Annabelle

23

I watched him sleep. His face was relaxed but the chiseled cheekbones and stubborn chin remained, making him ridiculously attractive even while unconscious. There was no drool or snoring or even a case of bedhead to diminish his good looks. It simply wasn’t fair.

His breathing was deep and even. It calmed me a little. The truth was my head was spinning. Had I really told Nick I loved him? Oh man, he was going to shake me off like a bad case of fleas.

I couldn’t blame him. Getting attached had not been a part of our deal. We had agreed, three months and then we went our separate ways. I’d thought I’d be okay with that but—damn it—how was I supposed to walk away from a guy who made me feel all these feelings?

He was so much more than he let anyone see. When he set up Emily and Elijah and the baby with temporary lodgings, I knew it was personal for him. I knew he was the money behind the Sunshine House, and I knew it was his cause because as he’d said he saw himself in Elijah. The things he’d said about his childhood had left me cold. He’d never mentioned his past to me before, but I’d known it was troubled, just like I knew that right now he needed his sister.

I reached out and pushed his hair off his forehead. The bump was still there, it had turned a deep shade of blue, but it hadn’t gotten any bigger. I pondered the self-made man in front of me and acknowledged that what I was about to do would likely finish off everything between us. Given that we were a little more than halfway through our three months, I supposed I’d have to be content with the time I’d been given.

The fact of the matter was, Nick needed someone to watch over him if I was going to be kicked to the curb in a matter of weeks. I knew he had Jackson, Lupita, and Juan, but he needed someone more. Someone who wouldn’t leave his side when he arbitrarily decided the relationship was over. He needed family. He needed his sister, Lexi.

Decision made, I climbed out of bed, grabbed my phone, crept down the hallway, and called Lexi. I told her that Nick had fallen and cracked his head. I didn’t mention the panic attack or the stroke. I could respect his privacy that much. I told her that he needed to be watched, and I told her that I couldn’t stay with him and she needed to be here to take care of him. I’d barely finished speaking before I could hear her running to her car, where she hung up on me. I texted her the code to the gate to get in.

I went back to Nick’s room and got dressed. The soft glow from the gas fire in the fireplace illuminated his face, and I tried to commit it to memory because I had a feeling that by letting Lexi into his world, I was losing Nick for good. Who was I kidding? I was going to lose him in a matter of weeks anyway. This way at least I knew someone would be taking care of him, and I could protect the tattered remains of my poor heart in the meantime.

Before I was ready to say good-bye, I heard Lexi’s car in the drive. I went downstairs to meet her. She dashed up the front steps. Her hair was in disarray, she was wearing glasses, and she had on two different shoes. She threw her arms around me in a hug that strangled.

“Is he okay? What happened?” she demanded. Then her face scrunched up and tears fell. “I can’t lose him, not now. I just found him.”

“He’s okay,” I said. I put an arm around her and tried to calm her down before she woke the whole house. I continued in a whisper. “He’s resting right now, but come on in and you can wait with him if that will make you feel better.”

She nodded. I led her inside and up the stairs, telling her what to look for with his head injury. Nick was still asleep when we entered his room. Lexi very quietly pulled one of the two armchairs from in front of the window on the far side of the room over to the side of the bed. I went to get her a blanket. As I tucked her in, she glanced up at me.

“Thanks, Annabelle,” she whispered.

I nodded. No matter how this played out, I knew I’d made the right decision. I left Lexi with Nick and went home to find Sir waiting for me. It was good to have company, because I didn’t plan to sleep. Not at all.

---

“You had no right!”

I snapped awake, finding myself on my couch with Nick seated in the armchair across from me. He was still in his flannel pajama bottoms and thermal shirt. He was barefoot. His hair was mussed and the bump on his head was now deep purple. I lurched upright, dislodging Sir, who leapt to the ground with a plaintive meow.

“Nick, are you all right?” I asked. I made to reach for him but he leaned back.

“No, I’m not.”

“Your head,” I said. “Let me get you some ice. How about pain medicine? Have you taken any recently?”

“Stop,” he snapped. “Stop taking care of me like I’m some injured bird you’re trying to rehab back into the wild. I’m fine.”

I pushed my hair out of my eyes. Fine? He was not fine. He had a knot on his head, he was pale with dark circles under his eyes, and he was so agitated, he was practically vibrating in his seat.

“I’m making coffee,” I said. There was no way I could handle this conversation without coffee. “Can I get you some?”

“No.” He paused. “Thank you.”

Manners. Maybe he wasn’t as mad as I thought.

“Where’s Lexi?” I asked. I knew it was the equivalent of hitting a hornet’s nest with a stick, but I figured we might as well get it out of the way. Nick followed me into the kitchen, where he slid onto one of the barstools.

“I sent her home,” he said. He watched me make the coffee. Neither one of us spoke. When it was finally ready, I poured my first cup, and he continued, “You knew how I felt about keeping my distance from Lexi, but you called her anyway. Why?”

He sounded genuinely confused. I sipped the hot brew, trying to figure out how I could answer him in a way that would make him understand.

“Because she’s your sister.” I went for the simple truth. My sister, Chelsea, was my first best friend and the person I always reached for in a crisis. Nick needed to have the same in his life even if he didn’t realize it yet.

“So what if she is?” he asked.

“She’s your family, Nick. She had a right to know.”

“No, no, no,” he argued. “She was my family once, a long time ago, but she moved away and I moved on, and that’s the way I want it. Just like I don’t know where my parents are and I don’t care. I have kept my life on lockdown for a reason.”

“Is that why I couldn’t find anything about you on the Internet or in the news?” I asked.

“You looked?”

“Yes, back when I thought you were a grumpy old codger.” I resisted adding that I hadn’t been wrong, which I thought showed remarkable restraint.

He huffed out a breath. “I paid a lot of money to have any trace of me wiped clean from the Internet. I’ve never granted interviews with the press or been on social media. I even had nondisclosure agreements for anyone I got involved with—until you.” He paused and I knew he was thinking what a mistake that had been. Ouch.

“Assuming they’re not dead, I never wanted to risk my pa . . . past showing up and demanding a handout. Nice to know it worked. Mostly,” he said.

“Lexi isn’t your parents,” I said. I braced for his ire.

“I know but it changes nothing. I don’t want her in my life.”

I felt myself get furious. “What about what she wants?”

“She’s better off without me.”

“How do you figure?” I asked.

“For the same reason that you’ll be better off without me,” he said. He gestured between us. “I’m damaged goods, Annabelle. I’m no good to anyone.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “So you had a stroke, so what? I have high cholesterol and asthma when I catch a cold. We all have stuff, Nick.”

He glared at me. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is actually.” I stood my ground.

“You had no right to call Lexi in when I was unconscious,” he said. “You didn’t even wake me to ask permission. You made a decision that wasn’t yours to make.”

I knew he was right, and my voice came out a bit more defensive than I would have liked. “I was only trying to help.”

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want to be with a woman who thinks she’s my mommy,” he said. “What’s next? Are you going to start cutting my lunch into adorable little shapes, picking out my clothes, and making sure I eat all of my vegetables?”

I flinched. He had no idea that he was recounting what had gone wrong in both of my marriages. According to my exes, I tended to suffocate them, although in Jeremy’s case, I suspected he liked it that way.

“You’re supposed to be my partner, not my nanny,” he continued. “You don’t get to decide what I need, or how I’m supposed to live my life. It’s my life, not yours, and not anyone else’s.”

We glared at each other. This was not going to work for me. Maybe I did hover. Perhaps I was too invested in the men I loved. And sure, I probably was a lawnmower wife/girlfriend who tried to remove obstacles from the path of those I loved. So sue me!

“Is that it then? Is that your ultimatum and I’m supposed to fall in line?” I asked. “I’m just a secondary character in your life? Or are we going to talk about last night? About the Sunshine House or why you felt so compelled to help Emily, Elijah, and the baby? How about why seeing them triggered a massive panic attack for you?”

He looked taken aback as if it had never occurred to him that I might want to talk about this stuff. Men!

“No, we’re not talking about it,” he said. “None of that is relevant to us.”

“Really?” I asked. “I think it’s pretty damn relevant when the guy I’m seeing collapses in the middle of the street. I heard the EMT, Nick. He said you had a panic attack. It’s not just going to go away, and you can’t continue to live like this.” I gestured to the house. “You are so freaked out about having another stroke that you’re having panic attacks. You need to talk to someone, and if it isn’t going to be me, then maybe it can be your sister.”

“Is that how you see me?” he asked. “Some broken guy that you want to foist onto his sister because he’s too much to deal with?”

“I never said that,” I said. “But it’s pretty clear you have a lot of damage from your childhood that you need to figure out.”

“Says the woman who was married twice by the age of twenty-eight,” he said.

I sucked in a breath. That was a low blow.

“So now you’re going to weaponize my past and use it to hurt me?” I asked. His scorn cut more deeply than I was willing to show him. I’d thought we were better than this.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line—much like you calling my sister.”

“If you’re expecting an apology, you’re in for a long wait,” I said. “She deserved to know.”

Yes, this was the hill I was prepared to die on. It was more important to me that Nick have someone in his life for the long term than to have me in the short term.

“Fine,” he said. He stood and walked to the door. He paused to scratch Sir between the ears and then he straightened up. “I guess we’re done here.”

“I guess we are,” I agreed. He closed the door very gently behind him.

I didn’t need it spelled out for me that we had just broken up. It was clear from the way my heart had just crinkled up like a piece of paper over a flame that we were through.

---

“You can’t be serious,” Carson said. “You’re going with that?”

I glanced at him from where I was standing in front of the whiteboard. My entire team was in the meeting room, finalizing our materials for Lexi’s approval. She’d had input along the way, but this was a run-through of our final presentation to her and the investors of the development. It was a very big deal.

I had followed Nick’s advice and buried Carson in work. He’d managed to fob off a lot of it, but there’d been enough that he’d actually had to put in some hours because Miguel and Sophie had made the material for Lexi’s housing development priority number one.

“Is there a problem, Carson?” I asked. I knew he was making a scene because Miguel and Sophie weren’t in the meeting, and he thought he could get away with it. Also, it was possible his ego was feeling a bit dinged. I hadn’t chosen his design for the logo, and since he was the art director, that probably chafed a bit.

“I busted my tail on the logo for New Dawn,” he said. He gestured to the artist rendering in front of him. “And you’re choosing this one?”

“Yes, I am,” I said. I glanced behind me at the whiteboard, where the chosen logo filled the entire screen. “I think Luz’s design captures the spirit of a net-zero development in the desert perfectly.”

“It looks like a child drew it,” he said. His voice dripped with condescension.

“That’s uncalled for and extremely unprofessional,” I said. I glanced at Luz, who had worked with me on rendering the logo: a bright yellow sun rising over the desert with a stylized mid-century modern vibe. I loved it, and most important, Lexi and the investors loved it even more.

“What are you going to do, tell on me?” Carson sneered. He rose, pushing back his seat so forcibly that it slammed against the glass wall. I saw staff members in the room beyond whip their heads in our direction.

“She won’t have to,” a voice said from the doorway. We all turned to see Trent standing there. He looked pissed. Trent never looked pissed. “A word, Carson?”

“Sure,” Carson said. “Whatever.”

He grabbed his materials and stalked from the room. Trent met my gaze as he waited for Carson, and he made the tiniest nod. Then he turned and followed him.

My heart started to pound in my chest. Had Trent tied Carson to the bogus charges on my card? I wanted to run after them, but I forced myself to play it cool. It had been weeks since my meeting with Trent about my credit card. Frankly, I’d been so consumed with the New Dawn development and Nick, I hadn’t given it much thought.

The meeting broke up, and I pulled Luz aside. “I hope you won’t let what Carson said bother you. He was wrong. Your design is brilliant.”

She flushed with pleasure. “No, it’s all right. His ability to hurt me dried up a long time ago.”

“Good,” I said.

I was walking back to my office with an armful of materials when Carson stepped out of Trent’s office. He began to clap slowly. It was the sort that let you know the person doing the clapping really despised you.

“You must be so proud of yourself,” he said. “You did it. You got rid of your competition. Well done, by the way.”

Of all the things I had expected Carson to say, that was not it. I squinted at him.

“What?”

“It took me a second, but I finally figured it out while sitting in there being accused of things I didn’t do. You’re threatened by me,” he said.

A surprised laugh burst out of me. “I’m sorry, what are you talking about?”

“Forget it, Annabelle,” he said. “You’re not that good of an actress. When the truth comes out, and it will, everyone will know exactly what sort of cold, calculating bi—”

“Is there a problem here?” Sophie appeared in the doorway to her office.

If Carson had been angry with me, his temper dialed up to volcanic when she appeared.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he raged. “You put her up to it.”

Sophie frowned at him. “Up to what exactly?”

“You’ve hated me from the first moment we met,” he said. “Probably because I didn’t fall at your feet like Miguel did.”

Sophie looked bored. “Carson, you are—and I can’t emphasize this enough—making an ass of yourself.”

“Who cares?” He raised his arms in the air. “Tell me, Annabelle, did you think the whole scheme up by yourself, or did she tell you to do it? Is that how you got your job here?”

As Carson’s voice rose, people were poking their heads out of their office doors. The workroom had come to a complete standstill as everyone watched the unfolding drama. I was only surprised I didn’t hear the sound of popcorn being made.

“I’m going to my office now,” I said.

Carson stepped in my way. He was taller than me and decidedly more muscular. It occurred to me that he could definitely do me some damage if he chose.

“Oh, no you’re not,” he said. “I want answers. Were you so threatened by me that you set up a whole ‘Oh my god, someone’s been stealing my company card out of my wallet and charging expensive dinners to it’ scenario so that you could falsely accuse me in an attempt to get me fired?”

“That’s enough, Carson,” Sophie said. We both ignored her.

I stared him down. His gaze flitted from mine, hardly keeping it. He was lying. He was projecting what he had done onto me and acting like the victim. I wasn’t having it.

I looked shocked. I dropped all the materials in my arms for dramatic effect. “Carson West, are you telling me you stole my company card out of my wallet and charged expensive dinners to it?”

“No!” He denied it. “It’s all a lie. You faked it to set me up.”

I looked at him in confusion. “What possible reason would I have to do that?”

“Because you’re threatened by me,” he insisted. More projection.

“How would I be threatened by you?” I asked. I made a point of looking him up and down. “Is it my higher salary? No. Bigger office space? No. Being the creative director? No. I’m not really seeing why you think you have anything happening that I would consider a threat.”

“Because I’m . . . Miguel and I—”

“Correction, there is no ‘Miguel and I.’ ” Miguel stepped out of his office. He moved to stand beside his wife. “You’re fired, Carson.”

There was a collective ripple of shock in the office, and I have to admit I was right there with them. I had never seen Miguel look so furious.

“You think you’re so clever,” Carson spit. “Miguel Vasquez, owner of a design firm, married to the hot girl, living the big life, but you’re not. You’re just a whipped—”

“We have video, Carson, of you taking Annabelle’s company card out of her wallet,” Miguel said. He sounded so disappointed. Carson’s chin jutted out like he was still going to deny it, but Miguel didn’t give him a chance. “How was Beckett’s Table last night?”

Carson opened his mouth to speak, but Miguel held up his hand.

“Never mind. We have video of you putting the card back this morning as well. There’s no wiggle room here, Carson.”

“This is a total setup,” Carson cried.

Everyone stared. It seemed no one believed him.

“We’ll escort you to your office to pack up your desk now. We’ll want your keys to the building when we escort you to your car,” Hector said. I hadn’t even seen the security guards arrive, but as they shouldered their way past me, I knew their timing wasn’t a coincidence. Someone had expected Carson to handle this badly. I glanced at Miguel and realized it was probably him.

Carson opened his mouth, but Curtis, who was as wide as he was tall, stepped forward. He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest in a fair impression of a brick wall. Thinking better of whatever he’d been about to say, Carson turned and stomped down the hallway to his office. I wasn’t sorry to see him go.