embrace
A Dark Billionaire Family Romance Series - Bryn
Destined
A Dark Billionaire Family Romance Series - Jasper
Intrigued
Desire
Claimed
A Dark Billionaire Family Romance Series - Spencer
Enthrall
Impulse
Bliss
Exposed
LOVE in the USA
Find Her, Keep Her: A Martha's Vineyard Love Story
There's Something About Her, A Manhattan Love Story
Say You Love Her: An L.A. Love Story
Know Her, Love Her
Still In Love With Her: Maggie & Vince, #1
He's So Bad, A San Francisco Love Story
Made To Love Her: Maggie & Vince #2
He's So Good: Robert & Carter
Say You Love Me: Charlie & Angel
Adore Her, More of Her: Daisy & Jack, #2
LOVE in the USA, The Hesters
Once Friends
Taming The Shrewd
Waiting On You
Playing with Fire
Tempting Fate
The Deception
Soul Mates
Vampire Saviors
Parched
Warrior
Quenched
Slayer
Ignite
Light and Speed
Vanquish
Standalone
The Sterlings Billionaire Family Saga (Books 1-3)
Watch for more at Z.L. Arkadie’s site.
Say You Love Me
CHARLIE & ANGEL (LOVE IN THE USA, BOOK 9)
Z.L. ARKADIE
Copyright © 2016 by Flaming Hearts Press LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-942857-90-7
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter One
CHARLIE LORD
I park alongside the curb on Sunset Boulevard and turn off my engine.
“That sounds like a great plan.” I try to force myself to smile, but it’s hard. The air conditioner is on the highest setting and blowing an arctic wind into the cab of my car, but I’m still sweating bullets.
Angel sighs heavily. “She’s so toxic, and I don’t understand why she always gives me attitude. Granted, she was boning Papa for a while. Maybe she’s mad because I never agreed with their relationship. How many times have I warned Papa about screwing the talent?”
“I don’t know.” I fidget nervously against the leather seats. I want to say in Jacques’s defense that he rarely fucks around with the talent, but Mita Capelli is a special case. The more I’ve gotten to know her, the more I’ve learned that it was a mistake to engage with her in the first place. She snacks on men—the wealthier, the tastier. She has long, silky black hair, creamy tan skin, and curves galore. Hardly any man could resist going for a dip in her deep, hot, wet well. I resisted up until a slight moment of weakness, when I let her spread her legs on top of me and sit on my dick. It didn’t even last half a minute. Hell, I didn’t even enjoy it. All I could think about was losing the only woman I could ever love, so I found my common sense, and I pushed her off me. She didn’t like the rejection, and now Mita Capelli wants me to pay for my minor lapse in judgment.
“Babe, why don’t you just come home?” I ask.
“What?” Angel says as if I asked her to swan dive off the London Bridge.
I rub my eyes. I can’t believe I said that. Or maybe I can. Two days after Maggie and Vince’s wedding, Angel flew to London to star in a musical called The Dazzler for a month, six shows per week. I wasn’t okay with her leaving. I’m tired of us spending time apart. Then to make shit worse, four days in, Angel called to complain about Mita Capelli, the cellist. I nearly shit myself when she told me Mita was part of the live orchestra.
About three months ago, Mita sent me a letter, saying I’m the father of her child. How the hell could that have happened? I never came inside her. In the letter, she told me to pay her $20,000 a month or else. For certain, I didn’t get her pregnant. So I consulted with Maggie, and she said I could call Mita’s bluff and tell Angelina what happened. I was planning to call her bluff until last week.
I’m scoring a film at Jacques’s Hancock Park studio. Two days ago, a package arrived, addressed to me. I opened the manila envelope, and inside was a single flash drive. I figured Jacques had sent some harmonies he thought I should use in the film. I plugged the drive into my computer. There was a single file titled “fuck.” I thought it was strange, but I double clicked on it anyway, and a video of me fucking Mita opened. I was waiting for it to end after ten or twenty seconds, but the act went on for five minutes and twenty-three seconds. It even looked as if I had come.
I checked behind each shoulder to make sure I was alone. To my relief, I was. I sat there for a long time, studying the moving images on the screen, wondering how in the hell she made it look that credible. After a while, I called Maggie, who instructed me to upload the video to a secure landing page. Shortly after, she called and asked me to meet here.
Still holding the phone, I turn toward the sidewalk and gaze up at the office building. “I miss you, that’s all.”
“Ah,” Angel says sweetly. “I miss you too, honey.”
I check my watch. I’m five minutes late, and knowing Maggie, she won’t be happy about it. “Listen, I have to go.”
“Where are you—at the studio?”
Damn. I don’t want to keep lying to her. The fact that I’m here is a result of the only lie I ever told her. “Yeah.”
“Tell everyone I said hi.” Angel sounds chipper, and that’s a good sign. I’m guessing that Mita won’t screw with our relationship—not when she thinks there’s a chance she’ll get her twenty thousand a month.
I tighten my jaw as I sigh quietly. “I will.”
“And hey,” we say at the same time.
Angel chuckles. “You first.”
“I still want to talk about all the time we spend away from each other. I’m sick of it,” I say.
I can hear her hesitancy in the silence.
“I was just going to say good luck,” she says.
We’re silent again, and that means she’s avoiding giving me a response.
“Will you give it some thought?” I ask.
“Give what some thought?”
“Less traveling. More togetherness. I miss you—all the fucking time.”
She sighs hard. “Charlie, it’s not like I’m lollygagging. And you can come to London any time you want.”
I bite my tongue to avoid another argument. Angel and I do that now—we argue over stupid shit like her not being able to repeat what I say verbatim, in which case I accuse her of purposely not listening to me. We argue over whether or not she or I left a cabinet door open. The quarrel we had be
fore she left for London was her forgetting to pay the gardener on the previous day. We’ve considered a session with Jack and Daisy’s marriage counselor, Dr. Luc Calvet. He’s the guy in France, and he did a good job helping them get back on track. And he even does sessions via Skype.
My phone buzzes because I’m receiving another call from Maggie. “Okay, we’ll pick this conversation up later.”
“Whatever,” she says sharply. “Charlie, you knew I was a dancer before you got into this with me.”
“I know.”
The phone beeps again.
“I love you more than dancing, though, so please don’t ask me to give it up, at least for now, because…”
“Angel, I’m not asking…” The phone beeps a third time. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
She’s silent for a moment. “Okay,” she says softly.
We say, “I love you” one last time before we hang up. Then I answer the call.
“I’m outside and on my way up,” I say to Maggie.
“Then hurry.” She ends the call.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Fucking life—sometimes it’s good, but mostly, it’s out to get you.
Chapter Two
CHARLIE LORD
The air flowing through the carpeted hallway is crisp and cool. The temperature cools the sweat on my skin, and it has a calming effect on me. I stop in front of office number 708, turn the knob, and walk inside.
I flinch, taken aback. “Whoa.”
Maggie rolls her eyes as she runs a hand through her shoulder-length hair. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just hair dye.”
She’s colored her blond hair brown.
I shrug. “It’s different, but you still look fine.”
“Thanks for your unsolicited opinion.” She points a hand at the seat across from where she’s sitting. “Sit, and let’s get down to business.”
I look around this simple office. There’s nothing in it but Maggie’s large wooden desk, her black-leather executive-style chair, and colorful, abstract hangings on the right and left walls.
I sit. “Is this where you work now?”
She pushes a sheet of paper in front of me. “Sometimes.”
“What’s that?”
“A report on the video Mita Capelli sent you.” She smashes a finger on the top line. “This is the important part.”
I pick up the page and read, “Authenticity—three percent.”
“Only three percent is unmanipulated from an original source, and it’s seventeen seconds long. But I take it you knew that.”
I nod stiffly.
Maggie looks thoughtful. “As I remember it, Angel doesn’t know about you and Little Miss Temptress?”
My chest is tight, and my head feels like I walked into a cloud of helium. “No. She doesn’t.”
“And you’re not going to tell her?”
I round my tight shoulders to loosen them. “Remember when Angel walked in on Monroe and me? She was, you know…”
“Blowing you?”
I sigh hard. “Yeah.”
Maggie groans as if the memory is causing her excruciating pain.
“So that was one big fuckup under my belt. I don’t want her to know that I had two. She might think I have a problem controlling my dick or something.”
“Do you?”
I flinch. “No, Mags. Jeez. Why did you ask me that?”
“Just putting it on the record.”
“Well, I love Angel, and I would never cheat on her, ever.”
Maggie studies me with one eye narrowed. Finally, she sighs forcefully, sits back in her seat, and crosses her arms. “Then just tell her the truth.”
“What? Hell no.” I’m adamant about it. “I had too many opportunities to do that, and now it’s too late. She’ll fucking leave me in the dust if I tell her now or if she finds out about it from somebody else.”
Maggie steeples her hands under her chin and frowns contemplatively. After a number of seconds, she sighs. “Fuck, how did you mess this one up?” She holds up a hand. “Never mind. I understand.”
“You do?” I’m shocked to not receive the full force of Maggie’s condemnation. She could call me idiot and immature, and I’d have no other recourse but to sit here and take it.
“Yeah. You were different then. You’ve changed, and you’ve been trying to prove that to Angel and the rest of us. If I were in her shoes, I would want you to keep that little indiscretion to yourself. But at the same time, I would never want to learn about it from someone else, either.” She aims her chin at the sheet of paper in my hands. “Read the conclusive section at the bottom of the report.”
It takes a moment before I rip my shocked gaze away from Maggie’s face. I read aloud. “Male subject A ceased sexual activity by resisting female subject B at seventeen seconds. The deceptive value of the video begins at that time point.” I grunt bitterly and set the report back on the desktop.
I squirm under the force of Maggie’s narrow-eyed stare. “What you need is for Mita to stop this nonsense.”
“Yeah! She’s extorting me for money and using a kid that’s not mine to do it.”
Maggie picks up a pen and taps the butt on top of the desk. “So what you need is leverage. Something to make her keep her trap shut.”
I lean forward. “Could you help me with that?”
Maggie points the pen at me. “Yes. I can.”
I fall back in my chair and sigh, relieved. “How do you keep her from talking? She’s in London with Angel right now.”
Maggie wiggles her head decisively. “She’s not going to say anything to Angel. You want to know why?”
I throw my hands up as if to say, Of course.
“Because she still wants to cash out on all the effort she’s put into her investment. And you better believe someone who’s gone through all of this work has some serious skeletons in her closet.” Maggie smirks. “I can’t wait to rattle her bones.”
“Now that’s the spirit.” I rub my hands together. “Okay, what’s our next step?”
Maggie flinches. “Our?”
“There’s no way I’m going to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I have a lot to lose here.”
“Chuck. No.” She shakes her head adamantly.
I slump in my seat and rub my thumb across my eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because I got someone in mind to help.”
“Who? And better yet, what the hell is going on here?” I lift my hands to indicate I mean this office.
“This is where I work when I’m in LA.”
“Yeah, but what’s your job officially? I thought you quit Mo&Ma PR.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
Maggie scratches the back of her ear. All these years, and I don’t think she realizes she does it when she’s under the heat lamp. “I’m on my own. I work on a case-by-case basis, and I have a client that I take on regularly.”
“And you do PR?”
She sets her elbow on the desk and pinches her bottom lip. My experience tells me that means she’s done talking.
I press her regardless. “Who’s your one client?”
She falls back in her seat. “Do you want help with this situation or not?”
“You can’t tell me exactly what you do for a living? Is what you do legal or illegal? Now I’m worried.”
Once again, she scratches the back of her ear.
I propel myself forward. “Just tell me. What is it that you do?” My tone is insistent.
“Charlie…”
“Maggie.”
She sighs. “Okay. But keep it to yourself.”
“I will. Now, spill it.”
She looks at me with skewed eyes again. She wants to tell me—I know her. Maggie and I never keep secrets from each other for long. That’s the nature of our relationship. “I work for Jack mostly.”
I grunt and throw my hands up. “Why so secretive about that?”
But then again, I always suspected Jack had s
ome sort of secret life—especially when it came to business. I’ve entertained the idea that he’s a mob guy, but crime isn’t his style. But Jack has always gotten shit done too easily. I remember the state was coming after me for running a steamship service from Boston to Martha’s Vineyard without the appropriate licensing. I told Jack, and within a matter of days, the threats, court dates, and astronomical fees just went away.
Then there was a time I got arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer in the Village. They intended to send me to Rikers to teach me a lesson. I used my one phone call to talk to Jack, and before the guard could put me back in lockup, we made a U-turn, and I was processed out. The arrest never appeared on my record. I’ve had four arrests in my life, and none of them have followed me. When I was last arrested, Jack grabbed me by the collar and said, “If you’re taken in again, you’re doing the time—got it?” I could tell by the look in his eyes that he meant it. The only reason I didn’t test his resolve was because I met Angelina shortly thereafter. Knowing her and loving her has helped bring out the best in me.
“Charlie, just leave it alone—please,” Maggie says.
I pinch my lips together and study her expression. Sometimes, when I look at Maggie, I can hardly believe who I’m seeing. She’s a full-grown adult—smart, savvy, and very beautiful. We used to bicker a lot, but these days, we listen to each other and say things like, “You’ll be okay” and “I understand” and “I love you.” I prefer the new us to the old.
I cock my head to the side. “Is Jack FBI or something?”
She grimaces while she twists her watch. “No.”
She’s lying, which means he is part of a secret governmental organization. Well, that makes sense.