Page 21

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Then I won’t .”

Charlotte’s words echoed in Sutton’s ears, and in this moment, she wasn’t sure she would ever not hear them. The desperation, the urgency, the certainty .

She also wasn’t sure she’d ever forget how shocked she was in that moment. Truly, utterly, uncontrollably shocked in a way that Sutton had never felt before. Like the world had started spinning in the other direction.

She also would never forget the way Charlotte herself had looked after she’d spoken the words.

All Sutton had been aware of in the moments that followed was the stunned silence. How hard her heart beat in her chest, how wide Charlotte’s beautiful, honey-brown eyes were as they’d remained locked on hers.

There was nothing to say because nothing was making sense.

She’d never in her life been more relieved to have a gaggle of children interrupt her as Lucy and several of her cousins came barrelling down the hallway to hide from Alex, who was counting down to seek them.

The moment had been broken, Sutton had been able to flee and take a minute—or ten—to herself to regain her bearings on this earth, but when she’d regained her composure and returned to the party, Charlotte wasn’t there.

Not in the main entertaining area; not in the entire Spencer home.

Maybe not even in the state, for all Sutton knew.

After Charlotte uttered those words, Sutton could only imagine that Charlotte would run right back to D.C. That she would bury herself in work, reminding herself of her life’s purpose and determinedly putting her momentary insanity behind her.

Hell, for Sutton’s best guess, Charlotte may never even talk to her again. Sutton could imagine a world where Charlotte was so terrified and galled and disgusted by what she’d said that she would have to erase every trace of it from her life, which meant erasing Sutton, too.

She’d done it once before, so Sutton absolutely could imagine her doing it again.

What she couldn’t imagine was that Charlotte had actually said she wouldn’t run for president!

“She can’t have meant it,” Sutton insisted aloud for at least the tenth time in the last couple of hours, as she paced in her childhood bedroom.

“Maybe she did?” Regan insisted, though without confidence, from where she was now sitting on Sutton’s bed.

On almost any other night, Sutton would have been able to take some amusement from their current arrangement. Growing up, Regan had spent the night at Sutton’s house every New Year’s Eve. After the countdown, as guests started dwindling, Regan and Sutton would come up to her bedroom and stay up for almost the entire night.

They hadn’t had a “sleepover” in this sort of fashion since they’d been teenagers. They hadn’t had to; they’d shared their apartment, where they both had proper bedrooms, for years, and whenever Regan had spent the night at her place in D.C., which had happened a handful of times over the last few years, Regan slept in the guest room. And, the biggest thing, they never stayed up past two o’clock in the morning anymore.

But Sutton was so wired she didn’t think she could sleep even if she wanted to. She wasn’t sure she could sleep even if she took an entire bottle of melatonin.

Regan had scared the hell out of her a few hours ago.

As Sutton had predicted, Lucy hadn’t been able to quite make it until midnight, having fallen asleep near eleven. True to her promise, Sutton had gone into Lucy’s room to wake her up to ring in the new year.

Truthfully, Sutton hadn’t even truly left Lucy’s room after putting her in her bed. Sutton’s own bedroom was now technically a guest room, but very little had changed in it, other than the fact that she’d cleaned out all of her teenage memorabilia. Lucy’s room was the bedroom right next to her own, one of the two rooms her parents kept as guest rooms specifically designed for their grandkids. Lucy, however, was the only one of her parents’ grandchildren who didn’t live locally, and therefore she had crowned this room as “hers.”

Oftentimes, when Sutton was seeking a peaceful sense of calm—somewhere that made every other one of her life problems seem small, a place that gave her clarity—she would sit at the foot of Lucy’s bed while she slept.

Listening to the quiet, even breaths of her daughter, watching the way she snuggled into her stuffed animal, settled Sutton. These quiet moments typically gave her strength and focus when any other part of her world felt like it had been thrown into uncertainty.

Tonight, for the first time since Lucy had been born, even this didn’t quite do the trick.

She’d left Lucy’s room after waking her up at midnight, getting a sleepy hug and exclamation in response, before her daughter had—as Sutton had known she would—fallen right back asleep a minute later.

As she’d quietly shut the door behind her, she’d almost screamed when she saw Regan waiting for her in the hallway, arms crossed over her chest.

Sutton had slammed her hand over her racing heart. “What are you doing there, creep?!”

“Waiting for you! I’ve seen you for, like, five minutes the entire evening. Charlotte completely absconded into the night,” Regan finished listing off the inarguable details before throwing her arms into the air as she whisper-yelled, “and I need to know what the fuck is going on!”

“I don’t even know what the fuck is going on!” Sutton whisper-yelled back before dropping her head into her hands. Whatever calm she’d found in the last hour was completely shot yet again.

Then I won’t . What had Charlotte meant by that?!

“I told Charlotte that I couldn’t really be with her,” Sutton had said, voice slightly muffled from where her head rested in her hands.

“Sutton! What?!” Regan demanded, stepping closer as she dropped her hands to Sutton’s wrists, gently tugging them away from her face.

Sutton stared helplessly at her best friend’s baffled, demanding expression as she stated, “And she told me that if I can’t be with her because of her political office, then… then she won’t run for president.”

Yeah. Saying the words aloud had done absolutely nothing to make them seem more real. It still felt like Sutton was living in an alternate reality.

“She said WHAT ?!” Regan yelled this time, with not a hint of a whisper.

Sutton had the presence of mind to reach up and slap her hand over her friend’s mouth before throwing Lucy’s door a look. “My daughter is sleeping .” But in the beat of silence that followed, she didn’t hear a peep from inside of the room.

Regan grabbed Sutton’s hand and yanked it away from her face. “Yeah, and your perfect daisy child sleeps like the fucking dead when she’s tuckered out.”

Sutton allowed a nod; Regan wasn’t wrong.

For several long moments, they stared at each other. Sutton took a strange satisfaction in the knowledge that Regan was very obviously just as shocked and confused and unsure as she was.

Regan had pulled Sutton into Sutton’s own bedroom then, giving Emma a quick phone call to let her know that she had to stay with her best friend for the night.

And in the hours since, they’d cycled through the entire conversation and dissected every possibility.

“Are you sure you heard her correctly?” Regan had asked early on.

Sutton had scoffed, shoving at her shoulder. “What else could she have possibly said? Those words aren’t commonly mistaken for something else.”

“Well, I don’t know!”

Regan had tried again: “Maybe she said she won’t… but she didn’t mean run for president . Maybe she was referencing something else that you’d talked about?”

Honestly, Sutton had considered that. She’d had to; nothing else about Charlotte’s statement made sense.

But… “No.” She’d shaken her head firmly. “There was no way she was referencing anything else.”

Even if it could have been a conversational mix-up—which it definitely wasn’t—the look on Charlotte’s face afterward would have been enough to tell Sutton what she’d meant.

Hours later, all a beleaguered and very exhausted Sutton could believe was: “She couldn’t have really meant it.”

It was the only thing that made sense, and she’d repeated it to herself at least four times.

Regan was quiet for a long moment before she grabbed Sutton’s phone from the bedside table and offered it up to her. “Text her.”

Sutton recoiled, staring dubiously at her friend. “You want me to text her at 2:27 a.m.? That’s—no.”

Regan kept her arm outstretched, insistent. “Text her senatorial ass right now, Sutton Victoria Spencer, or I will. And you know I will.”

Before the very viable threat fully left Regan’s mouth, Sutton snatched her phone out of her grasp. Just in case. “Don’t you dare.”

Her phone felt five times heavier than it really was as she gripped it, still not unlocking it.

“You’re not going to be able to sleep until you talk to her, even if it’s just for her to confirm that she’d said it in the heat of the moment. And, what? You think she’s asleep? After she said that ?” Regan’s eyes rolled so hard Sutton worried they’d stick that way.

“No. I don’t think she’s sleeping.” Sutton’s heart thudded in her chest as she stared down at her phone. With no texts or calls or any other notifications from Charlotte, Sutton knew she wasn’t asleep either. Sutton knew Charlotte was awake right now, just as haunted by her statement as Sutton was.

She swallowed hard as she looked back at Regan, unable to really decipher or put a name to the feelings pummelling through her. “But…”

“What are you so afraid of?” Regan asked softly as she stood up from Sutton’s bed and looked down at her. “If she didn’t mean it, which is the most likely scenario, then nothing changes. Then it’s exactly what you thought was the case. It sucks, but it is what it is. And if she did , then?—”

“Then I have no clue what to do from there,” Sutton cut in, feeling a claw of desperation low in her stomach. “You’re always telling me that I need to get out there? That I need to date?”

Regan had encouraged her to find someone new to share her life with so many times over the last few years. Sometimes she was gently encouraging, sometimes energetically bolstering; sometimes her pep talks had bordered on forceful.

“Because I know you’re lonely ,” Regan spoke softly, reaching out to grab Sutton’s wrists in a gentle hold. “Because I know you aren’t someone who’s ever wanted to go it alone. Sutton, you’re—and I say this as your best friend in the entire fucking world— annoyingly perfect.”

There it was. That word made this ugly, revolting desperation churn her stomach. It pushed her breath out harshly, and she tugged her wrists out of Regan’s grasp so she could drag them through her hair.

“There! Right there! ‘ Perfect .’” The word dripped from her lips, colored in disgust and disbelief.

Regan’s bafflement was palpable. “What?”

Sutton resumed her pacing from earlier, feeling even more unsettled now. “You just said it. I’m perfect . Well, if that’s true, how come I’ve fallen in love with two women who have both left me?” she challenged, the backs of her eyes burning at this raw truth. “How come every time I’m in love, I get blindsided by a breakup? And how come, in those breakups, I get told I’ve done nothing wrong?”

There. The confusing, looming, ugly truth was laid between them, and Sutton felt wrecked from admitting it aloud. She’d never, ever voiced it, but the thought had been so present in the background of her life for years.

Regan’s eyes were wide and surprised and sad, and she shook her head, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Sutton?—”

“Charlotte and Layla both shattered different parts of my life. My heart. And both of them told me I couldn’t have done anything differently.” Her voice broke as she stared at Regan, helplessly. “According to Layla, I was perfect .”

She could feel the bitterness seep out on that word, from every pore in her body.

“I haven’t been trying to date or find a partner for years, Regan, because every time I’ve had my heart broken, apparently there was nothing I could change. Both times, there was nothing I could do differently; there was nothing I could change about myself. Nothing I could work on. I give everything I am in a relationship; I treat my partner as best as I can, and yet it’s not enough. I’m sick to death of being the perfect partner and still never being enough. And I can’t do it again. I can’t handle it. I can’t.”

She felt like all of the energy zapped out of her body for the first time all night, and she collapsed onto the side of her bed, dropping her phone onto the blanket next to her and burying her face in her hands.

Within moments, she felt Regan settle next to her, an arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her in close.

“I’m so sorry, babe,” her best friend whispered, her other hand reaching up and brushing comfortingly through Sutton’s hair, pulling her head down against her shoulder.

Sutton settled her head there, taking in a deep, shuddering breath before she dropped her hands into her lap. “And I really can’t do it with Charlotte.”

She didn’t have it in her to elaborate on that. Maybe, one day, she could try to give her all in another relationship. Maybe.

But Charlotte Thompson was not just some random person. And if Sutton removed the barriers she had up between herself and Charlotte, if she let herself fall headfirst into this the way she knew she would—so, so easily—she wasn’t sure if she would recover from it again.

“I get it,” Regan murmured, continuing to card her fingers through Sutton’s hair. The best thing about Regan was that Sutton knew she did get it.

They sat there, cuddled close the way they would when they were kids, for several minutes, and Sutton took comfort from the warmth.

Then she felt Regan nod against the top of her head, pulling back from their embrace so that they could face one another.

“Sutton, you are my best friend. The only people on this earth that I love in the same stratosphere as I love you are my wife and your daughter.” Her dark eyes shone with sincerity as she reached down and squeezed Sutton’s hands.

She squeezed Regan’s hands right back. “I know.”

“So know that when I say this, I mean it: Your relationships not working out before? They had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the people you were with and the situations they were in. It was shitty and hard and unfair, and I’m not saying you didn’t have some bad luck in the mix with you.” Regan held her gaze, giving her a gentle smile even as she nodded. “And I will not try to sway you on what you should do one way or the other with Charlotte or your love life?—”

Sutton scoffed, incredulous.

Regan accepted it with a cheeky smile. “For tonight, anyway. But either way? You have to talk to Charlotte about this. You have to see her again, no matter what, to finish the final parts for the book. You have to know what it means, regardless of whether or not you want to try to be with her or not. And I’ll fully support you, whatever you decide.”

Sutton took in Regan’s words, letting them roll over her in quiet acceptance. For some reason, they quieted the insanity for the very first time since her earlier conversation with Charlotte.

She’d spent the last few days certain she would break off the sexual part of their relationship after the new year. She’d determined that was the best path, and she’d been prepared to follow through with it. For both her sake and Lucy’s.

Wherever this would lead, though, she needed to know.

With that in mind, she took a deep breath and reached for her phone.

Sutton—2:43 a.m.

Are you awake?

She had her answer before she actually received an answer: Her message was immediately read, a full minute before those three little dots appeared. Which was a full minute before she actually received a short, simple response.

Charlotte—2:45 a.m.

Yes

Sutton—2:47 a.m.

I think we should talk about tonight. And… just, in general. Let me know whenever works for you?

Charlotte—2:51 a.m.

To be perfectly honest, darling, I don’t imagine I’ll be getting much sleep. You can come whenever you’d like. I’m staying at the Fox and Hyde, room 3501

Sutton had thought that her New Year’s Eve—well, she supposed it was now New Year’s Day, technically—couldn’t get any more surreal, but as she approached Charlotte’s hotel room at three thirty in the morning, she found that it most certainly could.

Somehow, by the end of her conversation with Regan, she’d found a determination inside of her to face Charlotte. To face whatever this was.

Which was why she was here right now instead of trying to get whatever fitful sleep she could manage and then coming to see Charlotte in proper daylight. Instead, she’d taken a quick shower to feel as refreshed as possible; hugged Regan, who had agreed to stay over in case Lucy needed anything; and had borrowed her dad’s car to drive to Charlotte’s hotel.

She took a deep breath, lightly rubbed her palm against the bag that was settled on her hip, and raised her fist to knock on the door.

Only to startle slightly, pressing her hand over her heart as the door opened before she could actually knock.

Charlotte stood in the entryway, no longer in her sleek, stunning, black suit; no longer with her hair beautifully curled and swept up, like it had been at the party. And seeing Charlotte standing there in her foyer, next to her mother, had shocked Sutton to the core. The sight of her had made her heart stutter in that inevitable god, she’s beautiful way before reality had set in.

The reality that she was figuring out how to break things off.

And now, as she stared at Charlotte a foot away from her, long, brown hair pulled into a high ponytail, wearing joggers and a sweatshirt with no trace of makeup on, her heart did the exact same stutter.

Before the reality set in, again, and she took a deep breath. “Hi.”

Charlotte gave her a small smile. “Hi.” She moved backward, pulling the door open to let Sutton walk by her. “Come on in.”

She did as she was directed, looking around the lavish suite as she did so. Fox and Hyde was a luxury hotel, and Charlotte was staying, of course, on one of the top floors. Even as she heard Charlotte close the door to the suite, she didn’t turn around.

No. Amid the insanity of the night, Sutton had, somehow, in the morning hours where clarity was typically the last thing available, found a purpose.

She headed for the far side of the suite, toward the large windows overlooking the city, bypassing the side of the suite that had the large, king-sized bed, the barely mussed covers telling her that Charlotte, similarly to herself, hadn’t even truly attempted to sleep tonight.

Charlotte spoke from where she followed a few steps behind her. “Sutton, about what I said earlier?—”

“I’m not here to talk about that.” Sutton cut in quickly, her heart leaping at the ghost of Then I won’t . She turned to face Charlotte again. “At least, not right away.”

She didn’t know what to make of the firm yet hesitant tone Charlotte was using either. She wasn’t going to think about it, not right now.

Charlotte slowly winged an eyebrow up. “Then, what exactly are you here to discuss with me at nearly four in the morning?”

“Before we potentially get into that…” Sutton had to clear her throat as she gestured to the bag at her hip, then at the desk and chairs in the office/living area of the suite. “I want to finish our interviews, for your biography.”

Her own words hung between them as she stared Charlotte in the eye, feeling like she could see the cogs turn in Charlotte’s constantly processing mind.

She watched Charlotte swallow heavily before she slowly worked out, “You want to finish our interviews for my biography, at my hotel at four in the morning, because you want to be able to completely break this off.”

Sutton’s stomach twisted at Charlotte’s words—at the meaning in them and at the despondent way Charlotte sounded as she spoke.

“I don’t—” She broke off, rubbing her hand over her stomach. “I don’t know , Charlotte.” Her voice fell into a whisper as that same uncertainty that she’d been steeling away so easily cut right back in. “All I know is that I want to have everything professionally as neatly tied up as possible before things get any… blurrier.”

It seemed crazy, really, to think that things between them could be blurrier than they already were, but Sutton truly believed that if anyone could manage to muddle things further, she and Charlotte could.

“Please,” she beseeched her.

Charlotte’s lips pursed tightly closed, and she was obviously in thought. She finally nodded, then blew out a deep breath. “All right, then.”

The slightest edge of relief slid through Sutton as she sat in one of the plush armchairs, taking her phone, notebook, pen, and tablet out of her bag. Charlotte sat in the chair across from hers, crossing her legs and smoothing her hands over her thighs as she shook her head back.

Somehow, Sutton thought, as she lifted her notebook and pen up to rest on her lap, Charlotte managed to seem just as put-together and prepared in this moment as she did during their meetings in her office on Capitol Hill.

Feeling her heart thudding in her chest, Sutton started recording on her phone, placing it on the coffee table adjacent to them. She glanced down at her notes, the comments and questions she’d left for their final topic, but she knew she didn’t need them.

She summoned her strength as she looked up to meet Charlotte’s gaze. “As you know, we’ve been moving through your life, topic by topic, and the only big topic left to discuss is…”

“My romantic life,” Charlotte finished, holding Sutton’s gaze steadily. “I’m ready.”

For just a moment, Sutton looked down at her notes even though she wasn’t really reading them.

It wasn’t as though they’d deliberately saved this topic for last. It had just worked out that way. Because, in a true-to-Charlotte fashion, there had been no tangents about her love life when she recounted anecdotes from her life. They’d discussed her grandmother, her parents, her brothers, her high school years, college years, the beginnings of her career, her move to spending most of her time in D.C. They’d discussed so, so much.

And, for most people, this conversation would have already branched into her love life.

Charlotte was just not most people.

In the most glorious, undeniable, magnetic, and, for Sutton, damning of ways.

She rolled her shoulders as she dove into it. “When was the first time you started questioning your sexuality?”

“Oh, I don’t think I ever questioned it,” Charlotte intoned, both thoughtfully and cheekily.

Sutton couldn’t help but smile even as she shook her head slightly. The answer was so very, very Charlotte.

“But, for the purpose of what you’re asking, I started looking at other girls and registering that I found them… enticing, by the time I was thirteen, I believe.” Charlotte’s tone took on this quality she got that Sutton had discovered in the last few months. Pensive, like she was truly sifting through her memories to give Sutton an answer to the best of her ability.

“When was the first time you had any romantic interaction with a woman?”

“Ah… not to name names, but there was a very lovely cheerleader I went to high school with.”

Sutton lifted her eyebrows with interest. “And what happened between you two? Did you initiate it?”

Charlotte smiled softly. “I did, yes. We were both on debate and were sharing a room during a travel competition when it started. I was nearly sixteen.” She nailed Sutton with a look. “And already captain of the debate team, I might add.”

Sutton, annoyingly charmed, shook her head. “Of course you were,” she murmured, before forcing herself back on topic. “Was this nameless cheerleader and debater a girlfriend? Did you have any high school girlfriends?”

Sometimes, over the last couple of months, it had been like this between them. Sometimes, she knew the answers, but she needed to ask anyway. To have everything clarified and on the record and official.

“Girlfriends? No,” Charlotte answered. “I had dalliances, for certain. Here and there. The nameless cheerleading debater, in specific, was two years older than I was, so we weren’t made to last after she graduated that year. Which was fine with me.”

“If it was fine with you, you didn’t have any feelings for her? At all?” Sutton asked, and she couldn’t control how much she truly did want to know.

Back when she and Charlotte had met, when they’d started this , she had known that Charlotte didn’t engage in relationships. She’d told Sutton that she never sought out a romantic connection, but what Sutton had never asked was if it had ever happened. Did high school sophomore debate captain Charlotte Thompson have at the very least a crush on the senior cheerleader she’d apparently hooked up with?

She could already see the answer reflected in Charlotte’s direct, honest expression. “No. I mean… I was attracted to her. I enjoyed whenever we ended up spending time together. But I never got those first-love butterflies or anything like that.”

“Not with her or the others after?” Sutton needed to clarify, and she hated how much she felt like she was hanging on Charlotte’s every word.

Yet that was nothing new.

Charlotte shook her head. “No. None of them.”

Pulling herself back from the edge, back from thinking anything about herself and Charlotte, about Charlotte having those feelings for her , she cleared her throat and asked, “Was that a conscious decision, you think?”

“How do you mean?” Charlotte clarified, eyes narrowing just a bit as she searched Sutton’s face.

She could feel her cheeks minutely heat even as she shrugged. “I mean… you clearly didn’t want to publicly come out until later in your life. And having a romance might have made that more difficult. Do you think it was as simple as, well, you just never truly fell for someone? Or was it a more conscious decision to hold yourself back?”

Sutton’s questions hung in the air between them. Her own heart pounded in her chest at the question—a question she hadn’t written down, but which was rather steamrolling its way through her current thoughts.

Because… she had her own supposition about this.

Apparently it was something Charlotte herself hadn’t anticipated discussing either.

Several seconds later, she recovered, speaking slowly. “Well, I was never particularly interested in romance. I was always much more focused on the bigger picture. The future. In high school, I cared more about extracurriculars; in college I was more concerned about internships.”

Sutton rolled her lips at the evasive answer before asking, “Did you tell anyone about your sexuality? At what point in your life did you tell people in your inner circle?”

Charlotte sat up straight, her shoulders back as she answered. “I told my ‘inner circle,’ as you say, in high school. My grandmother, my brothers. My parents.” The look in her eyes was blazingly direct, intent and purposeful, as she stated, “I was never ashamed of my sexuality, and that’s something I need to be known. I was just—busy.”

“What did your grandmother have to say about it?” Sutton waited for the answer on bated breath. Elizabeth Thompson had been a force of nature. In the handful of minutes Sutton had spent with her years ago, she’d been both intense and dismissive.

But she also knew in her bones how deeply Elizabeth had loved Charlotte. She’d seen it, even if Elizabeth hadn’t shown her love and affection in typical ways.

Charlotte paused, interlacing her fingers over her knee. “She was honest with me. As she so often was.” There was that warmth, that fondness in her tone. Unmistakable. A longing for a presence that was no longer here. It was something Charlotte subconsciously adopted every time they discussed Elizabeth. Something beautiful. “That the life I wanted for myself was already going to be an uphill battle, that I would already have a long road ahead of me. And that, frankly, my sexuality would make it more difficult.”

Her voice fell quiet then, as she thought about those words. Sutton could see it on her face, how Charlotte relived that moment. “She told me the truth. Her truth. That there was so much more to life than falling in love.”

“Do you think that influenced the way you approached romance?” Sutton asked softly, her heart thudding in her chest at the question. She needed the answer to the question she’d asked a minute ago, the one that Charlotte had somehow sidestepped.

There was simply no way that those comments at such a pivotal time, from a woman Charlotte idolized, hadn’t informed her decisions in life.

Charlotte blinked at her for a few seconds, seemingly brought back to the present. “I suppose, yes. It may have.”

There was a raw edge of honesty in her tone that even surprised Sutton.

Charlotte cleared her throat as she rolled her shoulders, adjusting her posture. “Admittedly, I was never someone who had flights of fancy when it came to romance. Even as a little girl. I never spent time thinking about falling in love or having pretend weddings or anything like that. Maybe romance would have been something that mattered more to me as I got older, if my circumstances weren’t what they had been. The way they are . I guess I’ll never know. But… not getting swept up in romance, not dating, it was never difficult for me. I never felt like I was at war with myself, trying to balance my life.”

Sutton nodded slowly, swallowing hard as she felt they were starting to walk into murkier territory. Unfortunately, that was unavoidable on this topic. For them, talking about love would always blur the lines.

“You came out publicly within the last couple of years. How did that change your view on dating, given that you could publicly be with a partner?”

“It didn’t,” Charlotte admitted with a wry smile. “Not really.”

“Did you date?” Sutton asked, painfully curious, feeling her heart start to pound even as she willed it not to.

“Not really,” Charlotte repeated, her voice low and solemn as she held Sutton’s gaze. “I went out with a couple of women, mostly casual. Socially. But coming out publicly did very little to change my approach in life at the time.”

Sutton nodded, gripping her pen tighter, even though—unusual for her, during these work meetings with Charlotte—she hadn’t taken a single note. Still, she carried on asking the questions she’d written, the questions for which she’d determined to pretend that Charlotte wasn’t Charlotte. Questions she’d ask anyone she was writing about, regarding their love life. As if it wasn’t personal to her, at all. “So no one caught your interest, even though I imagine there were several potential interested parties.”

“No. That is, there were interested parties, in your words. And I entertained the thought of them sometimes. I tried to.” Charlotte’s voice took on that serious, painfully sincere note as she stared intently at Sutton. “But the truth is, I’ve only ever wanted more with someone… once.”

“Oh?” Sutton intoned, holding the pen in her hand so tightly it creaked.

Charlotte nodded, not looking away. The look in her eyes was so gripping, Sutton couldn’t look away either. “And it was long before I ever came out publicly.”

“Charlotte.” The pleading note in her own voice was uncontrollable. “Don’t do this. This”—she gestured at her notebook, her phone—“this is work . It’s not the time for us . Please.”

“It is the time for us , Sutton, when the topic during work is about my love life,” Charlotte corrected her firmly. “Because on this topic, what you’ve not asked is whether or not I’ve ever regretted my decision to not come out when I did. If I wish I had done it sooner.”

“I imagine you don’t have regrets,” she managed in a voice barely above a whisper. “You didn’t sound regretful when you were discussing your love life a few minutes ago.”

“Not when discussing my love life from high school or college or whatever. Because I didn’t have regrets about not being with that cheerleader or anyone who came after her during those years. I never wanted more with them, regardless of the reason why,” Charlotte explained, the energy rolling off of her in waves as she leaned forward in her chair.

“But I do have one regret, Sutton. The only thing I look back on with regret is whether I should have come out sooner. If I should have given myself the opportunity to pursue a real relationship sooner.”

“No.” Sutton shook her head, closing her eyes tightly. “No.”

Even in the last month, even amid the resurgence of their sex life, they had never revisited the past. The past was the past , and Sutton liked it exactly where it was. They didn’t discuss Charlotte breaking Sutton’s heart. They didn’t discuss everything that had been said and unsaid back then. It was for the best.

“Yes,” Charlotte insisted, ignoring their unspoken rule. “Because I’ve only been in love once. And it’s the reason I’ve never been able to meaningfully date, even after coming out.”

Sutton shook her head, breath shuddering out as she stared at Charlotte. “No. Don’t—you can’t rewrite history like that, Charlotte. You can’t. Just because of what’s happening between us right now?—”

“This has nothing to do with us right now. This has nothing to do with what I said earlier.” The fire in Charlotte’s voice was blazing and insistent, though it wasn’t angry. It was passion, undeniably so. “I’m not rewriting history.”

“You are . You are, though, because I was in love with you , Charlotte Thompson!” The words exploded from Sutton, from somewhere so deep inside of her, somewhere that had been bottled up and pushed down long ago. “I was so, so in love with you, and I was fine with you not coming out. I was fine with us not labelling what we were to one another. I was completely fine with that, and you still ended it.”

That was Sutton’s painful truth. That she would have continued to live, for an indeterminate amount of time, by Charlotte’s career. And even then, it hadn’t been enough.

The hard, shattering truth that she’d had to accept in order to move on so long ago was that if Charlotte had truly loved her, it would have been enough.

“And I deluded myself into thinking that you might have felt the same way, until I had to eventually accept that you didn’t. Because if you had felt what I felt, you wouldn’t have been able to walk away.”

The pain from that, though healed, would always be sensitive scar tissue on Sutton’s heart, best left alone. And it ached now, all over again, as she stared desperately at Charlotte.

Charlotte jumped from her perch in her chair, unable to contain the energy inside of her. “You weren’t the only person who was shattered when things ended between us, Sutton.” Though Sutton tried to deny it, the painful edge to her voice was unmistakable.

Charlotte stood directly in front of her before dropping to her knees, her hands falling on Sutton’s thighs, her grip warm and desperate. “ I wasn’t okay with not labelling what we did back then any longer.” Her hold tightened, as if Sutton’s heart-pounding attention could stray from her for even a single moment. “Because I was so deeply in love with you, I couldn’t see straight anymore. I wasn’t seeing anything correctly, not even my career. And that terrified me. So I ended it. And I was wrong .”

No . The word was stuck in Sutton’s throat, thick and croaky and intent, but she couldn’t voice it. Even though— no . It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true.

“Yes,” Charlotte insisted, clearly not needing Sutton to speak her mind when she could read her thoughts. “And I’ve hated myself for it so often over the years because you moved on, darling, but I never did.”

This must be what insanity felt like, Sutton thought. She wanted to laugh and cry at once, her feelings overwhelming her, as she stared down at Charlotte.

The young woman she’d once been still lived inside of her, clearly, because at Charlotte’s words, a part of her screamed with joy. Like some part of her was healed in hearing them.

All the while, the heartache and blistering pain and the painstaking effort she’d put in by putting Charlotte behind her shouted in self-righteous disbelief.

And all of it tied together inside of her, insanely , as Charlotte Thompson beseeched Sutton to believe her, on her knees at Sutton’s feet.

“And that’s why I said what I said earlier, Sutton. Earlier tonight, at the party.”

Oh god. They were discussing it. Charlotte was going there.

And Sutton… she still couldn’t find any words; her tongue felt too thick.

“I was wrong to walk away from you then. To walk away from us. From everything we could have been together, everything we could have built. And I’ve never felt it, this thing we have, with anyone else, no matter how much time passes.”

“Charlotte.” Her name—begging, desperate, a prayer—was all Sutton could voice.

This was a dream. It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be— couldn’t be real.

“So if it means having you, then I won’t run for president .”

The words rang through the air, clear as day, for the second time in twelve hours. And even though Sutton had already heard them, the shock of it slammed into her all over again.

The shock, though, finally helped her find the ability to speak again.

“Charlotte, what does that even mean for you?” It was easier to ask that than to focus on herself. So much easier to focus on Charlotte than the calamity of thoughts and feelings trying to barrel their way through her.

Charlotte clearly had been entirely unprepared for that question as she stared up at Sutton, blinking widely.

That look nudged her to continue. She reached down, unable to keep her hands from dropping to Charlotte’s.

Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was ridiculous, but this… it really felt like the end. Despite all of Charlotte’s pretty words, the reality was different. Sutton knew that now.

“What does your life look like without this plan in front of you? How long will it take for you to resent me? What will you do with yourself?” she challenged, asking the questions she’d been unable to voice earlier, the ones that made Charlotte’s statement so unbelievable it was absurd.

“I don’t doubt that you—” She choked on the word love , unable to get it past her lips. She couldn’t go there with Charlotte, not even now. “That you have a lot of intense feelings for me. But have you even thought about what you’re saying you’ll give up?”

Sutton knew the answer without needing any confirmation from Charlotte.

It was what made the acceptance inside of her so easily accessible, even as it did hurt. Even as she wished she could get lost in this beautiful dream. She just knew that it wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. Not for Charlotte Thompson.

And the thing was, Sutton understood that.

She reverently traced her fingers over the backs of Charlotte’s hands again, swallowing thickly at their softness and warmth.

“If things were different …” She trailed off, unable to finish that thought. “In another world, Charlotte. In another world. But you and I don’t live in that world.” She shook her head, cutting Charlotte off with a look when she opened her mouth. “Before we can talk about this, I need you to really think about that. I can’t… You did shatter me, Charlotte,” she confessed, the hurt of those old feelings now cut wide open all over again. “And I can’t even entertain the notion of being with you in any real capacity, unless it’s exactly that. Real.”

She slid her hands up to Charlotte’s jaw, cupping it, relishing the feeling of it under her palms.

Charlotte brought her own hands up to cup the back of Sutton’s, her eyes big and unsure, digging right into Sutton’s unprotected heart.

“Darling.” It was all Charlotte said, and even though she had barely moved in minutes, she was breathless.

Sutton understood, though. She understood exactly how Charlotte felt as she stroked her thumbs up, brushing against the softness of Charlotte’s bottom lip.

“I don’t need you to say anything now. Actually, I really don’t want you to,” she insisted, if quietly. Pleading, as she rubbed her thumb slowly over Charlotte’s lip once more. As if she was memorizing it.

But the true craziness was that she already had it memorized. She always had.

“Please, Charlotte. I need you to seriously think this through before you say any of your pretty words again. I won’t hold anything you’ve already said against you if you realize, as I suspect you will, that you won’t truly be happy giving up the dream you’ve worked for your entire life for me.”