“Back to the hotel.” Clearly he’d passed the point of caring if there was a language barrier.
“What was that back there? How do they know you?” Lara asked.
“The Jiang family made sure the press thinks the worst of me. I’m a regular target.” He kept his face down as they drove out of the parking lot.
Minutes felt like hours in the silence they shared. The tension rolled off Reed in waves. Lara went to scoot away from him, but he clamped a hand on her thigh, holding her in place.
“Give me a few minutes.” The words came out in the same cruel tone he’d been using, but his hand gentled, loosened on her leg, and gave a tender caress. The action helped soothe her. Her heart rate slowed and she lost that little girl fear that she hated more than anything.
After a minute, she dropped her hand to his and clasped it before threading their fingers together. She wasn’t caving. She couldn’t do too many nights like this one with Reed. She’d promised herself a functional life, but right now, she needed that handhold like she needed her next breath.
~~~
Reed’s anger levels increased tenfold as sat in his hotel room and hashed out with Braden everything that had happened that night. He fucking hated it when Braden put on his legal counsel hat and played devil’s advocate. He clicked the speaker button on the landline telephone at the desk in his room and pushed back in his seat while sticking his legs straight out in front of him. Lara came in behind him, placed a double Grey Goose over ice on the table. He reached out, grabbed her wrist, and kissed her palm. He had a lot of making up to do.
“Talking about your girlfriend isn’t enough to fire the guy,” Braden said, calmly. “I’ve gone over his contract; you’ll be paying him far more than his worth if you terminate him.”
“Find a way out of it, Bray. I want him gone,” Reed demanded, not taking no as an excuse.
“Tell me what happened, word for word. Don’t leave anything out. Because right now, you can’t fire him.” Reed sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face, and took a large mouthful of the almost straight liquor.
“I went down to the bar to let the guys know I decided to sell Jiang back to the original owner.”
“What?” Braden sounded incredulous.
“Focus, man. I got down there; they’d been there awhile. It was a nude bar. Jasperson was drunk, the other guys weren’t so much. I told them the meetings were done. We were going home, and Jasperson started in on Lara. I decked him. Well, tackled him, then decked him. Threw a few more solid punches before they got to me. The damage to the bar came when they were trying to get me off him. I didn’t go easily,” Reed explained, wanting to punch that motherfucker again. Goddamn, he’d been pissed off.
“Prescott, seriously? He said something about your girlfriend? They all talk about the women you date,” Braden tried to reason. He got where Bray was coming from but it didn’t help. No one was going to say those vile, nasty remarks about Lara and continue living. Jasperson was lucky to only be fired.
“Not this time,” Reed said clearly.
“What more did he say?” Braden asked.
“Something along the lines he wanted her after I was done,” Reed said, dodging. He might actually head to the airport to land a few more punches if he had to recount everything out loud.
“That’s it? You aren’t giving me much to work with,” Braden said.
“He talked about the body parts he planned to fuck first,” Reed finally said and fumed. In his mind, he could hear the motherfucker talking about anally fucking her, hoping she put up a little fight. How he liked it rough. Reed sat there, gripping his glass, seething with anger. He wanted to drive his fist in the guy’s face again. “He needs to be gone by the time I get back. I’ve watched him molest her with his eyes this entire trip. She’s not safe around him. I want him gone and you need to make that fucking happen.”
“You’re willing to spend millions to get rid of him?” Braden asked, poking at his anger. He slammed the glass down on the table.
“I’ll spend whatever it fucking takes. I fucking love her, man. She will not be talked about that way by anyone. It’s not her fault I fucked trash before she came along. I’m not letting her be soiled by my reputation.” He gripped on to the side of the chair, forcing himself to gain control before he truly did go to the airport and find that little prick. Teach him to never use such foul language about his Lara ever again. Lost in that brutal fantasy, he missed whatever Braden had just asked him.
“You there, buddy?” Braden asked as a way to get his attention.
“What else do you need?” he barked.
“Access to you. I’ll come up with something. Were there witnesses?” Braden asked.
“Yeah and the security video’s coming your way.” Reed had arranged that before he’d been hauled off.
“All right. When are you home?” Braden asked.
“Soon.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m happy for you,” Braden said, his tone changing to something more friendly. “Mom showed me her pictures. She’s beautiful.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Reed affirmed.
“How did she take all this?” Braden was just full of questions tonight.
“I freaked her out.”
“Where is she?”
Oh, crap. Silence ensued as he remembered she was still in the room. He’d let his anger get the best of him again and lost track of what he was doing and saying.
“I gotta go.” Reed ended the call, reaching up to turn the speaker off. He looked down at the receiver, thinking over what he’d said. If she were in here, then she heard. He’d planned those words for later in the relationship, maybe over a vacation somewhere. Something romantic. Not yelled at his attorney while he was pissed off. Damn.
He slowly swiveled around in his chair with his head turned over his shoulder until his eyes met Lara’s. The wide-eyed stare said it all. All the anger fled as regret set in. He should have told her differently. She deserved romance and flowers and soft music. Not hearing the crude remarks from a drunk that was also a senior executive of the company she worked for.
He rose slowly, walked to the bed, and crawled across to where she sat. He resisted the urge to touch her. Instead, he lay out on the bed beside her, holding his head up with his fist. “Do you have anything to say about what you heard?”
“The anger was difficult for me to process. The police were even harder. Maybe it was the combination of both,” she said, which wasn’t what he was talking about at all. He nodded, but really didn’t want to have this part of the conversation right now. “You don’t see me clearly, Reed. I have some things in my background that make me more like the trash you’re used to dating.”
He smiled at that. “You’re nothing like them. Kade told me about your life. I just wanted you to feel comfortable enough with me to tell me yourself.” He reached over and trailed a finger along her thigh. “Being a product of a bad situation doesn’t make you trash unless you bring it forward with you like I’ve done. You made me a better man. It scares me to think of what you’ll do to me in the years to come. I might be donating all my belongings to charity and moving us into a station wagon.” He chuckled, imagining the possibilities. She didn’t laugh.
“You’ve only told me bits and pieces about your life. I didn’t feel like it was my place to pry,” she said seriously.
“I want it to be your place to pry,” he countered, still keeping the physical distance between them. This was too important to rush her.
“Did you mean what you said to Braden?” she finally asked, her voice small and unsure.
“Every word. I’d planned to give us more time. I didn’t want to rush you or make you uncomfortable, but I haven’t gone more than twelve hours without seeing you since we met. I love you. There’s no question in my mind that this is love and it’s real. We’re solid no matter how much time has passed. Nothing will ever change how I feel,” he said, looking straight into her eyes.
“
I feel the same way.”’ She finally gave a shy smile. The burden in his heart immediately eased. The intensity she’d carried faded and in its place was a loving kind gaze that melted his heart. He rose to lean closer to her.
“It would help if you said it.” He paused inches from her face.
“I love you.” Her voice cracked, some indication of the emotion those words evoked.
“I love you.” Reed took her face between his palms and bent in. She opened for him, kissing him with so much tenderness and passion it stole his breath. He didn’t deepen the kiss; instead, he pulled back and looked her deep in the eyes.
“I didn’t know until right now that I was scared you might not feel the same way. You’ve made me happy,” he confessed, still holding her face in his hands.
She smiled, and he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Your phone’s going nuts,” she whispered.
“We need to go home. They’re waiting to board,” he said, casually. She froze, then bounced out of his embrace and off the bed.
“I would have been packing. I thought we’d leave in the morning.” She was gone, disappearing into the bathroom.
“Take your time,” he called out, following her to the closet right outside the bathroom door. He pulled out his luggage, then hers, and laid both suitcases on the bed. “I’ve got a lot to get done. The next few days will be hectic.”
She came up behind him, had her cosmetics case and his toiletry bag packed, placing both inside the suitcases. “I won’t be keeping my job, will I?” she asked. Of course she’d have factored that into the mix. She was too smart not to.
“I have something else in mind,” he said, pulling his clothes from the dresser. He dumped them inside before moving to Lara’s drawer and doing the same thing.
“A made-up position? No, I’m not doing that.” She came back with her arms full of shoes.
“You have to trust me, Lara. I’ll need you through the contractual changes with Jiang. That’ll take some time, but there’s something I think you could do well in. You’re too big an asset to my company to let you go. I just need to shift some people around.” He watched her carefully pack each shoe, wrapping her clothes from the drawer around them. He shook his head. She loved those things more than anything else he’d gotten her.
“I can have someone pack us,” Reed offered. “I think they’re on their way now.”
“What? No. I’ll do it. That’s a waste of money.” She went back to the closet, grabbing the garment bag with a handful of hung clothes.
“Lara, I’m wealthy, and as my girlfriend, you can expect certain things to be done for you,” he started to lecture, and she shooed him away as she kept going. A smile broke across his face as he walked past her, running a palm over her back. So much had changed since she fell into his life. He found himself in the closet, pulling his suits from the rack, and then a handful of her things. He tucked them all in his suitcase. He admittedly didn’t pack for himself. “I figure love means sharing.”
Chapter 26
Wringing her hands, Lara paced the living room of Reed’s apartment wearing a hole in the Persian rug he’d been so pleased to have delivered yesterday. After he’d told her the outrageous cost, she’d refused to even place one single foot on the hand-woven strands. Now, twelve hours later, the reason for that seemed unimportant as anxiety forced her to move, to burn off the extra energy all her worry created. Her professional fate rested on a discussion currently taking place in the conference room down the hall while she waited to hear their verdict.
She wore her new good-luck Jimmy Choos, special for this occasion. The ones Reed bought her the first day they met, when her others led her all the way to his office before they finally gave way, breaking beyond repair. Another strategic plan, she chose the dress Reed liked the most to help butter him up before the meeting. And now, Lara waited to be summoned. No, Reed hadn’t necessarily used that word with his directive for her to cool her jets inside the apartment while he held a meeting to decide her fate, but that was how it felt. To him, this was a simple decision. One that wasn’t life altering. For her, she equated this moment to everything important in her entire existence; this was her bread and butter. Her first real employment in her chosen field of study. The job market was a tough one to crack, and her generation had a reputation of being either under-employed or unemployed, making her even less desirable to many companies and more unlikely to find another position so close to home. It seemed almost impossible to even consider the magnitude of this moment.
“I’ll have to move. What if I get hired in Fort Worth? I’d have to buy a car. The drive would absolutely suck. Fighting downtown Dallas traffic and then downtown Fort Worth traffic, I’d have to leave two hours early,” she declared, quickly escalating to panic mode.
“Lara, calm yourself down. Not an hour ago, he said to trust him. You’re making yourself crazy.” When Kade first arrived a few hours ago, he’d been the great best friend she always knew. That lasted approximately thirty minutes. Now, he was sprawled across the couch, staring up at the ceiling fan, and kept making a pretend gun out of his forefinger and thumb, shooting himself over and over in the head. She watched his leg lazily bounce off the edge and she had an overwhelming urge to kick him.
“I’m not crazy. I’m being sensible,” she clearly defined.
“Okay, then you’re making me crazy,” he said, turning his head as he cocked a brow in her direction.
“This involves you. If I have to move, you can’t afford the apartment by yourself. You’ll have to go with me.” She pivoted on her heels, walking back around the sofa to face him directly. Proud of her argument, she nodded decisively and resumed the pacing on this side of the room.
“Yes, I can,” he said, surprising her. She whirled around and gave him an accusing glare. Had he gotten that big of a raise by going to Dallas PD? “Stop looking at me like that. It’s not rocket science that you’re gonna be moving in here soon enough. You spend five nights a week here already. I checked out the one bedrooms in our building. I can afford it.”
“I thought if Reed and I moved in together, you’d move here too,” she said a little sadly. In the beginning, that had been her plan when she’d thought Reed and Kade would make a great couple. She’d move wherever Kade went. Of course Kade should then move wherever she landed. It made perfect sense.
He barked out a laugh, and then kept laughing at her suggestion. She threw her hands in the air and distraughtly turned to pace in the other direction, defeat weighing heavy. Kade had completely taken the wind out of her sails. When he laughed out loud again, she furrowed her brow and walked toward him, dropping down, using his stomach as her seat. She smiled big when he grunted on a forced exhale of breath. “You should think about it before you just say no.”
“I’m not moving in here. I’ll stay close and you always have a place wherever I’m at, but I’m not moving here,” Kade said, turning to the side, effectively dumping her on the cushion in front of him.
“Why not? If I have a place with you, you have a place with me,” she reasoned, turning some to wrap an arm around his waist.
“It’s not your place though,” he said, again zapping her idea.
“Reed would agree that you move in,” Lara said, searching for any argument that might help her cause. They had always struggled for money. This would give him a chance to save a little, build the nest egg he always talked about.
“I’m not moving in here. I’d see you two doing something naughty, and I’d never be able to scrub that from my brain.” Kade shook his head. “No, I’m not moving in here.” He abruptly turned back to his initial position of sprawled across the sofa, toppling her to the floor. He did things like that a lot.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now. It makes me sad and I need to focus. What if I need to move out of the city? Will you come?” she asked, getting to her feet, dusting any wrinkles out of her dress.
“I don’t see that happening,” Kade said with all certaint
y. He could be so frustrating sometimes.
“That didn’t answer my question,” she shot back, staring down at him.
“You have a rich boyfriend. If you lose your job, go back to school. You always wanted your PhD.” Her brain may have exploded right then. What did he just say? Where had that even come from? Now, she had another problem: Kade had clearly lost his mind.
“This is about me and my career and what I can afford. I can’t take money from Reed that way. I want us to work, not make him my meal ticket,” Lara declared as she turned to continue her pacing.
“Furthering your education furthers your career,” Kade reasoned.
The front door opened, and Margaret stuck her head inside. “They want you, honey.”
“Did you sit in on the meeting?” she asked, forgetting Kade as she walked straight to her new friend and confidante. Margaret had taken Lara under her wing and guided her through most of the situations Reed put her in.
“No, it’s been closed-door.” Margaret gave her a sympathetic look but waved her to hurry along.
Lara brushed past her, the drumming in her heart drowned everything else out as she rounded the corner. The conference room door stood open and her gaze narrowed in on the opening as her steps faltered. Why did this feel so much like walking to the gallows?
“Good luck,” Margaret whispered and gave her a small shove from behind as Lara slowed her pace. With a deep breath, she turned and gave a halfhearted thumbs-up before stepping inside. There were five men and one woman at the conference room table. Cooper sat closest to the door on the other side of the table. Reed stood as she entered. Based on the distraction in his face, business was clearly on his mind.
The others were slower to stand, but one man came around the table with a giant grin on his face. He didn’t seem to carry the same seriousness the others did. His deep tan and close-cropped beard made him ruggedly handsome, but he had a polished air about him as well, if that made any sense. His hair was similar to Reed’s, but much darker, styled into that same swoosh haircut she loved so much on Reed. His deep, warm eyes and big smile seemed genuinely pleased to see her.
Chasing Happy (Texas Desires #1) Page 31
