Caroselli's Baby Chase (17 page)

They stepped off the elevator into a hallway with just two doors. He pointed to the one on the right. “This is me.”

He unlocked the door and gestured her through, and as she stepped inside, what she saw took her breath away.

When he said open concept he hadn’t been kidding. The apartment was one big open space with a gourmet kitchen, a dining space and a cozy living area. A mix of steel and wood beams crisscrossed above their heads, and a winding iron staircase led to a loft-style bedroom. Tall windows that looked original to the building lined one entire side of the unit.

“This is beautiful!” she said.

“Take off your coat.”

“Oh…I can’t stay.”

He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook beside the door. “You in a hurry to be somewhere?”

“Well…no, but—”

“So stay a few minutes.” He held his hand out for her coat. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to put the moves on you.”

As if she needed encouragement from him. If anyone was going to be putting moves on, it probably would be her. Knowing that, she slipped off her coat anyway and he hung it beside his own.

“I’ll give you the grand tour.”

He showed her around, pointing out all the unique, special touches, but she was having trouble concentrating. Her eyes kept wandering to his ass, which looked exceptionally nice in jeans. He had his usual afternoon stubble and she longed to feel the roughness of it against her palms and her lips…maybe her thighs. She kept her hands wedged in the pockets of her jeans so she wouldn’t be tempted to use them, and as they climbed the winding stairs to his bedroom, she couldn’t help thinking that she was making a huge mistake.

“The bedroom is my favorite room.”

She didn’t ask why. She didn’t want to know, but as they walked to the window, it was obvious.

The view from downstairs was nice, but from up here, it was breathtaking. She could see the entire neighborhood, and in the distance, the skyline of downtown.

“It’s amazing,” she said, aware that he was standing just a few inches behind her. So close she could feel his body heat and smell his aftershave—or maybe that was just how the room naturally smelled. On an oversize chair beside her lay the clothes that Rob had worn to work yesterday—yes, she paid attention—and she had to fight the urge to pick up his shirt and hold it to her nose, breathe in the scent of his skin on the fabric.

Maybe when he wasn’t looking…

“I can lie in bed and watch the fireworks at Navy Pier.”

“Nice,” she said. She could think of other things they could do in bed, too. They could make their own fireworks.

“Is everything okay?” he said. “You’re awfully quiet.”

She shrugged. “Not much to say, I guess.”

“You always have something to say.”

He was right. She didn’t like quiet. She was always filling the empty space with conversation. Today was different. Today she was terrified that she would say something she shouldn’t, which might encourage him to do something
he
shouldn’t. Something she would find it impossible to say no to.

She turned to him, looked up into his dark, bottomless eyes. The longing that she saw there, the unmasked
need,
made her knees go weak.

She never should have turned around.

“I want you,” she said, regretting the words the instant they left her lips.

He nodded. “I know.”

“But I can’t. I can’t want you.”

“I know that, too.”

Did he have to be so damn agreeable?

“The thing is, you’re a lot bigger than me,” she said. “If you were to grab me and throw me down on the bed, there wouldn’t be much I could do to stop you.”

“So you have someone else to blame later?” He took a step back. “Not a chance.”

She blinked in surprise. He was turning her down?

“This isn’t a game,” he said. “Not to me, anyway. Not anymore.”

“I know that.”

“Then you need to make up your mind. Either you want me or you don’t.”

“I do, but—”

“No buts,” he said. “Either we’re together or we aren’t.”

“What about work?”

“Work is work. We keep it professional. It’s no one’s business what we do outside the office.”

No, but they sure liked to make it their business.

“You can’t tell anyone. Not even Nick and Tony.” She paused and said, “Well, I guess it would be okay to tell them. If they ask. I would never expect you to lie to them. But no one else.”

“So I should forget about that announcement I was going to run in the Sunday paper?”

She smiled. He
always
made her smile. He made her…happy. Why would she deprive herself of that? What reason did she have to say no?

Because you like him, dummy
. Too much. In her entire life she had never met anyone she would have even considered seeing long term, yet here she was doing crazy things like imagining double weddings. This was a totally new experience for her. It was exciting and terrifying. What if she got too attached? What would she do when it was over? Did she really want to put herself through that?

But what if this time was different? What if there wasn’t a letdown? What if there really was someone for everyone, and Rob was her someone? Wouldn’t it be worth it to at least find out? To at least give him a chance?

She thought about what Alice said, about what Carrie had to go back to in Los Angeles, and she was right. When Carrie wasn’t working, her life was barren and lonely. Here she at least had people who genuinely seemed to care about her.

“I want you,” she said.

He looked skeptical. “But?”

She shook her head. “No buts. Not this time.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure.” She slid her arms around his neck, rose up on her toes and kissed him.

Fourteen

“I
s he in there?” Carrie asked, poking her head into Mrs. White’s office.

“He already went down to the conference room,” she said, her tone considerably less chilly than it had been eight weeks ago.

No matter how impersonal or cold the older woman was, from day one Carrie had greeted her with a smile and treated her with respect. It had taken a while to realize that she wasn’t really a bitch, just very focused and private. And one hell of a good secretary. She liked to come in and do her job and she didn’t like to be interrupted, which Carrie could certainly relate to. And she was fiercely loyal to Rob. He told Carrie that when he was a kid she worked in one of the stores and was a totally different person. He said she would always slip him an extra piece of his favorite candy when he came in with his mother to visit. Even if his mother said no more—which was usually the case. Then Mrs. White’s only son was killed in an accident, and she hadn’t been the same since.

So Carrie and she would never be pals, or even friends, but their working relationship was now amicable.

“Did he get my report?” she asked Mrs. White.

“He did. He took it with him.”

She shouldn’t be nervous, but she was. After compiling all the data, Carrie had worked up a rough plan of what she thought was a viable solution to Caroselli Chocolate’s sales drop. Now she would present it to the rest of the team and hoped they agreed she was on the right track and were willing to implement a plan. She was especially nervous about what Rob would think. For the past five weeks, since they began officially secretly “dating,” they had managed to keep their private and professional relationships separate. But if he thought her idea was total crap, her pride was going to take a hit. And her feelings would probably be hurt.

“You’ll do fine,” Mrs. White said.

“Huh?” Carrie blinked, sure she’d heard her wrong.

“You’re smart and the entire team respects you. You’ll do fine.”

Mrs. White was giving her a pep talk?

Coming from her, that actually made Carrie feel much better. “I have a lot riding on this.”

“Well, no matter what happens in there, it won’t change the way Rob feels about you.”

Carrie opened her mouth to deny that they had anything but a professional relationship, then realized, by Mrs. White’s wry smile, it would be a waste of time. Instead she sighed and said, “I hope not.”

“I’ve known Rob almost his entire life. I’ve never seen him like this before.”

“Like what?”

“Happy. Focused on something other than work.”

“Mrs. White,” she started, wanting to say something nice to the woman, but she shooed Carrie away.

“Go. He’s waiting.”

Carrie walked down the hall to the conference room. Mrs. White wasn’t the only one who noticed a change in Rob. Tony, whom Carrie saw quite often now that he was dating Alice, had said basically the same thing.

“He’s a different person when he’s with you,” he’d told Carrie, and she could only assume he meant that it was a good thing. It seemed to Carrie that Rob was happy, but with no frame of reference it was hard to know exactly how happy he really was now compared to before her arrival. She couldn’t really ask anyone else, because no one else knew about them, so she was constantly second-guessing herself. Believing that things with her and Rob were so good, they were
too
good, and even if they ever did start to talk long term—which they hadn’t—the relationship was bound to fail.

Maybe Alice was right. Maybe she
was
afraid to be happy. The question was, how did she stop being afraid? How did she learn to trust her own feelings, when deep down they were telling her that he was the one?

She stopped in front of the conference room door, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and walked in. She’d expected the entire team to be there, but it was just Rob.

“Hey,” she said. “Where is everyone?”

Her report was on the desk in front of him. “I wanted to talk, just the two of us first.”

Uh-oh. That couldn’t be good.

He gestured to the chair across the table from him. “Have a seat.”

“You think it’s crap, don’t you?” she said, sliding into a chair, feeling a bit like she was facing a one-man firing squad.

“On the contrary,” he said. “I think it’s brilliant.”

She blinked. “Really?”

“And I’ll show you why.” From under her report he pulled a second report and slid it across the table to her. It was dated almost six months ago.

“What is this?” she asked.

“The report we put together before they made the decision to hire you. Take a look.”

She flipped it open, noticing immediately how similar it was to hers—which wasn’t too unexpected—but when she got to the proposed solution, her jaw dropped. “Oh, crap.”

Rob laughed. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“Because you’re the marketing genius.”

She wasn’t the only one. Rob and his team had drawn the same conclusions that she had, and with a few slight variations, the outline of his proposed plan was identical to hers. “Did you show them this?”

“They shot it down,” he said. “Told me it was too radical. That we should stick to tradition.”

It was radical because that was what the company needed to divert a potential disaster. Tradition was nice in theory, but to survive in the current economy, one had to change with the times.

No wonder Rob had been so resistant to hiring her. He’d come up with a plan himself that he knew was exactly what the company needed, but they hadn’t trusted his judgment.

“They were wrong,” she said.

“I know.”

So they had just paid a tremendous fee to have her tell them what they had already been told. She could just imagine how well that was going to go over. What it would do to her reputation.

She dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, my God, I am so screwed.”

“Why? You did exactly what they asked you to do. It’s not your fault if they’re too stubborn to listen to their own people.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Work up a very detailed plan to present to them. Maybe this time they will listen.”

“And if they don’t? If they reject it again?”

He shrugged. “I’ll resign.”

She blinked. “You would really do that?”

“They’re my family, and I love them, but that only goes so far. This is business. Family or not, how long would you stay on a sinking ship before you decided to jump?”

He was right. “So we’ll give them the report and hope for the best.”

The conference room door opened and Carrie expected to see Al, Will and Grant, but it was Nick who walked in.

“Sorry to interrupt. Have you got a minute?”

“Sure,” Rob said. “What’s up?”

“The news is going to spread fast, so I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Rob asked.

“Terri is pregnant.”

At first Rob looked surprised, then he laughed and said, “Congratulations!”

He got up and walked around the table to shake Nick’s hand, then gave him one of those man-hug things.

“I know how badly you guys wanted this,” Rob said.

“We’ve actually known for about a month, but Terri wanted to wait to make sure everything was okay. You can’t even imagine how tough that was.”

“And is it?” Rob asked. “All okay, I mean.”

“She feels great. The baby is growing exactly how it’s supposed to. She’s due September twenty-first.”

“She’s excited?”

“You would think she was the first woman in history to conceive a child.”

Rob shook his head and laughed. “You and Terri. Who would have imagined?”

Nick grinned. “I know, right? Best move I ever made. I guess it was just our time.”

Nick looked so happy, and Terri was lucky to have someone who loved her so unconditionally, Carrie actually felt a tug of jealousy. She’d always just assumed that some day she would settle down, get married and have a family, but only because that’s what people were supposed to do. Now she realized it was something she wanted.
Really
wanted.

Al, Will and Grant walked in, and Nick told them the good news. There were more handshakes, hugs and congratulations, and she couldn’t help feeling a little left out. Caroselli Chocolate really was like a big family. One she wished she could be a part of.