Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
He stayed in touch with her family? He hadn’t told me, but I love him all the more for this new detail.
“Are you seeing Carrie West?” A reporter shouts. “Is that how you managed to pull off this merger?”
Anger flares inside me and I step next to Reid and speak. “I’m his fiancée, and for the record, I asked him to consider the merger. We as people, and companies, balance each other out with the kind of perfection that is magic, which is exactly why our first deal together was record-breaking for both companies.”
From there, the questions come hard and fast, darting back and forth between business and personal, but we let them at us because as Reid said before this event, the sooner they get tired of us, the better. After forty-five minutes of pounding questions, Reid calls it to a halt and Blake’s team intervenes to get us out of the lobby. Reid, Gabe and I all end up on an elevator alone.
We all stand there in the moving car in silence, that speech Reid gave between us, and I don’t hug him the way I want to. I know him. That’s not what he needs or wants right now. He needs to move on. He needs to deal with it later when we’re alone, but Gabe hasn’t had the opportunity to ask him the questions I have and he’s living this with us right now. “You kept in touch with her family?”
“I did,” he says. “And every time I talked to them I felt like I was the one who killed their daughter.”
“Did they blame you?” he asks.
“No. Never. But I did. I blamed me.”
Gabe scrubs his jaw. “Fuck, man. You should have told me.”
“We both know you had shit of your own to deal with,” Reid says. “We both know you still do.”
Gabe’s jaw hardens and he cuts his stare, obviously hiding his reaction, and it’s then that the elevator dings. He glances our direction again. “As soon as Walker clears the reporters, I’ll go deal with pops. You two just plan a wedding or get drunk, or both. I damn sure have a date with a bottle of vodka.”
The doors open and he exits the car without waiting on a reply. Reid takes my hand and we share a moment of understanding. Reid is okay. He really is, but Gabe is carrying a boulder on his back and we can only hope he now knows that we’ll help him carry it. We exit the car side by side, and random staff members stop to speak to Reid on the way to his office. Suddenly, the asshole they’d all feared is human and what I see in each person’s eyes isn’t sympathy for Reid, but rather respect. They respect him for his humanity, and for his courage to face this today. The truth is he tried to take a bullet to save a life that day. He was courageous then, too, but it just wasn’t his time.
When we’re finally inside his office with the door shut, I lean against it while he walks to the bar in the corner. “Vodka, wine, or whiskey?” he asks. “Gabe recommends the vodka.”
I push off the door and walk toward him. “Wine,” I say, but he’s already pouring it. He knows me. I love that he knows me.
He hands me the glass. “Let’s drink and talk until we can do exactly what Gabe suggested and get out of here.” He pours himself a whiskey. “We have a dog and a cat waiting on us.”
“Are you really okay or are you banking it all until you can explode later?”
“I’m better than I’ve been in a long time,” he assures me, motioning to the couch.
“Why is that?” I ask, as we sit down and I kick my shoes off and curl my feet onto the cushion. “I mean, you told the world what you wanted to tell no one.”
“And by doing so I used it as a weapon I armed myself.”
“Your father armed that weapon,” I say. “He made you feel like you had something to be ashamed of.”
“Like I said. A weapon I armed myself. He only had the power I gave him, and for far too long. He didn’t deserve the power or respect we gave him as a family. If you ever write a letter to our daughter about me like my mother did my father, I want it read like I’m an example of what she wants in a man, not what she should avoid.” He downs his whiskey and sets his glass down.
I sit up straight and set my glass next to his. “Daughter?” I ask, my heart racing. He wants to have a daughter?
He laces his fingers with mine. “Today has my head going all kinds of places. We’d make beautiful babies.”