9. Carter
Chapter nine
Carter
Carter stood on the landing, looking at the garland and the tree. Ashley was right. Where they had originally put it blocked the light coming in through the window. Now the early morning rays streamed through in lines of gold.
He straightened his sleeves and started his rounds, stopping first in the kitchen where Tiny was preparing croissants for breakfast while Ms. Porter was placing dishes and silverware on a tray for Celia to take upstairs to the main dining room.
“He didn’t eat a single cookie yesterday,” Tiny said as she folded a layer of dough in half.
The copy of A Christmas Carol lay face down beside the mixing bowl, holding her place.
“Said he wasn’t feeling sweet. That man’s blood is fifty percent sugar and fifty percent bourbon. Something’s not right.”
“Nothing is wrong, Tiny. No need to create drama that doesn’t exist,” Carter said, but Ms. Porter’s eyes met his.
“He also didn’t try to sneak a taste of my chocolate mousse. He loves my mousse.”
Carter blinked away from Ms. Porter’s gaze and smiled at Tiny, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You know if he heard you, he’d be annoyed that you’re fussing.”
“I know, I’m just worried,” she said.
“His stomach was probably in knots with the family being here. Don’t worry about it.”
She nodded and went back to folding layers.
Carter headed for the stairs, but somehow Ms. Porter cut him off at the landing. “You’re not a good liar, Carter Reeves.”
He sighed, letting the breath out slowly. Celia approached with the tray, and Carter stepped out of her way. “Tell Hawthorne I’ll be up in a moment, and remember, napkin on the left?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ms. Porter stayed silent until Celia’s footsteps faded. “You’ve known for weeks, haven’t you?”
Carter hesitated for a beat too long, and he thought Ms. Porter might hit him.
“I didn’t ask,” he admitted. “He hasn’t said.”
“But you looked.” The sound of a fork or spoon hitting the floor echoed through the space, and they both turned toward it.
“Don’t play dumb with me, young man. Your father may be gone, but he raised you better than that. And I know for a fact you found the envelope on his desk.”
Carter’s jaw tightened. “If he wanted them to know, he would tell them.” It was none of their business, and he had survived this life because he minded his.
Ms. Porter’s eyebrow arched. “Maybe, but secrets don’t soften with age. They fester.” She stepped out of his way, the scent of cinnamon and soap trailing behind her. “And this house has enough rot already.”
With a nod, he took off up the stairs. Of course Ms. Porter knew. She knew everything. Still, it wasn’t their place. Hell, Carter shouldn’t have even seen that piece of paper. He just happened to be retrieving something and came upon it.
He turned the corner, thoughts of everything that had transpired over the last couple of weeks and days running through his mind. He leaned against the wall to take a moment, closing his eyes and squeezing the bridge of his nose as if that would alleviate the tension building.
“You okay?” Ashley’s voice was void of the animosity he’d grown accustomed to over her time back at Winterridge replaced by what sounded like genuine concern.
He dropped his hand, straightened, and met her gaze with a smile. “Fine.”
“We might not have seen each other in a long time, but I know that’s a lie.” She moved toward him, bringing her orange blossom scent that wrapped around him in a familiar cloud. “Eyes closed, bridge of your nose pinched like you’re trying to squeeze calm through your body. It’s your tell.”
“I didn’t know you cared enough to notice.”
“I don’t.”
God, he wanted to reach out and grab her waist, yank her against him, but he was trying damn hard to stay professional.
But with her forest green turtleneck clinging to her like a second skin, tucked into a mini plaid skirt over black tights that might as well have been painted on, his control was waning.
“Is it Grandfather?”
He shook his head, losing his ability to speak as his attention was too focused on her mouth—a mouth he had kissed so many times before.
“Your eyes are darkening. Another tell. And since you’re not aroused, I assume someone has got you frazzled.”
His control snapped. He grabbed her waist and spun her toward the wall, his growing erection pressing against her leg. “Do you want to rethink that evaluation?”
Her lips parted, a tiny sound slipping between the inviting plumpness, but no words.
For a second, neither of them moved. The air between them shifted, tight with something more familiar than simple tension.
Ashley’s throat bobbed as her gaze dropped to where he held her before snapping back up to his eyes. “I stand corrected.”
A slow, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You always hated being wrong.”
She shook her head, her bangs subtly moving. “I hate when you prove me wrong.”
He loosened his grip, enough to let her go if she wanted, but not enough to step away. Not yet.
“That wasn’t what you meant, though,” he said, his voice a rough whisper.
Her breath hitched, and he felt it. Saw it. God, he knew her tells just as well as she knew his.
“No,” she admitted. “It wasn’t.”
Silence stretched again, filling the slight space between them with an unbreakable air.
His hand fell from her waist, but the heat of her lingered on his skin.
“I wasn’t talking about that.” Her eyes lowered to where his cock throbbed beneath his pants. “Though it’s nice to see some part of you doesn’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
She waved her hand as if she could bat her admission away. As if the fact that she thought he hated her didn’t affect him in the slightest.
“I meant that you’re not fine. You never are when you do that. So what is it?”
For a moment, he considered telling her everything. Going back to the last time they saw each other up until now. All the secrets that hid in the walls of this house, including his.
He exhaled, running a hand over his face.
“I was just taking a break. Not used to so many people in the house anymore.” The lie came out effortlessly, but that didn’t mean Ashley was convinced.
The way her eyebrow disappeared completely beneath her bangs told him she didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth.
“Still lying, I see.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that instead of facing adversity head-on, you’d rather lie instead of dealing with what’s actually in front of you.”
His jaw tightened, a slight tick keeping cadence with the sudden quickening of his heartbeat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” She folded her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing. “You’ve always done this. Deflect, downplay, pretend everything’s fine when it’s clearly not.”
“Oh that’s rich coming from you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Because you walked in here like we didn’t… like none of it mattered.”
Her hand flung up, her finger angrily pointing at him. “That’s not fair, and you know it!”
“No?” He stepped toward her, not touching her this time, but close enough to hear the jagged inhale of her breath, feel the heat of her exhale. “Because it feels pretty damn fair from where I’m standing.
Ashley’s chin lifted, those gray eyes betraying her before her words admitted the truth. “You think this is easy for me?”
“I think,” he said with a sigh, “that you’re really good at pretending it is.”
Her shoulders tensed, her gaze flickered.
“I came back here because I thought my grandfather was dead, not to… reopen old wounds.”
“Too late.”
The words hung there as his hands balled into fists at his side. The desire to grab her, pull her mouth to his grew stronger the longer she stared at him.
She shook her head, chest rising and falling as she pinned him in place with eyes that haunted his dreams.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said.
“Doing what?”
“This.” She gestured between them. “Fighting, circling each other like—”
“Like we don’t want to tear each other’s clothes off?”
A flush crept up her neck, spreading into the apples of her cheeks, but she didn’t deny it.
“That’s the problem.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“A big problem.” Her attention flickered down toward the erection that wouldn’t settle.
He tucked her hair behind her ear, his hand lingering on her cheek. “Maybe we should do something about it.”
Her teeth slid over her bottom lip before it pouted out. Her gray eyes shimmered with an unexpected sheen. A half-hearted smile quirked her lips. “I can’t. Not when I just got used to living without you.”
Just? “It’s been eight years,” he said unable to ignore the timeline.
“Most days it feels like yesterday. Pain like that… losing someone who was so much a part of you…” Her voice cracked, and she looked away as if she hated that he heard it.
His chest tightened at all the time they’d lost, at all the pain she suffered because he couldn’t be the man she needed. But even though he didn’t chase after her, one thing was true.
“You didn’t lose me. My heart has always been yours.”
“What good is a heart if it’s not attached to a body?”
The reality of it slammed into him. “It’s worthless,” he admitted.
“Exactly. So while I appreciate the sentiment, it doesn’t fix all those nights I waited for you to show on my doorstep.” She let out a soft laugh. “You never fully understand loneliness until you wait for someone who never comes.”
“I had nothing to offer you.”
“You were enough. You couldn’t see past this house. There’s a whole world outside the walls of Winterridge. We could have seen it together.”
“With what money? I didn’t have a trust fund to pull from, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to move in with you and live off yours.”
She shook her head, frustration flashing across her face. “I didn’t care about money, Carter. I cared about you. About us.”
“Yeah, well, I did care,” he shot back, his old defensiveness surfacing before he could stop it. “I wasn’t about to follow you into some life where I didn’t belong.”
“You belonged with me.”
A harsh breath expelled from his lips as he dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s not that simple.”
“It was,” she argued. “You just made it complicated.”
Silence descended again, this time thick with everything they still hadn’t said.
“I wasn’t enough for you,” he muttered, needing her to understand. He was never meant to be with her, never meant to experience her softness beneath his fingertips, her cries of pleasure as he entered her.
Her head snapped toward him. “Don’t you dare rewrite this like that.”
“You wanted more than I could give you.”
“I never wanted shit from you other than your love, but apparently even that was too much to ask for.”
“That’s all I could give you, and I did, which is why I didn’t come after you. Why I didn’t show up on your doorstep, expecting you to pay my way.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. You could have gotten a job. You just didn’t want to. It was safer to stay here and act like I left you.”
“I would have held you back.”
“You didn’t get to decide that for me.”
“No, but I made it so you didn’t have to because you and I both know you would have woken up one day and you would have resented me. For choosing me over everything else you could’ve had.”
“So you chose for me, and look at us now. Both alone and unable to move on. By not wanting to hold me back, that’s exactly what you did.”
“You’re successful, made a name for yourself.”
“And I go to bed alone every night because no matter how many dates I have been on, how many men I have let into my bed, none of them are you.”
He swallowed at the mention of other men, an unexpected jealous rage rising inside him.
He knew letting her go was the best thing he could do for her, but he refused to think that by letting her go, she’d fall into bed with another man.
He wasn’t naive; deep down, he knew it was inevitable, but that didn’t mean he had to think about it.
“I wanted a life with you.” She stabbed her finger into his chest. “All I got was false hope. For weeks. Months. Every time there was a knock on my door, every time my phone buzzed… I thought it was you. Hoped it was you. Until one day I realized you really meant goodbye.”
“I should’ve come to you, but we’re here now.” He rested his thumb beneath her chin, his finger running along the curve of her jaw. “Tell me I’m too late, and I’ll walk away, pretend like this conversation never happened.”
Her breath hitched, her shoulders trembling as she exhaled. She blinked up, locking her gaze with his. Her gray irises brimming with hope and new beginnings. Her eyelids slid shut, and when she opened them again, any hope was gone.
“I don’t think I could survive wanting you like that again.”
His hand moved along her jaw. “Ashley—”
She caught his wrist before he could fully cup her face. “Don’t.” She didn’t push him away, but she didn’t pull him close either.
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t let us end up in the same place.”
“What if it’s different this time?”
“Different how? When these nine days are up, I am leaving Winterridge and going back to New York. Are you going to follow me this time?”
He stood there, staring at the woman who had been his dream girl since the first time he met her at only five years old. Every stage of their lives, she’d been there, more beautiful than ever, stronger, more confident, full of kindness.
He didn’t follow her to New York last time, partially because he couldn’t be everything that she needed, but also for reasons she didn’t know.
Reasons that had his hand falling from her grasp.
Reasons that led him to turn around and walk away from her without another word.
Walking away from her had felt like losing everything…
But not walking away would have cost him even more.