Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) (22 page)

Trent woke to
the pleasure and torment of spooning with Carrie. More than anything he wanted
to make love her. But he had to take matters slowly. Otherwise, he’d scare her
off entirely. That possibility terrified him. He couldn’t imagine a world
without Carrie. Both he and his company would go under within months.

However, the
big guy down below was not happy with this go slow scenario and had no
intention of letting Trent resume sleeping until he resolved the situation. He
eased away from Carrie and out of the bed. Once in the shower, he tried to
reduce his need. It had been years since he’d practiced self-service, and
evidently, his hand had forgotten its job.

Afraid he’d do
something stupid if he returned to bed, he dressed and went in search of the
video that Mars and Sam had been watching last night.

As he neared
the door to the servant’s living room, he heard laughter. Silently he entered. Sam
turned off the TV while Mars stood and faced him. “Do you require something,
sir?”

For a moment
he was confused how they knew he’d entered.
Ah, someone had placed a small
mirror by the TV, aimed at the door.

“Mind if I
join you?” he asked.

“Sir?” Mars
stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Never had he
felt so unwelcomed and in his own house, no less. “I’d like to see the video from
yesterday.”

Mars refused
to back down. “And lose the benefits of your bath and a good night’s sleep?”

Sam punched
the machine and it spit out a disc. “I’ll set this up in
your
living
room. You probably should see it, so you can understand why the cops arrested
you.”

Trent resented
his driver’s comment on several different levels. First, it made him feel as
though he had no right to enter the servants’ living room, which clearly
remained part of the penthouse he paid absurdly high maintenance fees on.
Second, Sam presumed he had no idea how to load a DVD and would require help.
Finally, and the one that really pissed him off, Sam implied he’d caused his
own arrest.

Had any
servant, other than Sam, suggested he’d caused this fiasco, he would have
threatened to fire them. Instead, he followed his driver from the servants’
sanctuary into his much nicer living room, which boasted a better TV.

Having no
desire to prove Sam right on the second issue, he watched his driver turn on
the TV, redirect it to a DVR, and hit play.

Instead of
handing over the remote control, Sam joined him on the couch and continued to
drive the machine.

The first
video came from a bank camera across the street from his building. It had no
audio, but it showed Carrie trying to shoo the people off the sidewalk. None of
them paid her the least bit of attention. Then pure panic broke out. That had
to be when she’d yelled bomb. Less than a second later, Carrie stood alone on
the sidewalk.

He tensed,
seeing how close she'd come to dying. A large piece of metal from the exploding
file cabinet would’ve cut her in two had she not fallen to the ground and
curled into a ball a half-second before it flew past.

A minute after
the explosion, she rose and stared at the sidewalk in shock, then looked up.
Upon seeing another file cabinet tilting out the window, she scrambled behind a
car and pulled out her phone. Seconds later, cabinet number two smashed to the sidewalk
as she spoke to someone on the phone. She appeared most upset during her phone
conversation.

Trent frowned.
“Who’d she call?” It sure hadn’t been him.

“She’s on with
911, trying to explain it’s not a bomb, but deranged employees throwing
cabinets from a fifth story window.”

He relaxed. As
long as she hadn’t called some other guy. While he would have preferred she’d
call him, 911 seemed a reasonable second choice.

The next
segment of video gained audio, color, and the ability to span, making it seem
more like an action movie.

The camera
zoomed in on the people in the window high-fiving each other. Five young men
he’d never seen before plus one angry and clearly deranged ex-employee, Miss
Schnell.

“Now we see
what got you arrested,” Sam said in a cheery tone that suggested this was the
‘best part’ of the movie.

The camera
zoomed down to a man hunched over, gangster hat covering his face, collar of
his black trench coat turned up.

Sam laughed.
“Could you look more conspicuous?”

Trent glared
at his driver, but honestly, if he’d seen such a character entering his
building, he’d have called 911.

Then the
gangster looked up, and he seemed to have no face, just white gauze. “It does
look like a mask,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Oh, it gets
better.” Sam chuckled.

Did Sam have
to enjoy the worst day in his life quite so much
?

He glared at
his driver, but the jerk didn’t even notice.

The masked
gangster ran across the sidewalk, grabbed what looked to be a young girl by the
waist and slammed her into a parked car while yet another explosion occurred
behind them. Sam then fast-forwarded the tape to a newscaster. “We have
enhanced the audio,” the fellow said then nodded for a replay.

Only a few of
the masked gangster’s words can be heard. “You idiot…here…five ought three.”

The anchorman
had an ‘expert’ give his best opinion, reading lips and body language, as to
what the attacker had said. The gentleman placed several caveats about the difficulty
since he could only see the side of the attacker’s masked face.

“Your best
guess?” the anchorman demanded.

“I believe he
says, ‘You idiot. You weren’t supposed to be here until five to three.”

The newscaster
smiled. “Thank you for your expert assessment of the terrorist’s last words
before being arrested.”

Trent threw
his hands up. “Oh, for the love of God. I said nothing of the kind.”

“What
did
you say?” Sam asked.

He huffed and
crossed his arms. “I don’t remember, but I’m sure I didn’t say that.”

Carrie spoke
from the bedroom door. “He said there were five not three.”

Trent’s focus
turned to her. She wore a pair of sweat pants and a baggy top, which did
absolutely nothing for her.

She walked
toward him, her gaze locked to his. “You meant the cabinets, the presumption
being I should’ve realized if they threw out three cabinets, the two remaining
would follow.”

When she
reached the sunken floor of the living room, Carrie turned to Sam with her tiny
hand out. “May I have the control?”

With great
reluctance, Sam handed it over.

She smiled at
him, which Trent didn’t like, but unless she sat down beside his driver, he’d
ignore it.

Carrie smiled
at everyone. She showed no discretion in this matter. Her pretty, white teeth
would even flash at the bag lady who often begged outside their office. While
he couldn’t fault her for giving the old woman money—he’d toss the old gal his
coins, as well—he saw no reason to look directly at the woman, and he never
smiled.

Carrie would
not only make eye contact with the unwashed woman, but she’d flash her best
smile and ask how her day had gone. He once tried to impress on his naïve EA that
the bag lady’s days didn’t alter and, from his perspective, looked boring as
hell. His lecture made no impact. Nor did the bag lady help his argument when
she chattered on about finding a wedding ring in her cup the prior night. She
would’ve gone on for an eternity about the ring had he not grabbed Carrie’s arm
and dragged her into their building.

Trent remained
tense until Carrie moved away from Sam and sat next to him. Now, with all as it
should be, he relaxed. They’d gone beyond the part where he’d called her an
idiot on the video so all should be well.

Only she hit
rewind, sending it all the way to the first bank video footage.

“I’ve already
seen this part,” he grumbled.

“Oh, it gets
better every time you see it,” Sam responded with clear mirth in his voice.

“Don’t you
have something to do?” he snapped. “I don’t actually need you now that Carrie’s
here.”

Sam sighed and
pushed himself up. “If you are planning to stay in, I’ve got someone I need to
see.”

Normally,
Trent didn’t like his driver wandering off in the middle of the workday, but
right now, he didn’t care if Sam had some early morning delight, just as long
as it wasn’t Carrie and it got Sam out of his sight. “Go. You aren’t needed
today.”

“Shouldn’t we
check on the office?” Carrie challenged.

Sam shook his
head. “You can’t. Major crime scene. The police will let you know when you can
get back in.”

Trent glared
at him. “And how do you know this?”

“Detective
Pascal mentioned it when he dropped off the video.”

“When did he
do that?” Carrie asked.

He grinned at
Carrie. “While you two were getting ready for your bubble bath yesterday.”

Trent growled.
“I do not take bubble baths.”

Sam laughed.
“Whatever. I’m out of here.”

The moment he left
the penthouse through the front door, Trent released a deep sigh of relief.
“Good riddance!”

Carrie leaned
her head against his shoulder, which improved his mood immensely, then started
up the video she’d paused during Sam’s unnecessarily long departure.

Trent’s
tension returned. “Servants should quietly disappear from a room, not make a
big production about it.”

Carrie smiled
up at him. “He’s certainly a sassy employee, but he’s really good.”

“At what?”
Trent’s tension doubled.

“At driving,
getting information, locating us when the police took us to different
precincts.”

Trent grudgingly
had to give Sam credit for those skills. “Yeah, but the last one, knowing where
I am without my telling him, cost me hours in jail today.”

“How?” She paused
the video while she waited for his response.

“When given my
one phone call, I called my lawyer, told him we’d been arrested and to get us
out, then hung up without telling him my location. Sam can always find me. It
never occurred to me David would require an address.”

She shook her
head and turned the video on again.

“What?”

“I still can’t
believe he thought you’d refer to yourself in the royal ‘we.’ You aren’t nearly
so vain.”

Somehow, he
couldn’t pull a compliment from her assurance. “I’m not vain at all, am I?”

She pointed to
the screen. “Look at them, seconds from becoming road kill and they’re smirking
at the crazy girl screaming to get off the sidewalk.

“Until you
screamed the B-word.”

She groaned.
“I am convinced if I’d yelled the L-word instead, the police wouldn’t have
arrested either of us and half of NYC’s finest wouldn’t have descended upon our
block.”

L-word?
“Love?”

She giggled. “No.
Lottery.” She shared her idea of telling the crowd that a broken box of Lottery
games lay in the road.

Trent scowled.
“Why do people even play that? They’re more likely to be struck by lightning.”

“Says the
billionaire,” she muttered.

Sensing a
defensive attitude, he asked, “Do you play the lottery?”

Ignoring his
question, she pointed to the video. “Wow! I almost got killed!”

He glanced at
the TV. She had the video running in slow motion, so only the first cabinet had
fallen.

“More than
once.” He pressed his lips to her temple.

Carrie glanced
up and smiled at him.

How would he
have survived if she’d died today? His life, at least the good parts, would’ve
gone with her. He couldn’t imagine a world without Carrie. Even the possibility
caused his heart to thump in panic. “Can we fast-forward through this part?
Seeing how close you came to dying twice in a row makes me angry.”

To his
amazement, she fast-forwarded beyond the point he’d called her an idiot.

“This okay?”
She’d stopped at the anchorperson declaring Trent a terrorist.

“Thank you.”
He intended to kiss her head again, but felt someone staring at him. Turning to
look behind them, he found Mars, lurking like some somber ghoul. “Could you
make us some popcorn?”

“Would you not
prefer breakfast?” Mars asked.

Trent glanced
at his watch. “It’s eleven. No one eats breakfast at eleven.”

“Perhaps an
early lunch, then?”

Why wouldn’t
anyone do as he asked. “If I wanted lunch, I would have asked for lunch.”

“Very good,
sir. And what would you like, Miss Carrie?”

She turned around
and smiled at his butler. “Thank you for the bath. We enjoyed it.”

“You are most
welcomed.”

Trent frowned.
He never thanked his servants for doing their job. Seemed redundant. Didn’t
their paycheck thank them enough?

“What would
you like on your popcorn?” Mars asked.

“Butter, lots
of it,” Trent said.

“Do you have
Smart Butter?” Carrie asked.

Trent didn’t
trust something called ‘smart butter’ any more than he did ‘smart bombs.’ The
latter always blew up elementary schools beside ammunition factories. His scowl
evidently caught her attention.

“Smart Butter
taste like butter, but has no trans-fats and raises your good cholesterol,” she
said.

“I have good
cholesterol?” he asked.

“Probably not,
given the stuff you eat, but I do.” She smiled with pride at her declaration.

He glanced
back at Mars. “Looks like we want Smart Butter. Send someone out to hunt it
down.”

“Not
necessary, sir. The cook already purchases it.”

He frowned.
“Have I eaten this Smart Butter?”

“If you have
to ask, does it matter?” Mars challenged.

Trent intended
to reply it did, but Carrie interceded. “Thank the cook for wanting Trent to be
healthy and live a long life.”