Chapter Thirteen

Carrie

I don’t hear from Reid for the rest of the day, but right before I expect him to arrive, Sallie pokes her head into my office. “I’m about to leave, but your father is on the line.”

“Put him through and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m bringing cookies,” she says with a smile, then disappears, and I hope she brings a ton because I’m a really good stress eater.

The line buzzes, and dread fills my belly, which I shouldn’t feel over my father’s call, of all people, but I do. “Hey, dad,” I answer.

“I just read the transcript from the stockholders’ meeting,” he says, without his normal preamble. “They’re never going to accept you.”

His words punch me in the chest. “Thanks for the confidence, dad.”

“This isn’t about you. That’s the point. You don’t deserve to get punched in the teeth because of me. I thought you were simply transitioning out.”

“I thought I’d be walked out,” I say. “Reid Maxwell decided otherwise, and he made it worth my while to stay.”

“How worth your while?”

“Worth it,” I say, hating that I don’t want him to know the figure. “Enough to keep me from selling my apartment.”

“Since when are you selling your apartment?”

“Since I don’t know where I’m headed. At least this gives me more time to find out.”

“Carrie, honey, this isn’t going to go as you expect it to. Come here. Help me close this land deal.”

No, I think, and it’s the first time I’ve reacted this way to my father, which is a weakness. Maybe if I’d said no sooner, we wouldn’t be in this mess. “Unless you have six figures to help me exit the company, I’m staying.”

“You’ll leave humiliated.”

Those words punch me in the chest once more. “Did you really just say that? Do you really have that little confidence in me?”

“I told you, this isn’t about you. I believe you can hold the world up, but it won’t matter. You’re a West.”

“I’m my own person.”

He’s silent for several beats. “You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” he finally says.

“Make me understand.”

“It’s not something I want you involved with. That’s the point.” He makes a frustrated sound. “This isn’t a conversation for the phone. Come here.”

“I have a job.”

“I love you, daughter, but this is not a good choice for you.”

“It’s the right choice. It’s my only choice.”

He’s silent for several more heavy beats. “I hate that you feel this is your only choice. Call me if you need me.” He hangs up and I have this sense that there is something he isn’t telling me. Is that something that will lead to my humiliation? I dismiss that idea. My father would not leave me hanging out to dry. He wouldn’t do it.

***

Reid

After a day of being hammered on by stockholders, the DA, and a laundry list of others, I’m still in my office, my real office, trying to pack up to leave for West Enterprises. I reach up and fight the urge to loosen the blue tie that matches the blue three-piece suit I chose for the stockholders’ meeting. There’s too much on the line for me to even begin to look anything but fresh and ready at all times. I’m about to stand up when my cellphone rings with the call I’ve been expecting all day: Carrie’s father. “What happened to the debt between us?” he blasts through the line. “My daughter is to be left out of all of this.”

“The contract states that your daughter was to be kept in the dark about the specifics of that debt.”

“You’re going to punish her, aren’t you?”

I have a momentary fantasy of Carrie across my lap and that perfect ass naked beneath my palm. Yes, I’ll punish her, but not in the way he’s talking about. “I have no intention of making your daughter pay for your sins. Just you.”

“If she finds out—”

“She won’t find out. I don’t break legally binding contracts. I won’t tell her your secrets. Your poor decisions with West Enterprises are another thing.”

“And there it is. The reason you kept her there. It’s not enough to finally push me out of my company.”

“That’s not how this happened and we both know it, but if that’s the narrative you need to deliver to look yourself in the mirror, so be it. You made your daughter believe it and that’s the real problem, isn’t it? You’re afraid I don’t have to tell her the truth. You’re afraid she’ll figure it out herself and she will.” I think of the recent revelations I’ve made about my own father, and I bite out, “Don’t make her find out herself.”

I disconnect, aware that he’ll encourage Carrie to leave, but I don’t believe she will. She’ll stay. She’ll see her father for what he is and while that won’t expose his true betrayal, maybe it will protect her from a future betrayal. Not that she’s mine to protect. I scrub my jaw. So why the fuck am I?

My cellphone rings with a call from Royce Walker, the owner of Walker Security, and the company managing all things West Enterprises for me. By the time I hang up with him, I’m furious for about ten reasons. Number one, I was just provided critical security information that Carrie should have known and damn sure better know in the future. Number two, I can’t stop thinking about her. The list goes on from there. I can’t stop wanting her. I keep fucking defending her. I want to protect her. The best way to protect her is to push her. To make her protect herself, and the board, better than she is now.

***

It’s after six when I enter the West offices, fully committed to pushing Carrie. She needs to be pushed. She needs to feel this pain, and I will make sure she damn sure learns from this. Sallie’s desk is empty, giving me a clear path. I walk to Carrie’s door, open it, and enter to find her on the phone, her perfect ivory skin flushing at the sight of me. “Yes, Joe,” she says quickly on the phone. “It all sounds interesting, but I’ll need to call you back. Yes. Thanks. Bye.”

By the time she hangs up, I’m in front of her, my hands on her desk, and I’m staring into her stunned, emerald green eyes. “Joe Michaels, Rick Smith, and Kent Moore,” I state. “They will not return tomorrow. Fire them.” I push off the desk and walk toward the door.

“What’s going on?” she demands.

I turn to look at her. “For once, prove you can do something I want without making me fight you on it.” I turn and leave.

I exit her office and cross the expanse of the lobby before entering my temporary office and it is temporary. I’ve barely made it in the door before Carrie is behind me and I snap. I shut the door before she can, lock it, and shackle her wrist, pulling her to me. “Do not chase me down after I tell you to do something. Just fucking do what I say for once.”

She grabs my tie and not gently, her voice a low rasp of anger. “I’m not calling three employees in here while you’re in a temper tantrum without knowing why.”

“If I wanted you to know it in advance,” I bite out, “I’d tell you.”

“Why am I firing them?” she demands. “They’re all long-term employees.”

“Who’ve been stealing from the company?”

She pales. “What does that mean?”

“It means prospect lists, proposals, and everything in between. You should have known. Your job—”

“I suggested cybersecurity and my father rejected it as an unnecessary expense. I didn’t have control and you know it.”

“Now you’re just making excuses.” I release her before I fuck her the way I want to fuck her, and walk away, taking up a spot at the window, giving her my back, telling her to leave. Telling her to get her ass to her office and do what I’ve told her to do, but I should know by now that’s not Carrie.

“Now you’re just going to extra efforts to be an ass,” she says, her voice right behind me.

I rotate to find her close, so damn close that I could pull her right back to me and inhale that floral scent of hers perpetually scenting the air around her.

“Why, Reid?” she presses. “Because you think I see you a little too clearly? Because you think I saw something about you last night that you don’t want me to know?”

“You see nothing I don’t let you see.”

“Liar,” she accuses, the word a taunt on her tongue.

Worse, she’s right, and I’m pissed all over again, more pissed than I’ve ever been, and it’s all aimed at this woman. My hand snakes out and I catch her hip, dragging her to me, my fingers tangling into her hair.

“What are you doing, Reid?”

“What you wanted when you dared to charge over here and get in my face.”

“I don’t want—”

“Liar,” I say, and I don’t wait for her denial that will be another lie. “You know what I want?”

“To fuck me so you can try to control me? It won’t work.”

“I was thinking I’d like to shut you up for once and I know exactly how.” My mouth closes down on hers.