Page 173 of Dirty Rival
“I’m pregnant, not sick.”
“Right. I know that. I’m already fucking up, right?”
“You’re not,” she says. “I just wish you’d have acted happy for me.”
“I am happy for you. Really, I am. I just—had this moment of thinking of yet another person I’m going to worry about.”
“Is that how you feel about Carrie?”
“I worry about her every second of every day, and there are times that I still think I need to let her go just to protect her. It’s a mental block, but she’s helping me get by it. You have, too, even without knowing what it is that affects me.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Yes, Cat, I am. When I was in college, I was going to break up with the girl I was dating. She was a fuck buddy to me and I knew she was really into me. It wasn’t fair. I knew that. The very night I was going to tell her—fuck.” I look away, certain she’s going to see nothing but the asshole fucking a woman who loved him.
Cat rounds the island but I don’t look at her. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
I inhale and breathe out, and damn it hurts. “Yes. Cat. She’s dead.”
“Did she kill herself?”
“No. The guy who robbed the convenience store we were in fired at me and she flung herself in front of me.”
She gasps. “Oh God. Oh God. The blame you must feel. The blame must—”
“Yeah. It sucks. I pushed everyone away. You especially, because damn, Cat, you’re like her. You’re so fucking selfless that if you were with anyone but Reese, I’d probably be breathing down the bastard’s throat. He loves you. I see that.”
Tears well in her eyes and she flings her arms around me, hugging with all her might and I hug her back, burying my head in her hair. “I love you,” I murmur.
She pulls back to look at me. “I love you, too, Reid. Don’t you push me or Carrie away again. She’s good for you.”
“I don’t deserve her. I so fucking don’t deserve her. She’s too good for me but I can’t seem to let her go. I’m just going to have to find a way to deserve her.”
“Then stop being an asshole,” Carrie teases from the door. “Or not. It’s become endearing.” She crosses the room and suddenly I have my sister, and my future wife both hugging me, and I can feel all those old wounds shrinking. They aren’t gone. Maybe they’ll never be gone, but they’re not winning anymore.
Chapter eighty-five
Carrie
Ican feel how edgy Reid is the entire dinner after he and Cat have their talk, and yet, he’s present. He wants to be here, listening to his sister talk about her future child, talking with Reese about his recent case, talking about our merger. Something is bothering him, though, and I know my future husband well enough to know that he’s in one of those moods where he might just shove me against a wall, fuck me, and then repeat. Then, maybe, he’ll talk.
We’re enjoying chocolate cake for dessert when Christmas comes up. “Can you all do Christmas here with us?” Cat asks.
“As long as I can buy my part of dinner and bring it, I’m in,” Gabe says.
“We’re in,” I say. “Family is one of the reasons we came home instead of going to Paris.”
Cat’s eyes warm. “When and where is this wedding going to be?” She looks at Reid. “We need to lock her down and fast.”
He laughs, his mood easing and he agrees, squeezing my leg under the table. “Yes, we do. If we could make it happen at Christmas in Rockefeller Center, Carrie would be happy, but I’m not waiting a year.” He kisses me. “We’re going to figure this out this weekend. That’s an order.”
I laugh, warmed by the fact that when he talks about our wedding, a bit of that edge in him fades. “For once,” I tease, “I’ll happily take one of your orders.”
Everyone laughs now, and soon we are talking about everything and anything again. We’ve moved on to coffee in the living room, and Reid and Reese are talking when Gabe leans over to Cat and says, “Did you know the whole time?”
“Yes,” she says, her expression solemn. “I knew. Reese didn’t. I wasn’t going to have this ruined for him. I wanted it to be special.”
“You should have told us. You didn’t need to deal with that alone.”