Page 184 of Charming Like Us

“Hey.” Oscar sidles next to me and his eyes skim my camera too.

After about a month of filming, I know this footage today is gold. It’s a producer’s dream to have their subject in such a vulnerable position. To confess something so personal. And yet, would Charlie have ever told me this without being under the influence? Without being trapped in an elevator?

I don’t think so.

Ethically, morally, I feel stuck at a crossroads.

Before I make a decision, I have more questions, and they’re not for Charlie. “Did you know?” I whisper to Oscar. “That that’s the reason he lets people hurt him?”

Oscar nods. “If intelligence is a ladder,” he tells me softly, “Charlie’s trapped at the top. And it’s a frustrating place to be.”

A tortured genius. It feels like a hook forBorn into Fame, and I hate it. I hate that I know it might sell. I hate even thinking about it here. I don’t want to exploit Charlie. He’s currently crying on the ground, high out of his mind, talking to his dad.

The elevator jerks.

Charlie’s head pops out of his knees. “Oscar?”

“We’re getting out of here,” Oscar tells him.

36

OSCAR OLIVEIRA

“He’s asleep.”I close our bedroom door in the suite. Charlie’s safe and sound in his bed. His room is just across the living area. It’s one of those times I’m glad we’re staying in a ridiculously expensive hotel with giant multi-bedroom accommodations.

If he was staying in a normal hotel room, for my own conscience, I’d be standing outside his door in the hallway all night.

Luckily, I can relax here. Especially with Jack around.

My husband—if he even still wants to be that. He’s got a hip against the window, drapes drawn back, like he’s been watching the city streets, but right now, his eyes are on me.

I can’t believe we haven’t spoken about our marriage in over fifteen hours. It feels massively like my fault. If he drunkenly married any other guy, they’d have hashed it out immediately. Not put it on pause for a trip to fucking Austria.

I’m stiff against the door, air and silence separating us. Now that we’re alone together it’s almost like I can’t find the words. I finish tying a rolled banana around my forehead and I say, “I wouldn’t blame you, if you want to get an annulment, Highland.”

His face cracks. “What?”

Pressure mounts on my chest. “I don’t want you to feel pressured to stay in a marriage with me because of some drunken decision. So if you want to get an annulment, it won’t change anything between us. I promise you that. We’ll just go back to how it was.” I keep pushing the figurative window open for him in case he needs to escape this situation.

Jump back out.

Being with me isn’t easy, and I don’t want to trap him here after a drunken, stupid night.I loved that stupid night.

His expression is frozen in a perpetual wince. “I don’t understand…doyouwant an annulment?”

No.

No hesitation. I want to stay married to Jack Highland, but I can’t say those words. I run a hand through my thick curly hair. “Would it be alright if I didn’t answer that?” I ask him. “Because if I say one way or the other, I’m going to feel like you’re making a decision based on mine.”

He looks me over. “But you have decided?”

I nod once.

He holds onto the window ledge. “You know that your non-answer is an answer, Os. You’re a good guy, I know you’d be upfront and tell me that you want an annulment if that’s where your head was at. So this is just to…what? Put the decision on my shoulders?”

“It is your decision, Highland.”

He sucks in a tight breath. “This marriage is betweenbothof us.”