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Chapter 1
Becky stared at the aesthetically bland building she worked in. The interior gave you the impression of efficiency in the lap of luxury, but the outside was as plain as they came. Nice building, but you’d never know that an entire network of highly trained badasses worked and played within those dark brown brick walls. And she organized them all as Jacquard’s personal assistant.
Jacquard and Associates seemed to have no problem getting into each other’s business, which was odd for a predominantly male-dominated workplace, but Becky noticed they were cautious regarding each other’s private lives. Recently, it seemed everyone was especially careful with her and Carter’s saga. Relationships were delicate, and no one wanted to make a mistake by sticking their nose in too far. Becky knew she didn’t want to make a mistake either, but here they were, and it felt like mistakes were everywhere.
“What are you doing for lunch, baby?”
Startled, Becky sighed deeply and looked up into her beloved’s large blue eyes. Carolina blue, if she wasn’t mistaken. Not as gray as her father’s West Point uniform, but close. He was a big man, both in size and in spirit, a quality she had always admired about him.
Carter Brackovich was strong, confident, and a true alpha male that never seemed to back down from a challenge. Yet, here he was now, avoiding her gaze and looking away into thedistance, a distance that seemed to grow increasingly with each passing day they didn’t deal with their issues.
She gave Carter a half-shrug. “I don’t know. Do you have any ideas? Someplace we can talk, maybe?”
It was not a demand, but a sincere request from her heart. Carter had shut her out recently in that department and Becky felt sure he was avoiding their elephant in the room... it was destroying all the things that made them what they were. Becky wanted to spend the rest of her life with Carter and eventually have his children. But he had refused to do more than give her amaybe.
Well, he had actually said not now, and that had hurt. She didn’t want to marry Carter and later found out thatnot nowmeantnot ever. She wasn’t going to jump his bones until he got her pregnant, but she didn’t want to wait much longer, so every day, she took her birth control.
She hated that she couldn’t just trust him because she did trust him in everything else, but in this, she was demanding proof, assurances, and for what? If she couldn’t believe him in this, then why were they thinking of marriage?
Becky had askedhimto marryherthe last time they had this discussion. He had already asked her a few times over the last couple of years, but she had hesitated because she wanted children, and she was feeling the ticking of her biological clock louder every month that went by that ended with her menses.
“Why won’t you agree to marriage?” he had asked. “We can get married and work out the rest later.”
Her voice, barely above a whisper, responded. “Because I need to know we will have children. If you don’t know, then how can I know that it will happen? I don’t know why that is so important to me, but it is. Why can’t you commit to even one baby?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and when he finally spoke, his words came out slowly and deliberately.
“I’m just not ready yet,” he said. “I want to be sure before I make any commitments, especially with children. Our children need to trust that I’m all in. You don’t know what it’s like...” He shook his head in what? Despair? Uncertainty?Join the club.
Becky’s soulful sigh of disappointment spoke of her aching heart. She knew there was something more to his hesitation, something he wasn’t telling her. She wanted to press him like he would press her if there were something she was holding back, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was holding this fear, this pain, close to his chest. Her thoughts went rampant, trying to fill in the blank for the source of his hesitation, but none of it made enough sense to be the whole reason.
She reached out and touched his arm gently. “Will you ever be ready?” she asked, her voice filled with quiet desperation.
He looked away, and she knew the answer before he even spoke.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, his voice tortured. “I want to say yes, but we have honesty between us, and I can’t do that right now.”
Becky had asked Carter many times before about why, when he was so good with kids, and he obviously loved them that he would be so hesitant about having one of his own. He had never opened up to her about the real reason for his fear. Until he felt safe enough to tell her the real problem, then there wasn’t anything she could do.
She now grasped the frustration Carter had when Becky held back the information he needed to make life better. How many times had she done that with Carter, even when he had said how much it hurt things when she didn’t trust him enough to share? Nonetheless, after showing her the error of her ways, Carter loved her even more. That was what she was determined to do.
Becky wished Carter could, but something was stopping him. At least he hadn’t shut her down completely this time. She drew hope from that change. As Carter reached to open the door of his Escalade for her, Becky heard his phone go off. The face he made as he pulled the device from his pocket made Becky smile as she shook her head. They weren’t getting their lunch together. He barely held his irritated response inside as he spoke in deep hushed tones, walking as he talked. He was a quick processor, unlike herself, that liked to review all systems before making her response.
Becky knew this Carter, he was the most patient man of any of the team, but he had his limits of what he could tolerate, and he’d sought her out for lunch. He didn’t like his plans interrupted even though thinking on his feet was another well-known strength of his. He was usually very accurate. That was why Monroe, who was a great strategist, worked well with Carter, who loved boots and, when necessary, decisions on the ground.
“Sorry, baby. I’m being called into service to fly Levi and Kaden to meet up with their next assignment. Seems they are paying extra to get security up to them quickly.”
“It’s okay. Will you be back tonight?”
“Yeah. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours in the air both ways and a couple on the ground. I’ll miss dinner, though.”
Becky opened her mouth to reply, and Carter swooped down to kiss her deeply, the strength of which took her breath away. Carter was breathing hard as well when he lifted his head and grinned. “Think that will hold my place until I get back and finish the job?”
“I think it might, but no overnights because then you will owe me.” Her giggle had him rearranging his cock with a grimace and she wiggled in arousal. “I’ll just go get my car and grab somelunch. Don’t forget to get yourself something. You know how you are when you haven’t eaten enough.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy but I don’t want my girl out alone. I have a feeling that is making my gut rumble. And no,” he lifted his brow giving her thedon’t be naughtylook, “it isn’t because I’m hungry. How about ordering in today?”
“You never like me ordering takeout.”
