by M. G. Morgan
“I love you, Carrie,” he said, whispering against my neck.
“And I love you,” I answered, there was no point in continuing the fight, it would only drive us apart and that was something I didn’t want the Banks to win at.
Drawing away from me, David paced across the floor before finally coming to a halt in front of the fireplace. I watched as his emotions warred across his face and he pushed his hand back through his hair.
“Andy is attending a charity event tomorrow night, I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d just want to be there,” he said.
The thought of seeing Andy again filled me with a mixture of dread and the overwhelming urge to wipe him from existence. My heart beat spiked as I remembered what I’d done to his father, what he’d manipulated me into doing.
The baby kicked.
It was really just a tiny flutter against my stomach but I felt it. My hands automatically going to my bump.
“What’s wrong? Carrie, is it the baby?” David sounded panicked and I shook my head.
“She kicked…” I said, lifting my face to his as he crossed the room to where I stood.
“Is she all right? Why did she kick?”
Smiling at him I took his hand in mine and laid it across my stomach. It happened again, the tiniest of kicks as she shifted inside me. But it didn’t matter how small her movements were, she was moving and that was all that mattered.
“She probably just likes listening to her Daddy’s voice,” I said.
David dropped to his knees in front of me, both hands cupping either side of my belly as he kissed the bump.
“Hi baby girl,” he said, speaking directly to my stomach.
There would have been a time where I would have felt more than a little uncomfortable by David doing that. I hadn’t always been on the best of terms with my body and its appearance and sometimes David’s overly enthusiastic admiration for my more than ample frame left me a little overwhelmed. But not anymore.
“I can’t wait to hold you in my arms, to meet you,” David continued. “Your Mom and I love you very much.” The baby gave a series of excited kicks and jumps and couldn’t help but giggle as David pressed his ear to my belly.
“She likes you talking to her,” I said.
David lifted his face to mine and smiled. “It’s all true,” he said, pushing slowly up onto his feet.
“I know.”
“When I watched them take you away, I think a piece of me died. I didn’t want to eat, to sleep, I was barely functioning as a human. All I wanted was to find you and get you back in my arms.”
“I’m here now,” I said, brushing my fingers against the side of his face.
“When I thought I’d lost you…” he trailed off his expression turning dark. “I would have done what they asked, I had everything lined up.”
His words shocked me to my core and ice prickled in my veins.
“I don’t understand,” I said, studying his face carefully.
“The guy they wanted me to kill, I found him, he lives a few states over and…”
“David, please tell me you didn’t hurt him, that you didn’t…”
He shook his head and I released the tension that had been building between my shoulder blades.
“You called me and that was it, I came for you instead. But I would have done it.”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s over now.”
He shook his head, “you see that’s the problem, it’s not over. Andy and Dominic still want me to kill the mark, they still expect a body on the ground and if I don’t provide one, then I’m afraid of the retribution.”
“You can’t allow yourself to be afraid of retribution from a bunch of cowards like them. We can’t live like that but you also can’t stoop to their level.”
“Carrie, what choice do I have?”
“There’s always a choice, David, you and I both know that. All we need to do is find a way through all of this. And we will, we’re not going to let them beat us, not now, not ever.”
He sighed and cupped my face with his hands, lowering his face to mine he pressed a feather light kiss against my lips.
“I love how certain you are, it gives me courage that we will find a way through it all.”
“We will…” he cut me off before I could continue speaking, his mouth crushing mine, the passion and ferocity in his embrace stealing my breath away.
When he finally released me I was gasping for air, my chest rising and falling, each time I sucked in a deep breath it pushed my breasts tight against his rock hard chest.
“I won’t ever lose you again, Carrie.”
“You won’t…” I said, holding on to him as tightly as I could. My legs threatened to buckle beneath and still I clung to him.
“You need to rest,” he said, sliding his hands down over my waist to cup my ass, drawing my body tighter against him.
“I need you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with need as I felt his erection press against me.
Suddenly all thought of rest and recuperation didn’t seem to matter anymore. I needed David, needed him like the earth needed the sun and rain in equal measure. In his arms I would find all the rest and recuperation I needed.
He scooped me into his arms and carried me to the blanket and the roaring fire, laying me out beneath him as he crawled over my body. Fire and lust burned in my belly as my fingers scrambled to undo the buttons of his shirt, I wanted his skin against mine.
“Are you sure?” He asked, his voice laced with the same lust that pounded in my veins.
“More than sure,” I said, tugging his shirt open and sliding my hands beneath the fabric to the rock hard muscle of his chest below.
His mouth found mine once more and I was lost in his kiss.
16
The shrill ring of David’s cell phone ruptured the tension between us. It vibrated against my thigh where his legs were pressed inside mine and I released a frustrated sigh as he propped his body up on his elbows over me.
“I can’t really ignore it,” he said, holding himself poised above me but he still didn’t make a move towards answering the call.
“You should take it, it could be something important…”
The phone stopped buzzing and silence flooded into the space between us. David smiled, a look that was all predator and it sent a frisson of excitement racing through me.
He dipped his head to mine once more, his lips grazing my neck as he whispered against my skin. “If it’s so important, they’ll ring…”
He never finished the sentence, the shrill ringing of the cell phone once more ripping the moment between us. David groaned and rolled away from me as he tugged the cell from his pocket.
Frustration gnawed at my insides as I sat up and carefully closed the buttons on my blouse. It never ceased to amaze me how he always seemed to know his way inside my clothes without ever having to put any real effort into it. Most of the time I never even realised what he was doing until I felt his hands against my exposed skin.
“What do you mean he wants to meet,” David said, his voice taking on a tone that sent a shiver racing down my spine.
Reaching over to the picnic basket I flipped open the lid and my mouth began to water at the sight of the food inside. The food in the hospital had been less than appetising and the short time I’d spent on the island hadn’t exactly been an environment conducive to sating hunger.
Plucking a ripe strawberry from one of the little containers, I dipped it gently into the fresh cream that sat in a little cool box in the corner of the basket. Taking a dainty bite of the fruit sent my taste buds into overdrive and the juice prickled along my tongue.
But it was David’s concerned expression that really had my attention. Whoever was on the other end of the line was telling him something David did not want to hear.
“I don’t care what he wants, that’s not the way it works…” David cut off, his brow furrowed as the caller on the other end of the line spoke again.
>
“Fine, but I’m not going to apologise and he better be ready to give me the answers I’m after. I don’t care what he thinks of me, I won’t be taken for a fool, Aaron.”
David jerked the phone away from his ear and ended the call.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, swallowing the last of the strawberry as quickly as I could.
“It’s…” David stalled and I knew he’d been about to tell me it was nothing I needed to worry about.
His gaze met mine and he sighed, dropping the cell phone onto the blanket between us.
“That was Aaron,” he said, his hand balling into a fist.
“And what did he have to say?”
“Killian Ashcroft wants a meeting with me,” David said, his voice devoid of all emotion.
I had no idea who this Killian was and I sifted through all the names of everyone I knew in David’s family before coming up empty.
“Who’s he? Why is this bothering you so much?”
David pushed up onto his feet and crossed the room, the tension in his back causing my stomach to knot up uncomfortably as I watched him. Whoever this Killian was had David worried but what about? I had no clue and it wasn’t the first time since all this had started that I felt as though I was in the dark.
“Killian is a cousin of mine, his father was my uncle, a brother to Henry.”
“Why didn’t you mention them before?” I asked, the knot of concern in my stomach growing as I watched David fidget.
“Because our side of the family, doesn’t have anything to do with their side, my uncle didn’t exactly earn his money in the most savoury of ways.”
“All right, so what does this cousin of yours want?”
David fell silent and I fought the urge to get up and shake him until he spilled the answers he was keeping from me.
“He knows what I was planning on doing,” David said, and my heart came to a shuddering halt in my chest.
“He’s trying to blackmail you? He does realise you’re innocent, that you were being threatened but that you never went through with it?”
David shook his head and turned back to face me, there was a small sad smile playing around the corners of his lips.
“I’m glad you find all of this so funny because I don’t. The last thing we need is someone else involved.”
“He’s involved because he’s the mark,” David said.
I stared at him, his words refused to make sense as they swirled around in my head. What the hell was he talking about, what mark?
“He’s the one Andy and Dominic want me to kill…”
David’s words hung in the air between us and I swallowed hard. It had seemed so utterly unreal before and the more I heard about it all the more ludicrous it all seemed to become. I couldn’t imagine David hurting anyone. In self-defence perhaps, I knew he was more than capable of looking after himself.
But the thought of him wilfully going out in search of someone to kill… It didn’t make sense inside my head. It wasn’t who he was.
“Carrie, say something, your silence…” he trailed off and the look on his face twisted my gut. He sounded broken.
What was I supposed to tell him? When none of it had seemed real I could tell him that it didn’t matter but now?
“He’s not coming here,” I said, it was the only sentence I could get out. I couldn’t think past the thought that David had come so close to murdering someone in cold blood, my mind refused to help me think up something reassuring I could say to him.
“They’re on their way over,” he said moving across the room to drop down on the blanket next to me. “You don’t need to meet him, I can handle it.”
“If he’s coming here then I need to meet him. Jesus, David…” I trailed off and buried my face in my hands.
David wrapped his fingers around my wrists and slowly tugged my hands away from my face. I kept my gaze trained on the blanket in front of me, the patterns suddenly fascinating.
“Carrie, you know I would never have done it if there had been any other choice. I proved that by going after you instead…”
“I know that…” I said but I still couldn’t shake the discomfort that unsettled me. This was the man I’d married, the man I loved, the one I thought I knew and yet he could still do something like this to surprise me.
Deep down I knew he hadn’t gone through with the horror the Banks’ had wanted him to commit but I also knew he’d have done it if I hadn’t found a way to contact him.
He’d have killed for me. If life were nothing more than a romantic Hollywood blockbuster then I’d be flattered by the gesture but that wasn’t reality and I wasn’t flattered.
“You’re behaving as though I really did kill him. He’s coming here, Aaron is bringing him over, you’ll get to see him yourself and then you’ll see that my conscience is clear.”
He pulled away from me, the anger on his face unmistakable as he climbed back onto his feet.
“David, don’t be like that, I…”
“You what, Carrie? From where I’m standing all I can see is judgement in your eyes. I did what I thought was best for the people I love. I would do anything to protect you and Jenson, and when the new baby arrives, I would do anything to protect her too, even if that meant getting blood on my hands…”
“I know that, it was by my hand that Taylor died nobody else. I know what if feels like to have to protect the ones you love.”
“Then why do I feel like you’re seeing me differently now that you know the truth?”
“I don’t know, maybe I am… Maybe the thought of you planning something like that makes me think that perhaps I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
It was a mistake the moment the words left my mouth and I knew it. It wasn’t even true, that wasn’t how I viewed the situation at all but I didn’t fully understand the complexities of my own emotions and so explaining them to someone else made it almost impossible to actually make sense of it all.
Even if that someone else was David.
He stared down at me, the shock registering first in his eyes and then spreading down through the rest of his body. I watched his jaw tighten, his shoulders drawing up and back as his body became rigid.
“I thought we were past all of that, Carrie, clearly I was wrong…” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving me behind to stare after him.
How could I have been so wrong, so cruel and unthinking? Of course I knew who he was and it hypocritical to even let a thought like that slip into my head for even a second.
I’d worried that he would look at me differently once he knew the danger I placed our unborn child in. Instead, he’d been the one to apologise, to tell me that he hadn’t done enough to protect us when I knew that wasn’t true.
I was a fool. My own doubts and insecurities always getting in my way and landing me in trouble.
And if I wasn’t careful those same doubts and insecurities would cost me the man I loved…
17
Stepping out of the shower I contemplated climbing into the bed that sat in the middle of the floor. It was still covered in the rose petals that David had strewn across it from earlier and I just couldn’t bring myself to disturb them.
My head ached and my heart was heavy but as I let the towel drop so I could begin to dress the baby kicked once more. It was about the only thing in my life that was going in the direction I wanted.
Pressing my hands against my stomach I imagined what it would be like to hold her in my arms. Would she look like Jenson?
I’d come so close to losing her and the emotion welled up within me. Why was it that every time our life seemed to be finding some semblance of balance something else came along to knock it off track? When would we have a break from it all?
The sound of the doorbell made me jump.
Wrapping my towel around myself once more I hurried to the window and peered out between the heavy drapes. One of Aaron’s cars sat in the driveway, the two easily recognis
able bodyguards next to it a dead giveaway that it was in fact his car.
How did he fit into all of this? Why did he have so much contact with this Killian, he had to know why David had planned to do what he had. Aaron of all people should have understood what that was like.
He’d come far too close to almost losing Heather to the psychopath that was Jude Fossen, he’d done things that many would consider crossing the line just to ensure her safety. So why now was he helping this other man by bringing him to David?
None of it made any sense.
What was it about this Killian Ashcroft that made him such a threat to Andy and Dominic, why kill him?
I wasn’t going to get the answers to my questions by standing up in my bedroom wrapped in a towel. The only way I was going to get to the bottom of any of it was by getting dressed and going to confront this Killian once and for all.
There was clearly a connection between him and the missing Melissa and I was done with staying in the dark. I wanted answers and I would have them, come hell or high bloody water.
Descending the stairs, I gripped the banister and strained to listen to the quiet hum of voices in the office. David wasn’t shouting, in fact nobody was shouting and that surprised me more than anything else.
If this was the man David had threatened to kill then why wasn’t anyone upset?
Crossing the foyer one of Aaron’s bodyguards blocked the door, his arms that were thick enough to give the branches of any tree a run for its money were crossed across his barrel shaped chest. Approaching him he eyed me up carefully before finally shaking his head before I even had the opportunity to open my mouth.
“I’m going into that office,” I said, pausing and planting my hands firmly on my hips.
“Bosses orders, no one goes in,” he said, his voice gruff and gravelly.
“Well, I don’t work for your boss and this is my house, so kindly get out of my way,” I said, the irritation in my voice as plain as I could make it.
I was tired of playing games, if David or Aaron thought they could keep me out of it by locking me out of a room in my own house then they were sorely mistaken.
