And eventually the elevator did come, and the doors did ding open, and she stepped inside. It was already crowded with executives coming down from higher-up floors. They all spoke to Carly when she stepped on. “Hello, Mrs. Reese. Good, afternoon, Mrs. Reese. Nice to see you again, Mrs. Reese.” But, in truth, their greetings were a tad disgusting to Carly.
When she first arrived at TRM those same executives treated her like she was an imposter and they wouldn’t respect her nor give her the time of day. Speaking to her so nicely? Out of the question.
But now that she was married to Trevor, who was ultimately everybody’s boss in that entire building, including hers, they went out of their way to be kind to her. But she knew it was all fake and self-serving. She could count on a few fingers the few people who treated her right from the beginning, people like Bridgette, and she remained friends with them. But the crowd on the elevator with her now could keep their sudden friendliness to themselves. She wasn’t buying it.
She spoke back, however, and even smiled, but she wasn’t feeling it. She just wanted the damn thing to get to the ground floor, where the garage was located, so that she could get going. Trevor’s plane was scheduled to land at any moment, and she wanted to meet it.
Ever since they got married, she made it her business to try her best to meet his plane. She had always wanted to do so when they were dating, but she didn’t feel comfortable doing so. She didn’t want to appear too solicitous in his eyes. Men had taken advantage of her kindness in the past when she showed her feelings for them that way. But now that she was Trevor’s wife, she had no such qualms. Trevor was the head of their household, and she was his. She loved her role.
She’d tell anybody proudly and with no reservations at all: she was going to meet her man.
What she hadn’t counted on, when she finally got in the car Trevor had purchased for her, and arrived at the Boston airfield, that Amari, the son he left town to get answers about, would be waiting for his plane to land too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Amari was leaned against his Camaro looking like a model for Ralph Lauren sportswear, Carly thought, as she parked behind him and got out of her Jag. The plane was on the tarmac but Trevor was still onboard. On the phone, no doubt, Carly thought. Amari was smiling when she walked over to him.
Because his beautiful smile was always contagious, popping white and brilliant against his gorgeous black skin, Carly was smiling too. “How long have you been back in town?” she asked him.
“I just arrived at Logan International, got into my automobile, and made my way to greet Father on his return. Uncle Ham told me he had gone to Montreal to get info on my whereabouts.”
“Which could have saved him a three-hour round trip had you answered your phone.”
“Not possible,” Amari said.
Whenever any agent was on assignment, he was strictly not allowed to take or make any non-Agency calls until he had landed, and was back on his home turf. By then, however, it was too late. His father was practically landing too. It was an edict that Amari took seriously.
Trevor was under the same edict, Carly knew, but unlike Amari, who was relatively new to the game, Trevor was an old pro. He never obeyed any edicts they handed down.
“When did you leave town anyway?” Carly asked Amari.
“They phoned as soon as I left Drena’s house.”
Carly smiled. “I heard you left with another friend of your father’s.”
“I did as it happens.”
“And another friend of your father’s, Drena, was not impressed.”
Amari laughed. “She’ll live,” he said.
“You thought you were going to get screwed, and got screwed alright, hun?” Carly said.
Amari, often surprised by her quick wit, laughed and nodded his head. “Exactly right,” he said.
Then Carly turned serious. “You missed your appointment with me, Mari,” she said.
Amari’s smile slowly dissolved too. “Yes, I did do that. But as you now know, it could not have been helped. I was proudly serving my new country.”
“Not according to your father,” Carly said.
“He doesn’t like my involvement with the organization of which he himself is involved, I understand that. But I did not call myself into duty. The Agency called me. And I have no choice in the matter. I have to go when they call.”
Carly nodded and leaned against his car, too. She fully understood his dilemma.
“Did Father tell you, since he seems to tell you everything,” Amari asked, “how I feel about being interviewed for a position with his firm?”
Carly nodded again. “He told me, yes. And look, I agree with you. I think we could have hired you and figured it out as we went along. But Trevor doesn’t operate that way. There’s no figuring it out as we go along in his firm. He wants me to sit you down, talk to you, and determine your suitability for a job there. And as bad as that sounds, be glad he got me to do it instead of any of his other executives. I agreed to do it.”
Amari looked at her. “Why?” he asked her.
“Because I know those other executives. They would have been proud to turn down Trevor Reese’s son because they figured that would give them some tough-guy points with Trevor.” Carly shook her head. “They’re brilliant people, and great at their job, but when it comes to Trevor, they behave like children trying to please a parent. It’s crazy, man.”
“Yes, Father seems to have an affinity for such people,” Amari said. “He doesn’t mind cutthroats working for him. I think it has something to do with his tough childhood. A childhood he refuses to discuss with me, by the way.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Carly said. “He keeps that pretty much off the table with me too.”
Amari stood erect. “Finally he gets off of that darn plane,” he said.
Carly looked, too, and saw Trevor as he made his way down the steps of his private plane. He wore a brown Armani suit with brown shoes, and although he was not in any way a fashionista like Amari or even Carly, he wore it well, she thought. But she could tell he was drained. Going to Canada was not on his schedule today. But everything else he had to do, and it was a lot, still was.
And when he got off of the steps and began heading their way, she couldn’t help herself. A surge of emotion ran through her body and she couldn’t wait to hold him again.
So she didn’t wait. She broke away from Amari and his car and ran to Trevor. Amari, stunned, smiled and stared at her. His father, he felt, was a very lucky man. He had a woman behaving as if she was a kid in a candy store just because he showed up. But it was further evidence, Amari thought, that proved once again his father’s incredible machismo. And Amari grinned. He wanted to be just like his dad!
Unlike Amari, Trevor wasn’t outwardly smiling at all when Carly ran to him. He was still too upset to smile. But his heart was filled with love and joy as he lifted her into his arms. Nobody had ever had him pegged as the most important person in their lives before he met Carly, and he didn’t always know how to handle it. Until he learned to let it handle him: to just go with it. And he did. He went with it as he held Carly. He loved her sweet scent, her sweet body against his body, her sweetness.
When they stopped embracing, Carly was still smiling. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said.
“I’m glad to be back,” Trevor said, although his stern face wasn’t showing it. “I see knucklehead’s back too.”
“He said he just landed. But you’re okay?”
Trevor nodded. “I’m okay,” he said. “Just tired.”
Carly knew it too. She placed her hand on the side of his face. She wanted him to take it easy, go home, get some rest for a change. But she knew he wouldn’t even entertain the idea. So she kept it to herself.
She also knew, as he placed his arm around her small waist and they began walking toward Amari, that he was not going to entertain any suggestion that he go easy on Amari. Because she knew he wasn’t going to go easy. She kne
w Trevor too well.
But what she didn’t know was just how not-easy he was going to go on Amari. Because as soon as they made it up to that very Camaro Trevor had purchased for Amari, and Amari stopped leaning against it like Mister Cool and stood erect, Trevor removed his arm from around his wife, walked swiftly over to his son, and punched him so hard he knocked Amari all the way across the hood of the car.
“Trevor!” Carly cried out, but Trevor wasn’t listening.
He hurried around that car just as Amari was attempting to get back on his feet, pulled him on up by his shirt, and slammed him against the car. “Didn’t I tell you that shit was over!” he yelled, pointing a finger in Amari’s face.
“But they called me, Father. I was in no position to say no. They called me!”
“Then your ass should have called me!” Trevor yelled. “And I could have told their asses no! You could have called my brother. He would have told their asses no! I don’t have the pull to get myself out of doing that shit for them, but I sure as hell have the pull to get you out of it! You could have called me and you know it!”
Carly knew Trevor’s temper. She knew it could go sideways so fast and he could seriously hurt Amari. But, to her relief, Trevor did settle back down. He was still angry, she knew, but at least he didn’t look belligerent. He didn’t look as if he was going to break every bone in Amari’s body.
“You didn’t call me,” Trevor said to his son, “because your ass wanted to go on that assignment. You like that cloak and dagger shit. You think it’s fun and games until it catches up with your ass and you’re in it for your fucking life!”
Carly looked at Trevor. She understood exactly how he felt because every time he went on an assignment, she felt that same way too. Then she looked at Amari.
Amari looked wounded. He’d seen his father’s fury unleashed before, but not on him. And it stunned him.
Trevor, seeing the hurt in Amari’s big, hazel eyes, did release him. But he still was pissed. “Get out of here,” he said to him.
Amari, upset, began heading for his car. Had it been any other man and Amari would have done all he could to kick his ass. He would have fought valiantly, as he loved to proclaim. But Trevor wasn’t any other man. Trevor terrified him.
And when Trevor added, “and you better show up tonight,” he didn’t try to ignore him either. “Yes, sir,” he said as he got into his car. He drove away at a normal speed, but as soon as he had made his turn around and was heading out of that place, he sped.
Trevor just stood there. He hated to get in the kid’s grill that way. But he meant every word he spoke.
Carly went over to him. “Ready?” she asked him, taking his hand. She knew she had a calming influence on him.
Trevor knew it too, and he needed it at that moment. He nodded and walked with her to her automobile. He opened the driver side door and helped her get in behind the wheel. Then he got in on the passenger seat, leaned the seat back as far as it could go, and closed his eyes. He was emotionally spent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Later that night they were in the limousine, just arriving at the upscale restaurant in Boston where they were to have dinner with Carly’s parents, when news broke about Margo Robinet. They found out what she had said, oddly enough, from the press waiting for them at the restaurant’s entrance. They had both committed to turning off their cell phones before they left the house.
Trevor wasn’t surprised to see the press. He assumed somebody in his office had leaked the fact that his firm was representing her now and they wanted to get his comments about having a woman like Margo, a woman they knew was once his lover, as his client. His whereabouts tonight were undoubtedly leaked, too, for paparazzi cash.
But what Trevor had not anticipated at all was when one of those reporters blurted out something so crazy that it stopped him in his tracks.
They had just gotten out of the limo. Trevor first, and then he assisted Carly out. He placed his hand protectively around her waist as they fought through the gaggle of reporters waiting to pounce. He expected to make a little comment and keep it moving. But the very first question was too outrageous for that to ever happen.
“Why did you mastermind the shooting, sir?” the reporter asked.
Trevor and Carly both were stunned, and Trevor, stupefied by such a question, stopped cold, forcing Carly to stop too. He frowned. “What?” he asked the reporter with a voice dripping with shock.
“You haven’t heard?” another reporter asked as they pressed and jockeyed for position. “Margo Robinet just held a press conference, sir, where she said you were the mastermind behind the Shaughnessy shooting.”
Trevor couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Carly couldn’t either.
“She said she agreed to pay you forty thousand dollars if you helped her,” the reporter continued. “She said you told her that she would have to pull the trigger, but you’d handle the rest. She said she dropped the money off at your office on yesterday. All cash. All one-hundred dollar bills. What do you have to say for yourself, sir?”
Trevor was seething inside. What kind of bullshit was Margo pulling? He pressed his hand into Carly’s lower back and pushed her forward. “No comment,” he said as they made their way into the restaurant, although the questions from reporters kept coming fast and furious.
Inside the restaurant, while Trevor and Carly had been besieged by the paparazzi, Big Daddy Sinatra and his wife Jenay were seated in a booth waiting for Trevor and Carly’s arrival. They’d already received a call from their son Brent, and another call from their son Tony, and yet another call from their son Bobby Sinatra, who also happened to be their town’s mayor. He remembered they were having dinner with Trevor and Carly and wanted to give them the heads up. “She sounded convincing, Pop,” Bobby had said. “She’s all over MSNBC, CNN, and our local news too.
“But it’s a load of crap, right?” Big Daddy asked his son, shocked by the revelations.
“Not according to her,” Bobby responded. “And the press here in Jericho is hounding me to comment since it involves an A-list celebrity and my sister’s husband, but I’d be shocked if Trevor pulled a stunt like that. Why would he?”
Big Daddy and Jenay would by shocked, too, but they wanted to hear it directly from Trevor. “I’ll call you after we speak with him,” Big Daddy said. “And don’t say shit to the press.”
Bobby agreed, and they ended the call. And then Trevor and Carly entered the upscale restaurant.
Some of the patrons who’d heard the news were giving them a second look, but most of the people weren’t. Carly took some solace in that. Trevor took no solace in anything at that very moment.
But when Carly saw her parents, she couldn’t help it. She smiled, broke away from Trevor, and hurried to them.
“Mom! Dad!” she said happily as she hugged and kissed Jenay, and then went over to the other side of the booth and hugged and kissed Big Daddy. She sat next to Big Daddy by the time Trevor made it to the booth.
Trevor shook Big Daddy’s hand. Then he hugged Jenay and sat next to her. “Good evening,” he said to both of them.
“Good evening,” Big Daddy said. “Where’s Amari?”
“I told him to be here,” Trevor said.
“He’s not coming,” Carly said. “Not after what happened earlier.”
“What happened earlier?” Jenay asked.
Carly looked at Trevor. Trevor had no qualms whatsoever telling it like it was. “I kicked his ass for taking an assignment,” he said.
Due to unusual previous circumstances, both Big Daddy and Jenay knew that Trevor was involved in covert government activities, and that he had to rescue his son from Africa because of his involvement too. But that was the extent of what they knew.
“And a man like Amari,” Carly said, “isn’t going to get his butt kicked and then show up all smiles with the man who kicked said butt.”
Big Daddy laughed. “I think that’s right,” he said.
; “But if he took another assignment when Trevor is trying to give him a fresh start, he deserved to get his butt kicked,” said Jenay.
“He may have deserved it,” Carly said, “but I know Amari. He pretends to be Mister Easygoing, but he takes things to heart. He’ll need some time to get over it.”
Big Daddy exhaled, and looked at Trevor. “Quite a night for you, I hear,” he said.
Trevor nodded. “You can say that.”
“My boy Brent said, from what he’s heard, the authorities aren’t taking her pronouncements seriously. At least not yet. Have they contacted you?”
“Not at all,” Trevor said. “But the night is young,” he added with a joyless smile. “But I doubt if they bother. They know me in this town. They know I don’t have time for that.”
“Those were some out there allegations,” Big Daddy said.
“Allegations that don’t have shit to do with me,” Trevor responded. “Why the fuck would I care--”
“Trevor,” Carly said in her voice of warning. She let him get away with his shit reference, but the f word was taking it too far. Her mother was at that table.
Trevor, realizing his language too, apologized. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sinatra,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
“Oh, please,” said Jenay. “I’ve heard worse out of my own mouth. Give me a break.”
And they all laughed.
But Big Daddy was still concerned about those allegations. He knew his wife was no shrinking violet and he did not treat her with kid gloves. She could handle it. “What I don’t understand is why on earth is that woman accusing you of something that whacky?” Big Daddy asked.
“Because she’s whacked,” Carly said. “And I don’t mean figuratively either. She’s crazy.”
“Carly’s right,” Trevor said as he checked his ringing phone’s Caller ID. “She’s nuts. She always has been. But I’m not blaming it on that. I’m blaming it on her.” After checking the Caller ID and seeing that it was one of his friends, he didn’t answer the call. “She knows that shit’s not true.”
Trevor Reese: His Protective Love Page 12