74. Chapter Five
Reid
Chapter seventy-four
Carrie
Ipace our hotel room and pace some more. I try to call my father. I try to call my brother. I repeat. Reid is gone for what feels like an eternity. I even stand at the window and count lights and stars, because if I don’t do something, I’m going to lose my mind. I can’t marry Reid if I’m going to ruin him. I love him too much to be that selfish. I can’t marry him. This very idea knots my stomach and pretty much shreds my heart. No. What am I thinking? I am not being bullied into walking away from the man I love. Where the hell is my backbone?
I grab my purse and I head for the door. I’m about to exit when Reid, in all his big, male perfection, steps into the room and catches my arm. “Where are you going?”
“To end this. I’m going to see my brother and you need to stay here.”
He walks me backward until we’re both in the room and then kicks the door shut. “What did I miss? What happened?”
“Nothing yet, I hope. I just need to make sure it doesn’t. Let me go, Reid. I’ll be back.”
“Baby, where you go, I go.”
“I was just thinking that I can’t marry you because I’m going to ruin you, which is a load of crap. I need to deal with my family. They don’t get to take us from us.”
He cups my head and presses our foreheads together. “God, I love you, woman.”
“I love you, too,” I say, my hand flattening on his chest, his heart racing beneath my palm. Reid’s heart is racing and he’s always calm. I pull back to look at him. “Did something else happen?”
Did something happen?
That’s a loaded question. I considered walking away from her to save her, and in my case, it’s not as simple as just standing up to her father, but those are not words I want to say to her. But I won’t have to. She’s pure and good and she won’t be able to stomach what I’m about to tell her. She’ll leave, and this time I’m going to have to let her leave.
I link her fingers with mine. “I told you I’d tell you what was going on after I talked to Gabe. Let’s sit and talk.”
“Did you talk to your father?”
“No.”
I lead her to the couch and we sit down side by side. “My father is what we need to discuss.”
“Not my father?” she asks, twisting around to search my face.
I scrub my jaw and look at her. “No matter what your father threatens or does, my father is the one who has the real impact. He’s the one who endangers you.”
“I’m not afraid of your father, Reid.”
“You need to know what my father has on me, not because of how it affects me, but because it connects to me. And as much as I hate sharing this, you have a right to know before you marry me.”
“Before I marry you? Reid, your father has no influence on me marrying you.”
I inhale and release her hand, moving to sit on the coffee table in front of her. “My father linked me to some pretty bad things.”
“I know that’s not you.”
“The problem is that I’m linked, Carrie. If you marry me, then you’re linked, and honest to God, I’m a selfish bastard for even asking you to marry me.”
“Oh. I—Oh. I see.” She tries to stand up.
I catch her arm. “You don’t see. I want to marry you, Carrie. I love you more than life itself. You need to hear me out. Then you’ll understand.”
She draws a breath and eases back into her seat. “I’m listening.”
“My father pushed to get a series of buildings complete within a certain budget for a client. Rules were broken with the construction of those properties. Codes were not up to standard and someone in one of the buildings died as a direct result.”
“Oh my God. And your name is legally connected to the properties?”
“Yes.”
“We can fight that. You didn’t know. Just let me go talk to my brother and it won’t matter. I will make this go away.”
“I’m not done, Carrie. My father not only covered up the death, the private investigator working for your father found out and then ended up dead. A tragic suicide they called it.”
Carrie pales. “Suicide?”
“But of course it wasn’t a suicide, Carrie. My father had him murdered. Your father has proof. Bottom line, as you said, I was on the paperwork for that building project. I’m connected to a murder.”
“Murder,” she whispers. “That’s—unexpected.”
“I know, and fuck, baby, it’s killed me to stay silent on this, but I’m in the middle. I don’t have proof of an actual murder.”
“Well then, how can you be sure your father killed anyone?”
“When I confronted my father about your father’s accusations, he didn’t admit it or deny it. And granted, my father would stay silent just to fuck with my head, but this—I don’t think he would on this. Not unless it was true.”
“What proof does my father have?”
“A recording of my father talking to my uncle, who isn’t my uncle at all. He’s just my father’s best friend. They say some pretty damning things in that recording.”
“I thought you didn’t have the proof?”
“Your father gave me a transcript,” I say. “If it’s accurate, it’s damning.”
“Does Gabe know?”
“Hell no. I don’t want him involved and I don’t want you involved, but at this point, like I said, you had a right to know.”
“What about the information you have on my father? What was he trying to cover up by leaving the company? Surely that still keeps him silent.”
“He wanted to save face with you, baby. That’s over. He’s moved on and found his field of oil, quite literally.”
“I can’t believe this,” Carrie breathes out. “This is like a mob movie starring our families. Do you—are you sure the paperwork on the building project would take you down?”
“No,” I say, “but it’s not a war I want to fight. Proving I’m innocent would destroy our company. It would destroy you, Carrie, if you were married to me. Had I not asked you to marry me, you wouldn’t be in the middle of this.” I stand up and walk to the window, and damn it, I know this is how Carrie and I end. I know this is what her father knew would happen.
Carrie is suddenly in front of me again, leaning on the glass, her hands on my chest. “You didn’t do this, and as for the risk of marrying me, there are none. Marrying me protects you. Once it’s done, it’s done. My father won’t risk taking me down with you.”
“He’ll have a plan to protect you, and baby, if your father comes at my father, that’s bad. He killed someone. Remember?”
She blanches. “Are you suggesting that your father might kill my father? Is that why you don’t want to tell your father what’s going on?”
“Yes, Carrie. That’s why I don’t want to tell my father.”