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“Dove, what’s going on?”
I open my mouth to speak, but nothing really comes out that’s comprehensible. He takes off his jacket and lays it on the countertop nearby, coming over to the edge of the tub.
“You don’t look so good,” he mentions.
“I’m fine, Carter.”
Coming closer to my lips, his eyes flush with ferocity. “Tell me who hurt you, and I’ll end them.”
Swallowing hard, I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. It’s just… nevermind.”
“Don’t lie to me, Bella.”
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I ask, “Did you talk to Anita?”
He gives me a look that I can read all too well. “I may have. She mentioned a few pretentious hags from down the street stopped by. I didn’t think it would impact you like this, though.”
Wiping my cheeks, I sit up straighter, feeling slightly pathetic by my position in the bathtub. “It didn’t, but there was nowhere to sit down. The movers weren’t done yet, and I just needed somewhere to relax.”
His eyes swirl with sadness. He reaches forward and caresses my cheek, a distant and faraway feeling to his touch. I move forward, pressing my lips to his in an effort to make tonight be what he wanted it to be earlier. Still, even in intimacy like this, he feels different.
Pulling away first, my eyes meet his.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, dove. I’m just concerned about your well-being.”
He’s lying, and I can see it. His face is so stoically firm, his lips hardly moving when he speaks, and he anxiously taps his fingers along the ridge of the bathtub. He’s antsy and cold. Something is wrong with him, but as long as I’m upset, he’s not going to open up to me about it.
“We should get downstairs,” he hums. “I have business later. A few people are coming by to talk about… well, a lot. I just want you and I to have dinner first, okay?”
Wiping my cheeks, my brows pinch. “It’s already dinner time?”
“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, Bella. Close enough. Why?”
I hang my head, looking at the pale color of my hands. I didn’t realize I had sat there for so long, but the sore and stiff aches in my body prove that to be correct. I must have partially fallen asleep or drifted so far into my own mind that I didn’t realize it.
Composing myself, I step out of the tub. My walk is rigid and uneasy, but I’m happy to see the bedroom furnishings have been moved into the house. Part of me is perplexed, though.
“Hey, this isn’t the bed from the penthouse.”
He nods rather dismissively as we move past the room.
“Um, none of this is from the penthouse, Carter. I saw it on the truck. What happened?”
“I called the guys this morning to toss that stuff. I bought all new things and had them expedited here. Luckily, I know a guy who owns the best furniture store in the state. He made sure to only send us the best products.”
I glance over the new things with a weird sense of abandonment. Why would Carter replace all his things at the last minute? I know he’s been wanting to move on from the Lacey issues we faced in the past, as well as forget the Lacey troubles we defeated, but new furniture?
He leads me to a small space off the main bedroom and swings the door open. My stomach fills with butterflies, seeing a full-sized desk in the middle of the room. It’s surrounded by art supplies, special lamps, and tons of blueprint paper just waiting to be sketched on. I can already see that this is a setup meant for me.
I rattle with excitement at the opportunity he’s offering now.
“The builders need a mockup of a design plan soon for my office building, dove,” he says, his words caught in a heavy sigh. “Give them a few options to work off of, and I’ll relay the message. The dimensions are on the laptop on the desk already, as well as some kind of software that sets up the 3D model for viewing.”
“How… how did you do this?”
“That would be me,” a familiar voice says.
