The Contingency Plan (The Lonely Heart Series) by Latrivia Nelson Read Free Book Online

the windows at the Manhattan skyline as the snow covered the city, she dazed off thinking about her long, lost lover.  She hated the effect that Sully still had on her after all those years.  The butterflies.  The skipped heart beats.  The elevated blood pressure.  She loathed him for it, and she was sure that at the same time he enjoyed it immensely.  Plus, she thought that she had gotten far away from him.  She hadn’t taken his brother’s help, hadn’t used his name to climb the latter, hadn’t used him as crutch to close her heart.  Yet, as far as she had run away from him, he had still found her. 
    “How long are you going to hold that cup up to your mouth before you drink some?” Alex asked, walking quietly into the kitchen.
    The sound of her fiancé’s voice made Charlie jump.  She turned, startled and smiled at him.  “My mind won’t stop running back to the event,” she answered truthfully.  “I hope the speech was powerful enough, you know.”  She lied.
    There was a long pause. 
    Alex watched her face carefully before he conti n ued.  Taking the tea out of her hand, he walked over to the microwave and popped it in.  “I would have thought that your mind would have been more on the meeting you have tomorrow with your ex and his money.”
    “By money, you mean Dane?” she asked, trying to keep her tone even. 
    “Him too,” Alex smirked. 
    Charlie lifted a brow.  “Does it bother you that I’m meeting him?  I assure you it’s only for business.”  Even as the words left her mouth, she knew that she was lying. But telling him that would be like shooting herself in her own foot. 
    “Maybe if I hadn’t met the guy, it would not have bothered me, but after meeting him…” Alex rolled his eyes. There was no way in hell he was going to finish that statement and sound like the guy was punking him out. 
    Charlie hung on to his every word.  Alex was an alpha and if he felt upstaged, she knew it was her job to reaffirm her position in this. 
    Alex continued when he knew that he had baited her.  Left eye twitching, he continued in a more soothing voice, “But I can see why you guys broke up.”
    A frown laced her brow. “Wh…why would you say that?”  She folded her arms. 
    Alex shrugged.  “Well, he’s blue blood.  He’s not the type of guy who marries anything less than his own kind. He’s the page-6 type whose family a n nounces his wedding engagement on CNN.  I’m sure he has a family crest and papers that follow his lineage like 30 generations or some shit.”
    “And what am I?” she asked with a grimace. 
    Her twisted bottom lip made him choose his words more carefully.
    “You’re an amazing woman who pulled herself up by her own bootstraps,” he said, giving her her props before he ended up on the couch tonight. 
    Charlie softened just a little, but countered an y way.  “I can’t believe that you are making such a republican statement.”
    He raised his palms in defense.  “Just hear me out.  You’re awesome, but you’re not one of the first fam i lies to arrive on Pilgrim Rock.  And Sully’s family was.”  There was an unmistakable smirk on his face now. 
    “They were settlers, but I don’t think that they a r rived on Pilgrim Rock,” she corrected.  Suddenly, Malcolm X was on the brain.  
    “You know what I mean. I mean, hey, I’m Puerto Rican and proud of it, baby, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know how these things work.  He’s destined to marry a Rockefeller or a Kennedy.  And you know that I’m right.  He may like to play in the mainstream, but he’s definitely a two-percenter .”
    “Like the gang?” she asked.
    “No.  Like the two percent of America that holds the country’s wealth, smart ass.”
    For some reason, Alex’s statement angered Cha r lene.  He didn’t know Sully or his family at all.  They were far from elitist.  Still, she couldn’t argue that point.  Not right now.   For all she