She found an empty box in the stationary room. She carried it to her desk. She switched on her computer and let it whir into action while she concentrated on piling five years of her life into the cardboard box. A picture of her parents, her father grinning wryly because he hated standing still for pictures. The big picture of Jane's children, Allie pushing David too high on the swing while David screamed with laughter. Jane watching, smiling as if amusement warred with a mother's worry that her child might fall. The smaller picture of Allie and David playing with a puppy on the beach in Mexico. Carrie had taken that one herself last winter. She put it face down in the box, then added the executive pen set that had been a gift from her parents when she finished her MBA degree.
Her diploma. She turned and lifted it down from the wall, added it to the box.
The telephone rang. Carrie jerked open the top drawer of her desk. She scooped lipstick and nail file into her purse, then moved to the locked centre drawer and added her passport, which she kept handy at work. Charles was likely to ask her to fly almost anywhere at a moment's notice.
Two drawers empty.
She opened the third. Third ring of the telephone. She swept a spare pair of pantyhose and her business calculator into the box. Two books from the bottom drawer her dictionary and accounting standards manual
Books. She stared at the bookcase beside her desk. The telephone rang for the fourth time and Carrie realized that she was flinching with each ring. It might be someone calling from Germany, where it was daytime. Or it could be Charles
The bookcase. She was not sure exactly which of the books Charles had paid for, which she had brought when she came to him. She bit her lip as the answering machine came on in the outer office. Dianne's pleasant, recorded voice filled the rooms, announcing that the office was closed. Carrie turned her back on the books and grimly cleared the last of the personal items from her desk. She felt her jaw go rigid as Charles low voice filled her world, amplified by the answering machine
"Carrie? Are you there?" His voice sounded calm. Quiet. Completely in control
She had spent five years learning to handle Charles. She knew him intimately in one sense, knew the times when it was possible to oppose him and come out with a compromise. He controlled everything, including Carrie Brooke's life. Despite that, she had never allowed his will to dominate hers, had never let him read her as he seemed able to read everyone else.
If she had to face him now, she would not have a chance. Carrie's hand jerked away from the telephone on her desk. Her fingers clenched painfully because she had never before ignored Charles' wishes.
Charles was no longer any part of her life.
She went into the coffee room and picked up her coffee cup. The mug was a Christmas gift from the office staff, showing a caricature woman with computer terminal and desk piled high with papers. In the background, a tall blond man hovered, glowering
Charles, except that he never glowered. It was not his style
Where was her little tape recorder? Where could it be? Her life had not fallen apart! Last night had … changed things. Time for a change, surely, after five years beside a powerful man who would never be hers. She pushed a harried hand through her short, dark hair. She had to be calm, rational, even if especially because her life had just fallen into little pieces
She remembered then. Charles had her recorder.
Last Tuesday, here in her office. His deep voice had brought her eyes up from the papers on her desk.
"Carrie?" He had been lounging in the doorway, lean and tall and blonde, saying ruefully, "My pocket recorder's packed it in. Can I borrow yours?"
She had reached for her recorder even as she teased, "Why not spend the flight looking at the scenery? Dianne would bless you if you came back without the usual dozen tapes for transcription."
A sparkle of amusement lit his blue eyes. "What scenery? It's a polar flight, Carrie, ice and snow-capped mountains." He walked towards her desk, holding out his hand. Deep inside, she felt that familiar tug of excitement as he said softly, "Come on, Carrie. Give."
She placed the recorder in his hand, watched his lean fingers close over it with an inward shiver, as if his grip were closing on her. She suppressed the sensation immediately, saying lightly, "Think if me when you use it. If you remember you've got something of mine with you, you might be a little more careful before you sign that joint venture deal."
He grinned, undisturbed by her caution. "Don't worry, Carrie. I'll fax the details before I sign. You'll get a chance to give it the once over."
"Have a good trip." She kept her voice casual, although she knew how empty life was whenever he left. "You'll be back Saturday?"
"I'd better be. I'm best man at Alex's wedding. You'll be there?"
"I got an invitation last week. Alexander Candon and Sarah Stellers." She frowned. "I've always found Sarah rather intimidating."
"You? Why should you?" He laughed slightly. "Sarah's had that touch-me-not aura ever since she was an embryonic executive trailing after her father. I can't imagine how, but Alex seems to have melted the ice. I'll see you there. If you're going to the reception, we'll catch five minutes alone to review Berlin."
"Right," she agreed. In her mind, the wedding instantly lost all romantic connotations. On the surface, a social event, but for Carrie another business meeting with Charles.
The wedding.
Carrie had sat quietly in the church, watching. Sarah, the intimidating blonde beauty, had been transformed. Love and dreams filled her eyes as she stood beside Alexander Candon in a long white wedding dress. And Alex he was a man who could start rumours with a single stock transaction, but yesterday he had worn only love in his eyes, plain for the world to see. Carrie's own heart had tightened, watching him reach for Sarah's hand, watching Sarah's fingers clasping his. Their eyes locking.
Charles had caught Carrie's eye then, shrugging as if he and Carrie were the only sane people in the whole world. Carrie shuddered now. Charles might have been sane, untouched by the love between Sarah and Alex but Carrie had been losing the battle with the madness that would destroy everything
And then…
Carrie stood frozen with her hand on her desk, waiting for the answering machine to reset itself, waiting for Charles to hang up. When he did, she sat down at her computer terminal and keyed in the command to bring up her files. She quickly erased the letter she'd written to Jane last week during lunch hour. Her sister had everything a woman could want in life, Carrie thought with an uncomfortable wave of envy. Jane had Kirk's love, and their children. she had a warm house with grass and flowers outside, a cat purring at her feet. Carrie blinked away a surge of moisture and opened a memo file on the computer.
She typed Charles name on the header.
Three sentences, a very short memo. The words came easily, as if already written in her mind. Five years, consigned to the past with three sentences on a computer screen. Only yesterday he had asked her to put off her holidays until the amendments to the Berlin joint venture deal were negotiated. Only yesterday, she had agreed
He would be angry. She felt nervousness crawl along her spine, tension. She knew his anger well enough. Charles would not shout or snarl. His eyes would narrow and he would bend down to pick up that gold automatic pencil. He would turn it round and round between fingers and thumb, but he would keep cold control. Winning was Charles' priority, not giving vent to emotions. Once, he had told her that he had seen a man lose a fortune while shouting and screaming. Later, she realized that he had been talking about his own father
When the memo was printed, Carrie signed it with a shaky hand and folded it into an envelope. She wrote Charles name on the envelope, then opened his office door with her key. She felt uneasy inside the empty room, as if he were there, his eyes demanding answers
Carrie stared through the big window that went from floor to ceiling in his office. Tonight, Vancouver's skyline was all lights and reflections on water. A quiet, beautiful stillness, the
stars overhead dimmed by city lights. Abruptly, Carrie turned away from the window
She put the envelope on Charles' desk.
She walked back to her own office, hurrying now as she turned off the computer and the lights, then picked up the box filled with her personal possessions. The telephone began to ring again. Ironic, she thought, looking down at the assortment in the box. Except for the pictures of her family, and the makeup and pantyhose, her personal things amounted to a sterile collection. Calculator. Diploma. Textbooks
It was spooky here at night, especially with Charles on the other end of the telephone, wondering if she was here after all. She got to the reception area before the fourth ring came, then through the door before Dianne's voice came on with its greeting. She walked to the elevator with the box in her arms. Was he calling from her apartment? Would he come to the office, looking for her?
Yes. He would come
Downstairs, Carrie managed a smile for the valet after he put the box into the trunk for her. "Good night," she said, although it should have been good-bye. She was never coming back to this building, this life
Charles' building. Charles' life
She would go to Mexico. Jane and Kirk would be there by now. Yes, Mexico. Los Santos was in every way the antithesis of her existence with Charles. There, she would drift free of his grip on her life. She would sit on the beach with the children, soaking up the tropical sun and steeping herself in old, happy memories.
She did not have to go back to her apartment at all. She had credit cards, her bank card, and the car. In an hour, she could be across the American border.
Charles dropped the receiver back into its cradle, staring at it grimly. It was an ornate telephone, all brass and glass. It was not the kind of communications equipment he would have expected to find in Carrie Brooke's apartment. It was… whimsical
The apartment itself was not quite what he would have expected, a fact that bothered him, because he knew Carrie very well. For five years she had been at his side, in the next room, never more than a telephone call away. She was efficient, well-organized, a woman who seldom wasted motions or words. And smart. She was damned smart. When she evaluated a project, he knew exactly how far he could let himself be pushed, how much he could offer for the property without endangering profits.
In the beginning, it had taken Charles six months to persuade her to work for him, but only one day to confirm that she was worth every penny he'd had to pay to get her. Carrie Brooke was one of Kantos Holding's most valuable assets. That made Carrie his valuable asset. Which made his behavior last night overwhelmingly stupid!
He glared down at his trousers. They were the same formal trousers he had worn to Alex's wedding reception. Just a few minutes ago he had found them on the floor of Carrie's bedroom. In the living room, he had picked up his shirt from the back of her sofa. Memories had flared with it, too. And anger, at himself.
Last night had been incredibly rotten strategy
Taking Carrie Brooke to bed.
Her sofa was upholstered with pale rose flowers. Rose, like that silky thing she had worn to the wedding. He had understood immediately the significance of the rose-coloured outfit when he saw her yesterday. How many times had he watched the quiet restraint of Carrie's business wardrobe shift to reds and pinks and soft blues? He knew what it meant
There was a man in her life again
A muscle in Charles jaw jerked as he prowled her empty rooms
The apartment was not cool, nothing like her office. These rooms were all warm colours, impulsive touches like that picture on her bedroom wall, and those crazy dinosaurs that stood on her mantle as book ends. He paced through her living room, into her kitchen. There he found a gaily-patterned set of potholders hanging over the stove, a large assortment of cookbooks in a shelf near the microwave. He tried to think of the Carrie he knew, to bring up her image clothed in a dark skirt and jacket, with a plain blouse and perhaps pearls around her neck.
Another image came, that of Carrie as he had never seen her. Hot, seductively rumpled from cooking an aromatic meal… turning to look as he came into the kitchen, her body twisting, pulling the fabric tight across the swelling of her breasts… her lips curving in the warm, breathless smile he had seen last night… Carrie in his arms, then heat and softness, warmth all around him, taking him in while the storm built inside and nothing in the world existed except the need to drive her with him, beyond all
Damn! This had to stop!
He paced back to the living room, his movements stiff with restraint over boiling memories. Carrie, her breath ragged, her body swelling and warming to his touch. Heat and need and breathless, overwhelming passion
He had to stop this! No more fantasies. No memories.
Erase it.
Her bedroom… what was he doing back in her bedroom? He should never have come into her apartment at all, should have walked out of that bloody wedding reception when he felt the madness begin
He picked up the telephone beside her bed and jammed it between his shoulder and chin. As he dialled, his gaze tangled in the tumbled bedclothes and his fingers tensed on the pen he had picked up from her bedside table. Three rings. Four. No answer. Would she let it ring if she were in the office? It was disconcerting, but after last night, he had no idea what she could be thinking
If she was not at the office, where could she have gone?
He dropped the telephone handset back into its cradle. He pushed a button on her clock radio and a voice began to sing sadly about a train that kept on rolling. Charles would have expected Carrie to tune her radio to a quieter station, one more restrained. Something classical, perhaps
Last night, there had been no restraint, no coolness in her
Somehow, he would have to erase last night. Wipe it out.
To purchase
AFTER ALL THIS TIME
and for more books by Vanessa Grant
visit your favorite online bookstore,
or www.vanessagrant.com
Copyright
Island Hearts
Copyright 2013, Vanessa Grant, Muse Creations Inc
www.musecreations.com
Jenny’s Turn
Copyright 1987, Vanessa Grant
Copyright 2013, Vanessa Grant, Muse Creations Inc
Stray Lady
Copyright 1987, Vanessa Grant
Copyright 2013, Vanessa Grant, Muse Creations Inc
Book Production by Cherine Oltmann
Cover design Copyright 2013, Angela Oltmann, www.angieocreations.com
Internal flourishes licensed from BigStockPhoto.com
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents in this book are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner.
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Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) Page 36
