"We're back together," I said. "Things are going well actually, although there is a minor snag."
"Don't tell me—he's married?" I paused, just long enough to let Mom know she had stumbled on the correct problem. "Oh, Emily, you really shouldn't get involved with a married man. I know he probably tells you he is going to leave her, but—"
"It's okay, Mom. I know everyone probably says this, but it really is okay. The marriage was… odd. It happened while he was still in prison, and they are well and truly separated."
"While he was in prison?" Mom asked. "He's not married to a guy, is he?"
I sighed and rolled my eyes. "No, Mom, he's not married to a guy."
"So they are getting a divorce?"
"Yes," I said, just about managing to hide the uncertainty in my voice. It was a white lie of sorts, but it seemed harmless enough. If Carter and I stayed together, then he would get a divorce. If we didn't, then this minor lie to my mother wouldn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
"If it's okay with you, I think I'll leave the being-married thing out of the story when I tell your father. Believe it or not, I think he will be pleased you two are still together. We both like the idea of you having a boyfriend at last, although I can't pretend family meals like Thanksgiving aren't going to be a little awkward."
"That's probably for the best. Dad can be a little old-fashioned with these kinds of things, especially where his daughter is concerned."
"I'm afraid you're still his little girl and always will be."
"I take it Dad isn't there right now?"
"No, he’s gone out to buy groceries for dinner. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but tonight he is cooking me dinner. Even more surprisingly, I'm actually looking forward to eating it."
"Does this mean things are a little better between you now?" God, I hoped so. I could really do without my parents fighting right now.
"Yes, I guess you could say that. Like I said, he has improved a bit in these past few weeks and is going to counseling again. I think it's helping this time. We even talk about William now, and we never used to do that. It still hurts, obviously, and the conversations usually end in tears for both of us, but we end up crying on each other instead of alone."
"That's good, Mom. I’m happy to hear that."
With all the important stuff out of the way, Mom and I were able to relax a bit and chat about the usual mother and daughter things, although my mom still had a habit of asking questions about my sex life that I didn't want to answer. I certainly couldn't tell her about last night. I still blushed when I thought about some of the things Carter and I had done in bed. It continued to amaze me that I had the self-confidence to do those things with another man. But Carter was no normal man, and I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have him.
Chapter Eighteen
"I really must stop letting you choose the restaurants," Carter said as he examined the menu at a nice little brunch place I had chosen.
"I thought we had a deal: you choose where we eat for dinner, and I choose where we eat for lunch."
"This is brunch, not lunch."
"And brunch is closer to lunch than dinner, so I get to choose. Stop complaining. This place is great. Just look at the line for a table."
"I don't need to look at the line. We just spent forty minutes waiting in it."
"Oh, hush up, you. I promise you that it’s delicious."
"Okay, okay," Carter said, putting down the menu. "I admit, some of the food does sound good."
No sooner had Carter got settled than a waiter came over with water. I cringed, waiting for the inevitable comment.
"Emily, I can't help but notice that our water has been presented to us in glass jars. Not glasses—glass jars. Is this some weird San Francisco hipster thing?"
"It's fun, go with it. Think of it as a type of recycling."
Carter held up his hands in defeat. "As long as our food doesn't get served on cardboard, I suppose I can get on board. You’d think eating prison food for years would make you immune to places like this.”
"I like that you don't feel at home in places like this. Now you know how I feel in those expensive restaurants you take me to for dinner. It's kind of funny seeing you look so confused when reading the menu."
"At least it's noisy in here. I actually like that. It may sound a little counterintuitive, but I feel like we actually have some privacy here because no one can hear our conversation."
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten you actually invited me out for a reason. What did you want to say? Good news, I hope?"
"I certainly hope so, yes. You know how I've been busy a lot lately and we haven't been able to spend much time together?"
"I had noticed, yes." The lack of sex had been driving me crazy. When we did spend the night together, the sex was mind blowing, but then I would have to wait a week for more. I'd spent enough of my life being sexless, and now my body was desperate to make up for lost time.
"The good news is that I should have more free time now. I just had to get something sorted out, and it involved speaking to lots of different people, which made things stressful. But now it's done and I can finally tell you."
Carter had told me he was busy with work on a big deal, but from the way he was talking, it sounded like something else entirely. I certainly hoped he wasn't about to tell me the intimate details of his work; I would struggle to stay awake.
"Go on, then," I said. “The suspense is killing me.”
Carter took a deep breath. "I'm getting a divorce. Officially. Everything is in place. I don't know exactly how long it will take—obviously the situation with Bella makes things complicated—but it will happen soon."
I had been staring at Carter, but when he said the word “divorce,” my eyes lost focus but had to blink rapidly before I could see again.
"Divorce? Are you sure? I don't want you to do this just because of me."
"I am doing it just because of you. You are the reason I do everything now. Can I assume you are pleased with the news?"
I bit my lip and smiled. "You can definitely assume that, yes. Have you mentioned it to her family? How will her sister feel?"
"I have mentioned it to them, yes. They are all fine with it and are still grateful to me for what I did for Bella.”
“What happens next? Will this put your green card at risk? I want you to be able to stay in the country, obviously."
"That's what took the most time to figure out. It's all pretty confusing, but the gist of it is that I may lose the green card, but I should be able to transition to a work visa. It's one of the advantages of working for a big international bank. They make it easy to move around."
"Those visas tend to be short-term, though, don’t they?"
Carter shrugged. "It isn’t a long-term solution, but it will do for now."
I already had a longer-term solution in mind, but I kept it to myself for the time being. If Carter and I could just get through the next couple of years, then with any luck he could get another green card by marrying me. I would even go and live in England with him as long, as I could work remotely on the business. That was the future, though, and right now I just wanted to enjoy the present. John and I had business issues to figure out, but that felt a lot more manageable when my personal life was as strong as this.
Chapter Nineteen
"It's her," John said after I asked him whether Marissa took the bait.
"You're sure? We can't be wrong about this. If we are, we will blow our relationship with our only investor and probably be blacklisted from any further investment opportunities in Silicon Valley."
"I'm sure. I passed on the information to her, and her alone, and now PharmaTech knows." John let out a loud sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I noticed the bags under his eyes and realized he must have been up all night working. "What the hell do we do now?"
"I'm not sure," I admitted. "But we sure as hell aren't going to take it lying down."
"Do we co
nfront her?"
"No, not yet. For one thing, I have no idea how we would do that. She is still an investor—or rather, she is the manager of the LLC that has invested in us—and therefore we will need to tread carefully. Thank God we didn't give up too much control over the company."
"I have an idea. Or rather, the beginning of an idea. I think we should use this to our advantage."
"How?" I asked.
"Let's give them bad information. I'll need to think on this a bit more, but if we feed her misinformation, we may be able to send PharmaTech off on a wild goose chase."
"Sounds good to me. Let's talk to Scott first, though. I want to get a legal opinion on all this, as well. I'd rather not sue them just yet, but I want to know if we can."
John called Scott's office was able to get us a meeting with him that afternoon. Only an hour, but it was better than nothing.
We walked over to Scott's office, but once again I had dressed inappropriately for the weather. There was a cold wind snapping through the narrow streets and I had nothing covering my arms.
"We're not far from Carter's," I said to John. "He's at work, but I'm just going to nip up to his place and grab a jacket I left there."
We took a short detour and I left John in the main lobby while I popped upstairs. It was nice to be able to enter Carter's apartment without notice, but it felt rude to bring John up there as well. He had already been in Carter's bedroom going through his drawers, and I had felt a little guilty about that ever since.
My jacket was hung on the wall by the entrance, so I barely needed to leave the elevator to get it. But I spotted a pen and paper on the table and couldn't resist leaving a little note for him to find when he got home.
Wish I was here with you right now. E xxx.
I walked into the bedroom and left the note on his pillow. For brief moment I even considered leaving behind the panties I was wearing for him. Unfortunately, my slightly more pragmatic side took over control of my mind and reminded me how cold and windy it was outside. I could do without a cold breeze between my legs if I was going to go commando.
A ping from the elevator told me that Carter was home. Either that, or John had somehow convinced the receptionist to let him upstairs. He was a charming guy and could play the camp gay guy when it suited him, but fortunately, that wasn't very often. I walked to the bedroom door and was about to open it when I heard a woman's voice.
I froze by the door, keeping it slightly ajar but staying out of sight. I hadn't heard what the woman said, but the voice that responded was definitely Carter’s.
"We need to be careful or this will fall through,” the woman said.
I recognized that voice from somewhere. From the faint footsteps it sounded like the two of them had headed to the kitchen, so I risked a peep through a gap in the door. It was Carter's business colleague, the one he had to spend a lot of time with. At least it wasn't some new woman. I hesitated for just a second, still a little concerned about his relationship with her, but they were standing a few feet apart and didn't look overly touchy-feely. Why did I recognize the voice? I had never spoken to her. In fact, the one time I did try to speak to her, she had practically ignored me and walked away.
"We don't want them to get suspicious," the woman continued.
I froze. I did recognize the voice. It sounded a little different now, because I had only heard her speak over the phone. But there was no doubt about it: I knew that the voice, and my mind went into overdrive trying to figure out what it meant. Carter's colleague, the woman he had been spending so much time with, was Marissa, the woman who was trying to destroy our business on behalf of PharmaTech.
"We’re okay for now," Carter said. "They won't suspect their investor."
No. No, it couldn’t be. I went weak at the knee in my one good leg. If it weren't for my prosthetic, I would have fallen to the ground.
Carter had been the investor all along. It was Carter who was trying to destroy our business by leaking information to PharmaTech. He headed toward the bedroom, but still hadn't seen me. If this were a movie I would probably have hid in the closet, but I didn't have time. And besides, I had no reason to hide.
"What the hell is going on?" I asked, storming out of the bedroom. "You're the investor," I said, pointing at a bemused-looking Carter. "You've been working with her this whole time to destroy our business. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you're not the investor." My voice remained remarkably strong despite both my love life and work life collapsing at the same time.
Carter held his hands up in defense while Marissa walked calmly over from the kitchen and sat down on the sofa.
"You're right, Emily,” Carter said softly. “I am the investor. But it’s not what it seems—I can explain. Please, sit down. There's so much I need to tell you, and I promise you, you’ll want to hear it."
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for reading my book and for supporting an independent publisher. I really hope you enjoyed it—I know I loved writing it. Part Four will be out soon!
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About the Author
Miranda Dawson is a 25-year-old Californian who can’t find the man of her dreams and so writes about him instead. She likes reading romance novels and watching scandalous television shows. Her writing is influenced by both!
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