40. Carrie
FORTY
CARRIE
Putting on a brave face took a lot of work. Every time I looked across the table, a painful punch hit me in the chest.
But this was my life; I had to face the consequences. It was time for me to stop indulging my fears and become a better woman.
By the time the dinner was over, I was exhausted. The food and wine had been delicious, and Cole and I had been perfectly civil to each other—but my feet still dragged as we walked out and headed to his car. I inhaled a deep breath of cool night air, glancing up at the overcast sky between the buildings, and gave myself a mental pat on the back.
It hurt, but I could do this. It was for Evie—and for Cole. They deserved to be in each other’s lives, and I wouldn’t let my own cowardice stand in the way.
I slid into Cole’s car and sank into the leather seat, closing my eyes to inhale the scent of him one more time .
The engine rumbled to life, and I turned my head to glance at him. His profile was cast in shadow, but I could still see the strong line of his nose, the sharp blade of his jaw. He’d run his hand through his hair a thousand times over the course of our difficult conversation, and the strands were tousled and falling onto his forehead in perfect disarray.
It would kill me to eventually see him date someone else. Now that I’d found him again and lost him, I doubted I’d ever truly get over him. The weight of that truth sat heavy on my shoulders, and I tore my gaze away from him.
“Thanks for tonight,” he said as we slid into traffic.
“That’s all right. I’m glad we could get along.”
“I’ll get my team to formalize what we agreed on.”
I nodded. “Great. I’ll let Carla know to be on the lookout.”
Silence settled over us. We were civil, but there was a gaping chasm between us. It hurt my heart that it would always be there, that I’d never again have the right to see behind his walls.
Actions, meet consequences. Wallowing wouldn’t help me. I forced myself to sit up a bit straighter and filled my lungs with a deep breath. The new me took accountability; I was proud of myself for doing it tonight.
We drove in silence and pulled up outside the little townhouse I called home. A light was on downstairs, but Evie’s window was dark. I unclipped my seatbelt. “Well,” I said, “I’ll be in touch.”
“Carrie—”
I paused, one hand on the door handle, and looked back at him .
His brows were drawn and his lips parted. “Is this what you want? Truly?”
My brain was sluggish after such a difficult dinner; I didn’t quite understand what he was trying to say. For some reason, my heart began to race. “I want Evie to have a relationship with you,” I answered slowly. “And for you to do right by her, which is why I want to take things slow in terms of visitation and overnights. I thought you understood that. The last thing I want is for her to end up hurt.”
Cole’s shoulders slumped as a breath rushed out of his lips. He shoved a hand through his hair. “That’s not— Never mind.”
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“I seem to have nothing but second thoughts when it comes to you.”
I sat back on my seat, one hand still on the door handle, and frowned. That didn’t exactly sound like a compliment. “I thought we’d come to an agreement.”
“We did,” he insisted. “It’s not that.”
“So what is it?” My mind whirled, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. My heart was still thumping hard, and the rushing of my blood was making it ever harder to think. Vision going mottled and black at the edges, I felt a familiar overwhelming fear start to take root inside me. But I wouldn’t turn away from it—not this time. I was better than that now. So I asked, “You’re not going to turn around and drag me to court to try to take Evie away, are you?”
“Fuck, Carrie, no,” Cole exclaimed. He grunted in frustration and leaned over to the glove compartment, pulling it open a little more forcefully than necessary. Reaching inside, he felt around for a second and then pulled out an item, slamming the glove compartment closed again. “Here,” he muttered, thrusting the item at me.
I took it and reared back. A little black velvet jewelry box sat on my palm like a hairy tarantula.
“Um. Cole. What’s this?”
“Open it,” he ordered.
I stared at the box. My pulse went to the stratosphere. I closed my fingers around the box and thrust it at his face. “Are you asking me to marry you?” I demanded.
He reared back. “What? No!”
“Oh.” Disappointment slammed into me, which was crazy. I put a hand to my forehead, still staring at the little velvet box in my hand.
Cole must have seen the disappointment written all over my face, because he leaned toward me, the leather of his seat creaking. “Wait,” he said slowly. “Did you want me to propose to you?”
“What?” I said, forcing a laugh. “No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” he said, snorting. He cleared his throat, looking troubled. “Ridiculous. Yeah.”
It was my turn to squint at him. “I mean…do you want to get married?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
“To you?”
“Yes, Cole.”
He shrugged, half shaking his head. “That would be crazy. ”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Totally crazy.” I looked at the box and huffed an unconvincing laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you were giving me an engagement ring right after we spent three hours trying to hash out our coparenting relationship.”
“You know what, give me that back,” he said, reaching for the little black box.
My fingers closed around it and I backed away. “Why?”
“Just give it back, Carrie.”
“But you gave it to me.”
“And now I want it back.”
“No.” I leaned back so far, my head hit the passenger window.
Cole reached over, one hand leaning against the dash and the other grabbing the headrest of my seat. “No?”
“No,” I said, brandishing the jewelry box. “You gave this to me for a reason.”
“A bad reason. A terrible reason.”
“Are you saying it is an engagement ring?” I said, and my voice jumped a couple of octaves. I could feel my pulse thumping in my neck and fingertips…and between my legs.
Oh, my God. I was turned on. I was so turned on!
“Carrie,” he growled, “give me that back and get out of the car.”
A wave of heat washed from my navel down to my knees. He was using that voice. The one he’d used the very first time we’d been together. And his eyes weren’t hard and angry; they were intense and full of heat. “Give. It. Back.”
I had no idea what the hell was happening, and it was the best I’d felt in weeks. I narrowed my eyes, tightening my hold on the box. “I don’t think I will.”
“You haven’t changed a bit,” he growled.
I popped a brow. “Neither have you, apparently.”
The intensity of his gaze made me hesitate. Had I misread the situation? Was he actually mad, and I was making it worse?
Then the corner of his lips twitched a fraction of an inch, and a smile bloomed over my face. Happiness was a fizzy feeling in my chest, because I was here with him and his walls were down. Hell, my walls were down.
My thumb found the seam in the velvet box, ready to flick it open. “Let’s see if your taste in engagement rings is any goo?—”
My teeth clicked. I stared at the contents of the jewelry box, not understanding. Beside me, Cole shifted, moving back to his side of the car. His hands kneaded the steering wheel while I stared at the item in my hand, struggling to breathe.
“What is this?” I finally whispered.
His sigh was long and heavy. “I found it at one of the pawn shops near the hotel the day after we met,” he said. “Had another one made to match so I could give them to you when we saw each other again…”
My mother’s earrings winked at me from their bed of black velvet. Two delicate gold hoops with little bird pendants hanging off them, all carved out of shiny yellow gold. The birds’ emerald eyes stared out at the world, only as big as a pinhead and green as new grass.
Blinking away from the earrings, I dragged my gaze up to look at Cole. He still had his hands on the steering wheel and was looking at me like was expecting me to bite his head off.
“You kept these for seven years?” I asked in a whisper, lifting the jewelry box.
He cleared his throat as if there was a blockage, then shrugged. His eyes slid away from mine to look out the windshield. “I kept them in my desk drawer at home. At first, I did it because I expected to see you again and I wanted to make you happy. And then because whenever I pulled the box out, I’d flip it open and think of you, and then I couldn’t make myself get rid of it.” He snorted, then glanced over at me. “Bit of a disappointment when you were expecting a diamond ring, huh?”
Was he delusional? “You went out of your way to go to a pawn shop to look for my stolen stuff,” I said, needing to say it out loud. “You found my mother’s earring, had a matching one made, and then kept them for years in case we met again.” I stared at him. “Cole. This is a million times better than a diamond ring. This is…”
Swamped with gratitude, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching forward to grab the lapels of his jacket. I pulled him forward and planted a kiss on his lips before he could push me away. Then I sat back in my seat, pulled out the dangly earrings I’d worn to dinner, and slipped in my mother’s little birds. I flipped down the visor and looked at myself, blinking past the wateriness in my eyes. “Thank you so much, Cole. Thank you,” I brushed a tear from my cheek, overwhelmed.
When I looked over at him, his gaze was intense.
“How do I look?” I asked, touching one of the earrings with my finger.
“You always look beautiful, Carrie,” he said quietly.
Heat prickled on my cheeks. My eyes were still teary. “You can’t say things like that to me anymore,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
Moving slowly, Cole reached over and slid his hand over the side of my neck. His skin was hot, his fingers strong as they curled around my nape. “Says who?”
“Cole…”
“If it had been a ring in that box, what would you have said?”
I rolled my lips inward, blinking away the tears from my eyes. “I don’t know.”
“What would you have said, Carrie?”
“I would’ve said yes!” I exclaimed, caught in his grasp and unable to escape the truth. “But I wouldn’t have deserved it.”
Cole’s eyes were soft. “I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple of months. About you and what you hid from me. And about me and why it made me so angry.”
“Well, that’s a no-brainer,” I quipped.
His thumb stroked my jaw to quiet me down, and he shook his head softly. I could feel his breath against my lips, could smell the scent of his cologne. I missed him so much I ached with it.
“Carrie, I love you,” he said without preamble. “I think I fell in love with you the first time you glared at me with your shoe stuck in a storm drain. I loved you so much that I thought I’d made you up—and then you came back.”
“But I didn’t tell you?—”
“You were protecting your daughter,” he interrupted. “If you felt even one tenth as strongly about me as I did about you that day in my office, then how could I blame you for reeling? The sight of you standing there made me ready to throw everything away for the chance to hold you again.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing,” I whispered.
His thumb stroked my jaw again, and his lips curled softly. “How could it be anything else? Carrie, you’re the one. The One. I’ve never fallen as hard or as fast for anyone else. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I expected it to fade. I thought that once I got to know you, my feelings would leave as quickly as they’d come. But they just kept growing and growing and growing, and now I’m here, staring down the barrel of a life where I’m close enough to touch you but I’ll never have the right. I can’t do it, Carrie. I can’t have you in my life without calling you mine.”
My throat had sealed shut at some point, so I couldn’t reply. Tears fell freely from my eyes until I could only croak, “You would forgive me for not telling you about Evie right away?”
“Sweetheart, I already have,” he told me. “I think I forgave you when you let me buy Evie an entire brownie sundae all to herself just so I could come off looking like the good guy.”
I sniffled. “She had such a bad stomachache later that night.”
A gentle laugh slipped through his lips. “Well then, I’m sorry too. How about we call it even?”
My fingers trembled as I brought them up to touch his cheeks. His stubble was rough against my fingertips, his skin warm. I traced his upper lip, not believing that this was real.
“You know, I also wanted to come off looking like the good guy when I bought those Broadway tickets. I shouldn’t have bought a third one for myself without running it past you first. Even if Evie wasn’t mine, I didn’t have the right to meet her without your say-so. Watching you with her these past months opened my eyes, Carrie. You’ve done so much work for so long—and all on your own. I didn’t get it before. I mean, hell, the kid asked me to be her study buddy for a first grader’s spelling bee and I’m worn out trying to find new words every day.”
I laughed. “She’s relentless.”
“You’ve been doing it for years,” he said. “I should’ve respected that. I owed it to you—and it would’ve given you the chance to tell me the truth on your own terms.”
“You’re not real,” I said, letting my fingers skate over his cheeks to touch his hairline. “This is all a fantasy, and I’m going to wake up and cry.”
His lips curled, and his thumb moved up to catch one of the tears running down my cheeks. “I’ve got bad news for you, Carrie. You’re already crying.”
My laugh was interrupted when he leaned forward and finally pressed his lips to mine. He kissed me like he’d been dying without the taste of my lips on his. He kissed me like he’d missed me.
I knew, because that’s exactly how I kissed him. My heart soared, and I wrapped my arms around his neck to drag him closer.
“Cole?” I said between kisses.
His lips caught mine and his tongue swept into my mouth. He pulled away, breathless. “Yeah?”
“Can we wait a bit to tell Evie about this? About us?”
“You don’t want her to know we’re together?” he asked, frowning .
“I want us to slow down,” I said, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck. “I want time . We haven’t had that, ever. We had one night seven years ago, and then a few stolen days at the retreat. So I want time to get to know each other, to go on dates, to figure out each other’s flaws and warts and bad habits.”
“You think time is going to change my mind?”
I smiled. “No,” I said. “But I don’t want to mess this up again. I’m in it for the long haul, so I want to do it right. Evie deserves to build a relationship with you too, so that when we tell her about us, she isn’t blindsided.”
He kissed me once more, slow and tender. When he pulled away, his eyes were soft as the velvet on the jewelry box he’d saved for me for seven years. “We’ll go as slow as you like, as long as I get to put a ring on your finger and call you mine at the end of it.”
A grin broke over my lips, and I dipped my chin in agreement. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Christianson.”
“I love you, Carrie.”
The words were music to me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and smiled at the man who’d always been the one for me. “I love you more,” I whispered, and I kissed him long enough that I’d make it through the night without him.
When I was finally back inside the house, I closed the door and listened to his engine drive away. This time, hearing him leave didn’t send a lance of pain through me, because I knew he’d be coming back. We would always come back to each other, because together is exactly where we belong.