Be careful,Allie wanted to call after Liz, but she wondered if that might give away the secret she was hiding about Bryce.
He phone buzzed. She knew it was probably a text message from Bryce. She looked at the message and frowned.
"What's wrong?" Carter asked.
"Nothing," she said and pushed him back on the bed, kissing him.
A few weeks after the crash, she finally worked up the nerve to look through the messages from Bryce.
Saw you on the news
I am going to end you
You destroyed me
She slammed the laptop closed. She knew he had stalker behavior, but what else could she do? Restraining orders didn't work against people like Bryce. Allie decided to put it out of her mind.Bryce isn't a killer, she thought.Is he?
54
Carter
After the boat crash, Carter tried to spend as much time with Allie as he could. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for—maybe something more than gratitude. He had saved her, after all! Wasn't that the grand gesture girls wanted?
"Have you recovered from your ordeal?" Grant asked him one evening over drinks.
Carter usually tried to wait around to escort Allie to her apartment, but she always seemed very uncomfortable on the walk to her building, as if she was nervous someone would see them.
"I guess."
"You're a hero!"
"Not really. I just saved Allie," Carter said, swirling the last sip of his cocktail around in the glass.
"That's still something," Grant said, handing the waiter his credit card.
"She doesn't seem to think so."
"She doesn't strike me as the type to dwell," Grant said, finishing the rest of his drink and leaning back in his chair. "I'm sure she's grateful, but I think you probably need more than gratitude to base a longstanding relationship on. It's probably one more thing on her list of insecurities. Sometimes a near-death experience will shake someone's very foundation. If she did start throwing herself at you, I would say be very concerned."
"I just want—"
"You want her to want you. I understand. It was rough with Kate; neither of us had the best communication skills."
That night as he curled around Allie in her stuffy apartment, he wondered what he should do. He wanted to win her, but he remembered what Grant had said in the Hamptons about staying in a holding pattern until Allie was offered a job and felt more secure. He just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more than worry about her job. It felt as if she was hiding something from him.
He gritted his teeth; he needed to talk to Stacy.
"Oh, what a surprise!" Stacy shrieked when Carter went to his grandfather's condo the next morning. She hugged him and kissed him on the mouth.
Carter tensed up and pushed her away. "I’m here about Allie."
Stacy pouted. "You didn't come to see lil' ol' me?"
Carter didn't say anything.
"Fine. Come inside!" Stacy said, batting her eyelashes.
"I would prefer to stay here in the hallway," he said firmly.
