The Parent Trap

Chapter 39

Austin Reed

POV

I check into Melissa’s business account and personal bank account. It comes to about one million at most.

I need another four million to make up for the rest. I have three days to get the remaining four million.

Dammit.

This would have to do for now.

I hear Melissa coming back from work, her keys jingle in the lock.

I exit her accounts and go back to the tab where my bible study topic for tonight is open.

She walks in and looks at me. "What are you doing?" she asks.

I smile. "I’m preparing for tonight bible study. I hope you don’t mind."

She walks behind me kissing my cheek. "Of course what’s mine is yours. I’m going to take a quick shower quick before I start dinner..." She says.

I smile and nod. "I’ll be here. Take your time..." I tell her.

She nods walking away from me toward her bedroom.

I go back into her banking app when I hear the shower going on. I sneak into the bedroom and grab her phone.

I transfer the money to an offshore account.

I then delete the transfer history off her laptop and delete the text message alert to her phone as well.

I place the phone where I found it. And head back to her laptop I prepare for the bible study.

I even hum a hymn while working. I needed four million more but I was one step closer to getting to my goal.

Soon I’ll find Koah and I’ll be able to pay back what I owe.

But she’s going to pay for the shit she put me through.

The pain I had to endure the last couple of days. She better home I find her sooner rather than later.

=====

Chase Jacobs

POV

I’d almost forgotten about the way Carly reacted to my touch yesterday. After the whole thing with CPS and the police I had forgotten about the encounter. Plus she acted fine last night. Something was definitely wrong with Carly.

Yesterday she’d practically jumped out of her skin every time I came near her.

But this morning...

She was far worse than yesterday, she jumped as soon as she heard me coming.

The second I walked into the kitchen, where she was pouring her coffee, she looked up at me and as soon as she saw me her cheeks turned pink.

I couldn’t explain her strange behaviour no matter how hard I tried to think of the reason.

She looked away from me and at her coffee in her hand.

"Carly?" I called out to her as I grabbed a cup for me too. I head toward her to get the coffee from her.

"Hm?" she asks without looking at me. Her back was to me.

She didn’t want to look at me... Did I do something that made her uncomfortable?

I hope I didn’t.

She walked toward the fridge and took out strawberries and started chopping them up.

I poured myself coffee and placed it on the counter before I looked at her my arms crossed.

"Carly." I call out again.

"What?" she asks still not looking at me.

"You’re avoiding me." I tell her.

"No, I’m not." she denies.

"You haven’t looked at me once this morning." I remind her.

"I have." she lies.

"You’re lying and you know it. You looked at me and blushed before looking away..." I remind her.

"I’m just busy..." she lies.

I scoff. "Too busy to look at me while I’m speaking to you?" I ask him.

"The strawberries are prettier..." she bites back.

I bit back a smile.

Stella walks into the kitchen and looks between Carly and me. "Daddy?" she calls out.

"Yeah, Bug?" I ask her walking up to her and picking her up into my arms.

"You’re making Mommy Carly nervous." she says in my ear.

I laugh. "Don’t worry I’m not making your mommy nervous."

Carly lets out a strangled sound.

"You are." Stella says confidently.

Stella didn’t even know what we were talking about but she could feel Carly was nervous. And I wanted to know why she was nervous.

I set Stella’s chair up and place the strawberries in front of her. She asks to watch Miss Rachel and I place her headphones on her.

Once Stella was preoccupied I turned my attention back to Carly.

She covers her face in her hands hiding from me. "I’m so embarrassed..." she says shyly.

I couldn’t stop the smile pulling at my lips. "Why though. Want to tell me why you’re nervous?" I ask her.

"It’s nothing really. I just didn’t sleep well. I had a lot on my mind. So I’m jumpy..." Carly mumbles. But I didn’t believe her.

The whole thing sounded like an excuse, I was never going to buy. It was her excuse yesterday morning as well.

"Carly tell me what’s going on..." I try again.

She sighs.

"Come you come with me for a second?" I tell her.

She looked horrified. "Us alone?" she asks.

I raise a brow. "Is that such a bad thing?" I ask.

"Uh, no. I just want to finish making breakfast..." she mumbles.

I lead her out the back patio so we could still watch Stella.

She muttered something under her breath as soon as I close the door behind us.

She stared looked out at the garden determined not to look at me.

"Carly." I call out to her.

"Hm?" she asks her shoulders tense.

"Talk to me."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about." she says softly.

"You’ve been avoiding me since yesterday morning."

"I’ve been busy." she mumbles.

I roll my eyes. "If you had a knife in your hand yesterday morning you would have lost a toe..." I remind her.

She groaned softly. "I know."

"Did I do something?" I ask her.

She looks at me wide eyed. "What?"

"Did I do something to upset you?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. "No!"

"Then what’s going on?" I ask.

She opens her mouth then it closes again. Blush creeping on her face again.

She opens her mouth but no words come out. Somehow her cheeks become even redder than it was a second ago it goes down to her neck.

I frown. "Carly?"

She covered her face with both of her hands. "I remembered something." she mumbles so softly I barely catch it.

My frown deepens, another memory?"What did you remember?" I ask her.

She didn’t say anything, so I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. Finally after she was quiet for far too long she whispered out. "It’s kind of embarrassing..." I tell her.

"What happened?" I ask.

She let out a shaky breath. "I remembered..." Her voice almost lower than a whisper. "...you." she gestures to my body.

I blink pointing at myself. "Me?"

She nods looking down at her feet like she’s unable to look at me "It wasn’t like the other memories. It was different.."

"The others?" I ask.

"My other memories had some sort of violence to them. This one didn’t have any of that." She swallowed. "...something more peaceful I think..."

I smile.

"I remembered you laughing." she says a smile on her own lips.

My heart skipped.

"I walking up to you at the bar, giving you a lame pick up line and then we talked. We talked the entire night..." She laughed nervously.

"I remember thinking you were the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen..."

Now it was my turn to look away. I could feel heat rising to my face.

"I remember..." she pulls a face. "The night Stella was conceived..."

My head snaps toward her. "What?" I ask her.

"I remember everything from that night. Even how I woke up alone that morning..." she says.

"How?" I ask.

She pulls a face. "I remember everything and I’m picturing you naked whenever I see you and I’m having a hard time looking you in the face..." she looks utterly mortified.

I finally understand why she’s been acting weird the last two days. I didn’t know what to say. Hell I don’t even know if I want to remember our night together. The thought of knowing what Carly looked like naked would alter our friendship.

It would put me in a spot where lines would be blurred. "So that’s why you’ve been avoiding me." I nod in understanding.

She nods. "I feel a little guilty." she confesses.

"Guilty?" I ask in confusion?

"I remember my goal was to get you drunk that night. I gave you a fake name and made moves on you..." She looked away from me again.

"You didn’t make me drink and I was in a pretty bad spot back then. We had a night together. It’s not the end of the world. We both knew we did. It doesn’t change the fact that we’re friends Carly.

"I just assumed that Stella was a result of us both being drunk and it being a drunken mistake. But after the memory I know that’s not the case." She tells me.

I look at her confused. "What do you mean?" I ask.

"We had a genuine connection. We talked for hours in the bar before I dragged you out and back to my room." she tells me.

I stare at her unsure of what to say.

Stella opens the sliding door. "Daddy, I want crunch..." She says.

I smile at my daughter and pick her up taking her back to the kitchen to get her, her favorite cereal.

I needed to reassure Carly too.

I honestly needed to think about what I would say to her.