His eyes meet mine, the dark chocolate irises lost completely in the dark lighting of the room. I know I should look away, to break eye contact and stop focusing on the way that single bite sent waves of heat directly to my core, but I can’t. Carter holds my attention, the air around us thinning, the world narrowing to a singular point—to us.
And then his phone rings, Trent’s name flashing across the screen like the giant bucket of cold water it is. He declined the call, but it was enough to remind me: getting lost in Carter’s eyes isn’t an option—I can’t, Iwon’t, risk losing the company I built again.
Chapter fourteen
Carter
I’mpulledfromrelivingmy dinner with Kelsey last night by my phone ringing—it seems like someone is always trying to get ahold of me these days.
“Hi, Bill,” I say, answering the call from the man helping my mom. I quickly do the mental calculations of how long I can talk to him before needing to leave for tonight’s concert. Fortunately, we are essentially next door, so I have enough time to chat.
“How’s Ireland?” he asks.
“You’re a day off. We’re in London tonight and will make the journey to Dublin bright and early tomorrow before his show tomorrow night.”
“Ah, right,” Bill says, the sound of paper shuffling coming through the line. “That is what your detailed schedule says.”
“I just wanted to make sure you knew where you could find me in case Mom needed me for anything.”
I cover the mouthpiece of my phone as Jaxon’s assistant Annie asks me about moving Jaxon’s leave time back five minutes.
“Is that Kelsey?” Bill asks once my attention is back on our conversation.
“Really? You too?”
“What?” he says innocently.
“You know what.”
“She’s a nice girl. You used to think she was more than nice. I don’t see why you couldn’t do that again.”
Having feelings for the woman you’re supposed to be competing against is a major inconvenience. Ten out of ten do not recommend.
It’s similar to the number who would not recommend working with your asshole brother. Turns out, I’m shit at listening to the recommendations of others.
I’m still seething from my call with Trent last night. After learning I was out to dinner with Kelsey from one of the guys on our team, he called to make sure I knew what was at stake here. He went so far as to threaten that if we don’t win this contract, he’ll let me go and replace me with someone cheaper. He sounded serious enough that I’m treating it as a credible threat.
Fortunately, I’d stepped out onto the street after he called me two times in a row. Unfortunately, after assuring him nothing is going on between Kelsey and me for what felt like forever, my temper got the best of me, and I yelled, “I don’t know why you’re making this such a big deal. There’s no way we’re losing this contract to Kelsey!”
As fate would have it, Kelsey had apparently given up on waiting for me in the restaurant by that point, and when I turned back around, shewas leaning against the door, watching me. In the same black jumpsuit as last time we went out to eat, her back was pressed against the brick wall of the building along with the sole of one of her black boots. As I quickly hung up with Trent, I kept my eyes trained on hers, looking for any sign of how she was feeling. I was greeted with nothing but cool indifference—the mask I finally thought I’d earned the chance to look behind.
That indifference hadn’t thawed since.
“Carter?” Bill’s voice comes through from the phone, pulling me back to the present.
“It was a teenage crush. That’s not how it is now. It’s”—I pause to think—“complicated.”
Complicatedis the understatement of the century. Spending time with Kelsey is torture in the most painfully enjoyable of ways. My brain screams at me that she is my competition, the one thing that could make me unable to be in Wild Bluffsandfinancially support my mom. My heart and my body, though, tend to break through the barrier my brain has erected, focusing on her twirling that small strand of hair at the back of her neck or the way she always smells crisp and warm.
Which aren’t even smells!
“Everything I have that is worth anything started out complicated,” Bill says.
“Aren’t you supposed to say something about how when you find the right person, it isn’t complicated, it’s the easiest thing in the world?”
Bill snorts into the phone. “You’ve been watching too many movies, Carter. No one who has actually fallen in love with someone thinks love is easy. Love isn’t like they show it in fairy tales; it’s pulling your heart from your chest and handing the bloody flesh to someone else to see if they want to protect it or crush it. It exposes raw truths that leave you more vulnerable andalivethan you’ve ever been before.”
“Sounds terrible,” I say, cringing at the image of ripping my own heart out just to hand it over to someone else. “I think I’ll pass.”
