A/N: Hello everyone! Here's another entry from Brandon's journal. This covers TMMM's Chapter 7. Hope you like it! =)

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I can't remember a time when I hesitated about going somewhere for a business trip—especially when it came to a woman. Business came first, after all. I was always gave the woman I was involved with the courtesy of letting her know. It was never a question of whether they're going to let me go or not. Convenience was a top consideration in all my relationships, after all. Of course, Charlotte is all but convenient, but then she's not really in a relationship with me. At least not in the traditional sense.

The visit to Vancouver was routine. Our Canadian holdings were based there and I checked in every few months. I'd known I was going to go to way before Charlotte got dropped on my lap, where she felt good, actually. I didn't stall about going. Once my mind was made up, I usually acted promptly. I didn't stall with leaving Charlotte—I already told Ted, the director of operations there, that I wasn't going to go. At all. I was getting married rather soon, after all. A man can't just up and leave his fiancee less than two weeks before the big day.

I didn't want to leave Charlotte. It was too soon. She's not just getting her feet wet in this whole Mrs.-Maxfield affair. Rather, she's getting dunked into it headfirst (kinda like what happened with that damned dog at the park). 

I had to make sure she could keep her head above water. Based on Felicity's preliminary report about Charlotte's new routine, she's hardly taking a break at this crash course we're putting her through. It would overwhelm anyone, taking on such a high-profile and important role and all the expectations that came with it. 

If Charlotte was going to crack, I wanted to be there to hold her up. 

But given what I'd learned about her—from both her background report and every second of my life that's been intertwined with hers since we met, Charlotte doesn't crack. Or if she does, she slaps some super glue on it and carry on. At nineteen, she's a walking Humpty Dumpty and no, it wasn't adorable. It infuriated me, actually, but I try not to say so because she'd see it as pity and Charlotte wasn't big on pity. 

It wasn't until the last minute, when I stood by her doorway, kissing her forehead when she stank like moss and stagnant water, that I decided I had to go. I was still reeling from the panic of watching her fall into the water, about to be attacked by a hellhound. It didn't bode well that I was overreacting while she just looked at me, all soaked and sticky and smelly, trying to suppress an impish smile. I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and plop her down on a tub so I could proceed with peeling off her lovely but ruined dress and shampoo her tangled mess of a hair until she was crowned in lather with soap suds on the tip of her nose. She would be laughing at me and pointing out that my entire suit was soaked and ruined too, and I would be shrugging like I didn't care. 

I bolted because I got scared. No man liked to say that out loud but I ran before I could make a bigger fool of myself around her. I wasn't some kind of brooding teenage boy embracing an unhealthy obsession with her. I was a man with formidable self-control thanks to an ample combination of years and vast experience. I knew and understood women, and appreciated all the things I desired about them. I did not moon over a mischievous imp with sunshine for smiles who kept sticking her tongue out at me.

The first day in Vancouver, I congratulated myself on my focus. I was work, work, work despite the emails from Gilles and Felicity reporting regular updates on Charlotte who chose to keep working until before the wedding. The circus had begun with the media and gossipmongers circling her like vultures wherever she went. I never heard a single complaint from Charlotte herself. The sudden absence of her voice and her face—even just her babbling or eye-rolling—didn't strike me hard until the end of the day when I checked my phone and emails and realized that she hadn't called or sent me a single thing. On impulse, I texted her asking how her day was and she didn't reply. I realized then that she was probably already asleep because Boston was ahead a few hours. The next morning though, she replied with a brief text saying her day had been busy. Before I could grab breakfast, I called her and spent nearly an hour with her on the phone, listening to her tell me every little thing that happened. Then I made her promise to call me later in the evening because I expected another full report. I heard her snort and sigh before finally agreeing. 

While at work, my lawyer emailed me the pre-nup to go through. I downloaded the file, took one glance at it and saved it for later. I had more work to do if I wanted to cut my trip short. But Charlotte called just as I was wrapping up in the office late in the afternoon. I didn't mind listening to her ramble on about her day. When she finally yawned on the phone, I told her to go to bed and that I'd see her the next day, when I fly back home. 

Fifteen minutes later, Megan Burke waltzed in. 

Megan is well, Megan. She's a junior partner in a law firm now but since we worked on a merger a few years ago, she'd always kept me company whenever I was in Vancouver. I kept my distance after Simone and I went exclusive so it startled me to see her there, all decked out in her typical grandeur. She's a beautiful woman who knew it well and I've always found her confidence sexy. She draped herself on a chair across my desk and casually declared that since Simone was out of the picture, she thought she might take me out to dinner and catch up.

I took a moment to study her—remembering the elegant way her short, sleek bob framed her heart-shaped face, the way her tall, athletic figure felt in my arms, the skill of her mouth and hands—and wondered why I oddly felt very un-seduced by the very picture of seduction. 

A pair of bright, blue-green eyes snapped through my consciousness and I suppressed a smile when I thought of what Charlotte's very articulate opinion would be of me if she found out I was being offered up sex. 

I didn't break it gently to Megan. I told her I was engaged to be married and she gave me a disgusted look, saying that I was too damned honorable when I haven't even signed the dotted line yet. 

Then she asked me what the appeal was with Charlotte. She told me I wasn't a doddering old man yet with a sagging belly and a bald head who needed to snag a young, hot thing to prove something. She gave me that come-hither look and declared that I was certainly a man in my prime who could still have all the hot sex I wanted with sophisticated women of experience.

I tried to stay polite even though inside I was kicking myself in the head for ever thinking that Megan's haughtiness was just confidence that made her sexy. 

With a firm tone that highlighted the finality of my statement, I told her, coldly, that if all I wanted was a casual, meaningless fuck, I certainly knew her number, but it wasn't, which was why I was marrying a young, spirited and incredibly beautiful girl who made me laugh and forget all of the faces of the sophisticated and experienced women I'd amused myself with in the past. 

Megan's breezy, bitchy attitude drained from her face and she stood up, called me a son of a bitch, and walked out. 

Charlotte would probably conk me in the head and say that was rude but I honestly did not regret any of it. 

I went back to my hotel, ordered room service for an early dinner and showered. Knowing Charlotte was already asleep, given her rigorous schedule, I just emailed her asking what she wanted from Canada. I wanted to call her and listen to her voice, actually. I almost wanted to tell her about Megan but I knew it would only open a can of worms, the same way it would if I confronted her with the truth of my past relationship with Simone. 

After an hour of watching news, I fell asleep but kept waking up every time my phone or laptop sounded off with an email. 

I felt groggy and heavy-limbed thanks to my erotic dreams of Charlotte racing off in a red dress and laughing as I chased her, but I kept checking my messages like an idiot until I finally found an email from Charlotte.

I called her and despite my foggy head, I couldn't help but laugh at her attempt at being a radio-announcer. Charlotte was plain crazy sometimes, but admittedly adorable. Crazy Cookie Charlotte fit her perfectly, alright.

She proved it when she emailed me a photo of her looking like classic Charlotte—make-up free, messy hair, flushed cheeks with her tongue sticking out at the camera. I wanted to kiss the mischievous expression off her face until she was all blushing pink from something else but she was still thousands of miles away. I saved the photo and put it up as my wallpaper on my laptop. It would get me through what was still going to be a long day for me.

Thankfully, I was able to get on the flight home without delay after business wrapped up in Vancouver. Felicity made arrangements for me and Charlotte to go out to a nice dinner at one of my favourite restaurants and I was looking forward to seeing her as I'd dreamed of her—in a red dress with her sparkling smile.

At my arrival back in Boston, I received Gilles's report about the incident at Marcellina. I had to take a moment to keep my temper in check before instructing Gilles to ensure Noli's commission of completing Charlotte's dresses and making arrangements so she is never burdened by Celeste ever again at whatever cost. I had Freddy drive me to Charlotte's house right away. I wanted to see her and hold her in case she was still pretty rattled.

Of course, she wasn't, because Charlotte had a spine of steel. She looked stubborn and ready for battle when she opened her door to me, declaring without preliminaries that she made the call on the whole thing and Felicity and Gilles shouldn't suffer any repercussions. Trust Charlotte to make it a lone battle where she's the only one fighting. And from the surprise on her face when I told her I agreed with her, it would seem that she wasn't used to not having to fight.

When I finally met Rose, the sweet, little girl Charlotte waged her war for, I understood why she did. The little girl was downright adorable even I wouldn't be able to stand back and watch her cry. But as I watched my fiancee patiently show Rose how to decorate the cookies, teasing her and cheering her on, I understood that there had never really been anyone like this for Charlotte when she was a little girl herself. She had no mother and her father spent most of his time wasting away. There had been nobody to care for her as a little girl, to defend her and protect her when she needed it. I might have lost my mother at a young age, too, and had felt alone at times, but I was nowhere near the loneliness Charlotte must've felt growing up, mothering herself and learning to fight back fast, slapping band-aids on her own where she'd hurt herself and telling herself that things were going to be alright as she made her own sandwich to eat before she tucked herself in bed at night to start it all over again the next day. 

For someone with a lot of pride, Charlotte didn't really have much and that felt quite unfair. 

She had me at least, for now anyway. There was so much I could give her even though I knew there's very little she would take. 

I stole a cookie and frosted it with our initials so that she knew we're a unit now. It was time she stopped being so heartbreakingly lonely and started getting the things she would never ask for out loud, thinking she didn't deserve them.

The way her eyes lit up when I said yes to the band for our wedding was something I intended to see again. Charlotte might walk away with a million dollars after the year is up but I intended to give her more than my cold, hard cash. The money would help her but I strongly suspected it wouldn't make her happy and Charlotte, of all people, deserved to be happy.

As I sat there with her in the salon, working while sneaking glances at her as she was being pampered like a princess, I worried that for all my intentions to make her happy, forcing her into the rigid mold of being Mrs. Maxfield was going to break her instead. I wasn't really prepared with what I would do if she'd said yes when I asked her if she was having cold feet. But she didn't, despite the hesitation in her eyes, so I've still got a chance.

Finally, after a very long day, we returned Rose to her mother so it was just the two of us. We were going to go have dinner and maybe go for a nice stroll afterwards but my plans were shot to hell when I fell asleep in her couch. Yes, real smooth of me. 

But when I opened my eyes and saw Charlotte in a red dress, smiling at me as she slipped her heels back on, I thought I was still dreaming.

She was very real though, and she made dinner for the two of us in her little kitchen. I sat there like a nervous boy on his first date, wondering what to say when he'd been struck dumb by his dream girl. And Charlotte did look like a dream. She'd brushed her hair and secured her normally wild locks in a smooth braid that showed off her neck and shoulders. Her dress had a simple, elegant cut but the red suited her fierceness and made her all the more tempting. Her tiny feet were encased in these complicated-looking red shoes I could imagine her wearing around the house with nothing else on.

This version of Charlotte was alluring but it didn't make her more beautiful because hell, she'd been beautiful all this time, hasn't she, even in sneakers, jeans and a shirt, her hair all over the place. 

Megan, and other women like her—women I'd always found attractive in all their polish and poise–had nothing on Charlotte when she smiled and threw her head back laughing, a twinkle in her eye and a touch of pink on her cheeks. 

I wanted her so badly it almost physically hurt but as I held her down on the couch, letting her laughter subside after I tickled her, I realized my biggest problem—I wanted more.

- B

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So, what do you think? 

Our hero's getting all confused now and I think he's going to feel like this for a while. Charlotte wasn't the only one constantly puzzling over their 'business arrangement'.

 ♪♪♪Journal Soundtrack: Wonder by Lauren Aquilina ♪♪♪

I can't control my feelings
I can't control my thoughts
I'm staring at the ceiling
Wondering how I got so caught

You're completely off limits
For more reasons than just one,
but I can't stop

You're aware of my existence,
but you don't I'm here
You're the center of attention
You control the atmosphere

You're so busy being busy,
I don't want to interfere
But I can't stop

So I'll remain within your aim,
until my thoughts can travel somewhere new
My mind is blind to everything but you
And I wonder if you wonder about me, too

If you were to stop talking
I don't know what I'd do
The future's fall is daunting
Walking into it with you

So drink 'til you can't think it,
pretend I'm what you choose
'cause I can't stop

So I'll remain within your aim,
until my thoughts can travel somewhere new
My mind is blind to everything but you
My mind is blind to everything but you
And I wonder if you wonder about me