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Fuck, I love this woman.
“Love you, beautiful.”
Opening her eyes, her gaze meets mine over her shoulder as her hands move to the top of the desk and I help her stand. Turning to face me, her hand comes up and her fingers run along my jaw.
“I love you, and I only want you, Carter,” she says softly as her gaze searches mine.
Fuck, I have never felt like this before. She drags all of my primal instincts to the surface. I need to know she’s mine, because I’m all hers. She owns me...every part of me.
“You own me, Fern,” I confess, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck, the other around her waist, so I can drag her flush against me.
“Ditto.” She smiles, looking up at me, and I can’t believe she’s mine. Her skin is still rosy from her orgasm, her eyes heated with desire and love. She’s so damn beautiful. Leaning my forehead against hers for a brief moment, I then lead her into my private bathroom and get both of us cleaned up.
“I need to talk to my dad for a minute. Wait here, and when I get back, we’ll go get some food then head home early,” I tell her, leading her over to the couch.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, and I nod, kissing her forehead then mouth.
“Everything’s fine. Lay down and rest. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Fern.” I growl her name, thinking she’s going to put up a fight about staying in my office.
“I’ll stay here, but I’m not tired, so I’ll finish working on my final.”
“Good,” I agree, gaining an eye roll from her. Giving her one more kiss, I leave my office, walk down the hall to my dad’s, and enter without knocking.
“What did you need?” I ask, shutting the door behind me and walking toward his desk.
“Have a seat.”
“If this is about Galvin, I already know,” I tell him, running a hand through my hair, pissed that I need to apologize to the guy, even though I still don’t want him, or any man for that matter, close to Fern.
“It’s not about Galvin, and trust me; I know what that was. You should have seen me with your mom back in the day. If it wasn’t impolite to piss circles around her, I would have done just that to keep other men away.” He chuckles, earning a smile from me.
“So what’s it about then?” I question, taking a seat in front of him.
“Fern’s grandmother was found this afternoon, and she was taken into police custody an hour ago.”
“So it’s done.” I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Not quite. We still have to prove she was responsible for what happened to Fern, and the man who was arrested claims he doesn’t know who the woman was. And the girl that led Fern into the car says she wasn’t involved and believes Fern was lying because they fell out as friends.”
“Fern saw her. She’s a witness,” I protest.
“She also has a reason to lie. You have to think about this like a lawyer, not like the man in love with the victim.”
“Fuck,” I growl, knowing he’s right. Her attorney would use Fern’s relationship with me and her grandmother as a defense against her.
“Is there anything else we can go on? Anything else that will put her away for good?” he asks, sitting back in his chair.
“Fern’s mom disappeared. If we could track her down, maybe we could show a history of instability.”
“When did she disappear?” Dad asks.
“Shortly after Fern was born, from what I understand. I have people looking into it, but so far they haven’t come up with anything.”
“I’ll put a call into Nolan and get Bernard’s information from him. If anyone can find out where Fern’s mom disappeared to, it will be him,” he says, referring to a lawyer at another firm’s security detail, the same man who was able to figure out who was after his wife before she ended up hurt, or worse.
“I’m gonna get Fern home. Send me an email after you speak with Nolan and let me know what he says. I don’t want Fern to know what’s going on until we have a better idea of how we’re going to proceed,” I tell him, standing.
“Just take care of her and my grandbaby for now, and I’ll handle the rest,” he says, getting up from his chair and walking around to where I’m standing, patting me on the back.
Chapter 12
Fern
Looking over at Carter, I make sure he’s asleep before getting out of bed and picking up his shirt from the floor, covering myself with it before going down the hall to his home office.
I know he’s hiding something from me. Ever since we got home from the office, he’s been on edge, but he refuses to talk to me about whatever it is that is bothering him. I know he doesn’t want to stress me out right now because of the baby, but seeing him so worried is worrying me.
Turning on the computer, I wait until it loads up then sign into his email. I have no idea what I’m looking for, but tonight, when his phone pinged with an email alert, he picked it up all too quickly and went into the other room with it. Then, when he came back into the living room where I was working on my final, he seemed even more on edge, but refused to tell me what was wrong. Scanning the emails, I notice there are a lot of unread ones with subject lines like:
Can we meet tonight? I haven’t felt you inside of me for so long.
Call me. I’ll be in town this weekend. I miss your cock.
Let’s hook back up soon.
I sent you pictures of my new Brazilian.
Clicking through the emails one at a time, I answer each one without thinking, telling the women they obviously need to give up because he’s not interested, and then I tell them that desperation is not attractive. Ten minutes into my email tirade, I’m startled when I hear his phone begin to ring from across the condo.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper when the computer, which is obviously hooked up to his cell phone, rings as well, with the caller ID showing a woman’s name, a woman who I just emailed. Pressing decline over and over on the screen, I suck in a relieved breath when the call disappears.
“Fern, what the fuck are you doing?”
Jumping, my eyes go to the door and I see Carter standing there in all his naked glory, with a frown on his face and his phone in his hand.
“Just surfing the web,” I grimace, trying to watch him while looking at the computer so I can shut down the screen before he sees what I’m really up to.
“Really?” He raises a brow, taking a step toward me. I stand from the desk, debating on whether or not I should accidently push the computer onto the floor.
“Yep, that’s all,” I say, raising my hands above my head then cover my mouth, pretending to yawn. “Let’s go back to bed. I’m sleepy.” I pout, hoping he finds it cute enough to follow me.
Looking down at his phone when it beeps, he scans it quickly then looks at me again. “You’ll be happy to know that Mandy said she’s not desperate.”
“That’s good for whoever Mandy is. I mean, no woman should be desperate, right?” I shrug like I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“Why were you going through my email?”
“What?” I squeak.
“You heard me. Why, Fern?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly, letting out a deep breath.
“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to me and y—”
“I know that,” I cut him off before he can say more. I trust him completely, and really, I don’t know what came over me a few minutes ago. Well, that’s a lie. I needed to stake my claim on him.
“Then why?”
“You’ve been acting strange since we got home, and then when you got an email this evening, you left the room and refused to talk to me about whatever it was, even after I asked you repeatedly. I guess I was hoping I could find out what it was that was bothering you and help in some way,” I confess all in one breath.
“Your grandmother was arrested and taken into custody today.”
“What?” I breathe.
“There’s not enough evidence against her to keep her behind bars.”
“No,” I whisper, laying my hands over my stomach, sitting back down in the chair behind me, and feeling tears fill my eyes.
“This is why I didn’t want you to find out about it until we were able to find something more solid to hold her there,” he says, coming to his knees in front of me, holding my face between his palms. “I won’t let her hurt you,” he assures me, running his thumbs under my eyes, catching my tears as they fall.
“I want to help. How can I help?” I ask, wrapping my arms around his neck as he lifts me from the chair and carries me down the hall to the bedroom.
“Bernard is on it. He assured my dad that he will find your mom, so hopefully she can be a character witness against your grandmother.”
“I think she’s dead,” I tell him—something I have been feeling for years now. His body stills and his arms tighten around me.
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just always felt like she would have come for me if she wasn’t. She had to have known what her mom was like. She wouldn’t have left me if she didn’t have to,” I say on a sob.
