by Kim Karr
His face goes white, and he pulls out his phone.
Ethan narrows his eyes at him. “What the hell is going on?”
Raising a finger in the air, Ash turns around to whisper into his phone.
“We need to get you to the hospital and get that cut stitched up,” Ethan says, lifting and patting the cloth that I was holding to my face.
I suck in a breath, knowing that crying will only make the cut on my cheek burn more. “How did Ash find out what happened?” I ask Ethan.
Ethan daps at my face lightly. “I called Nick on my way here.”
I wince from the pain spreading across the side of my face. “And he answered when you called?”
Ethan shakes his head. “I had to call Hayden and make him put the fucker on the phone.”
I take the cloth from Ethan and press it against my face. “Did he say why he hasn’t answered any of my calls?”
He nods. “He said he saw Ansel at your place Saturday night, down on one knee proposing to you.”
My eyelids flutter as I try to figure out how I hadn’t seen him.
“And the dumb fuck naturally thought you would say yes.”
“Why would he think that?”
“Because he’s a dumb fuck.”
I almost laugh, but the pain that spreads across my lips stops me instantly. “Did you tell him I sent Ansel away?”
“Yeah, I did, and a few more things too.”
“Did he believe you?”
Ethan motions toward Ash. I turn my head slowly and see he’s holding his hand over the speaker of his phone. “Nick wants to talk to you. Are you up to it?”
I hold out my hand, and Ash brings me his phone. I walk toward the corner of the café and slowly sit on one of the only upright paint cans. Then I suck in a breath and say, “Hey.”
“Tess,” he breathes.
I take a long moment to compose myself.
“Tess, are you there?”
“I’m here,” I whisper.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m at the airport now. I’ll be in Chicago as soon as I can. I need to see you.”
The agony in his voice can be heard so clearly that it makes me cry.
“Tess, listen to me, I shouldn’t have left without talking to you. I just couldn’t bear to lose you, and I thought I had. I really thought I had. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please tell me you forgive me.”
My heart seizes in my chest and my tears burn as they stream down my face. I remember our conversation weeks ago, and I remember promising him that I would stand by him, no matter what. “Nick,” I breathe.
“Tess, I love you.”
I don’t even hesitate. “I love you, too.”
His voice is so hoarse I can barely hear him. “Listen to me, baby, I want you to stay with Ash until I get there. You’re not to go anywhere without him. Do you understand me, Tess?”
I swipe at my tears and wince at the pain. “Yes, but Nick, what is going on?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’re going to figure everything out, I promise, but for now, I need to know that you’re safe. Ash will take you to the hospital, and then back to my place. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” I answer, and then I feel everything inside me erupt into belly-deep sobs.
“Baby, please don’t cry.”
“Tell him you’ll call him later,” Ethan demands.
Before I can say anything though, Ash takes the phone from me, and I can hear him speaking to Nick, and then I feel Ethan’s arms going around me and before I know it, he’s carrying me across the café and out the door, into Ash’s car.
Ash is behind the wheel, and he hangs up the phone. “I’ll call you and Fi as soon as we’re at Nick’s apartment.”
Ethan looks over at him. “I’d really rather you bring her to my house. Fiona is going to hit the roof.”
Ash seems torn. “Look man, I don’t think Tess is in any more danger, but I can’t be sure.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ethan says, and then gently kisses my head. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
I look up at him. “I’ll call you and Fiona when I get settled.”
Ethan closes my door, and I watch Ash as he waits for Ethan to get in his car before he drives away.
“What’s going on?” I ask him.
Ash shakes his head.
“Please tell me. I think I have a right to know.”
He sighs, and then looks over at me. “After Nick underbid Bigelow on the property he rented you, Bigelow started pulling the rug out from under us. And things have only escalated from there. The deal down in Miami is bad. It looks like the sale of the property is going to be frozen until the legality of the funds used can be determined.”
“But Nick said he gave me a fair price for renting the property,” I insist.
“Fair is subjective. Bigelow didn’t see it that way, and so he took whatever deals he could from Nick. But Nick and Hayden didn’t like the rug being pulled out from under them, and they slung it right back at him, tricking Bigelow into a property in Englewood.”
Things are making more sense. “The one on Elizabeth Street?”
“Yes, the address that was written on your sign.”
“But why did he attack me this morning?”
Ash looks over at me again. “To make it personal. Because he could. Who the fuck knows.”
“Why didn’t you want me to tell the police?”
“Because we can’t be sure they’re not on his payroll. It’s better if Bigelow thinks you don’t know what is going on.”
“Better for me, you mean?”
He nods.
At that I turn and stare out the window, and only then to allow my eyes to close.
I’ve been a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been this scared.
Nick
REGRET.
The word means different things to different people. It even means different things to the same person depending on the circumstances.
I regret not walking down the hallway of her apartment building Saturday night and fighting for what was mine. I regret making it look like I was blowing her off because I couldn’t handle the rejection. But I don’t regret for one single second allowing her in my life, forming an attachment, opening my heart enough to let her in.
I press the button for my floor, and then look over to Hayden, who is on the phone with his girlfriend.
“Alliecat, listen, I’m going to be fine. Just stay at your mother’s until I come get you.”
I run a hand down my face. Things have gotten way out of control.
Hayden scuffs the toe of his boot against the carpet in the elevator while she talks, then he softly says, “I love you too. Give munchkin a kiss for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
After he hangs up, I look over at him. “She okay?”
He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back, looking just as exhausted as me. “She’s fine. Just shaken up.”
“When are you going to marry that girl?” I ask.
He lifts his gaze. “I don’t know. Things are good the way they are, I don’t want to rock the boat, you know?”
I nod, and we both fall silent.
It’s been a rough couple of days.
The doors open and as soon as we step out, Ash storms toward us. “What the fuck is going on?”
Wanting to speak softly because Ash informed me when I landed that Tess was in my room asleep, I motion Ash and Hayden toward the kitchen.
Hayden speaks first. “We have a serious problem.”
“No shit, Sherlock. What the hell happened to Tess?” Ash asks, thrusting the sign he already told me about at me. “Why is the property you had me scout out written on this?”
I take it and then stagger back to sit in one of the kitchen chairs. I bury my face in my hands and crumple the sign in my fist before I let it fall to the ground. After a moment, I look up. “Shut down all the deals you have going on. We’re pulling our bid on Mia
mi, backing down on all deals, and laying low.”
Hayden’s face is a mixture of shock and rage. “You’re going to let him win?”
I blow out of breath. “Yeah, I am. Bigelow has people on his payroll all over the goddamned place. Even the FBI for Christ sake. If we continue to fight him, he’s going to do something that ice and a few stitches can’t cure, and I’m not willing to let that happen.”
Hayden steps forward and snatches up the sign from the floor, stares at it, and sits down next me. “Hey, I’m on the same page. I am. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone around us, but Nick, if you let the Miami deal go, the Feds are going to hold your deposit indefinitely, and then if you squash all the deals we have in play right now, there will be no cash flow. This could ruin you.”
I lean down and put my elbows on my knees. “And if I don’t pull my bid, Bigelow is going to ruin all of us. One way or another, he’s going to keep coming after us. Miami was just the first step. I mean how the hell did he manage to include my old man, the realtor’s office, and the company in his set up?”
Hayden scratches his head. “I can’t figure it out.”
“And I doubt we ever will. Sure, if we fight him, we’ll get out of the charges, eventually, but the company name will be smeared through the mud in the process. Men like Bigelow don’t stop there. Tess is proof of that. He’s going after me, then he’ll go after you,” I point to Hayden, “and then you,” I point to Ash. “One by one until no one in the company is left standing.” I look over to Hayden. “So yeah, we are standing the fuck down, no matter how much it kills me.”
Ash brings me an icepack and motions with his chin toward my room. “She needs a new one.”
I take it and stand, glancing at Hayden, who nods at me. “We’ll get through this,” I tell him. “I built the company from nothing once before, and if I have to, I’ll do it again.”
“Yeah, I know you will,” he concedes.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I say, “I’m going to take Bigelow down, just not right now. I’m going to let him think he won, and then I’ll find a way to ruin him. Legitimately. It can’t be hard, there’s a lot of real dirt on him out there. But mark my words, the day I find a way, is the day he turns up half-dead in a hospital bed for what he did to Tess.”
Hayden looks up. “You’re not going alone, man. I’ll be right beside you.”
Ash clamps a hand on both of our shoulders. “And I’ll be right beside you both.”
Eyes locked, the three of us share a look that says, ‘The devil will get his due.’
And that is one promise I will never regret.
Nick
I WAS AN asshole.
Fuck, I am an asshole.
That’s the only thing I can think about as I stand above her.
No amount of discussions and descriptions can prepare a man to see the woman he loves banged up and bruised. Ash had told me one side of her face was swollen, and the gash on her cheek had to have five stitches to be closed back up, but motherfucker, the rage that boils inside me as I stare down at her is enough to drive me to act immediately. To kill Bigelow and put this whole issue to rest right now.
Except where would that leave me, but in a ten by ten cell for the rest of my life. And then he’d still fucking win.
Even though it kills me to know she’s laying here like this because of me, what I did to him, I will wait and strike when the time is right.
In the meantime, I have a lot of making up to do to this woman, and if I have to spend my whole life doing it, I’ll gladly do so.
I want her with me, always. The thought should scare the shit out of me, but instead it tells me what I have to do. What I think I always wanted to do from the moment I first set eyes on her more than three years ago. I’m going to marry her.
Feeling whole maybe for the first time in my life, I reach a hand out to stroke her face, staying clear of the dark purple bruising that looks so vivid against her pale skin.
Sitting beside her, I smooth her hair back and then lean down to brush my lips across hers. “I love you,” I murmur.
One side of her mouth tips up, and then her beautiful eyes flutter open. “You’re here,” she whispers.
Kicking my shoes off, I lie down beside her, and again brush my lips lightly against hers. “I’m here, just like I said I would be. And I promise you that I won’t leave you again, ever, no matter what.”
A small sigh escapes her swollen lips. “You’re very confident that I’m going to let you back in life.”
Her voice is small and quiet, and although she’s trying to make light of my ill actions, her words cut me deep in my soul.
Reaching my hand out, I smooth it down the t-shirt of mine she’s wearing to find her small hand. I take it and lace our fingers together. “Please, Tess, tell me you forgive me.”
Tess is in the middle of the bed, and she reaches across the space to put her hand on my shoulder and urge me closer.
I go, my head moving to her pillow, only inches away from hers.
Tears well in her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she says softly. “I had no idea Ansel was coming to Chicago. I would have never let him come to see me had I known. Do you believe me?”
Gently, I take her face in my hands, careful not to exude any pressure to the left side, and wipe her tears away. “Oh, baby,” I say in an aching voice. “Don’t cry. And don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for. This was my fault. My ghosts. And it’s time I grow up and face them.”
She takes my hands and brings them to her mouth, kissing them, and then urges me closer still. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to leave you for someone else.”
“I know.”
“Good. Now kiss me,” she says, “and then tell me again that you love me, this time so I can see your face when you do.”
That’s one order I’m more than happy to follow.
Nick
LATER THAT NIGHT when everyone has gone, I sit beside her while she sleeps and look out at the Chicago skyline.
The lights twinkle and gleam.
Life has a way of presenting itself, and when it does, it’s best to grab it by the horns and just ride along rather than trying to fight it every step of the way.
And that’s what I decided to do.
This woman was handmade for me. When I’m with her, there are no constraints like attachment or commitment, because those seemed to have evolved naturally.
She has become my world.
Everything I never knew I wanted, but everything I need, and I’m not going to fight it.
Tess had spent the day in bed, but by five, she was ready to move around. Fiona came over and brought her some clothes and dinner. After we ate, Ash hung around so I could run out and do something I couldn’t wait to do any longer. By the time I’d gotten back, Tess had fallen asleep on the couch and Fiona had left. I thanked Ash, and he too went home.
It’s close to eight now, and Tess is just waking up. I’ve been watching her sleep, and thinking about life, and what I want from it. The answer is so clear—it is her.
When her eyes flutter open, I stand up and offer her my hand. “Join me outside by the fire,” I say.
She grins and gives me her hand. “Why Nick Carrington, are you trying to seduce me?”
Gently, I help her to her feet, careful to make sure the bruise on her stomach doesn’t cause her too much pain. “Baby, I’ve told you over and over, I don’t need game, my charm wins the ladies over every time.”
She wraps her arms around me and tugs me close to her. “Your charm might have worked in the past, but this lady expects both romance and charm.”
I look into her eyes. “Come with me, I have something for you.”
She pushes back slightly and starts patting me down. “Please don’t ruin the moment with another box of lubricant,” she laughs.
I shake my head. “Am I ever going to be able to live that
down?”
“Never,” she grins.
Outside, we sit by the fire and talk. She tells me about Ansel, and her attack, and her deep sorrow that the café has been vandalized. I listen and reassure her that we will make her dream come true, but for now, I tell her, “I think we should leave that property alone.” Then I tell her what has happened with Carrington Development, and how Bigelow is gunning for us.
“This all started because I didn’t rent from him,” she sighs.
I shake my head. “This all started because I went to war with him, not because of you.”
She stares at me. “What’s going to happen?”
I look around. “I’m not sure. I’m going to have to sell this place to keep the company on its feet.”
“What? Why?”
“With so much of the company money tied up in Miami, if I don’t, it won’t be long before we won’t be able to meet our monthly obligational needs.”
“But you love this place.”
I hadn’t planned a way to do this because I knew I would never follow it. But now seems like the perfect time, so I drop to one knee in front of her. “And I’ll love my new place even more, especially if you agree to make it ours.”
Her eyes widen in surprise.
And then I reach into my pocket and pull the small velvet box from it. “I love you, baby, and I wanted to do this in the perfect moment, but I can’t wait.” I flip the box open to show her the perfect round diamond that sparkles just like her. “Marry me. I know we haven’t been together long, but I’ve wanted this from the moment we met. I just didn’t know it, but you showed me the way. So Tess, say yes, and make me the happiest man in the world. Tell me you’ll be mine.”
She is shaking and her hands are trembling, and at first I’m not sure what she’s thinking as the tears stream down her cheeks. But then she offers me her left hand and says, “Yes. Nick, yes! I’ll marry you. I love you so much.”
Once I slide the ring on her finger, I smile and push myself up so I can gather her in my arms, and then I kiss her as gently as I can.
This woman has become a part of me I never knew was missing and I don’t plan to ever be without her.