Chapter Twenty-Eight
The pealing ring of Carson’s cell phone yanked him from his numb stupor. He jerked up, heart racing faster when he saw Avery’s name on his screen.
He answered the call, still doubting it was her. “Avery?” His pulse drummed in his ears as his world focused down to the empty silence on the line. Had she meant to call him? Was this a joke? What would she say?
Another long moment passed before he heard, “Carson.”
It was her. Relief flushed through him, only to be immediately followed by doubt. Was this it? Would she let him explain?
“Avery,” he repeated, eyes closing as he dropped his head back against the car seat. He’d been sitting on the street outside her condo for hours, waiting for her to return. He clutched the phone with a desperate need to stay connected to her. “Are you okay?”
Her soft laugh was soft and cynical. “It’s kind of a shame that you have to ask me that.”
The jab struck his heart. He winced, cursing himself. “I’m sorry.” So damn sorry. “Can I explain?”
The silence stretched, but he bit his tongue when the urge to speak rose up. She had every right to deny him, and he wouldn’t force her to hear him out. He’d lost that right.
A low sigh ghosted over his ear. “I need a couple of things from you.”
“What?” His voice cracked on that single word.
“First, I want that app.” Her voice strengthened with the demand. He could picture her back straightening, those expressive eyes of hers darkening. “I understand every member has access to it, and I want to see what’s in it.”
An odd quirk of pride flared in his chest. That was the courage he’d found so attractive since the beginning. A strong sense of purpose lingered beneath her surface to hold her steady, and she was tapping it now—to go against him. Right.
“Of course. I’ll send you the information tonight.” Trevor might be pissed given the recent events, but Carson couldn’t deny her request.
“Thank you.”
Her reply was so stiff and formal it almost gutted him. “I’m so sorry.” He put every ounce of truth and misery in his apology. “You have to believe that.”
“Do I?” she challenged.
His stomach swirled with the sick disgust of his actions, but he’d brought this on himself. “No,” he admitted. No, she didn’t. “But I hope you do. I didn’t keep it from you as a way to hurt you.”
“Then why did you?” The flatness of her voice told him how bad the situation was. He’d expected a stream of tears or an angry tirade, but her measured emotions meant she’d either locked the others down or was already beyond them. And that gave him nothing to respond to or counter.
“I don’t know,” he exclaimed on a frustrated burst. He squeezed his eyes closed, grimaced. He had no right to be angry—except at himself. “Sorry. Shit.” He released a sigh. He owed her something, at least what he had, even if it sucked. “I didn’t think you’d want to know about the app in the beginning. And I wasn’t sure if you’d be a one-time attendee. We don’t give it out to the occasional participant.”
There was a beat of silence before she asked, “And after the first time? Why not then?”
Why not then? Did he tell her the whole truth? “Because I was afraid you’d react just like this.” Yup. There it was.
Her sharp inhalation shot through the line to confirm his unintended hit. He rubbed his eyes, desperate for a solution. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her more.
“You were—are—so worried about what others will think of you,” he said quietly. Maybe it was the exhaustion from worrying about her all day or just the utter defeat plowing through him, but the truth continued to pour out. “And I didn’t want you to stop playing.” He inhaled, released it. “I was afraid you’d withdraw, and I didn’t want that. I lo—” watching you. Feeling you. He had no right to use that word now. “You were so stunning to watch,” he said instead. “And I wanted to keep watching as you grew into your passion and owned it.”
“So it was just about the sex.”
“No,” he insisted before correcting himself. “Maybe at first, but not even then. Not truly.”
“Then what was it about?”
He chuckled at her dogged persistence. She could’ve stayed away and simply not spoken to him. But not her. Not Avery.
“You,” he answered simply. “It was about you. You were full of surprises. Strong. Funny. Tender. Compassionate. Wicked. Sexy. Beautiful. I couldn’t get you out of my head. And I didn’t want to share you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you playing without me.” And he’d become a possessive asshole with that one admission.
“You don’t own me,” she whispered.
“I know.”
Another long beat of silence held before she said, “I wouldn’t have.” She choked back a laugh that had him cringing yet again. “Would it have been so hard for you to just tell me that? I didn’t want to play without you.” She sucked in a breath, and he clung to that admission. “But you thought it was better to lie to me instead of trusting me.”
Was that true? No. Not completely. “And you would’ve continued with the Boardroom if you’d known about Gregory and Trevor?”
No reply came, which was answer enough. She wouldn’t have. But he still shouldn’t have made that decision for her. He closed his eyes as the silence stretched. His pulse was steady, his emotions frozen in a state of suspended wait. His regrets mounted, yet he couldn’t change what he’d already done.
“I need you to go,” she said on a low, steady note.
He sat up. “What?” His breath stuck in his lungs, thoughts scattering at the implications. Was this it then?
“I want to go home, and I’m not ready to see you. Not yet.”
His mind raced, rejecting and accepting the reality at once. She didn’t want to see him. “Can I call you?”
“No.” No hesitation. No indecision. “I need some space.”
His head fell forward pushed by a wave of...grief. That was it. A huge dose of loss and regret balled in his chest to add to the guilt that still choked him. “Will you be okay?” he managed to ask.
Her brittle laughter was far from joyous. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”
And that wasn’t a real answer. Not the one he was seeking. “I’ve been fine for years,” he said, throwing everything out there. “But I wasn’t really good until you.”
“Carson.” A breathy plea carried in her voice. “Please.”
Please what? Leave her alone? Tell her more? “Will you call me when you’re ready?”
His stomach churned with a sick acceptance the longer she didn’t answer. So this was it. He had only himself to blame.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I understand.”
The walls started to go back up, one side at a time, around the emotions he’d let free. This was why he kept his distance. Why he never got involved. Love didn’t last, and it hurt so fucking much when it ended. He’d stopped relying on it long ago and this proved he’d been right to do so.
“I trusted you.” The words were spoken so softly, he almost missed them. But he didn’t. He heard the ache and pain in them too. Her own loss.
He’d caused that.
“I know.” She’d given him that gift over and over again, and he’d abused it. Or was it that he hadn’t believed in it enough? Trusted it? “I’m sorry I broke it.”
“You did.” The accusation was missing from her tone, and that hurt even more. This was a simple statement he couldn’t deny. “And now you have to trust me. You owe me that.”
Fuck. There went the damn walls. They toppled beneath the truth of her words. He did owe her that—and so much more. “You’re right.” Again. “And I do trust you, but not because I owe you.” No. He believed in the goodness within her and that damn moral code that he both cursed and adored. It hummed within him, shoving out the past to expose what he’d been missing in the present.
“I’ll talk to you when I’m ready.”
When she was ready, not if.
And there was the relief again. It sank through him only to bottom out in the pit of his stomach to churn with the disappointment. She could still walk away completely, and he wouldn’t blame her. But he really didn’t want her to.
“Okay.” He had to give her the space she needed. “I’ll stay away.” Even if it killed him. He’d figure something out at work too. Wait... “Are you coming back to work?”
A brief pause followed before she said, “I don’t know.”
Fuck. Gregory would drag him through the shitter, and rightly so. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hunting for options that didn’t exist. “They don’t think less of you,” he said, kicking himself for his inability to shift her perceptions on that. “No one does. No one ever will. Not within the Boardroom.”
“And out of it?”
“Not there either.” How did he get her to understand that? Could he? “There is nothing wrong with what you want. Nothing. Some would like you to think so, but they’re wrong. That’s why Trevor created the group.”
“Trevor?” She took another deep breath. “He created the Boardroom?”
Why had he said that? “Yes. He did,” Carson admitted after a beat. It was out now and not necessarily a secret. “Trevor created a safe place for people who have a lot to lose if their sexual desires are exposed. It’s contained, free from exposure and the fucking judgments society likes to place on sex.”
“And that’s just one of the things I didn’t need to know about him,” she mumbled before a sharp bark of laughter cut through the line. “And now I’m the hypocrite. Wow.”
“Are you judging him?” Her silence gave him his answer once again. “Don’t. Because I can assure you, he’s not judging you. Not for anything you did in the Boardroom.”
“But he is for something else?”
“No.” Carson winced, glad she couldn’t see him. “Unless you do something malicious to harm the company.”
She didn’t respond right away, which had him concerned all over again. There was so much he couldn’t change. Not the past or Trevor’s priorities. And apparently, not her mind.
Darkness was closing in, and he scanned the street in the off chance of seeing her nearby. There was a couple hurrying down the sidewalk about a block down, and an older woman pulling her little rolling cart behind her, the basket filled with reusable grocery bags. But no Avery.
“I’ll go. But can you promise me something?” He had no right to ask, but he did anyway.
“What?”
“That you won’t judge yourself too harshly.”
Her scoff cut through him along with her bitter laugh. “Too late. I’ve already tried and persecuted myself.”
“Don’t. Please.” Grief swelled within him until he swallowed back the bile wrath burning his throat. “Judge me. Condemn me for what I did. But please, don’t put that on yourself. You’re too smart for that.”
She gave a soft humph. “Apparently, smartness doesn’t have a say over emotions.”
He snorted lightly. “Too true.” Too damn true. He heaved a sigh, already regretting his next words. “I’m leaving now.” He started the engine, the low purr barely audible. “And I’ll stay away. But we’re not done.” They couldn’t be done. There was too much good between them.
“Thank you, Carson.” She sniffed, and he thought she was going to say more, but there was only silence. The distinctive click of the call being disconnected had him pulling the phone from his ear to verify it.
His heart contracted with the loss when he confirmed their call had ended. It was done.
He set his phone in the cup holder as a vague numbness settled into him. There was nothing more he could do. Nothing he could say or change. Not right now anyway.
But he refused to accept that this was the end. He couldn’t.
Not when he could finally admit that he loved Avery.