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“Mr. Carter.”
The name came out more like a croak. Easton paused when he was almost to the door of the office he and Miss Jacobs shared. From the hallway, I found Drew’s hard gaze on me. Fear spiked my heart rate. I looked at Easton and back at Drew, who was out of his brother’s line of sight. He made a throat slashing motion.
“It can wait.” My hands trembled. I leaned against the desk for support, certain my legs might fail me at any second.
Concern shadowed Easton’s face. He cast a glance toward the door. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I said with a shaky voice as I prayed he’d just let it go.
He watched me for a moment, then nodded once and vanished from the office. I sagged against the desk as Drew fell in step with his brother. The farther he was away from me, the better.
The guilt that wouldn’t leave me throbbed. This was the opportunity I’d been looking for to come clean about what I knew about Mulaney and the eldest Mr. Carter, Easton’s father. There was no affair. It was wrong of me to lead Easton to believe otherwise.
Just when I tried to do the right thing, there was Drew again, pulling on the puppet strings he had tied around me. I was at his mercy, and that meant doing whatever he wanted, even if whatever included misleading people I respected.
I fiddled with the cross around my neck.When will this stop?I knew the answer to the ridiculous question before I even thought it. Not until Drew Carter disappeared from my life for good.
The crazy thing was I’d been so eager to take up Miss Jacobs on her offer to move to New York mostly because of him. I should’ve realized all the executives would be coming to the new office, yet somehow, I’d assumed Drew would stay in Houston.
Fairy tales. I’d spun them in my head all my life to make reality go away. As a grown woman, the habit was one of my worst.
I turned and straightened some of the papers on the desk, unable to remember what I was doing before the moment I’d almost been caught doing the exact opposite of what Drew wanted.
“Have you forgotten what I can do to you?”
I jumped at the sinister voice in my ear. The jackhammering of my heart amped up to max speed.
“No.” The word came out weak. Scared. Two things I constantly felt.
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, sugar, but there are consequences for bad behavior.”
Not yours.
But I didn’t say that. Instead, I nodded, reminding myself that acting like a pushover didn’t make me weak. It meant I survived.
“Don’t get cute.” The warning was followed by a look that felt like his hands around my neck, choking me.
I nodded again, afraid if I tried to speak, the wrong words might come out. When it came to Drew, there was no right thing to say.
He stared at me for what felt like the longest moment of my life. His expression had grown more vacant over the years. Colder. Angrier. The only time there seemed to be a human being in there was when he was around his mother, though I rarely saw them together, so I wasn’t sure how true that was anymore.
The longer those hollow eyes were on me, the harder it became to breathe. My legs were noodles. My arms were like lead.
When he saw he’d scared me to his satisfaction, a slow, sinister smile spread across his face. “Yeah. I think we’re clear.”
Then the hard expression was back, and my body seized with fear. He pivoted and marched from the office, yet I didn’t move for what felt like a good five minutes.
I smoothed my skirt and tried to stand without the support of the desk.
You can do this.
I had to. Not only could I not give up this job, but I wouldn’t. I loved it. Mulaney was tough but treated me with respect, and I’d never be able to repay what she’d done for Gabriel and me. I looked forward to coming to work even though it was hard. In all the time Drew had been a problem that wouldn’t go away, he’d never told me to quit. How long would it be before he did so just because he could? How long before my guilt would overshadow my thankfulness?
Chapter Thirteen
Carlos
“Carlos.”
