“This is happening, Belle. I’ve told your parents and mine. Mom’s gushing about you staying with her over winter break. Gotta put in time with the future in-laws.”
“This is the last time I’ll say this,” I said. “Take it all back, Carter, and find someone else to get you a bigger inheritance. I don’t take well to people forcing me to live by their terms. I’m certainly not trading a bully ex-friend for a bullying husband.”
If anything, his smirk widened. “My days of bullying you are over, Belle.” He flicked to my forehead. “Turns out, I no longer have the stomach to see you hurt. If the dame doesn’t handle Finn, I’ll have to do it myself.”
My chest fluttered traitorously.
“After we’re married, I’ll give you any and everything you want. A design studio filled with every fabric known to man. A house in the country like you used to talk about. Kids if you want them. Even if you don’t want them with me. It goes without saying that I wouldn’t touch you unless you asked for it.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
“I’ve tried everything else with you, Adler.” Carter pushed back from the table. “Bullying, blackmail, and friendship weren’t enough, so maybe loving me is. That’s what it’ll take for you to care enough to end this for me.”
A lump built in my throat. “I do care.”
“No, you don’t.” He didn’t for a second believe I could be telling the truth. “We wouldn’t be here if you did. I’ll never understand what I did to deserve it, Belle. Afterward, sure. But before when you were supposedly crushing on me?” Carter smiled wryly. “Guess I talked about Brinley Dylan too much.”
“Carter...”
“See you around, Belle.” Carter headed inside. “Stay away from single-celled morons.”
I let him get as far as the door.
“Don’t make me do this, Carter.”
“It’s already done.”
I stared at the door long after he left. That he felt my silence as unending torture ripped my soul to ribbons. A thousand confessions to a thousand priests and I’d never be washed clean of what I’d done to the first boy I fell for.
But we can’t get married.
Especially not in sweet bliss where Carter showers me in my every heart’s desire.
The marriage I would’ve proposed to Nathan had us on opposite ends of the world living separate lives. A husband only in name and I the sole focus of Mal’s obsession. But to see me happy with another man?
He wouldn’t stop until he destroyed us.
I abandoned my now ice-cold food and picked my phone off the nightstand.
“Hello. Thank you for calling Knight Petroleum Corp. How may I direct your call?”
“Hi, I’d like to speak to Mr. Eric Knight. Tell him it’s his future daughter-in-law, Belle Lewis-Adler.”
“Certainly, Miss Lewis-Adler. Would you allow me to put you on a brief hold?”
“Sure. I’ve got all day.”
CARTER
“You’re not going to throw the board if I win again, are you?”
“How many times do I have to plead drunk?” I asked. “Nothing I say or do when I’m drunk can be held against me.”
Hazel giggled. “You’re hilarious drunk, but you’re even funnier sober. Not that anyone knows that. Why don’t you let people see there’s another side to you?”
Another day. Another “date.”
Rosalie paired us up, stuffed board games in our hands, and sent us off to play. We found a shady spot under a tree and brought cookies and lemonade to the party. Scrabble couldn’t compete with snorkeling, sailing, or trips to the cove’s museum, but it accomplished its purpose of alone time talking with my current date, Hazel.
“You’re lucky you saw it.” Four years of Hazel as my lab partner, I’d let too many sarcastic comments loose under my breath that made her laugh until our balding, pockmarked professor shushed us. “I don’t let my parents see how interesting I am either. Can’t have them threatening to spend more time with me.”
Hazel laid out the letters for arena, collecting an impressive double word score.
“There you go again,” she said. “Pretending you don’t love your mommy and daddy like a four-year-old clinging to their legs on the way to preschool.”
“My dad is an ass.”
“Everyone’s dad is an ass. After the announcement of our birth, they light a cigar and proudly take on the mantle. But you love your dad anyway and you want him to be proud of you.”
I shook the tile bag harder than necessary. “You’ve sealed our fate. I definitely can’t marry someone who knows me as well as you do.”
“Can’t you?” Hazel placed a hand on my knee.
I gently put it back on her lap. “No, Haze, I can’t.”
“So, you’re really going to do it? Marry Belle Adler.”
“Yes.”
She looked away, but not quick enough for me to miss the hurt flicker in her eyes.
I liked Hazel. More than the majority of people in my life. But I saw her as a friend. Unlike Belle whose confession of old feelings for me knocked me sideways, I’d always known Hazel had a thing for me. I never encouraged her because despite what people thought of me, I wasn’t a complete bastard. And that’s exactly what I’d be if I married her knowing she wanted more and had to see that look on her face every time I couldn’t give it.
“She was pretty vocal about not getting married,” Hazel said. “How do you know she’ll go through with it? You might be left standing at the altar.”
I shrugged. “She can run but she wouldn’t get far.”
“Ominous thing to say. What do you know that I don’t?” She smiled, making the effort to sound friendly and interested.
“Just that this marriage will benefit us both.”
“Benefit? Doesn’t sound like a loving couple planning their future together.”
I pictured her—whole, beautiful, and somehow still sad as she hid a smile at discovering she was once my obsession. Belle Adler hit me with the power of an oncoming truck. So gorgeous.
And so cruel.
“Belle doesn’t love me.”
“Oh?” And now her eyes crinkled to match, showing her smile as real. “Why are you marrying someone who doesn’t love you?”
“If I have to marry someone for money, it wouldn’t be right to pick someone who does.”
“I don’t know.” Hazel placed an l, o, v on top of the e in arena. “You can grow to love someone who cares about you. I don’t know if it’s the same if both people in the relationship marry for the wrong reasons. There’s no respect, warmth, or affection on either side to build a foundation on.”
I ran a hand over my scar. “I don’t know if anyone can build something like that with me. We’re not all wired the same way.”
Hazel smacked my forehead. “Don’t say that. Hiding how much you care about people isn’t the same as not caring about them at all. You’re pissed at your dad because he cheated on your mom. Only someone who looked up to their father would be angry that he let him down. And only someone who loved their mother and couldn’t stand to see her hurting, would go home every weekend from school to be with her.”