T w e l v e-2

"I've told you a hundred times Matt. There is nothing going on between Gideon and I. There hasn't been anything going on for years. Why couldn't you just have believed that? Believed me? This mess. All of it. For nothing." "You think I wanted this?" He blurts. "You've been pulling away from me for months. Then that night with him, at the party, I'm not a fucking idiot Charlie. I sensed something between you. Then you say you're leaving me? What the fuck was I supposed to think? Tell me what I missed?" His voice is raw and bare and for the first time I feel like an intruder. This maybe was a conversation they needed to have alone. Then I remember. She tried to have it. Then he fucking strangled her. Bastard. My fists clench again. She takes her time before speaking. "I told you why," she says quietly. "Because I wasn't happy. Because you're not what I want anymore." "And was I ever what you wanted Charlie?" He asks. He looks sad then. Pitiful. I almost feel sorry for him. When I look at her she's staring at him with a strange, distant look on her face. She looks guilty maybe. "I don't want to talk about this. Not here. Not now," she says finally, looking down at her hands. "Which is why we should be alone. Talking." He moves forward towards her. "Please, baby..." "If you think I'm leaving you alone with her for even a second then you're fucking delusional," I state. He turns to look at me, glare even, suspicious angry eyes burning into mine for a long moment before he slides back down into his chair. "It doesn't matter any more anyway," Charlie says quietly. "It's done now. There's nothing to talk about any more." "So then why am I here?" he holds his hands out. "Clearly it's not the reason I thought. If someone could fill me in that would be really fucking great." He glances down at the paperwork on the table then back up at me. "Again. Let's start with the tape," I say. "How many copies did you make?" He smiles then, dark and smug. "Please. None. It wasn't that good." I smile a dark smile of my own. "Stills then. How many more are there scattered around New York? Anyone else you sent a little brown package to we should know about? The National Enquirer? The Speaker of the House?" He sighs. "Yes, actually I had them made into invitations to my divorce party and sent them to all my friends." "Ok, so that would be just your mother and your secretary then," Gideon interjects. I resist the urge to smile. As Charlie sighs, Walker growls silently at Gideon. Fuck they really did hate each other. Of course, I could understand Gideon's feelings about the guy. He was a prick, with zero redeemable qualities that I could detect. "The ones you all got are the only stills I had made. I had no intention of sending them anywhere." He releases a breath and sits back. "You threatened to send them to my father Matt, the press?" Charlie's eyes narrow. He turns to face her. "I would never have done that baby. Come on, you know that. You know me. I say things I don't mean all the time. You know how I can be," He stops talking and looks down at his hands again. "What about the marks on her neck. Did you mean them?" I cut in. I hate the fact that he just called her 'baby' for the second time. Even more, I hate the fact that when she looks at him her eyes are still tender. Even now. There are echoes of the way she looks at me in the way she just looked at him. I don't like it. I fucking hate it. I hate him. "I'm ashamed of that," he says, shaking his head. "I've regretted it every day since it happened." He looks at her in abject apology. "I think you're a lying prick," Gideon says. "See I think you saw your wife and your chance at half her inheritance slipping through your fingers. And without her your company is done. Dead. I think we all know that — especially you," He nods. "You needed her way more than she needed you, Walker. And she didn't want you any more." Gideon's voice is calm and even. It makes it more cutting. "She is still here," Charlie states. "Because it's you she wants?" Walker growls at Gideon, completely ignoring her comment. "That what you're saying Cross?" Gideon's eyes fill with a dark kind of mirth. "You really are fucking blind aren't you? And deaf apparently." Gideon shakes his head. Walker rolls his eyes. "Why the hell am I here Charlie?" he asks again, turning back to her. "Because I needed to make sure that you had no intention of hurting Christian, Gideon or my father with that tape." "Don't worry sweetheart, I have no intention of notifying the masses that Senator Van der Straeten's daughter; my beautiful, Ivy League-educated wife is a three-way loving, bondage inclined whore."