Chapter Sixty-Three

Reid

If my father did this to Carrie, I will kill him.

An hour after we found out about Carrie’s apartment fire, the police are talking to Carrie. Cat and Gabe are standing with me a few feet away, but my eyes are on Carrie, watching her shove a shaky hand through her hair and the very idea that my father might have done this has me fighting fury. And damn it, the way Carrie reacted to the idea of moving in with me with such instant resistance is killing me and has me wondering if she blames me, if she thinks I did this to her, took everything from her; her company, her home.

“Reid?”

At the sound of Cat’s voice, I force my gaze in her direction. “What can I do? Can I get Carrie anything to get her by?” she asks.

I pull out my wallet, handing her my black AmEx. “Buy her everything and anything she could need. Spend thirty-thousand if you need to. I have plenty of money. I don’t care. She has to have nice work clothes. She needs to feel like she has things of her own.”

“She’ll want to pick out her own things,” Cat says. “And I can’t get much tonight.” She glances at her watch. “Very little, actually.”

“Get what you can. She can exchange what she needs to, but she won’t want to spend my money. I want to do this before she makes me promise not to do it. And I want the insurance money to be a nest egg. And buy yourself something for doing this.”

“I don’t need payment,” Cat says. “Money doesn’t make me feel loved, Reid.”

My eyes narrow on her and I know she’s not just talking about herself. “I know, Cat, but I need her to feel safe and that means having what she needs at my place, which is now her place.”

Her expression softens and she nods. “Safe is good right now,” Cat says. “And you do have a point. I’ll do what I can. There’s a boutique that is owned by a fan of mine. She’ll open for me. I’ll see you soon.” She takes off and I focus on Gabe, my voice now low, gritty. “Do you think—”

“I don’t think dad did this. This drives Carrie closer to you and he doesn’t want that. That agreement he drew up made that clear, but I’ll go pay him a visit. I’ll know when I look into his eyes.”

Carrie steps to my side. “There are people missing. I could have been one of them.”

Just that idea guts me and I wrap my arms around her and pull her close. “But you weren’t. Do they know what caused it?”

“The restaurant on the main floor. A short in some machine they were told to replace.”

Gabe whistles. “Sounds like a criminal act to me. Someone is in trouble,” he says, his eyes meeting mine, and I give a barely perceivable shake of my head to tell him that no, I’m not convinced that machine caused the fire.

“It’s right over my apartment,” Carrie adds and looks up at me. “They said the outlook for saving anything in my place is grim. I guess I won’t have any personal items to bring to your place.”

“You’re alive, baby. We have to focus on that.”

“I’m going to take care of a problem,” Gabe says. “Carrie. Put my number in your phone. If you need me, you know how to reach me.”

She reaches for her purse, but she’s trembling too hard for her to open it. I catch her hand. “I’ll do it later.” I look at Gabe. “I got this.”

“I’ll call you both,” he says and then takes off.

“They want me to stay close,” Carrie says, stepping in front of me, shivering and hugging herself as she does. “And we can’t get into your apartment, but it’s cold and I’m so very tired.”

I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me. “I’ll keep you warm,” I say. “And safe. You have a home now with me.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” She nestles in closer to me, but I sense the tension in her reply that I want to drive away. “I want to be there now or just stay just like this wrapped in your arms,” she adds, “but I can’t even do that. I need to call my insurance company. And my father.” Her voice lifts with urgency. “Should I call my father? Why is that my instinct when he’s acting like he is?”

“Deep breath, baby. It’s your instinct because he’s your father, the person who took care of you when you couldn’t, and no matter what, we assume our parents will worry about us. And he does worry about you.”

“Maybe he does. I don’t know anymore, but I can’t deal with him now, though. I just can’t, but I don’t want him showing up here when we have so much going on.”

“Just text him and tell him that if he hears about the fire, you’re safe.”

“Yes. Good idea. I’m not thinking straight. I’ll text him.” She reaches into her purse for her phone, her hands a bit steadier, enough now that she snags it easily, types the message, and then reads it to me. “If you hear about a fire in Battery Park, I’m safe.” She eyes me with uncharacteristic uncertainty, but then, her apartment just burned down.

“Perfect,” I say.

She hits send.

“You’ll have to tell him you lost your apartment eventually.”

“I know, but not now, even if he calls. I can’t handle him pushing me to go there to him. I’m not going there.”

Because she’s staying with me, but I don’t say that, and the divide between her and her father that represents. I just hold her and help her ride out the storm. A storm I feel growing more intense for both of us, as her father doesn’t reply to her message, and I simmer over the idea of my father causing her this pain.

***

Carrie

I’m so cold that I can’t stop shaking.

It’s ten-thirty when Reid and I are allowed back into his building, my building now, but I just can’t digest that at the moment. I’m in emotional overload, and the minute we step inside Reid’s apartment, it’s as if the wind falls from my wings. My knees are weak and my mind is exhausted. My head spins and for a moment I think I might drop. Reid seems to know this, and he scoops me up and starts walking, his strong arms and body warming me. I rest my head on his shoulder and it’s only a minute or so before we’re in his bedroom and he’s sitting me on the bed.

I kick off my shoes and just sit there on the edge of the mattress, a nightstand to my left. “My only photo of my mother was in the apartment,” I say, as Reid sits next to me and shrugs out of his jacket. “I haven’t seen her in years, but it represented a part of my life that made me who I am today.”

“I could tell you we’ll find another or find her,” he says, tossing his jacket on the bed, his hand coming down on my leg, “but I know that’s not what you want to hear. That photo had a special meaning for you.”

I cover his hand with mine. “You understand things I don’t expect you to understand.”

He kisses my hand. “I want to understand everything, Carrie.” His voice is low, gravelly, and yet warm.

I study his handsome face, searching for confirmation or perhaps a lie? Why would I search for a lie? But I know why. It’s not our parents. It’s not business or money. This man affects me, understands me, connects with me, but now, now, if I move in with him, he controls every part of my life. To allow such a thing requires vulnerability and trust. “Everything?” I ask.

“Yes.” He strokes hair from my eyes, the light touch sending goosebumps down my spine. “Everything,” he repeats. “I want to know everything about you. I want everything, Carrie.”

“Everything is so much.”

“Too much?” he asks.

The doorbell rings and his hand falls away, the moment shifting away from the intimacy of the one before it. “That’s Cat. She brought you some things.”

“She didn’t have to do that. I have enough to get by here.” I shiver and Reid walks to the closet, rather than out of the room, and returns with his big navy robe.

He stops in front of me and wraps it around my shoulders, the lines of his face harder now, tension in his voice. “I’ll be right back.” He kisses my head, a tenderness to the act that defies that tension, tenderness I’d once thought him incapable of, but it’s welcomed now. I’m strong, I am, and I’ll come back fighting tomorrow, but tonight, I just need permission to only survive.

He exits the room and I lay back on the bed, Reid’s bed that could be mine now if I say yes to moving in with him. If I say yes.

“Hello, hello!”

At the sound of Cat’s voice, I sit up, wrapping the robe more tightly around me to find the gorgeous, sweet blonde bombshell standing in the doorway with bags in her hands. “I have Chanel and much more. I know someone. She opened her store for me.”

“What? Thank you, but with what money?”

She sets the bags down and settles her hands on her jean-clad hips. “Reid’s black AmEx. He told me to spend an insane amount of money on you. He wants you to feel like you have your own things.”

“I don’t want his money.” My throat constricts. “I don’t want him to do that.” My hand goes to my throat now. “God. I don’t want to be here.”

Cat blanches. “What? You don’t want to be here?”

“No. Yes. I do. I really do.” I go back to my first reaction to Reid’s invitation for me to move in. “Not like this, though. I just don’t want to feel like I forced myself on him.”

“You didn’t. You aren’t.” She sits next to me. “That man wants you here. The way Reese wanted me with him almost immediately.”

I barely know Cat, but I like her, and I just need to say what I feel, to get it out and understand it. “I want to believe that, but our parents hate each other, and it wasn’t that long ago that Reid was an asshole to me. And then suddenly he’s becoming everything to me and it’s wonderful and scary and—he’s in control. Now, here, living with him, he has all the control and it’s terrifying.”

“You’re wrong.”

At the sound of Reid’s voice, Cat and I turn to find him standing in the doorway with his jacket, vest, and tie gone. “For the first time in my adult life,” he says, “I don’t have the control.”

Cat squeezes my arm. “I’ll go. I’ll check on you tomorrow.” She stands and hurries toward the door, and Reid steps back to allow her to pass before walking toward me, and sitting down next to me. His hands come down on my face and he tilts my gaze to his. “You have control, Carrie, in ways I never thought I’d let anyone have control.” His voice is low, raspy. Affected. “And I understand the argument that I might have the control, I do, but it’s you who does. All you.” He rests his forehead on mine. “When I think of you in that building, and how easily you could have died, it tears me apart.” He pulls back to look at me. “Stay, Carrie. I want you to stay, but I’m not going to pressure you. I need you to want to be here. And I hate that the war between our fathers makes you distrust me and us to this degree.”

I shiver with the impact of his words, and all the emotional punches this night has given me, but there’s so much I want to say to him. I never get the chance. “I’ll run you a hot bath,” he says, and then he’s standing and walking away, as if he shut down, pulled back in some way.

It’s that wall he puts between us, even as he confesses to needing me, that makes me hold back. That’s what scares me. It makes me think there’s more to all this hell around us where he’s concerned than I know. I want to live with Reid, but I can’t live with secrets and lies.