27. Carter
CHAPTER 27
CARTER
I knew life wasn’t fair. I had made it my mission to help change that for as many people as possible, and maybe I had done some good here and there, but the efforts of one man could do nothing to turn the tide of fate. And so life continued to be unfair, and I accepted it, worked within the parameters given me.
But this?
This was beyond unfair.
This was a personal kick in the balls straight from the forces of fate.
Megyn’s text.
I was ruined.
Our relationship was ruined.
She didn’t seem to blame me for it, but that was like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. It did nothing to stop the pain. I could feel all our happy memories bleeding out of me, flowing, a spreading puddle of precious moments I could never get back.
Brian was leaving me alone now, taking over my responsibilities for the day. I hadn’t asked him to, but no one came to bother me when I didn’t answer my calls or show up for my meetings. He naturally migrated to fill in the empty space caused by my absence. I would have to thank him for that eventually, when I had the strength to get up out of my chair.
When I had the strength to look away from my phone.
The battery had died half an hour ago, but I hadn’t moved to charge it. I just kept sitting there, staring down at the screen, feeling my heart throbbing in my chest, feeling the warmth drain from my body. I was little more than a living corpse, the stiff resemblance of a man.
A small voice spoke up in the back of my mind. It asked, “Are you really going to let things end like this?”
What could I do?
Megyn had made it very clear she considered us done. I had to respect that.
Or do I?
What about what I wanted? What about my own hopes and dreams?
It would be a very sorry thing for a man like me to do nothing while the love of my life got away. She wasn’t running from me, dammit. She was evacuating from the circumstances.
I had all this money. I had all these resources at my disposal. If I didn’t at least try to use them to fix this, it would be a waste.
I picked up my phone and called Maggie. As soon as she picked up, I spoke, cutting off her hesitant greeting. “Can you come to my office?”
“Carter, I don’t know if that’s really a good idea…” She trailed off.
Well, it was time to use what I had. “If you don’t come,” I said casually, “I’m going to have Brian ask you out on a date and then I will show up unannounced. And you will never know which date it will be that I show up on. You’ll be all ready to sit in the back of a movie theater making out with your man, and I’ll pop in with my popcorn and sit right between you and talk the whole time.”
“Wow,” Maggie remarked. “That honestly sounds like the worst thing. You would have made an amazing medieval torturer if you can come up with stuff like that.”
“Maybe I was one in a past life. Will you come? I can pick you up, if necessary.”
“Not necessary.” I heard shuffling around on her end of things. “I can be there in about half an hour. Maybe sooner if you promise you’ll have hot coffee waiting for me.”
“I splurge for my employees and buy actual liquid creamer. None of the powdered crap.”
“Add in a little alcohol and I’ll break the speed barrier for you.”
“I bet you’ve never said that to Brian.”
Maggie laughed. “I usually like to take my time with him.”
I made a face. “Just get here, Mags. I need to talk to you.”
“On my way.”
I busied myself with making a fresh pot of coffee and procured a variety of creamers, breaking into several offices to look at their selection. I also fetched the whiskey I kept in the locked cupboard over the coffee station in my office, usually saved for very special occasions. If trying to salvage my relationship wasn’t a special occasion, then I had no idea what would be.
Maggie arrived twenty minutes later, her cheeks flushed and nose running from being out in the November cold.
I went to her and hugged her, plucking a scrap of red leaf from her hair.
Maggie swiped the scrap from my hand with startling dexterity and tossed it over her shoulder. “Coffee?”
I pointed her in the right direction and then followed her over.
Maggie grabbed the mug I’d set out for her and tapped her finger on the chipped rim. “Is this the kind of kitchenware you usually give out to your billionaire cohorts?”
“It is, actually. And they usually make the same jokes as you.”
Maggie flashed me a smile and poured coffee into her chipped mug. “For some reason, it makes me happy to know rich men make such terrible jokes. It’s almost as if we aren’t all so different.”
“Try telling that to the media hounds,” I said, gritting my teeth.
Maggie’s hand shook a little bit and she put the pot back on the burner. “Well. Now I know the reason I’m here. You want to talk about that. ”
“I would like to,” I agreed.
“I think you’d best really hit me with that whiskey, then.”
I obliged by adding a generous splash to her coffee.
Maggie plucked up a stirrer and set to swirling the concoction in her mug, turning the coffee into a kaleidoscope of swirls and creamy curlicues. She knocked back a deep swallow and coughed, then took another smaller drink.
I waited until she was done, watching her from beneath hooded eyelids. “What do you think of the whole thing?”
“Oof. Honestly, Carter, I think that this whole thing is absolutely terrible and the people who perpetrated this deserve to have the same things done to them.”
“Is there any way at all I can get Megyn to stay?”
“Why not ask her?”
“Because she sent me this text.” I pulled out my phone and handed it to Maggie to read Megyn’s final decree to me, sent yesterday. I hadn’t responded yet. I should have. I didn’t want her to think I was so ready to be done with her that I wouldn’t even say goodbye; it was literally out of my hands now and in Maggie’s.
Maggie looked up from the phone, nibbling on her lower lip. “I think we were all kind of afraid this was going to happen.”
“Yes.”
Maggie handed the phone back to me and drank more of her spiked coffee. “Do you think this was done by someone who has a grudge against you?”
I briefly thought of Suzie, but then shook my head. She might be lustful, but I didn’t think she was dumb. Even she would know that causing a stunt like this would be a way to ensure I never, ever spoke to her again, much less dated her. “I think I brought it upon myself with the whole ‘trying to find my wife’ thing. In retrospect, it’s exactly the sort of fantastical thing people are way too into these days. Like all the stuff with the Kardashians. It’s… It’s reality-TV worthy.”
“But damn if it didn’t almost work, right?”
Maggie held out her mug to me and I gave her another shot in her mug, which she tossed back straight. Much more of this and I’d be summoning a taxi to take her home.
“Is Megyn really selling her house?”
“She really is. She just put it up on the market.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “So quickly?”
“Well, it’s kind of been in her mind for a while now, Carter.” Maggie leaned her hip on the counter. “I helped her gather resources. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had everything ready to go, just waiting for the right moment. Now that her house is cleaned up and presentable, all the pieces are in their places. So, yes, that quickly. I saw it online this morning. It actually looks like a nice little place in pictures.”
“How much is it going for?”
“About as much as you’d expect. If she doesn’t sell it soon, it’ll start going down in value because of the stuff purported to happen next year. No one wants to pay even so little on a place that’s going downhill.”
My mind raced. Maggie was exactly right. And that might well be to my advantage. The end of the year was not a time when people were really looking to buy houses, and the state of Staten Island would put off any potentials who were. It wasn’t too late to act.
Maggie put her hand on my arm. “You get that same look on your face when you’re thinking that Brian does. What’s on your mind?”
“What if I told you that I want to buy Megyn’s house?”
Maggie stared at me. “Okay. But why?”
“I want to give Megyn that sewing shop she’s always wanted.” I could feel myself getting excited about my idea. “I’ll take her house and transform it for her. I know it won’t help the whole media circus thing, but maybe if she has something to focus on, if we have something to work on together, we can… We can rise above it, together.”
Maggie smiled and put her arms around me, surprising me. “Carter, that would thrill her to pieces! And maybe it would help the whole media thing. She’d be successful, opening up her own store. That diminishes their rags-to-riches angle a little bit. And it would, at the same time, bring attention and customers to the store!”
“Yes!” I said, grabbing her and spinning her around. “Yes, exactly! What do you think?”
“I think you really are a prince, Carter.” Maggie laughed. “Megyn is so lucky to have you. I think, in doing this, you’ll be showing her how much you care about her dreams, about her. She’s always so concerned about what others think, so maybe showing her that it doesn’t matter and you’ll be there for her regardless will convince her.”
“Even if it doesn’t,” I said softly, “even if she still won’t be with me, I’m giving her this store. She deserves it.”
“And that,” Maggie pointed her finger at me, “is exactly what will convince her.”
“I hope you’re right.” I looked over at the clock on the wall, wondering how fast I could get things moving.
“You’re done with me, then,” Maggie said, laughing and smiling a little. “You’ve got the look again.”
“I’ll call you a taxi if you need it.”
“I’m in perfect driving condition, thank you.” Maggie hugged me again. “Thank you for calling me and talking to me. I’m rooting for you.”
“Thank you, Maggie.”
I saw her to the door and she waved at me before rounding the corner. I waved back and then darted out in the opposite direction, to Brian’s office. I barged in without knocking.
Brian looked up and frowned at me. “Hey, Carter. What’s up?”
I marched right over to him and grabbed him by his tie. “Assistant, I need you to call the realtor listing Megyn’s house and put an offer down for it.”
Brian flicked a glance down at his tie and then back up at me. “I have no idea what this is about, but I get the gist of it. I’ll find the listing and get the guy up here.”
The guy turned out to be a girl, a mid-50s woman in a stylish blazer, reminiscent of a librarian with her hair pulled back in a severe bun and thick glasses balanced on the bridge of her nose. She took one look at me and frowned like I was a particularly naughty child who wouldn’t stop talking back among the shelves.
“I’m not sure what interest a man such as yourself could have in that particular house,” she said. “I would be glad to show you more suitable options, if you’re looking to move.”
“I’m not looking to do anything but purchase this one house,” I said. I folded my hands, watching her, very aware of Brian’s presence at my shoulder. “I’d like to get straight to business and make my offer. $150.”
She laughed. “While it might really be only worth $150—”
“That’s thousand, ma’am. $150,000.”
She stared at me and then took off her glasses, cleaning the lenses before putting them back on. “Maybe I didn’t hear you right.”
“That’s $150k,” I said. “You heard me correctly.”
“That is an exuberant amount to pay for that house, Mr. Bryant.”
“The majority will go to the owner, won’t it?”
Sudden clarity entered her eyes. “Is that what you’re doing? Wait a minute. That segment on the news—”
I leaned over the table and stared into the librarian’s eyes. “Yes. That’s the same Megyn who owns this house. I want to buy her house and turn it into something amazing.”
“Are you sure you’ll have any money left over?” she asked, blinking her wide eyes.
Brian let out a quick, short, unamused laugh. “Trust me, he wanted to offer more.”
I ignored the comment. “There’s nothing illegal about me overpaying, is there?”
“No, not at all. In fact, a less reputable realtor would make sure you did. Though he wouldn’t work you up to nearly such a high number…”
“Then, I’ll take the house,” I said firmly. “Do you have the time? Let’s get the paperwork done right here.”
I wasn’t going to let this go. The agent knew that, and so she opened up her briefcase to lay out her papers, and I signed every single one she put in front of me.