Chapter Forty-Two

Carrie

“A walk sounds good,” I say, and I swear I feel the relief wash over Reid. I’m right. He’s suffocating right now, but it still doesn’t feel like it’s about me. It feels like it’s an internal war he’s battling now, and perhaps for a long time. That I see it at all, matters. He’s letting me. I wouldn’t see it if he wasn’t letting me.

He kisses me and helps me to the floor, surprising me by grabbing a big towel from beside a huge, claw foot tub and wrapping it around my shoulders, but he doesn’t let it go, even when I grab hold of it. “I’ll grab our bags,” he says.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“For the towel.”

His eyes warm. “One of the few times I’ll ever cover you up, so don’t get used to it.” He releases me and walks out of the bathroom.

I follow him, entering the master bedroom, which is stunning, with the same black wood floors, and a massive bed with a unique navy-blue leather frame. Two blue leather chairs sit in front of a large patio with parted blue curtains. I stare at that window and I think about the lower level patio and replay that moment when I’d tried to drop to my knees and he’d stopped me: As many fantasies as I’ve had that involve your mouth on my body, now is not that time. This is about us, feeling us, not me feeling you. If there has been any moment with Reid where I felt like we were more than sex—ironically considering we were having sex at the time—it was that one.

He walks back into the room with the bags in hand and I swear when his eyes meet mine, I feel like I’m punched with emotions. He feels it, too. He pauses just a moment in the doorway, and it’s like the world stands still for us. Just us. I’m going to fall in love with him and I’ve never said that about any man ever and so soon, to top it off. I cut my gaze, afraid he can read this in me and I’ll freak him out because Lord only knows, I’m freaking myself out.

I start to walk toward the bathroom, and before I make it two steps, Reid catches my arm and turns me to him. He doesn’t speak. He just cups my head and kisses me, a deep, drugging, drive-everything-else-away kiss, before he says, “How about that walk?”

I think he knows what I was feeling, and I’m not sure what to make of his reaction. “I think that would be good,” I whisper.

“In more than a towel,” he teases, turning me toward the bed, where he’s set my suitcase. He unzips it for me and opens it before he steps to his suitcase right beside mine to do the same. Side by side, we go through our things and I pull out clothes while he tugs a snug black T-shirt over his head, and I’m reminded of how good he looks in pretty much everything. Feeling uncharacteristically shy, I grab my stack of clothes, walk to the bathroom, shut the door and I don’t give myself time to think. I quickly pull on boyfriend-style sweats and a tank top, minus a bra, that I cover up with a sweat jacket. My socks and sneakers are next, as is a quick trip to the bathroom. Once I’ve washed up, and am fully dressed, I press my hands to the sink and look in the mirror. “What are you doing, Carrie?” I breathe out, letting my chin fall to my chest. Reid’s not the guy a girl falls for, and yet I’m rolling right down a hill that has no bottom.

Reid knocks on the door and I inhale, I swear I can smell him everywhere, all around me, and on me. I love the way that man smells. I walk to the door and open it to find him standing immediately in front of me, big, broad and gorgeous in that snug shirt, and sweats, his hair mussed up, his jaw lightly shadowed. I like this Reid, the casual, real man. He rests his arm in the doorjamb above my head. “Everything okay?”

My hand dares to settle on his chest, and his heart thunders beneath my palm, suggesting the casualness of that question isn’t casual at all. “Yes,” I say. “Everything is great.”

“Yeah?” he presses, and I almost think I sense uncertainty in him. This confident, gorgeous, take-no-prisoners man feels insecure? It can’t be, but yet, I think—I think, yes.

“Yes,” I repeat again firmly. “Everything is great.”

His hand covers mine on his chest, and he closes his around it, dragging me closer, his hard body a warm shelter I find nowhere else, with no one else. “Let’s walk.”

“I’d like that very much,” I say, deciding not to let fear steal a moment I have with this man. No matter what we are or what we become, I have now. I want now.

I push to my toes and kiss him, a quick peck on the mouth. “Yes. Let’s walk.”

He’s stiff for a moment as if he’s stunned in some way, or that’s what I feel since the man shows no exterior emotions. And then suddenly, he’s cupping my head and kissing me again, a deep, drugging wondering kiss, before he laces his fingers with mine and leads me forward. Together, we walk down the stairs through the cottage and exit the house where we’d made love earlier and of course, my bra is lying smack in the middle of the patio.

I tear my fingers from Reid’s and scoop it and the rest of our clothes up. Reid laughs. “It’s a private beach, baby. No one is going to see our patio.”

“Oh. No?”

“No.”

I drop our clothes onto the chair we’d occupied earlier, and Reid slides his arm over my shoulders and pulls me close. It’s intimate. It’s what a man does to his woman, and I’ve really never wanted to be that with any other man. I mentally reprimand myself, telling myself to enjoy the moment, live in the now. We’re conquering the world together but as we step onto the starlit beach, a full moon our lantern, Reid’s emotions beat at me. He need to escape, and yet somehow it takes me with him, suffocates me.

We walk to the shoreline and cut left, the ocean crashing on the shore, the rush of water filling the air, but our words do not. We don’t walk far though before Reid stops walking and motions to the ground. “Elijah’s wife knew I was his rival,” he says, breaking the silence. “That’s why she picked me.”

“That was between them, Reid,” I say, halting and stepping in front of him. “You know that, right?”

“Exactly,” he says, but he turns away from me, facing the ocean. “It was between them.” His hand drags through his hair, an act that is more out of control, than in control, when he is all about control.

I have this sense that he needs to ground his emotions, so I decide to help him do that in a literal way. I sit down and grab his hand urging him to join me, relieved when he does so with no hesitation. He not only sits next to me, he sits close, both of our knees in front of us, our hips all but touching. Seconds tick by and I don’t push him. “I didn’t care,” he says without looking at me. “I meant what I said to him. He should have treated her right. He should have pleased her. And it was easier to take that stance because he and I were rivals after a contract.”

I take this in, weighing his words and his mood. I decide that he’s not trying to make me hate him. That’s not what this is. I’m just not sure where he’s headed but I think he needs me to understand. I want to understand. “What are you trying to say, Reid?”

He looks at me then, and even in the shadows, I can see the torment in his eyes. “That letter my mother wrote my sister. The pain she felt over my father’s infidelities was deep.”

“I know that letter changed you. I feel that every time you talk about it.”

“I didn’t know I was fucking Elijah’s wife, but I dug that knife deeper, and now he’s coming for West Enterprises. You need to know that I told Royce to find a way to back him off, something I can use against him.”

“To ruin him?”

“I won’t ruin him unless he forces me to ruin him, but I won’t let West Enterprises go down because of a personal vendetta. Too many people lose too much, in too many ways, for that to happen, you included.”

This is that part of his job that he does well, that I fear that I can’t stomach. “A lot of people would lose a lot of money.”

“Yes. They would and I—we—have a responsibility to protect them. I could have handled this without telling you, but—”

“I’m glad you told me,” I say, taking his hand. “I needed to know. I told you, I can handle the truth, even when it’s bitter to swallow. I just have to know.”

“That statement you made earlier is why I’m telling you.” He reaches up and strokes the hair from my eyes. “I didn’t want you to know about Elijah. I have never cared what anyone thinks of my actions, or how they judge me, but I do with you. And I have never shared my decisions and explained myself to anyone but you, Carrie.”

“Why me, Reid?” I ask, not sure I’ve ever needed the answer to a question more.

“Why isn’t the question I’ve asked. How is the question.” His hand cups my face. “How did you do this to me?”

“How did I do what?”

“Become the one obsession I can’t beat.” He doesn’t give me a chance to reply or even process a reaction. He kisses me and takes me down on the sand with him.