The Carrero Effect Trilogy

Chapter 38

I hurriedly pick up the remains of my clothes from the floor and throw them in the kitchen trashcan. I leave his clothes folded on a chair in the room and discard the condom packet. I don't know why I'm trying to hide this now; she's already seen it, and I'm guessing by the raised voices, she's making that clear.

Like a guilty, dirty secret, as if I'm his mistress and she's the wife showing up and catching us, I'm scurrying around trying to erase what I've done. I'm also trying not to listen at the door, my heart doing some sort of cha-cha as I rush in circles. I'm completely out of control, all traces of PA Emma banished; my palms are clammy and cold, and I feel physically sick.

I creep back to my room and turn on the shower. I need to clean his smell off me and eradicate the memory of how he felt. I need to wipe away my shame and get back that cool, calm PA who would know how to handle this. That is one of her job skills: handling awkward situations.

The water is hot and harsh, but I don't care. I want it to punish me. I want it to scald the crap out of me and remove the lingering feel of his touch, his skin on mine, his kiss, his hands, his smell, and him inside me. I can't bear to think about how it felt. Not now. Not ever.

I'm running … I know I am … mentally pulling away at speed and ramming myself back into that tiny box in my head, that safe, concealed, controlled box where my life is one big mass of orderly lists and checked boxes. I can handle that life because I manage every part of it; there are no surprises or unplanned events. No emotions and no complications. No feelings that can rip my soul to shreds. No one to reject me.

Coming to work for Jake had been a mistake. He made me repeatedly question myself, forget and lose my reserve, and relax too much from day one. He has a way of making me lose sight of who I am and what I am doing. He let that part of me that I lock away slide out, and I hate it; he makes me feel unsteady and vulnerable, and I can't do this.

How can I go back to before? He's unraveled me in so many ways. I'm more broken now than I ever was.

***

When I emerge, I wear my workout clothes; I've got a clear plan in my head, and I'm more optimistic. Determined. I'm going to go running, clear my mind, and get the hell away from him for a while until I can reel in my thoughts and feelings. I also need to put a massive sea of space between Marissa and myself simply because I can't stand her, or maybe because she's here with him, and I don't know how she fits in or what she means to him anymore. And what I am in this mess. I don't intend to find out. My heart is aching, but my defense system is connecting. And I just need air.

My damp hair is tied up the best it can be now that it's so short, and my sneakers are on my feet. It's quiet. I assume they're still in his room doing God knows what. I don't even want to think about it.

I open the door and pull my hooded top on, zipping it over my sports crop top in a distracted movement. I freeze as I see him sitting alone on the couch, facing my door. Pausing mid-movement, then continuing to haul on my jacket, I try to ignore that he's watching me in an unsettling, silent way, his expression bleak. He is still topless with jeans and bare feet, and I gulp, so easily affected by him.

He looks poster boy sexy and ruffled but stressed; his arms are resting on his head in a pose that screams, 'my life is fucking over.' I falter, but he says nothing, just sighs, still watching me, and I force myself to walk into the living room. I look around for his guest and note his door is shut.

"She's in there. It's Marissa," he points out darkly. I say nothing and chew my lip nervously. My heart is pounding so hard I think I may have a heart attack, and I want him to stop staring at me. He's making me even more nervous than I already am, dissolving my resolve. "Are you done having your after-sex crisis?" he asks, his tone droll. I flinch at his words but ignore them and take a slow breath.

"I'm going running; I need some air," I respond quietly, unable to meet his eyes. I focus instead on putting my iPod in the holder on my arm and plugging in the headphones.

"How appropriate, Emma," he sneers at me. I glare at him as I walk around the furniture toward the door. He jumps up, leaping effortlessly over the couch, and stands face to face with me, blocking my route menacingly. He towers above me, anger all over his face, and I hesitate. "I don't think so," he growls.

"What? You're going to stop me from leaving?" I reel back in trepidation, a little unsure of him right now.

"If I have to." He looks sardonic, and I back off, confused.

"You want a cozy chat with Marissa and me, do you?" I can't help the sarcasm; he has knocked me off balance with his behavior, and I'm just reacting.

Why am I being this way? Why is he? What's wrong with us? We should be able to go back to before.

He steps back as if stung by what I said and rubs a hand over face losing his menacing glare. He scrubs his fingers through his unruly hair, looking desolate, and I get a twinge of guilt and pity, but I steel myself to stay still.

"Things are fucked, Emma." His voice wavers, sounding as exhausted as I am.

That's an understatement if I ever heard one, and I'm heartbroken that he's only now realizing this! He lifts his hand, cupping my cheek, and unexpectedly runs his thumb across my mouth, causing me to flinch at his touch, surprised by such a tender motion. He withdraws as if I've scolded him and instead puts both hands into his pockets. He looks like a child as he turns his face away, hunching his shoulders. It makes me ache to reach out for him, but I still my hands by my side. I have more control than this. I need to do this.

"Are you going to fire me?" I ask flatly. I need to know. I need to prepare myself and figure out where I go from here.

"Why would you ask me that?" he snaps, his fiery green gaze on me, anger instantly returning.

Oh, I don't know, maybe because you've another woman waiting in your bedroom, and coitus is not part of my pre-arranged employment contract.

"I need to know where I stand," is all I say, cool and crisp, devoid of my betraying emotions.

He snorts as if I've said something outrageous, then mumbles something that sounds like, "You and me both." I'm not sure, but I ignore it anyway.

"Why is she here?" I nod toward the door behind him, fighting that inner twinge of pain and jealousy. He stops for a moment as if he's trying to find the words, then just says it.

"Marissa's pregnant. I fucked up," he blows out.

It's as though he has punched me full force in the stomach; I'm reeling and dying simultaneously, unable to take in his devastated expression fully.

What the hell?

Nausea rises quickly, and spins my head before I can grasp control. It is as unexpected as the last time I fainted and fueled by the instant carnage of his words.

"Whoa, Emma." He grabs my arms as I crumble, and he rights me against him, the familiar feel of his body and touch acting like an anchor for my spiraling mind, stopping me from entirely blanking out.

"Sit," he barks and quickly moves me around the arm and onto the couch, drawing me in beside him. I grasp my face and sink my head between my knees, pushing the tilting sensation away, trying to stop the overwhelming urge to throw up.

"That doctor was fucking useless," he hisses, rubbing my back.

"I'm fine," I lie, "And stop swearing." I can't lift my head just yet, or I may actually die. I think I'm losing the ability to see. Everything is swimming; heat has washed up from my toes in a sickening wave. My body is tingling, and not in a good way.

"You're not fine, Emma. You're getting seen by someone else." "Stop it!" I snap and sit up, swaying and grasping his wrist. "It's dizziness, that's all. I've had a shock, okay. You just told me you're going to be a father, just after we … for fuck's sake," I snap, and he stops dead, paling visibly. He slumps down and exhales slowly.

"You're not the only one, okay." Ironically put.

"When did she tell you?" I try and sit up unaided, swaying a little but feeling less likely to keel over. I'm trying to figure out how long he has been seeing her.

Did he sleep with me behind her back?

"A couple of days ago," he sighs, looking down at his lap.

That explains his monumentally shitty mood for the past few days and hints at how unhappy he is about this. "What are you going to do? Marry her?" My voice falters, so full of anguish.

Why do I sound so childlike? Oh, I don't know, maybe because the thought of Jake marrying her is killing me.

I'm hushed by the twisted frown he throws at me.

Okay, maybe we don't live in the nineteenth century anymore, but I'm sure Carrero Senior will have something to say about an heir born out of wedlock. His father is a traditionalist, after all.

"No, I'm not going to ask her to marry me because I knocked her up, Emma. I'm not that stupid." Jake has more sense. I remember him telling me about his father marrying his mother on a whim, realizing why. Thank God.

"What then?"

Why do I even care? I shouldn't care.

I've royally fucked over my job, our friendship, and my life. It won't be long before I no longer work for the Carrero empire. I shouldn't care about this; I shouldn't be experiencing that aching pain in my heart and chest at this fact. I've blurred the lines of how I should feel about him, and I need to bring them back into focus. My head is a complete mess.

"It's complicated." He looks torn, with a hint of a lost little boy, and it hurts me. Even after all this, I still care about how he feels. I'm pathetic.

"As complicated as what we just did?" I flush as I realize the voice that said it was mine.

Mouth, why do you hate me so?

"Contrary to what your crazy little head tells you, Emma, there was nothing complicated about that." His flat tone and angry expression shut me up, and I redden, squirming under his scrutinous glare.

What does that even mean? Oh, wait, it's just sex, Emma. Right?

I turn my face away and stare at my hands, tears burning my throat.

"It was Marissa," he says so quietly that I almost don't hear him.

"What was?" My head snaps back around at his random declaration.

"When I was sixteen, you asked me about the girl I loved." He stares at the floor, not at me, his hands flat on the couch. I've nothing to say. No words filter through my brain. I gawk at him as he frowns back at me. I'm stilled by the shock and the heavy thud inside my chest, nausea swirling back up violently as each syllable registers, and I absorb the confession. I think my heart has given out completely.

I don't want it to be her, anyone else, just not her. Why did it have to be her? Was that some female intuition all along inside of me screaming that she had meant more to him?

"I was with her for a year; I was mad about her." He sounds like he doesn't believe it himself, with dryness to his tone. I don't want to hear this. I can't bear it.

"What happened?" I croak.

Mouth? Were you not listening to my brain when it said I don't want to hear?

He looks uncomfortable and gets up to walk across to the table near my bedroom door. He pushes around some weird modern wooden sculpture there, the tension running through him as he searches for the words. I'm frozen and holding my breath, a sea of emotions aching inside.

"She broke my heart, Emma. She fucked my best friend." He drops the sculpture back in place.

Oh my god. Why would anyone want to cheat on him? I mean, look at him. Why would she want to hurt him?

I shake my head as if I can't believe it. I don't want her to be the one.

Is she the reason he's the way he is? Why he keeps women at arm's length, and it's just sex and fun? Did having his first love savagely rip his heart open make him unable to trust any woman in his life? Keeping them all at a distance, the way I do with everyone else.

"Why did you start seeing her again?" It's out before I can stop it.

Do I want to hear him tell me how he's never gotten over her? No, I don't.

He shrugs and gazes at me intensely.

"It's complicated."

When is it ever not?

"Stop saying that," I wail, instantly on my feet and angry.

Why?

Because he is my Jake. Not hers. I want him to want me and only me. I know it will never be that way, and it ruins every part of me. It rages and burns that once, long ago, she had exactly that, and she threw it all away. She was a complete idiot!

"Emma, what do you want me to say?" He moves toward me and pushes me back to sit down as he stands over me. "You think I planned any of this shit?" He looks broken, eyes damp and face unreadable, yet somehow sad.

"Do you love her?" I ask, almost sobbing it out in desperation, fear gripping me inside.

Don't cry, please, don't cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of Jake.

Disbelief flashes across his face, and I can't read it. I'm scared of his answer, so I cover his mouth.

"Don't." I'm shaking my head. "I don't want to know." He grasps my hands and pulls them away.

"Emma, it's not what you think," he pleads, his body trying to cage me against him, but I resist.

No? What do I think? What could be worse than this?

"I can't … I can't right now. I just need to go." I shove him away, lost in teen Emma mode, and reject contact while my heart crushes in on itself.

"Stay, Emma, please. We need to talk." He's trying to pull my arms to him, but I'm pushing him off. Marissa is right there in the next room. She's pregnant with his baby. She's the first love of his life. She's the reason he avoids relationships. She's the reason I'll never have a chance with him. What am I supposed to think?

"I need air, space. Jake, I need space." I gulp down tears and panic and finally throw his hands off me. He lets me go and moves back, rejected; he's letting me leave, but I don't want to go anymore. I don't know what to do. I hesitate.

He says nothing and gives me his boyish wary look, his frown deepening. I can't stay here, so I go into automatic pilot. I stalk toward the door, pulling up my hood, and I don't look back, knowing that walking out is my only choice. I don't look back, even when he calls my name.

***

I run about three blocks before I stop and let the heart-wrenching pain overtake me. I cry like I did the night he left me on the yacht, and I think I may die this time. If my lungs don't self-implode, I think my heart might. The pain is unbearable and raw, and I've never willingly exposed myself to enduring it this way, except that night.

I sit on a bench cradling my head between my knees, and I think I may even throw up. This isn't my life; my life is calm and effortless, and straightforward. My job, apartment, and responsibilities all slot into place and I manage them well. This isn't happening. I'm in a parallel universe, or I'm dreaming. I'll wake up any minute, and this will have been one long, bad dream. Except I know that it's not. Meeting Jake has slowly changed it all; he is too potent to be around, changing me, changing how I think and live until I don't feel like I am in control anymore.

Is this how we got here?

***

I finally start walking back to the hotel. I don't know how long I've been gone, but I'm calm, and my tears have dried on their own. My face is tight and swollen, but I don't care anymore. I've been through so many emotions these past few weeks; I'm slowly losing my mind. I'm losing my grip on my control. I don't even know how to claw it back.

The room is dark and empty. According to the wall clock ticking loudly in the modern suite, I've been gone for two hours. There's a light under Jake's bedroom door. It halts me, pain clenching in my chest that he's in there with her.

Is this how it's always going to be? Me desolate and alone on one side and Jake on the other side of a bedroom door with another woman?

Isn't that what this is all really about? Except I know this isn't all on him; I'm incapable of letting him get close to me, even if he wanted to try. I'm afraid of what that means, what that will feel like. Too much has happened. Even if he told me he wanted me and only me, then how would that work? I don't see how this could get any better. It's better if we forget it ever happened. It's better if we act like we did before that first kiss in the kitchen months ago and go back to an easier time.

Can I do that? Can he? Can I bear it?

I will have to if I want to keep my job, and I do. I love working with him; I love being his right hand. But surely that in itself is half the problem. We crossed the line, and now I'll never be able to be what I was because I love Jake.

Shit. I love him. I think I already knew that, though.

I push the door of my bedroom open and halt suddenly. Jake is lying on my bed, illuminated by the lamp beside him, with his laptop on his thighs. He's been waiting for me. His cell tossed carelessly in the center of the bed beside mine. I guess he tried to call me and found mine left behind. He lifts his gaze from the screen to me and closes it silently without breaking eye contact. He looks every bit like the CEO he was the first time I ever met him, mature and poised in control. It makes me ache so badly.

"We need to talk." His voice is steady and deep but hoarse from tiredness; my inner confidence slides silently from deep within and quickly exits via the door. I swallow and take a deep, steadying breath, suddenly shy and afraid.

I can do this. I remind myself that I'm better than that and move coolly into the room, removing my hooded top. All control is being forced back into place, hiding my inner turmoil, hours of tears giving me some of my facade back.

"Can I have a shower first? I'm sweating from my run." That's a lie, as I barely ran anywhere. I don't want to do this. I want him to leave. I need space to function and deal with the unavoidable fact that I'm in love with a guy who can't love me back.

"No, I've waited long enough," he bristles. I feel his eyes on my back. I kick my running shoes off and push them under the vanity with my toes in a smooth, fluid movement, giving nothing away about the tension and panic rising in my throat.

So, this is where PA Emma has been hiding. Finally! Great time to make a comeback.

"Fine, but be brief; I want to sleep." My tone is cold. I can't help it; PA Emma is my dominant self who slides in effortlessly to protect me whenever she feels me falter, and tonight I have faltered big time. I have fallen in love with Casanova Carrero, and I am drowning.

By his slow, steady intake of breath, I can tell that his anger is still hanging between us. He pauses, and I glance in the mirror quickly to see what he's doing; he's looking at his hands on the bed and frowning, contemplating his next move, and he isn't happy. I've rarely seen him lost for words. I feel hopeless watching the anguish rush across his brow; I can tell he's trying to decide what he wants to say next.

"Is this how it will always be, Emma?" he says with a defeated tone, and I cave inside.

Why can't I just be honest with him for once? Why can't I tell him about the chaos inside my head? Why can I never talk to him the way he talks to me? Why can't I tell him I'm this way because I love him, and it kills me to know it's unrequited?

"What do you mean?" I ask steadily and coolly, making slow, deliberate movements to untie my hair, maintaining outward poise despite the internal shaking and nausea. I want to wipe this day out, start again, and return to safer ground.

"One step forward and six steps back," he mutters quietly to no one in particular, a tone of deflation in his voice. I can still see him in the mirror corner. His body slumped in a nonCarrero way. I can't help but long for the strong curve of his shoulders to return. He looks so vulnerable suddenly.

"I've called Ryans; the jet is being prepared to take us back to New York tonight. Pack." He slides from the bed, scooping up his laptop and cell, and stalks to the door, stopping briefly. He stares at my back; I catch sight of him in the mirror and look away from the angry flash across his face. His body is locked in a disturbing pose that says he's beyond done with me.

"I used to think all you needed was time," he says, "To learn to trust me, but now I see that talking about this is pointless. You don't need time, Emma. I was fucking wrong." He storms out and slams the door as a wave of pain crashes over me. I bite my lip to hold the trembling still and push down the threatening tears.

He has no clue how much I trust him, no clue whatsoever; I wouldn't have let him do those things to me otherwise. It's better this way. Better that he's pissed. Better that he never knows the truth. We won't talk about what we did; maybe we can start over again tomorrow. We're getting good at sweeping everything under the rug.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

I can at least fool myself into hoping that's how this will be.

For now.