Chapter 13 Kelsey
Chapter thirteen
Kelsey
“I hate London,” I say, staring across the Thames at the Tower of London jutting above the rooftops. Carter and I finished the pre-concert meeting an hour ago, and after dropping the box with the security earpieces off at my hotel room, we’re heading to the top restaurant for the city.
After one beer turned into three last night, Carter and I have fallen into an easy friendship. We sat next to each other on the flight from Toronto this morning, occasionally tapping each other on the shoulder before sharing some inane thought or opinion.
The image of Carter, his headphones pulled off one ear as he leaned over to tell me he thought the movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo is superior to the book, will forever be stored as one of my favorite memories.
His dark eyes were alight with joy, a rare smile taking up his entire face.
It was Carter the happiest I’d ever seen him, and sharing that moment with him felt… special somehow.
Since we needed a full day to fly to London, Jaxon’s concert here isn’t until tomorrow night. Carter insisted we visit my top restaurant.
“I’m going to need more information than that,” Carter replies. “You can’t just drop the fact that you hate London of all cities and just expect me to go along with it.”
I laugh, amazed we’ve somehow progressed to the point in our friendship where he says more than five words at a time to me. “It’s a long story. Nothing was actually the city of London’s fault, but it holds a lot of bad memories for me.”
“I’m a good listener.”
“Sometimes a bit too good of a listener. You could really say more.”
“You scare the words out of me.”
“That can’t be true.”
He looks me over, his dark eyes more contemplative than usual. “You make me question everything I might say. You’re very intimidating.”
“Thank you,” I say, stepping behind Carter to allow a woman to pass by us.
“I wasn’t trying to compliment you,” Carter says, though my attention is fully focused on the man’s ass in front of me. It has to be the pants. They do something magical that turns his normal butt into something I can’t look away from.
“And yet you did anyway.”
He slows his pace, forcing me to catch up with him before good-naturedly bumping his shoulder into mine. Or, technically, bumping his elbow into my shoulder due to our height difference.
“Apparently, I can’t help myself,” he says.
We walk a few steps before he asks, “So, are you going to tell me why you hate one of the most popular cities in the world?”
My stomach clenches at the thought of telling Carter about how badly I messed things up last time I was here. “It’s not a story I tell many people.”
He turns his head to look at me as we walk, his hands still buried deep in the pockets of his black coat. “Now I’m even more intrigued.”
I should’ve known Carter wouldn’t give up that easily. Twirling my ring around my finger, I consider if I should tell him about my fuckup with Lukas or not.
Fortunately, as I’m about to begin speaking, I see the sign for the restaurant up on our right. “Look,” I say, nodding my head toward the building. “We’re here.”
The look on his face says he’s not going to drop it, but I ignore him, leading the way to the small restaurant overlooking the Thames.
Once we’re seated and I set down my menu, Carter says, “So you’re really not going to tell me, huh?”
I drum my fingers on the top of the table, knowing he’s not going to let this go. I don’t know why I ever mentioned anything about hating London. Of course he was going to chase down that story; I would do the exact same thing.
On one hand, telling him about it feels far more vulnerable than I want to be on our fun night out, but he did share his story about his mom with me yesterday.
It feels like a dick move to refuse to tell him about this.
Even though, of all people, it feels like Carter would understand and not hold my lack of sharing against me.
“Only my family knows about it.”
“I can keep a secret,” Carter says.
And for some reason, I believe him.
“Well,” I start, focusing my attention on the photograph of the London Eye on the wall across from me. “Five-ish years ago, I was dating this guy Lukas.”
Carter snorts.
“What?”
“Sounds like a twat.”
I roll my eyes, a chuckle escaping me at his use of the British word. “All you know about him is that his name is Lukas.” I hadn’t even told him it was Lukas with a k, which makes it more twat-y in my humble opinion.
“Fine. He’s not a twat.”
“Oh, no. He is. Just wait.”
Carter folds his hands beneath his chin, exaggerating his focus on my story.
“Anyway,” I start again. “Lukas and I met in grad school. We’d been dating for a year when we graduated.
I always knew I wanted to own my own business, so after graduation, I stayed in California and started up a consulting business.
I was contracting with some of the software companies, advising them on their cybersecurity systems and procedures.
I had a lot of connections from my MBA class who went to work for the big tech companies, so it was easier than I expected to grow. ”
I bite my lip, thinking back to how full of myself I’d been back then. I felt like I was on top of the world and there wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop me.
“My company exploded. I was bringing on clients so quickly, I needed help. Lukas had been in New York working in acquisitions before our grad program, and he hadn’t found the right company to join, so I ended up hiring him to help me out, particularly with the finance side of the business.”
“Did he embezzle from you?” Carter asks, his tone laced with disgust.
“No.” I shake my head. “It would’ve been easier if he had.”
Carter raises his eyebrow as he takes a sip of the dark red wine our waitress brought, both of us agreeing to just one glass.
With a sigh, I continue, “We decided it made sense to try to get investors, so we started taking meetings. I was so busy with all of the clients that adding in meetings with investors was becoming too much. I just couldn’t do it all.”
I take a deep breath, forcing myself to get to the meat of the story.
“When an investor wanted to meet in London”—I nod toward the window and the city beyond—“I couldn’t swing it.
I had a bajillion client meetings and interviews to hire a new head of HR.
So, when Lukas offered to go without me, I didn’t put up much of a fight. ”
I pause, trying to think through how to share the rest of the story. It never gets easier admitting your mistakes, especially ones that cost you your business.
Carter’s eyes bore into mine, and I track the dark edges around his chocolate irises. I expect him to balk at the silence and try to fill it, but he doesn’t. He lets me process.
“He brought back this proposal that was great, but it stipulated that Lukas had to be a part owner with me. Lukas claimed it was because the investors were uncomfortable with investing in a security firm run by a woman. He told me ‘They’d just feel more comfortable if there was also a man at the table.’”
Carter’s mouth tightens, his anger on my behalf evident, but he doesn’t say a word.
“It didn’t sit right. Nothing about it did, but I couldn’t figure out why.
I thought about it a lot, but in the end, I thought Lukas and I were likely to end up married anyway, so why did the shares matter.
Plus, I really needed the investment to cover all the upfront expenses of expanding my leadership team.
We flew to London to sign the deal. Made a big PR stunt out of it to see if we could attract more investors with this investment. ”
I rush on, forcing out the words that I’ve only ever told my parents and sisters.
“Then, in the bathroom of the investment firm, literally minutes before I was supposed to sign the agreement, I overheard two junior analysts talking. They were both irate on my behalf, wishing they wouldn’t get in trouble if they told me that my CFO was out there getting himself a cut of my company behind my back.
I thought I must be hearing it wrong at first, but then it all started to make sense—the discomfort I had felt but couldn’t place, the completely misogynistic request from a well-established investment firm.
I walked out of the bathroom and straight out of the office.
Lukas saw me leave and ran after me. He finally caught up to me on the street, yelling at me about how unprofessional I was and how much work he had put into it.
Once he finally took a breath, I fired him. ”
It’s only because I’m staring at Carter’s mouth rather than his eyes that I notice his lips twitch up in a grin.
“The investment firm ended up backing out of the deal—not that I wanted to work with them after everything that had happened anyway. It all went downhill from there. Lukas started his own company, taking about half of my staff with him. Because he was supposed to be doing me a favor when he started working for me, his employment contract was basically nonexistent. After about six months of hating every minute I was working, I sold the company to a competitor with the stipulation that I would not be sticking around to ease the transition, and I moved back to Wild Bluffs. KH Security is different enough from what I was doing before that I could start it right away without any issues.”
Carter blinks once, then twice, before clearing his throat. “So he just tried to…steal your company?” Carter asks.
I shrug. “Something like that.”
His eyes search mine, and I brace myself for the barrage of questions about to head my way.
When I told my family, you would’ve thought I was being interrogated based on the rapid-fire questions my dad and Izzy shot my way.
I know they meant well, but it’s hard to answer questions about the hows and whys of the whole thing when it really just comes down to me trusting the wrong person and not putting in the work to confirm the information I was being given was correct.
And I clearly have shit taste in men. That fact can’t be overlooked.
I catch myself twirling my hair and force my hands back into my lap.
Shrugging, I say, “So, anyway, that’s why I hate London. I recognize it’s not the city’s fault that it holds some of my worst memories, but…”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“It was on me.”
He raises his dark eyebrow. “There you go blaming yourself for things outside of your control again.”
“I think giving someone the ability to negotiate away half of my company is within my control.”
“It seems like a logical thing for a CFO to be in charge of.”
“Oh, really?” I ask. “Would Trent let you have that much control over his company?”
Carter pauses before slowly chewing a bite of Turkish bread from the basket in the middle of the table. “I’m not the CFO,” is all he says.
I shrug as our waitress brings out two large plates of food.
Breathing in deeply, I inhale the glorious aroma of orange as it mingles with my salmon.
Across the table, Carter has already cut into his black cod, dipping it into a sweet chili sauce before directing the fork to his mouth.
I can’t look away from the curve of his lips as he lets out a small groan of appreciation.
His eyes meet mine, the dark chocolate irises lost completely in the dark lighting of the room.
I know I should look away, to break eye contact and stop focusing on the way that single bite sent waves of heat directly to my core, but I can’t.
Carter holds my attention, the air around us thinning, the world narrowing to a singular point—to us.
And then his phone rings, Trent’s name flashing across the screen like the giant bucket of cold water it is. He declined the call, but it was enough to remind me: getting lost in Carter’s eyes isn’t an option—I can’t, I won’t, risk losing the company I built again.