Chapter Twenty

Reid

What do you want from me?

Carrie doesn’t even hesitate to answer that question. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Something she doesn’t know. That’s a wide open, widely definable question and for reasons she can’t know, I proceed with caution. “Ask me a question and I’ll answer if it’s at all possible.”

“If it’s possible?”

“You’re an attorney, just like me,” I remind her. “You know there are things I can’t answer.”

“Okay, what don’t I know about my father?”

And there it is. The question I dreaded. The one I can’t legally answer. “That’s between you and your father.”

“You tell me. You, Reid.”

“He’s gone. Focus on the company. Focus on you.”

She studies me for several beats and when I expect her to push on her father, she hits me from another direction. “Okay then. Elijah. Tell me why you won’t do business with him.”

She’s now hit two of my brick walls. I rotate forward and pick up my coffee. “No.” I take a drink.

“No?” she demands.

“No,” I repeat.

“Reid.”

I set my cup down and look at her without turning. “It’s personal.”

“Trust me enough to tell me. Because let’s be honest. You earning my trust is a façade. You don’t have to earn my trust. I’ve been forced into that trust.”

She’s right. Professionally she does have to trust me. Personally, she doesn’t, and trust is the most intimate and dangerous thing two people can share. It cuts. It burns. It destroys. I know this all too well, and yet, foolishly that’s exactly what I want from her. I turn to face her. “You demand that my trust be given freely and yet you say yours is forced.”

“If my gut didn’t say to trust you, Reid, I’d be looking for a job. I just want you to validate my gut feeling. And I want you to have the same gut feeling about me.”

My lips tighten. I’m diving into treacherous water with this woman. I need to pull back. “Elijah hates me. That’s what you need to know. You’ll lose everything if you get involved with this man. I’ll lose millions. You need to understand that. I put my name, my family name, on this deal.”

“I can talk to him. I can make him see reason. I can appeal to his humanity. This is my life. This is—”

I grab her arm and pull her to me. “He’s like me. He’s barely human. I ruin people. He ruins people. It’s business, the kind that requires no emotion be present to succeed. It requires no heart. In fact, a heart is a detriment. I am that and he is, too. You are not. He’ll cut you, fuck you every which way, and then leave you with nothing. All to cut me. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Because you have too much to lose.”

“We, Carrie. We have too much to lose.”

“But you have no heart. You don’t care about me.” Her fingers flex where they rest on my chest like she wants to push me away as much as she wants to keep touching me. I know that feeling every damn second that I’m with her. “I know how quickly you could turn on me,” she adds, “and thank you for reminding me that I can’t let myself forget that.”

She hates me in this moment. Hate is what I need her to feel and if I told her exactly why Elijah wants to hurt me, she’d hate me even more, and yet, I don’t want her to feel those things. And fuck. I can’t seem to just let her go. “You’re different,” I say. “You’re different from everyone else, Carrie. I’ll protect you. I already am.” I pull back and let her see the truth in my eyes as I repeat, “I’m protecting you with Elijah and I know you don’t understand my decision on this. If my word isn’t enough, know this: I stand to lose millions if you fail. I would not let go of a deal that delivers us to our goal. This is not it.”

She studies me several beats, seeming to size up my statement before she says, “Okay then, I accept that he’s the enemy, but he’s the enemy with money. Can we not burn him the way he wants to burn us? And wouldn’t using his money to succeed be burning him?”

I release her, but my hand catches her leg. “It’s too risky.” And then I dive into the quicksand again. “I need you to trust me on this. Set Elijah aside, Carrie. I’ll make-up the lost deal. I’ll replace it and we’ll succeed.”

“I don’t want you to make this happen,” she says vehemently. “I want to do it. I want to make this happen. This deal with Elijah does that for me and us.”

“It doesn’t. It’s a set-up. It’s certain destruction. And as for doing this yourself, if we both bring a deal to the table, we’ll win even bigger together. Set Elijah aside. Promise me.”

“Reid—”

“Promise me.”

“Okay. I promise. What about my father?”

“Yes. Set him aside, too.”

“So everything I ask you, you tell me to set aside. How is this proving you have no agenda, well, aside from secret agendas?”

“Ask me something else, Carrie.”

“Tell me about the case you’re handling against the DA.”

I don’t ask her why this matters to her. I know. It’s a character assessment after I just told her I have no heart. “That I can do. I don’t know what you’ve pieced together, so I’ll recap. There was a serial killer. The clients I represent, Cole and Lori, are the husband and wife team that represented the innocent man accused of the crimes. When he was found innocent, one of the victim’s family members attacked Lori in a public bathroom. Had the DA reopened the case, that might not have happened, nor would the real killer have killed again, but he did.”

“How did you end up with this case? I mean, I know you don’t like to be called a raider, but you operate in a similar zone. Civil actions again the DA don’t seem like your thing.”

“It’s more Gabe’s thing, but in my early days out of college, I played this field, and Gabe wasn’t available this go around.”

“And you’re waiving your fees?”

“Lori and Cole have money. They don’t need the sizable settlement they’ll receive, so they donated it to the victims’ families.”

“And out of the goodness of the heart you don’t have, you did the same with your fees?”

“Do you know the column Cat Does Crime?”

“Yes. I love that column. Why? What does that have to do with your fees?”

“Cat’s my sister, and her husband and Cole are partners. Our firms support each other through a business arrangement. And Lori is a close friend of Cat’s.”

“So did you do this for your sister, your friends or because you have a business obligation?”

“All of the above, Carrie. Not to mention our firm had a scandal a few years back and the good press from this case helps bury that for good.”

“Now you just want me to think you’re an ass with an agenda.”

“I’m speaking the truth, which is the only way to earn trust. My decisions are not one-dimensional any more than our relationship at this point. Your turn. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

She cuts her stare. “I love Cat’s column and her books.” She reaches for her cup. “She wrote about a serial killer’s trial that had to be this case.” She sips her coffee but still, she doesn’t look at me beyond a cursory glance. “I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots to your case. I mean, how many serial killers are there in our city?”

“You’re deflecting, talking about my sister. Tell me about you.”

She glances over at me. “I am. I follow her writing because I’m a crime buff. I almost went into criminal law. I loved the idea of being a part of real justice. I would have if not for the family business.”

“We have that in common.”

She gives me a curious, interested look, the kind of genuine interest most women only have for my money or how well I fuck them. “You wanted to go into criminal law?”

“I did.” I don’t explain to her why. I don’t tell her how the system once failed me. How much I wanted to prove it could work, that I could make it work. “The family business made it unfeasible.”

“And what made you decide to be an asshole?”

I laugh. “It works for me. It’s a profitable position to take.”

“It’s a good way to keep everyone at a distance,” she comments. “And people who do that, have baggage. You have baggage. I see in your eyes. I taste it when you kiss me.”

She was right when she said that she sees too much. She does, and this would be a good time to shove her in a corner and fuck her, but with that off the table, I shift the conversation back to her. “Why could Royce find no man in your life?”

“You do know it sucks that you investigated me this thoroughly, right? Why don’t you have a woman in your life?”

“I’m an asshole who never married and that won’t change. Back to you. Why is there no man in your life, Carrie?”

“It’s a choice, but like most of us, I was young and in love once way back as an undergraduate.”

“And?”

“And not only did he sleep with my roommate, I found out that I was pregnant three days after we broke up.”

I go completely still. “And?” I ask again, my voice softening.

“And I was going to keep the baby. I mean, I had a family with money and a guaranteed job. I decided it must be my destiny.”

“Where’s the baby now?”

“I miscarried.” She looks away. “I don’t know why I just told you that.” She takes a drink. “Yes, I do.” She turns to me. “It tells you who I am. I haven’t gone down the emotional path since then. I won’t. I’m not that girl. You don’t have to be an asshole to keep me on the outside. I like the outside just fine.”

Which makes her the perfect woman for me, except that statement doesn’t feel as perfect as it should. “There had to be someone since college. What about sex? You had to have—”

“I dated someone for a few years. He wanted more and I didn’t.”

“Where’s he now?”

“He met someone and fell in love, as he deserved.”

“Often people want what they can’t have. How did you react?”

“I went to his wedding. I was happy for him. He’s divorced now, Reid. So is my first ex. And I’m sure you know from your investigation that my mother left when I was five. I speak to her once every five years.”

And my mother died miserably married to my father right up until the moment she died of a stroke five years ago.

“Relationships are complicated, messy, and ugly,” Carrie adds, as if she’s just read my mind. “I don’t want any part of complicated, messy, and ugly.”

“Then let’s keep it simple. Let’s go fuck.”

“Not tonight,” she surprises me by say, and rather easily. Not never, but not tonight.

I arch a brow. “Why not tonight?”

“Because when we hate fuck, it’s not complicated, messy, or ugly. That’s when we keep everything focused on the sex. But tonight, I almost like you. That’s not good for either of us.”

“So if I want to fuck you, I need to make sure you hate me.”

She reaches up and touches my cheek. “Don’t. Don’t make me hate you again.”

Damn it, I don’t want her to hate me. At least not now, and she’s right, that’s a problem for both of us. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” I slide out of the booth and take her hand, both of us forgetting our coffees. A minute later at most, we’re outside and I drape my arm over her shoulders. In silence, we complete the short walk to her building where I turn to her, my hands on her waist.

“No fucking tonight,” I say.

“Not tonight,” she confirms again.

I cup her head. “I have to do this.” I kiss her then, a deep drugging kiss that has me hot and hard, and so damn into this woman that I don’t want to hate fuck, I don’t want that limit, and she’s right; that’s a problem, that’s trouble, the kind that has me tearing my lips from hers. “Goodnight, Carrie.” I drag my fingers over her lips, willing myself not to kiss her again before I turn and walk away. Before tonight gets complicated which always leads to messy and ugly.