Chapter 858: The Princess and Her Thorns

I could tell she was pressed by something today.

The Aurelia call.

I’d heard about it from ARIA on the drive over. Charlotte Thompson—the sweetest soul I’d ever met, the woman who’d paid bail for employees who’d betrayed her, who’d given severance to assistants who’d sabotaged her—had told someone to go to hell.

And it was eating her alive.

"Hey, princess."

Her head came up. Those soft brown eyes found mine, and something in them cracked. Not broke—Charlotte was stronger than that. But cracked, like ice under pressure, like glass that had taken one hit too many.

"Peter." She tried to smile. Failed. Tried again.

"Come on. We’re going to dinner."

"Peter, I can’t just—"

"You can. You’re the CEO. You can do whatever the hell you want." I wiggled my fingers. "Come on, Thompson. Don’t make me carry you."

She looked at my hand for a long moment. Then at my face. Then back at my hand.

She took it.

****

Charlotte drove.

Not because I couldn’t—but because she needed something to focus on. Something to occupy her hands while her mind processed whatever storm was raging behind those gentle eyes.

Her car was a Mercedes S-Class. Black. Understated.

Very Charlotte.

"Where are we going?" she asked as she pulled out of Quantum Tech’s underground parking.

"La Maison. That French place in Beverly Hills."

"Peter, that place has a three-month waiting list."

"Had."

I smiled. "Amazing what a few phone calls can accomplish when you’re technically a billionaire."

She glanced at me. "You’re not

technically

a billionaire. You

are

a billionaire."

"Semantics."

"Math."

"Same thing."

She laughed again. Still small. But less broken this time.

We drove in comfortable silence for a few blocks. LA traffic was being LA traffic—aggressive, impatient, a constant symphony of honking and brake lights. Charlotte navigated it with the absent competence of someone who’d grown up in this city, hands steady on the wheel, eyes forward.

But I could see her jaw tightening. Could see the way her fingers gripped the leather a little too hard.

"You want to talk about it?"

I asked.

"No."

"Okay."

More silence.

Then: "She called me an incompetent heiress."

I waited.

"On Bloomberg. A year ago. When I’d just inherited Dad’s company and everyone had opinions about whether I deserved it." Charlotte’s voice was flat. Controlled. The voice of someone reciting facts rather than reliving pain. "She said I was nepotism dressed up as succession planning. That even my panties were daddy money."

"Aurelia Royce."

"You know her?"

"Know of her now. Kingsley Private Equity princess."

Charlotte’s lips twitched. Almost a smile. "She wanted a meeting. Wanted to discuss ’investment opportunities.’ Like she didn’t spend an entire television interview explaining why I was going to fail."

"And?"

"I told her to go to hell." Charlotte’s hands tightened on the wheel. "I told Amanda to tell her she could take her investment opportunities and shove them directly up her—" She stopped. Breathed. "I don’t talk like that. I don’t

think

like that. I’ve forgiven people who’ve done so much worse to me."

"But not her?"

"Not her." Charlotte shook her head slowly. "And I don’t know why. The board members who tried to sell my company? Forgiven. The executives who leaked strategies to competitors? Forgiven. My assistant who literally betrayed me for money? I paid her legal fees. Made sure she had resources to rebuild."

"So why is Aurelia different?"

Charlotte was quiet for a long moment. The Mercedes purred through an intersection, joined the flow of traffic heading toward Beverly Hills.

"Because she didn’t betray me," Charlotte said finally. "She just... dismissed me. Before she even knew me. She looked at my name and my inheritance and decided I was

nothing.

That I would

always

be

nothing.

And she announced it to the world like it was fact. Peter, do you imagine being humiliated before the entire world when all you ever did was takeover your father’s business. No choice, by a person who you’ve never even met or wronged. Yes, she was wright about most of everything.

But why humiliate me like that. It hurt. I am human too!"

I reached over. Covered her hand on the gear shift with mine.

"You know what she is now?" I asked.

"What?"

"Wrong." I squeezed her fingers. "Spectacularly, historically, embarrassingly wrong. And Aurelia Royce is sitting in her daddy’s office watching you change the world while she shuffles other people’s money around."

Charlotte’s eyes were bright. Too bright. She blinked rapidly, focused on the road.

"I still shouldn’t have said what I said."

"Why not?"

"Because it’s not... it’s not

me

. I don’t tell people to go to hell. I don’t hold grudges. I’m supposed to be better than that."

I laughed. Couldn’t help it.

Charlotte shot me a wounded look. "What’s funny?"

"Charlotte." I shifted in my seat to face her properly. "Being a good person doesn’t mean being a

doormat.

It doesn’t mean forgiving everyone who hurts you and letting them back into your life to do it again.

"Sometimes being a good person means

protecting yourself

. Setting boundaries. Telling toxic people to fuck off so you can keep being good to the people who actually deserve it."

She was quiet.

"You know what I see when I look at you?" I continued. "I see someone who has

given

and

given

and given to people who never gave back. Who’s been kind to a world that treated her kindness like weakness. Who keeps showing up with an open heart even though that heart has been stomped on more times than I can count."

"Peter—"

I squeezed her hand again. "You told Aurelia Royce to go to hell. Good. She deserved it. You’re not a bad person for protecting yourself, Charlotte. You’re just a good person who’s finally learning that she doesn’t

have to take shit

from everyone to stay good."

The Mercedes slowed. Stopped at a red light.

Charlotte turned to look at me. Really look. Her eyes were wet now, tears threatening to spill, but she was smiling. A real smile. The kind that reached her eyes and made her whole face glow.

"When did you get so wise?" she asked softly.

"I’m not just wise. I’m just really good at stating the obvious."

She laughed. Wet. Broken. Beautiful.

"Thank you, Peter."

"Don’t thank me yet. Dinner’s going to be expensive and I expect you to be impressed."

La Maison was everything a Beverly Hills French restaurant should be.

Intimate lighting. Crisp white tablecloths. Waitstaff who moved like shadows and spoke in hushed, reverent tones. The kind of place where a single entrée cost more than most people’s car payments and the wine list was thicker than a doctoral thesis.

They’d given us the best table—a private corner booth with views of the garden courtyard, screened by strategically placed plants that created an illusion of isolation. The maître d’ had practically genuflected when we walked in.

Being a

billionaire

had its perks.

Charlotte paused at the entrance, taking it all in. The crystal chandeliers. The fresh flowers on every table. The soft piano music drifting from somewhere unseen. Her expression wasn’t the polished appreciation of someone used to luxury—it was something rawer. More vulnerable.

"This is..." She trailed off, still looking around.

Here’s the thing about Charlotte Thompson that most people didn’t understand: she’d grown up with money. Obscene amounts of it. She’d spent her father’s fortune freely in her younger years—designer clothes, exotic vacations, penthouse parties. She knew luxury the way most people knew breathing.

But she’d never

been on a date.

Never had a

boyfriend.

Never experienced someone planning an evening specifically for her, choosing a restaurant because they wanted to see her smile, making reservations because her happiness was the goal rather than a business objective.

Twenty-six

years old. CEO of the most valuable company on Earth.

And this was her first

real date.

I could smell the anticipation and the

implications

of this, on her, too. Not just the inexperience—though that was there, a subtle nervousness in her pulse, a flutter in her breathing. No, I could actually

smell

her

virginity.

That particular scent of untouched innocence, sweet and clean and impossibly rare in a woman her age.

Okay, that was so unnecessary, but I can’t help it.