Chapter 162

I stay that way, cocooned in him, hiding myself from everyone until I sense the change of surroundings and the lack of moisture on my head. The ping of the elevator to signal he has opened the doors and we are safely closed inside away from prying eyes.

I lift my chin and glance at him from my angle, catching his eye as he smiles at me softly. He looks pale, wary and I realize he is still worrying about what I am thinking about. I’m too quiet, too introverted for his liking and he is thinking the worst. He hates when I close up and don’t tell him what I am feeling.

“I love you.” He says it so seriously, so pointedly as he looks deep into my eyes and I realize without a doubt that Arry would never hurt me this way. He hasn’t got it in him to look at me with such conviction and say he loves me in that way if he had guilt behind those perfect eyes. I nuzzle in close again and wrap myself around him tighter. Shivering from my soaked clothes and dying for some sleep to forget this. I was exhausted before, now I am utterly devoid of all life and energy. Remorse coursing through my veins and I just feel ashamed.

“Put me down.” I say it softly, as I unwrap myself, aware that getting back in there means facing that woman in the apartment and I want to arrive with a little more dignity than this. Arry hesitates then slides me to my own feet but pulls me close and wraps me in his embrace. Keeping me close and tight to him and says nothing to the fact I didn’t say I loved him back.

“I’m really happy you’re here… You just made everything so much better with appearing like that. Despite how things went down just now, and despite the fact I know I have a lot of groveling to do, baby. I’m crazy psyched that you’re here. I missed you so much. You just made my day… Obvious aside.” He kisses the top of my head and doesn’t let me go, trying to sound upbeat and being strange. He knows he’s in the shit house and he’s trying to break the tension.

“I’m still mad at you.” I mumble yet let him hold me, needing so much from him even when I’m feeling like this. I think I just had one of the worst shocks of my life and I’m still reeling a little in surreal disbelief. I need to know that he still loves me, he still wants me here. Even if I am pissed at him. My heart has had a huge knock and I am not feeling at my most secure.

“I know… I deserve it. I’m sorry, baby. I really am. I watched it online… Hated that I wasn’t there with you. I left you a ton of messages too and Christian said you never even opened what I sent you.” He glances down at me and I shrug. Detached, numb, and shivering already and not really interested in the present I left on the couch in Paris.

“I gave Janetta your flowers. I didn’t want gifts… Just your presence.” I sigh numbly, firing home that I’m still upset, even if I sound weird and quiet and distant. I watch the light on the elevator counter above the door climb to the P at the end of the row and lean against him more definitely, swaying to his touch and presence. I just want to get warm and lay down and forget all of this. Forget this whole shitty week.

“I know. I screwed up. I know I did. I’ll do whatever it takes, even sleep on the couch, repaint the apartment in pink and add glitter wherever you want it.” Arry is trying to soften the atmosphere and yet I can’t even muster a smile, let alone a response.

I feel weird when the doors slide open and find myself clinging on a little tighter than before as I brace myself to meet the pretty brunette once more. Only this time I’m tear-stained, rain-soaked, and probably have mascara all the way down to my chin. I fixed my face on the plane in readiness to face him, now I probably look like a drowned rat. I avoid looking in the chrome of the elevator doors to check as I know it will devastate me more.

I don’t respond to what he said, just let him haul me with him into the apartment, holding on to that lithe body. I catch brunette doing an appreciative sly once over as we enter and cannot help the scowl that hits my face. She is checking him out in see through molded clothes and she isn’t being that shy about it. Her eyes stray to me and she tries to conceal the hint of judgement before a fake smile crosses her face.

“Hey Amanda, let me formally introduce you to my girlfriend, Sophie.” Arrick walks us into the hallway and now I can see Miss. Cleavage. has on a tight skirt to her knees and a pair of stilettos, that blouse is not done any further up though and she is sliding on a jacket too. She looks like she slept in her clothes now that I really take her in, see the wrinkles and some tell-tale takeaway stains on the front, and her hair and makeup seem tired. I guess she really has been up all night pouring over files and not fucking my boyfriend. Arrick leaves me standing and walks off towards our bedroom for a moment.

“Hi, I have heard a lot about you, Miss. Huntsberger. Arrick mentions you a lot.” She smiles insincerely and comes forward with an outstretched hand that I obediently shake, despite feeling like I want to poke her in the eye with her own shoes. I hate how provocatively she is dressed, even if it is office wear and I hate she used my name formally, but not his… Her actual boss.

Since when did he allow staff to call him Arrick?

He is much like his father in that he prefers staff to call him Mr. Carrero.

I guess if anything weird had been going on, then this cozy greeting would be going down a whole lot differently right now, and it only confirms the fact that nothing about this is an affair. Arrick isn’t a liar, he isn’t sneaky or someone deceptive and despite his mistakes in the early days of us… he isn’t the type to do this to me.

Arrick comes back with a towel and starts rubbing my hair and face before he hands it to me and gets to work unbuttoning my jacket and peeling it off. Amanda watches quietly, seemingly engrossed that he would be taking care of me this way. All I can feel is judgmental eyes on me and I push him back gently, so he stops fussing over me.

“I need to go shower… Do whatever it is you need to do, Arry. Go to work. I’ll go to bed and sleep and we can talk later.” I get clear of him to move, but he catches me by the elbow, pulls me back to where I was and makes it clear I am going nowhere. He takes the towel once more and continues patting my exposed skin as he turns his head to her.

“Amanda, take the papers and my laptop to the office, tell Jake I’ll be there in another hour or so; delay the meeting if they can, if not tell my brother to handle what he can. I need to be here right now.” He sounds like Jake…Bossy, Boss Carrero and Amanda nods and turns to collect a box of papers in the lounge, from among all the pizza boxes and glasses laying around. I can now see there are four plates, four glasses and four mugs amid all the wrappers and napkins and I glance guiltily at the side of his face.

Stupid, Sophie.

“Yes, Mr. Carrero, anything else?” She blinks innocently, back to formal names I see, wonder if she only reserves his first name when he is out of earshot and I cannot help but notice the way her eyes keep trying to stray to Arrick’s rather toned and sexy body in his damp attire. I really want to slap her, even though I know it’s near impossible not to ogle him like this. I mean she is female, and human I guess, but still, he’s her boss and his girlfriend is standing right here.

“Nope… use the car, it should be there by now and take one of the umbrellas from beside the elevator. Sophie has a few in the rack over there.” He nods behind us, towards the wall rack which houses a million of our jackets by the exit.

“Yes sir. I shall see you at the office.” She smiles sickeningly sweet and Arrick brings his attention back to me, nodding at me to slide my shoes off as he slides down to crouch and starts rubbing my exposed legs under my dress. I catch the way she looks at us, unimpressed and catty but she shields it just as quickly.

I say nothing as she walks past us and makes to leave, grabbing an umbrella in the foyer. From my angle I can see her in the corner of my eye but Arry is oblivious to her departure and is trying to pull off my dress while standing here. Amanda gets in the elevator as he starts to slide it up and over my head, peeling it away from my goose bumped skin and starts rubbing me to warm me up with the towel.

“You should go.” I repeat when the doors close and I know she is gone.

“I need to get changed anyway, we may as well shower together, if you want to that is?” He glances at me warily and I only nod. Despite still being pissed at him, I cannot think of anything better than a hot shower with him. I don’t want to forget or get into sex; I want the closeness of being naked with him and alone. I want to stop feeling like I’m shell shocked and take some time to get my head back in reality.

***

The shower didn’t lead to sex, he was a complete gentleman who stood behind me, washed my hair and my body, and cuddled me a lot. He didn’t even initiate anything and neither did I.

Too drained, too all over the place due to being exhausted, still maybe in shock and all the Paris stuff rolling around in my head. We had the quickest shower ever and wrapped in towels I am now lying on the bed while he crawls up beside me wearing a towel around his waist and lays by my side to stroke the hair from my face.

“I’ve missed you in this bed.” He says unguardedly, leaning in to kiss me chastely on the lips. I don’t kiss him back, but I don’t reject him either. I want us to be okay, yet I have a right to still be mad at him and he knows it.

“I’ve missed this place. Missed New York.” I answer tiredly, rolling onto my back to stare at the ceiling and feel the peace that being back here brings me. Completely different being here, as though somehow the air around me is changing how I feel, absorbing me back into the place I belong.

“Didn’t miss me, huh?” He nudges me slightly and then leans close to pull a strand of my hair between his fingers and starts slowly wrapping it around his pointer finger.

“Not so much lately.” I add haughtily and catch him frowning at me.

“I know your mad at me, Sophs. I know I am an ass hole of epic proportions, but I had no choice. The takeover is huge, and things have been getting pushed fast and hard to see an end before the year is out. Every day in this hold up is bad for business and we are hemorrhaging money while this goes on. We’re inheriting a huge corporation who single handily rivalled our own for years, and now we will own both. I should be there right now, day two of paperwork and negotiation. Hence why we were all here last night cramming through last minute changes for today. We inherited like forty thousand new employees and everyone’s working around the clock on this.” He watches me closely, but I only keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling and sigh heavily.

“I’m tired… I need to sleep, I haven’t since the day before the show… Go to work. I don’t want you to miss what you are meant to be doing.” I close my eyes as if to dismiss him, but his mouth on mine makes me flutter them open again and look at him as he pulls back.

“I love that you like to punish me when I screw up, I love that you have never been easy to win round. I love you and everything about you; but I don’t love the fact you seem to want me to go away when I just want to be here. I’ve missed you, whether you are mad at me or not. I’m not moving. I deserve to be late, or not show at all, for once, seeing as for the past year they have ruled my life and almost ruined ours.” He sighs too and lays down next to me, sliding an arm over my waist and pulls me snugly against him.

“You said it yourself, you should be there right now.” I remind him with a nudge.

“I do but having the love of your life walk into your home and break in front of you in the worst kind of way sort of puts everything in perspective. I need to be here with you more. When you break, it breaks me. I need to fix it.”

Arry’s words make me bleed inside. A warmth flowing through my heart and soul and I cannot deny him this, especially when he says it with such conviction. My eyes well up again and I push myself into him to snuggle closer.

He smells like everything I love about him, feels the way I can’t resist, and I know I am weakening. I want to feel better and after the shock of thinking he was with someone else; I want to feel that connection to him once more that soothes it all away.

“Make love to me.” I whisper almost randomly and catch the way he lifts his head suddenly, out of the corner of my eye. He’s confused at my request, given that I am not exactly falling over him with affection since we got in here.

“You don’t seem like you really want that, baby.” He smooths his hand across my mouth softly and it pulls my head back to that creep in Paris and all the things I still have to tell him. I shudder inwardly, even more determined to only have his touch on my skin and drown the rest out.

“I do… Make love to me. I want to feel better.” I answer numbly and tense when he leans up and over me to get a good look at my face. He scrutinizes me for a moment and brushes a thumb over my lips once more, gently soothing before he dips and kisses me a little more surely.

“Aren’t you the one that says sex isn’t the way to fix things.” He smiles softly, reciting my own words to me and out of nowhere the emotions from the past week hit me like a thunderbolt. So wound up inside, low down and then boom. I burst into erratic tears and screw my eyes shut. I have no idea where it even comes from, it’s like he found the right trigger words and my box snapped open.

“Baby, don’t. Is this because of me, because of what you think I did? Don’t do that. I swear we really are okay. I wouldn’t ever do that to you. If making love will make you feel more secure, then I will. I want to make love to you,” Arry is all over me, pulling me in close and wrapping himself around me but I only shake my head and bury my face in the hollow of his neck.

“My tutor made a pass at me…I don’t want to go back.” I blurt it out amid gulps and sobs and feel him tense instantly.

“What?” He draws back and looks me dead in the eye, that serious frown face that makes him look creepily like his father and brother, in one go. Enraged and silent, a hint of ‘I am going to kill me some creepy little French fucker’ angry.

“He put his hands on me, and his mouth, after he told me that they wanted to offer me another year ... with strings attached.” I cry some more, and yet, he doesn’t move. Only that look on his face gets scarier, and he starts to almost snarl.

“He? … That fucking… This happened at your show?” His tone is no longer husky, but a growl and his hazel eyes are growing greener by the second. My boy is mad as hell and growing more so by the second.

I nod and go back to curl up under him as he curses under his breath. Emanating so much fury I can feel the waves coming off him. I have seen him like this before and know he would never hurt me; his head is all on pounding the face of Claude. Arry has a zero to rage setting that kicks in when anyone ever lays a hand on me and I just flipped that switch.

“I don’t want to go back… I hate Paris. I hate everything about our life there and I hate the people in my school. I hate him for touching me.” It all comes out in a whoosh as though ejecting some of the pent-up shit I have been keeping in for months.

“I will fucking kill him. We are going back, Sophie. I am going to see that fucker myself. You are not running from this! You are coming with me and I am going to tear him a new one.” He growls properly this time and I glance at him timidly, knowing when he is in fight mode, he’s easily riled. He has that air of aggression that comes with his fierce protectiveness towards me. The one thing in life that can bring about scary Arry, is anyone messing with me. He cannot and will not tolerate anyone hurting me in anyway. If ever I needed something to remind me of how much he loves me then it’s this right here. The loss of cool and controlled and the spike of irrational fierce when he feels he failed to protect me. I reach out to smooth my fingers across his jaw, in a bid to calm him and scrabble my brain for words that might help.

“I sort of assaulted him. Arrick style.” I blink innocently, and his face softens a hint to a frown rather than terrifying scowl as he stares at me, blinking in genuine question.

“What?” It’s like he was elsewhere for a second.

“You know with that twist thing…” I catch Arrick’s hand and gently twist it how he showed me. Demonstrating my skill in self-defense. Bringing his focus out of the atmosphere and whatever is running through it. “Then as soon as he let me go, I kneed him in the balls and poked him in the eyes before I ran like a bat out of hell. I made him cry I think, he’s probably blind now.” I watch the expression soften even more as a hint of pride hits his face and his mouth tugs to a tiny smile. I think the fact I am saying it with a hint of humor is softening him.

“You fucked him up on your own, huh? Nice to see my little hellcat isn’t all domesticated nowadays. I hope you did permanent damage on that assholes family jewels, Sophs, because I fucking will, if you did not.” He leans in and brings his nose to mine, brushing my hair from my face again. Breathing me in as he tries to self-calm.

“I think I definitely broke something in his pants.” I giggle at the way he breaks into a grin at my words and kiss him when he leans in closer.

“Guess I taught you better than I thought I did and should have some faith in your ability to maim. I swear, Sophie, I will end him. No one gets to touch you, ever. No one gets to lay a single finger on even a strand of your hair.” Back to serious, back to protector mode and I curl myself up in his arms, bringing his head down with a hand behind his neck firmly. Kissing him seductively and relaxing into that gentle way he can push a soft chaste kiss effortlessly into something more passionate, so smoothly. Arrick slides himself around my, pulling me up so we fit together and finally breaks free when he has me breathless.

“See now, I feel like you may be ready for some love making, but not sure I can now that all I am thinking about is some slimy fuck touching you.” He rubs his nose against mine and dips for another quick kiss, rubbing away all the before and there is only the here and now, even though I’m still mad about my show. it’s easy to forget when he’s nakedly inching his way around me and his hands are skimming under the bottom edge of my towels on my inner thighs despite saying he can’t.

“Well if you can’t bring yourself to fulfil my needs and take my mind off it … Don’t you have a job to be going to?” I flutter my lashes as a slide my legs further apart to give him better access and encourage him to get over it.

“I do… But I also have a girlfriend in crazy need of distraction… And we have things to talk about.” Arrick, much to my disappointment uses his ankles to pull my own together and closes my legs. Making a clear show that sex is not on the current agenda.

“What are you doing?” I sniff away the last of my watery tears and give him a pained look.

“Hate Paris—Hate people in school? Wanker fuck that touched you… Sex is not going to come first. Talk to me. Why haven’t you told me these things?” Serious tone and those hazel eyes are a lot of green and hinting at not being in the mood to get around this.

Shit.

I know when something is pointless in resisting and he has that stubborn Carrero look about this. I know I owe him the truth about all of this and guess it’s finally time to do it.

“Fine.” I clamber to sit up and get some space while pulling my towel up around me snugly. Not looking forward to having to rehash the past year but he has a point. I used to tell him absolutely everything and yet I failed to tell him any of this. I don’t look at him, but instead focus on staring at our bathroom door.

“I haven’t exactly been straight with you about school and how things have been going.” I’m ashamed as it comes out of my mouth, realizing how stupid this was to ever keep from him. All this time I have been obsessing over distance growing between us and yet from day one in Paris I have kept secrets from him. I created the distance I keep freaking out over.

Arrick sits up too and slides off the bed, lifting his sweatpants and pulls them on before tossing me one of his t-shirts and comes back to get on the bed beside me. This is his way of saying we are not moving until we get all this out in the open and I sigh, knowing what’s about to come. He wants to talk alright… a lot, before he will even contemplate touching me. He is back to best friend and listener and I know better than to try and get out of it.