“Name your price,” Carrie told her, and she offered up a sum that seemed awfully low for all of that, especially in the heart of a major city. “Are you sure you don’t want more? I don’t expect any sort of special treatment. I want to pay what’s fair.”
“Nick and I talked about it. We’re not looking to make a profit, just cover expenses.”
“You’re positive?”
She nodded. “That’s the way things are done in the Caroselli family. They’re a very generous bunch. They suck people into the fold.”
“Is a personal check okay?”
“If it bounces, I’ll know where to find you,” Terri joked.
Carrie wrote the check out for three months’ worth of rent, tore it from the book and handed it to Terri, feeling guilty to be paying such a low sum.
“Are you sure you want to pay all three months up front?”
“It’s just easier for me that way. One less thing I have to worry about remembering.” She slid her checkbook back into her bag. “So when you said that the Carosellis suck people in, what exactly did you mean by that?”
She must have looked apprehensive because Terri chuckled and said, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing creepy or weird. Take me, for example. When I moved to Chicago, I was nine. I had just lost my parents and I was living with an aunt who wasn’t exactly thrilled to play Mommy to some bratty kid she had never met before. I guess you could say that I was a lost soul. Then I became friends with Nick, and I met his family, and it was like they adopted me. Nick likes to joke that if his mom had to choose between the two of us, she would pick me.”
“That’s really nice,” Carrie said. “Everyone should have family.”
“Do you have a big family?”
“I have a few cousins, and a couple of aunts and uncles spread out across the southwest, but I haven’t seen them in years. Mostly it’s just me and my mom.”
“You’re close?” she asked, and when Carrie didn’t answer right away, Terri said, “I’m sorry, it’s really none of my business. The Carosellis are also very nosy, and I guess it rubbed off on me.”
“It’s okay. It’s just that my relationship with my mom is a little…complicated. We don’t really see each other very often. I work a lot and she spends most of her time in a bottle.”
Terri nodded. “Ah, I see.”
“There’s a lot of resentment from my end, and apathy from hers. I have the typical characteristics of a child with an alcoholic parent.” She paused and said, “Was that too much information?”
“No, not at all. I didn’t even know there were typical characteristics. Which ones do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m super-responsible and I take myself way too seriously. Your basic overachiever. When I’m trying to have fun, I feel as if I should be doing something more constructive. But due to a lack of self-esteem, I feel that nothing I do is good enough. I also have trust issues, so I have trouble forming intimate relationships. And telling you all of this is probably just some unconscious way of mine to push you away before I’m able to form any sort of friendship or bond.”
“Wow, that’s intense,” Terri said.
“Yeah, those psych courses I took in college were a real eye-opener. Up until then, under the circumstances, I figured I was fairly well-adjusted. Psychology was actually my major for a while, until it dawned on me that no one as screwed up as I was had any right to be counseling anyone else. That’s an enormous responsibility and there was no way I could trust myself to be completely impartial. So I switched my major to marketing. I’m still using what I learned about psychology, without the possibility of screwing with someone’s head.” She paused and said, “Well, not in a bad way at least. I just encourage them to buy stuff.”
“It seems as though you aren’t so screwed up that you didn’t realize you’re screwed up.” Terri frowned. “Does that make sense?”
“It does, actually.”
“Hey, do you have plans for tomorrow night?”
Her first thought was of Rob, which was wrong in so many ways. “Nope. I don’t really know anyone in the city.”
“Nick and I are having some friends over and I’d really like you to come.”
“Really? After everything I just told you?”
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll fit right in.”
Carrie wasn’t quite sure how to take that, then decided it was probably meant as a compliment. “In that case, I’d love to.”
“It’s at seven,” she said, writing down the address. “Do you have a way to get there?”
“I can take a cab.”
“Or I could ask Rob to swing by and pick you up. It’s on his way.”
“Oh, I think it would be better if I took a cab.”
“If you’re worried about getting home safe, Rob isn’t much of a drinker. Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever seeing him drunk.”
“The night I met him he drank a lot,” Carrie said, not even realizing what she was saying until the words left her mouth. Everyone was supposed to think their first meeting was in the conference room.
“Yeah, I heard,” Terri said.
She blinked. “You did?”
“Word of advice, if you don’t want me to know something, don’t tell Nick. We’re one of those couples who actually tell each other everything.”
“Good to know.” Carrie recalled the way she had announced to the entire table at the diner about her and Rob’s affair, and what happened in Rob’s office, meaning Terri probably knew about that, too.
Way to go, genius. What had Alice said about her impulsive tendencies? She really needed to think things through before she opened her mouth. She wondered how many others in the Caroselli family knew.
“Did he happen to tell anyone else?” she asked Terri.
“I doubt it. And I don’t think Tony would tell anyone either.”
She hoped not. She didn’t want people to get the impression she slept around, because nothing could be further from the truth.
“For the record, that’s not typical behavior for me,” she told Terri.
“And for what’s it worth, it’s not typical behavior for him either,” Terri said. “You must have made quite an impression on him. Personally, I think you two make an adorable couple.”
“Oh, but we aren’t. A couple, I mean. I make it a rule not to date people I work with. If I’d had even the slightest clue as to who he was when I met him in that bar—”
“Carrie, I understand. Believe me. Maybe it was just…fate.”
If it was, fate had played a very cruel trick on both of them. “We couldn’t be more wrong for each other. In more ways than I can even count.”
“Six months ago, if you had told me I would be married to Nick and trying to have a baby, I would have thought you were nuts. Yet here we are.”
“So what happened? What changed?”
“That is a very long story, and I promise to tell you about it when you come to the party tomorrow.”
“I hardly know you and you’re already blackmailing me?”
Terri smiled wryly. “It’s the Caroselli way.”
“I’ll definitely be there, but I’ll find my own ride.”
“Well, I should go,” Terri said. “If there’s anything you need, or if you have a question, just give me or Nick a call.”
“It was really nice talking to you,” Carrie told her.
“I think so, too,” Terri said, looking a little embarrassed. She struck Carrie as the type who probably had more male than female friends. While Carrie had very few of either.
“And thanks for the advice,” Carrie said.
“Anytime.” Terri pulled on her coat, then fished a set of keys from her pocket and handed them to Carrie. “Those open the front and garage door.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
When she was gone, Carrie started to explore the kitchen cabinets, feeling a little like a snoop. But she was sure that Terri would have removed anything of a per
sonal nature before she rented out the condo.
She opened the refrigerator and smiled. On the shelf sat an unopened half gallon of low-fat milk, a dozen organic eggs and a loaf of organic nine-grain bread. One shelf down was a bottle of very expensive champagne.
Terri had gone above and beyond to make her feel welcome, and Carrie hoped they would have time to get to know one another better.
Carrie returned to the hotel to collect her things, then took a cab back to the condo, doing her best to memorize the street names so she could find her way around when she had a car. It had begun to snow, so rather than have the driver track it through the living room and potentially ruin the carpet, she had him leave the bags in the garage.
She opened the door to total darkness, cursing herself for not remembering to leave a light on. She felt around on the inside wall for a light switch. She found it and as she was flipping it upward, she felt a cold hand settle on top of hers.
She shrieked and yanked her hand back, the bright light temporarily blinding her. She blinked hard and when she opened her eyes again, no one was there. She peeked around the corner, but the only thing there was a door. Probably to the basement.
She took a slow, deep breath to calm her pounding heart. It was just her imagination. No one was there. She’d clearly been watching too many episodes of Ghost Hunter.
She turned to grab her bags, nearly colliding with the very large person standing there. She shrieked again, then realized that it was only Rob.
“You scared me half to death!” she said.
He wore a long black wool coat and black leather gloves…and an amused grin. Fat flakes of snow dotted his dark hair and he’d left snowy footprints on the garage floor. “A little jumpy?”
“What do you want?”
“What made you scream?”
“You did!”
“No, the first time.”
“Nothing. I was imagining things.”
“Imagining what?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It wasn’t real.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What wasn’t real?”
She blew out an exasperated breath. “If you must know, when I reached around for the light switch, I could swear somebody put their hand over mine, but when I turned on the light, no one was there.”
“It must have been the lady in the basement.”
She blinked. “The who?”
“We call her the lady in the basement. Not everyone senses her. Terri and Nick never did, but a lot of other people have. Sometimes she touches people, some people hear her walking up and down the stairs. Some hear her crying. I smell her perfume.”
She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just messing with her. “Really?”
“I can smell it from the instant I step in the garage door until I step into the kitchen. Maybe three feet. Then it’s gone. I’ve felt her brush against me, and once I felt a hand on my shoulder.”
“No way.” She leaned into the doorway and sniffed, but all she smelled was pine cleaner and bleach.
“You have to actually step inside,” Rob said. “Or it doesn’t work.”
She eyed him skeptically. Had she honestly just rented a house with a dead lady living in the basement? And wasn’t that sort of thing supposed to be disclosed before the lease was signed? Or was Rob just full of it?
Of course he was.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“I’m dead serious. Try it if you don’t believe me.”
It was walk in this door or walk around to the front door, which would make her look even more ridiculous than she probably did now. So basically she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
Promising herself that no matter what happened she would not react, she lifted her foot and stepped up over the threshold, then followed with the opposite foot, and the second it touched the floor—
A hand clamped down over her shoulder, and even though deep down she knew it was Rob, a startled screech ripped from her throat.
Heart pounding, she spun around and gave him a hard shove. “You’re an ass.”
“And you are way too gullible,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but I like you even less than I did before.”
“It was worth it to see the look on your face.”
She stomped into the house and switched on the kitchen light, expecting him to follow. And he did, hauling two of her bags inside with him.
“What are you doing?”
“Where do you want them?” he asked.
She was about to tell him she would do it herself, then thought, what the heck. He might as well get used to following directions from her. “They all go in the bedroom.”
He had clearly been there before, because he seemed to know where all the light switches and the bedrooms were located.
She shrugged out of her coat, wondering if she might find a box of tea bags somewhere.
On his second trip through to the bedroom, Rob asked, “Are you sure you packed enough stuff? These things weigh a ton.”
“You try packing three months’ worth of stuff,” she called after him as he disappeared down the hall. “That’s a long time to be away from home.”
Two of the smaller bags had nothing in them but shoes. One was filled with casual clothes, though she realized now that much of it was too light for the cold weather. She would have to do some clothes shopping, and soon. The rest was work clothes, some of which were also inappropriate for the season. Living in a warmer climate, it was difficult to imagine how cold Midwestern winters could be.
“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked on his final trip back to the garage. “And how did you even know where I was?”
He walked back in with the last two bags. “I talked to Nick.”
Of course he would know, because Terri told Nick everything. Not that it was some big secret. She just didn’t want Rob thinking it was okay to come by and hassle her whenever he felt like it.
This time she followed him into the bedroom. He set her bags down with the others by the closet, then turned to her.
“Which doesn’t explain why you’re here,” she said, folding her arms, giving him her stern look.
“To give you this.” He tugged his gloves off, pulled a flash drive out of his inside coat pocket and handed it to her.
“What is it?”
“The financial reports you asked Elana for.”
“Oh. She could have given them to me Monday.”
He shrugged. “I figured you would probably want to get an early start on this.”
Actually, no, she planned to start Monday, when her contract started. But it was interesting that Rob chose to bring it when he didn’t have to.
“Thanks,” she said, and crossed the room to set it on the nightstand. But when she turned back around, Rob was no longer standing by the closet. He was in front of the bedroom door, blocking her only exit from the room. And he was wearing that look.
All the parts of her that had been craving his touch shivered to attention. What on earth had possessed her to follow him in here? If there was a single worst place for them to be together, it was a bedroom.
Rolling her eyes in response to the visual overture, she walked over to her bags and grabbed one that was filled with shoes. She went into the closet with it, found a good place to put them, then bent at the waist to unzip the bag—and not just because she was trying to make her butt look good either. One by one she pulled the shoes out, pairing them together on the floor.
She heard him in the bedroom, just outside the closet, the hiss of his arms through the satin lining of his coat sleeves. Okay, so he was taking his coat off. That didn’t mean he would try anything. He had been the one to proclaim that it was over the other morning. What was he going to do? Break his own rules? Although it would be fun to turn the tables again and turn him down.
She could do that. Right? All she had t
o do was call Alice and she would talk her out of it.
Before she could make up her mind, she felt his hands slide around her hips, his fingers gripping as he rubbed his crotch across her behind. He was already noticeably turned on, and she wasn’t faring much better.
“Really,” she said, looking back at him. “This is so…cliché.”
“You’re one to talk.” He slid his fingers under the hem of her sweater, brushing them across her bare skin. “Besides, you didn’t seem to mind it like this the other night.”
No, she hadn’t, had she? And it was very cliché of him to remind her.
Where the hell was her phone? She needed to call Alice pronto.
As she straightened up, he slid his hands around to her belly, pulling her back against him. Oh, that was nice. But not half as nice as when his hands slid up to cup her breasts a second after.
She sighed and let her head drop back against his chest. “I distinctly recall your telling me that this was not going to happen again. And you were right.”
“Well, I changed my mind.”
“You can’t do that.”
“I just did.” He tucked her hair to one side, kissed the back of her neck, the heat from his body melting her brain.
“We’re coworkers,” she reminded him.
“Technically we’re not. Not yet. Your contract doesn’t officially begin until Monday.”
He made a valid point. And because they had already slept together, the pre-working-relationship part was already a lost cause. Right?
So what was the big deal if they did it one more time? If she held it up beside the “big picture,” it was a tiny, tiny thing. Barely a blip. And why bother Alice when this was clearly going to be the last time?
His hands were under her sweater now, his hot palms scorching a path across her skin. He nibbled the side of her neck, then sucked hard.
A guy hadn’t given her a hickey since she was fifteen, but it was unbelievably erotic to think that he was marking her, branding her as his.
She turned to face him, sliding her arms around his neck. “Okay, but just this one time, and that’s it.”
“Agreed. Unless we have to do it again tomorrow, because it’s only Saturday. Then of course there’s Sunday…”
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