94. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter ninety-four
Carrie
My questions about what doesn’t add up are not questions I intend to keep to myself. Reid exits to the balcony with no coat on, which tells me he’s shaken. He wants an escape or to punish himself and I’m not sure if that’s the guilt over sleeping with Elijah’s wife, which I know he owns, or something more. He shuts the door, effectively using it as the division between him and me, and I don’t like it. Whatever the situation, we’re talking it out. I rush after him with the kitty at my feet and open the door. Cold air rushes in and Kesha meows, running the other direction. I suck in a breath and push forward into the bitter winter eve. Once outside, I shut the door to keep the house warm and flip on the fireplace in the corner.
The minute it fires up, Reid turns to face me as if he didn’t hear me exit, but he knows I’m here now. Reid isn’t one to tune out anything to that degree, let alone me. “Crazy woman,” he says as I rush toward him. “It’s freezing out here.” He grabs me as I stop in front of him and pulls me to him. “Go inside.”
“You’re here. I’m here. That’s how this works now. Talk to me, Reid.”
“Inside. I’m damn sure not taking care of you by keeping you out here.” He wraps his arm around me and walks me toward the door and pretty much physically moves me from the patio to the living room. The minute I’m inside, I rotate to face him. “What don’t I know?”
He snags my waist and pulls me to him. “Did you believe him? Do you think that I knowingly slept with his wife and did so in his bed?”
“No,” I say. “That would mean you lied to me and I don’t believe you lied to me.”
“Are you sure about that?” he challenges, his voice sharp with barely contained anger, and it’s not at Elijah. It’s at me. “Because you just asked me what don’t you know, Carrie, and that doesn’t spell trust to me.”
I receive those words like the blow they are. “You’re right,” I say quickly. “I did ask that. I did think there was something you hadn’t told me, but I didn’t think for a minute that it was what you think it was. I just—that was the wrong place for my head to go.” I flatten my hand on his chest. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you what’s in your head right now because you’re shaken, Reid, and you’re never shaken.”
“You are the one person in this world that knows that’s not true. I just don’t show it, except with you. If that’s a problem for you, Carrie—”
“No. God no, Reid. I’ve really screwed this up tonight. You’re right. I do know how much you worry and fret and try to control everything. And right now, you don’t feel in control.”
His eyes sharpen. “If you know this, if you know me, why did you ask me that question?”
“It was the wrong question,” I repeat, “but I know you. You want to go throttle Elijah, but you know it’s not the right move, and not just because safety is an issue. You feel guilty. It eats you up inside to know you slept with his wife, and yet, you’re going to have to go after the man you hurt.”
“And yet, you asked me what you didn’t know.”
“Reid, I—”
“Yes,” he says. “I am going to have to go after him, but you’re wrong. I don’t feel guilt. Not anymore. Not after he came at you tonight. Now it’s war and I’ll win.” He releases me and runs a hand through his hair, turning away from me.
“You were a victim in all of this,” I remind him. “I know that and he’s forced your hand.”
He whirls around on me. “I fucked her. That doesn’t make me a damn victim. It makes me a fool. And for the record, it was at a hotel where an event was taking place.”
“I didn’t need to hear that,” I say. “I didn’t doubt you.”
“You did. We both know you did.”
“That is not what happened. Damn it, Reid. That’s not what happened. I knew you had more going on in your head than met the eye. That’s all.”
He scrubs his jaw, glances toward the ceiling, and then fixes me in an unreadable stare. “I need you to go to Montana, where I know your father is well insulated and therefore you will be well insulated.”
I blanch and recover quickly. “I’m not going to Montana. Not unless you’re going with me and that doesn’t solve anything. We need to deal with this.”
“I’ll deal with this and if you don’t want to go to Montana, pick a place. Back to Japan. Paris—I’ll meet you there when this is done.”
“No,” I say. “No. No. No. In case you didn’t get that: No. If he tells the world about this, we both need to be here, side by side, to deal with the board. And we do things together now, good or bad.”
“You doubted me, Carrie.”
“Stop saying that. I didn’t. I just thought there was something this incident brought to light that you hadn’t had time to share. Which is fine by the way. With time, we share more and more.”
I blink and he’s in front of me, molding me to him, his fingers tangling roughly in my hair. “I’ll know if you doubted me. I’ll know.” His mouth slants over mine, and I understand his words. He means that he’ll taste my lie, he’ll taste my doubt, but it doesn’t exist.
My arm slides around him, while my other hand settles on his chest and I lean into him, aware that he’s looking for his own self-hatred in me, but it’s not there. I regret so much the way I phrased my question tonight and that’s what I try to say to him in that kiss. I try to let him know that I love him, I trust him, I need him. I kiss him passionately with all those thoughts and feelings in our kiss, in the way my body presses to his and in the way I hold onto him, like I’m afraid he’ll leave. And I am. I’m always afraid he’ll leave, but on some level, I know he’s afraid I’ll leave. It’s a problem for us, something we have to get by and we will.
He tears his mouth from mine and stares down at me. “I didn’t doubt you, Reid Maxwell. I swear to you on everything we have ever been and everything we will ever be in this life together. I just felt out of control myself. He scared me. I needed inside your head, one hundred percent on the same page with you, because that’s my safe place. You are my safe place.”
“I didn’t keep you safe. I should have dealt with him when he came at us over the company.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t second guess yourself. We both know you held back because you feel like you hurt him.”
“He could have hurt you.” His voice is low, rough, a gravelly quality that is all about torment and the past, as well as his love for me. “He could have come at you to get to me.”
I know in that moment that this incident is far too close to what happened in his past for him not to react. I protected him over myself today. I would have died for him. That’s how it has to be when two people love each other, and while on some level I know Reid knows this, on another, I’m not sure how he separates that from his past.
I just know that right now, he needs something from me, and I haven’t given it to him. “What do you need right here in this moment?” I ask.
“To fuck you and to hurt him before he hurts you.”