Yield

  He didn't though. He kept coming. His face was filled with worry for me but so intent on saving his damsel.

  I begged him to stop... not to brave the darkness and whatever evil was lurking just beyond the edges of the shadows.

  But he never listened to me.

  He kept coming after me.

  And then... I woke up.

  Okay, so it doesn't take a psychologist to figure out that dream. The meaning is clear and not something that is a big revelation to me. Clearly, I worry about Cal. I'm terrified Luke is going to kill him, and I'm doing everything in my power to make sure he stays safe, despite the fact that Cal is still clearly bent on pushing forward.

  But when I woke up and thought about the dream, frustrated that I didn't see the conclusion, I focused in on my feelings just before it ended. I zeroed in on the prime emotion that was holding me hostage. I analyzed exactly what my dream self was getting ready to do before consciousness claimed me.

  And I realized... I was getting ready to run to him. I was getting ready to jet down that dark hall, regardless of what might be in the shadows. I didn't care because my life and existence were secondary to Cal's.

  I was getting ready to take on the risk to preserve the reward.

  So, Dear Diary... I made a monumental decision today.

  I'm going to go meet with my parents and Luke. I'm going to take back my life.

  Today, I'm being reborn.

  Love,

  Macy

  Chapter 23

  It's been another three days since I last saw Macy.

  Three long and unbearably brutal days.

  I know she asked for time to think, and I promised I'd give that to her, but really... what does time really mean? A day? A week? A month?

  I'm okay with it meaning three days. The selfish, alpha, hurry-things-along kind of guy that I am, I want to demand she finish up her thoughts and realize we're meant to be together. I know it at the core of my being. I think she does too, but she's afraid of it.

  Mac has urged me to be patient. She says Macy has been very elusive the last few days, staying in Gabe's room mostly. This worried me... made me want to rush over there and bust the door down to soothe away whatever has her down at the moment. Which... given Macy's life, could be any number of things.

  But Mac encouraged me to wait because while Macy has been a bit standoffish, it's not in a dark or depressive manner. In fact, Mac said Macy came back to the apartment last night and actually looked happy... satisfied.

  This, of course, made my guts curl in on themselves because my first thought was Macy went back to One Night Only and that accounted for her satisfied look. That only lasted a moment though, because that's just not Macy.

  At least, not the Macy I've grown to love.

  I'm confident Macy is still mine, at least for the moment, while she continues to "think" about our relationship.

  I, on the other hand, have more to do than just ruminate. I'm meeting with Dee Switzer and expecting her at my office any moment. I offered to come over to hers, but she said she would like to come to me because she didn't get out of the office often. I told her to make sure she smoked several cigarettes on the way over, because she absolutely was not allowed to smoke in my office.

  She gave me a cackling type of laugh, one that I expected to erupt into a hacking cough, and then hung up on me.

  I open the folder and flip through the contents, paying specific attention to the portions I highlighted just an hour ago. There's not many, but hopefully it's enough for Dee to do something with. So very pathetic that I'm hinging all my hopes of getting my woman back to this measly folder of paper on my desk.

  A knock on my door and Janis opens it. "Miss Switzer is here for your appointment."

  Dee brushes past Janis, who discreetly closes the door behind us, and marches up to my desk. The stale scent of cigarette smoke reaches me about two seconds before she does. Her method of greeting is to give me a quick nod of her head before she sits down in one of my guest chairs and fixes me with a direct stare.

  "So, I take it you got dirt?" she asks without any preamble.

  "Yeah, but before we go over it, I want to make sure you're still willing to squash the forfeiture order. I give you something that helps a plea deal get pushed through, Macy gets her apartment and her money back."

  "Relax, Tiger," she says with a raspy voice as she leans over and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. "We're good."

  "You can't smoke," I say as I pointedly glance at the smokes she's holding.

  She gives me a sheepish grin. "Sorry... habit, you know."

  "One that will kill you if you don't stop."

  Dee's eyes widen, her brows go skyward, and she clasps her hand to her chest. "You're kidding. You mean... these things could kill me?"

  I can't help but chuckle at the way she mocks me for the unnecessary preach I just laid on her. I push the folder across the desk toward her, but she doesn't take it. Instead, she leans back in her chair, crossing one polyester, pant-suited leg over the other. "Just give me the highlights."

  "My investigator found a witness. A former housekeeper of Coppens who worked for him for almost twenty years. She's retired and living in Antwerp now."

  "What did she have to say?"

  I hesitate for just a moment, because at first... she really didn't have much to say. After Keith paid her, she got quite chatty. "She confirmed that Coppens had a surgical suite in the basement of his house in Brussels, as well as the house in Lucerne. That Coppens routinely saw patients down there, and they were usually very young girls... in her estimation, not older than eighteen."

  "That doesn't mean anything criminal," Dee points out.

  "I'm not done," I tell her smugly. "She was shown a picture of Luke Carrington and asked if she ever saw him. She identified him as having made two visits to the Lucerne house, both times with two different young girls. Very young."

  "Again... all circumstantial," Dee says, flicking at some lint on her pant leg.

  I don't say anything for a moment, letting the tension build. Now would be the perfect time for a drum roll. "She also recognized one of the girls brought to the Brussels house. It was the daughter of a neighbor of hers. She was with an older man... no one relevant to this. My investigator tracked the girl down and talked to her. She confirmed she had an illegal abortion by Coppens."

  Dee stares at me shrewdly as she considers my evidence. "It's still circumstantial in regards to Luke Carrington."

  "Yeah," I say as I lean forward and clasp my hands before me on my desk. "But it's a really good circumstantial. You can prove Coppens did an illegal abortion on an underage girl, that he had a pattern of taking young girls down into the surgical suite, and that Luke Carrington took two girls there before. It's a slam dunk, Dee."

  "And just out of curiosity... did this information cost anything?" she asks slyly.

  "My investigator bought her lunch," I reply vaguely with a shrug.

  "And how much did that lunch cost?"

  "About ninety-five hundred Euros." If I was going to pay to get a witness to talk, I was going to own it.

  "Jesus Christ, Cal," Dee says with a sneer. "That witness is biased. She could be making that shit up."

  "But she's not," I insist. "She knew a girl that had been there. That girl corroborated the story. And if you take this to Luke Carrington and threaten him with it, he'll roll. You can take them all down, get your pat on the back, and move on to the next case."

  Dee's head bops back quickly as she snorts. "You think it's just that easy, huh?"

  "I think it's something you need to try and see if it works," I growl at her. "It puts this case to rest and lets Macy move on with her life."

  Standing up from the chair, Dee walks over to the wall in my office that holds my degrees. She clasps her hands behind her back as she studies them. I patiently wait for her, although I can't imagine what she finds fascinating about them.

  She keeps me hanging only for a
moment, when she turns and gives me a benevolent smile. "You're a smart man, Cal. And determined. I'm very impressed with what you did to uncover this information."

  Um... thank you?

  "It's amazing what we'll do for the people we love," she murmurs as she tilts her head and gives me a knowing look. "And while I'm very intrigued by everything you've presented to me, I'm afraid I can't use any of it."

  "Why not?" I explode as I rise from my chair. "This is good stuff. You could at least try to use it to get a deal."

  "I can't use it," Dee reiterates patiently, "because a deal has already been struck. It took several hours to hash out an acceptable plea deal for all parties, but the defendants and their counsel signed the agreement last night. They'll be formally sentenced next week."

  I sink back down into my chair, completely blown away by this information. I mean... why the fuck did she even bother to come see me? Why the fuck did she let me ramble on with this information if it was no longer needed?

  "I don't understand," I mutter as I pick up the folder of information and throw it in the garbage.

  Dee walks over to the side of my desk, casually puts her hands in her pockets, and leans a hip against it. "Macy called me two days ago. She told me she would give a statement against her father and for me to set up a time for us to meet later in the week."

  "She did?" I ask, bewildered. I mean... Macy had let it go. She didn't want to dredge this all up, and now she was laying it out there for perfect strangers to see?

  Dee nods with a fond smile. "She did, but that meeting doesn't need to take place. Not but a few hours after Macy's call, I got a call from Travis' lawyer wanting to cut a deal so her secret stays intact... whatever it was."

  I scrub a hand over my face, trying to digest this news. "What about Luke?"

  "I also got a call from his lawyer wanting to deal. After that, everyone else folded."

  Amazing.

  "She's a very remarkable woman," Dee says with reverence. "So much dignity for someone I'm guessing suffered greatly. I don't know what happened, but I know it probably would have destroyed the Carringtons. As it is, they'll be formally sentenced next week, and while they might have a chance to see the outside of a prison one day, they'll be very old men before they get out."

  I nod... distracted as I digest this information.

  Macy called Dee Switzer two days ago. That was the day after I saw her at Matt and Mac's apartment. The day she asked for some time to think about us.

  And in less than twenty-four hours, she was willing to spill her guts to the prosecutor.

  She did that for me.

  She was going to confess her pain and trauma to a perfect stranger so her father and Luke would plea out, and I would be safe.

  She fucking put her entire soul on the line... for me.

  I shoot up out of my chair, take Dee by the arm, and lead her toward the door. "Thanks for stopping by... it was great seeing you, but I have to be somewhere."

  Dee pulls herself out of my grasp and levels an angry stare at me. "I need my purse."

  I wait patiently... while tapping my foot and checking my watch five times, while she collects her stuff and walks back to me. She gives me a smirk. "Going after your woman?"

  "Something like that," I mutter as I step back to let her walk out my door first. While I want to break out into a run toward the lobby elevator, I make myself walk with Dee in a somewhat dignified fashion, but my mind is spinning with what all this means.

  Why didn't Macy tell me she was doing this? Why didn't she ask me to go with her to the meeting she set up? And why am I finding out that this nightmare is over from Dee rather than Macy?

  "She confronted her parents and uncle," Dee says off-handedly.

  I stop dead in my tracks... lay my hand on her arm so she stops too. The hair rises on the back of my neck. "She did what?"

  "Went to see her parents and uncle the morning after she called me. That's why she didn't want to meet right away and scheduled it for later in the week. She wanted a chance to confront them and see if perhaps they'd roll. She got the plea deal pushed through without having to tell her story to anyone."

  Fucking unbelievable.

  I'm appalled. I'm amazed.

  We start walking toward the elevator again as I try to process what Macy could have been thinking when she made the choice to bravely confront her past that day. I don't think she was bluffing her parents and uncle, since she already committed to meeting with Dee later in the week. Perhaps she wanted true closure, and the only way to do that was to have an actual hand in getting some type of justice. Or maybe, she was just ready to put it all to rest and truly move on.

  I stop again... hesitate a moment, and then turn to Dee. "Listen... can you find your way out? I need to talk to my partner before I leave."

  "Sure thing, kiddo," she says with a pat to my shoulder. "I'm happy this all worked out for you and Macy."

  Has it though? Has it really worked out? She hasn't made a move to approach me, and I have to wonder if she ever will. I was ready to charge out of here a moment ago and hunt her down, but now I think I need some advice first.

  I give Dee a heartfelt smile, because she was the catalyst to get this all to come together. "Thanks, Dee. And do yourself a favor... cut back on the tobacco."

  She laughs as she heads down the hall, shaking her heading in amusement at me.

  I head back toward Mac's office, hoping to catch her before she heads out to lunch. As I walk in, I see Matt standing behind her chair, leaning over it and looking at the computer screen with her. Both of them look up when I walk in.

  Matt straightens up as I approach. Mac smiles at me, turning the screen to face me. I see a news article in big, bold letters titled "Quarter Mine Executives Enter Plea Deal" and then a smaller subtitle "Investors to Receive Restitution".

  My eyes go to Mac, who says to me. "Macy just texted me and told me to go look at the news."

  That's nice. She let her best friend know this great news, but not me. The man she claimed had moved ahead of Mac as her most favorite person in the world.

  I can't believe how pissy that makes me feel.

  "Did you know she was working with Dee Switzer to help push a plea through?" I ask, knowing it's going to be a bitter pill to swallow if she let Mac in on that but not me.

  "Nope," Mac says with a grin. "That's why she's been so elusive the last few days. I'm dying to know what happened."

  Vindication. I know something Mac doesn't.

  "She apparently went and confronted her parents," I say casually as Mac's eyes go big as saucers.

  "No way," she murmurs. Totally stunned.

  "Way!" But then I tack on a qualifier, which effectively ends my gloat that I know something Mac doesn't. "Dee Switzer was just here and told me."

  "Oh," Mac says softly as she realizes what I realized not but a few moments ago. Macy went and did something on her own, without our help, support, or encouragement, and neither of us knew a damn thing about it.

  We're her confidants.

  The ones she tasked with helping to carry her burden.

  I'm not sure whether to be pissed or proud, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to choose proud.

  We all three stand there, awkwardly silent until Matt says, "Well, what the hell are you doing here?"

  I blink at him stupidly... my mind overwhelmed and numb.

  What am I doing here?

  Oh, right... I know... advice.

  "What do you think I should do?" I ask them both... reveling for just a minute that these two fantastic people are both my friends. "She didn't tell me she was doing this. She wanted time to think. She hasn't reached out to me. It all sounds to me like she wants me to keep my distance, and I don't want to piss her off more."

  "And since when have you ever done what Macy wanted?" Matt asks sarcastically.

  "And since when do you care if you piss her off?" Mac adds.

  "Exactly," Matt follows up with a one-two punch. "Besides...
you know that both of you being pissed off leads to some great angry sex between the two of you."

  "But I'm not pissed at her," I point out.

  "Sure you are," Matt says with a knowing smirk. "She's being stubborn and holding you at bay. She's wasting valuable time you two could be together. Get pissed. Get fired up. Go get your girl. That's the Cal Carson I know and admire."

  I'm suffused with courage... a fire flaming hot in my belly... but I resist the urge to let out my best Braveheart battle cry. I'm going to go find Macy and get this shit settled between us once and for all. And I'm not letting her up and out of bed until she concedes that we're meant for each other.

  Best fucking pep talk ever, Matt Connover.

  Chapter 24

  Of course, I'm smart enough to have tried to call and text Macy first before I left my law firm in search of her. Of course, she didn't respond, and that can mean either she's staying hidden from me, or she wants me to chase her.

  I think it might be the latter, so I chase. Doesn't matter if it's the former because I don't accept it.

  I check The Faith Mission first, because that's where she would ordinarily be during the workday. They said she was in briefly in the morning and then was going to take a few days off.

  Next, I go to Matt and Mac's place. She doesn't answer the door, which I half expect, but I got Matt's key from him again before I left the office, and I let myself in. After punching in the security code to disable the alarm, I walk through their apartment looking for Macy. I even check under the beds and in the closet, because fuck... I just don't know what she's thinking.

  I'm in the dark completely.

  Finally, I head home to my apartment. I realize the chances of her being there aren't that great, but I don't give up hope. This is verified by the fact I stop and pick up some Thai takeout for a late lunch, and I buy some for Macy too.

  Just in case...

  The minute I let myself in the apartment, I know she's not here. It just feels... empty.

  I put the Thai on the kitchen counter and loosen my tie. It's pulled off and over my head by the time I hit my bedroom, and I can't touch or look at a tie without thinking about the way she used them on me or the things she did to me while I was trussed up.

  Fuck... I miss sex with Macy. I miss everything about her so much, but I'm not going to lie... we have an almost cosmic physical connection that seems to bolster the emotional connection every time we come together.