Bittersweet Redemption

Chapter Two

I cared about her more than she could ever realize and that was a lot more than any other woman had gotten from me in the past four years.

At that moment, small arms encircled around my waist from behind. I knew she was due back at any time, but I didn't realize it would be so soon. Charlotte loved sneaking up on me; she always had ever since we were kids. "You will never guess where I've been today." She murmured into my back, excitedly.

A soft smile crossed my mouth and I turned towards her. "Where have you been?"

Lottie rolled her eyes, "Guess!"

She also loved to play games, too. I glanced down, shaking my head. "Did you and your girl friends go to the spa again?"

Laughing out, she shook her head. "Guess again."

"Hell, Lottie. I have no idea. Where were you today?" I replied, trying my best to not sound impatient as I was feeling.

She pulled me inside through the glass doors and sat me down on the sofa. "Remember how I was telling you that the girls and I were going to glance around at wedding gowns today?"

Did she tell me that? I nodded.

"After seeing the awful selections around, I just knew that I was going to have to do something different than the normal low end places. Anyway, she said that she would do it. Oh my God, can you believe it? Elizabeth Daniels-designing and hand stitching my wedding gown!"

That name. God damn, her. My stomach dropped to the damn floor as her name was mentioned out of my fiances sweet mouth. "You..." I started, but hesitated. "You spoke with Elizabeth Daniels today?"

Charlotte began rummaging through her bag and laughed, "Spoke? I saw her in the flesh, Austin! I about had a heart attack. God, I thought she was beautiful the moment her first wedding gown featured in Vogue but it's nothing compared to her in person. She's simply untouchable." She had finally found what she was looking for in her bag, which was an older issue of Vogue.

I watched her closely as she began searching through the pages, "Did she know who you were?" I asked, rigidly. There was no possible way that she'd be willing to help Charlotte if she knew.

There was too much...Baggage there.

Charlotte knowingly looked up at me, "Of course she knew, Austin. Our story has been on the front page of every major magazine out there. At first, that's why I thought she was helping me on such short notice because anyone in their right mind would never turn away Austin Burkhalter's fiancé, but when I actually met her it was completely different. She seemed so down-to-earth-so incredibly genuine. She also didn't mind putting me in my place either. Look" She pushed the magazine towards me but I didn't really look. "This was the exact dress I originally wanted, and I told her that I'd pay her dearly for an exact replica but the woman wouldn't budge! I'm pretty sure she made that dress for her wedding day. Just look at it, it's the most perfect bridal gown known to women at the moment. It even says so in the article!"

"She's engaged?"

"I'm sure she is, or she believes it's on the horizon soon." Charlotte pulled the magazine closer and pushed it in my face again. "Any man would be lucky to have her. I mean, look at her!" She continued, as she looked down at the picture completely fascinated. "Isn't she stunning?"

I refused to look. Of course she didn't know, but Charlotte was wrong. Hell yeah, Eliza Daniels was sinfully delicious-so delicious that I still fucking had wet dreams about her but that didn't mean she wasn't a bad decision waiting to happen. Oh yeah, in fact, she was a very bad decision. No man would ever be lucky to have her. Unfortunately, I knew very well what kind of person she really was which was any and everything but genuine.