Accidental Heartbreak (The Accidental Series, Book 2) (15 page)

Shayla smiled. “We
could’ve stayed in bed, ordered room service then went back to
sleep.”

“
That does sound
good, but I guess since we’re here already we should go ahead and
eat.”

“
Okay. Then later,
we can take a midday nap on the beach after we’ve had a couple of
margaritas. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“
That would be
very nice.”

Shayla took
another sip of hot coffee. She looked up, saw the couple from the
plane. “Hey, isn’t that Kaitlin and Russell?”

Carter looked in
the direction she was looking. “Yup. That’s them.” He did a cool
wave at Russell and watched him and Kaitlin walk in their
direction.

“Hi guys,” Kaitlin said
all school-girlish, like she just ran into her B.F.F.
unexpectantly.

“
Hey,” Carter and
Shayla spoke together.

“It’s nice to see y’all
again,” Kaitlin said smiling.

“
Nice to see you
guys, too,” Shayla replied. “Hey…wanna join us for
breakfast?”

“
Sure,” Kaitlin
replied quickly, glancing at Russell for the okay. They both took a
seat.

“
So you guys are
getting married today, right?” Kaitlin asked, looking directly at
Shayla.

“
Actually, we got
married yesterday evening.” Shayla kissed Carter on the
jaw.

“
Oh, that’s right.
Congratulations!” Kaitlin squealed, followed by a three-second
congratulatory hand clap.

“
Congratulations,
man,” Russell said, reaching to pat Carter on the
shoulder.

“
Thanks,” Carter
told him. “I’ve never been happier.”

“
Aw…” Kaitlin
sang, placing her right hand over her heart. “That’s so beautiful.
You guys are such a lovely couple. How did y’all meet, if you don’t
mind me asking?”

Shayla froze – the
dreaded question. She never came up with a good answer for it. She
only hoped no one ever asked. “Ah we—”

“
It’s kind of a
sad story with a very happy ending,” Carter broke in, cutting
Shayla off. He threw his arm around her. “Shayla was having a
medical emergency, I called 9-1-1 and never left her
side.”

“Aw,” Kaitlin said
again, clutching Russell by the hand.

And just like
that, Shayla felt the pressure slowly ease away, thanks to being
saved by her man, yet again.

Just to keep the
conversation moving, Carter asked, “How’d you two meet?”

“
We actually met
at my sister’s wedding two years ago,” Kaitlin said, flipping her
blonde hair out of her face. “I was the maid of honor and he was
the best man. Isn’t that just storybook?”

“Yeah. That’s nice,”
Shayla said.

“
I’m gonna check
out this buffet, guys,” Carter said standing.

“Me, too.” Shayla
scooted her chair from the table.

Kaitlin and
Russell followed them to the buffet where they took plates and
chose from a variety of foods – pastries, salad, fruit, yogurt,
cereal, pancakes, bacon and eggs. Five minutes or so later, the
four of them met back at the table.

Shayla had
pancakes, eggs and bacon on her plate. She noticed Carter only had
a few papaya wedges, a small serving of strawberry yogurt and skim
milk.

“
So,” Shayla said,
looking at Kaitlin, “Tonight’s the big night for you guys,
huh?”

“
Yes! I’m so
excited.”

“Yeah, this is very
exciting for us. It’s been a long time coming,” Russell said.
“We’ve been engaged for a year.”

“
We were only
engaged for a few days,” Carter blurted out, then took a sip of
milk.

Shayla cringed,
shocked he’d offered up that information so candidly.

“Really,” Russell chimed
in.

“
Yep,” Carter
replied. “When I know something is right, I just know. And this
woman is it for me. She is my forever.”

Shayla blushed
while trying to chew at the same time.

Carter looked at
her, with love in his eyes and bit into a piece of papaya, slurping
the juices of it. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “I want
you,” and when he was back sitting upright, he took another
seductive bite and looked at her for her reaction, watching her
blush yet again. Then he leaned back over to her and said, “I’m not
kidding.”

Shayla felt her nerves
go crazy. This time she knew he was serious.

Carter wiped his
mouth and cleared his throat. “It was nice to see you guys again, ”
he told Kaitlin and Russell, “But Shayla and I are exhausted. We’re
going to head back to the room and get some rest.”

Yeah, they would
be getting some rest, but only after a round of
lovemaking.

* * *

Later that
afternoon, Shayla and Carter lay on the beach in blue lounge
chairs. A light breeze fanned the palm trees above them. Carter had
been awake for a few minutes, looking her up and down, admiring the
way her body looked in the one-piece, white swimsuit, her light
skin glowing from suntan lotion.

He watched her slowly
stretch her arms in the air, waking up from a nap in paradise.

“
Hey,” she said
turning to him. “How long was I sleep?”

“
A little over an
hour. I just woke up myself, actually.”

Shayla yawned, stretched
her arms in the air again. “I cannot believe how beautiful it is
here.”

“
Yeah, and if you
think this is something, wait until we go other places like Paris,
Jamaica and Belize.”

Shayla looked at him.
“Have you been to those places?”

“
Yeah. Paris,
once. Jamaica, twice. Haven’t been to Belize yet.”

“
Oh.” Shayla
stood, yawned again and sat in between Carter’s legs, reclining to
rest her head against his six pack. “Believe it or not, this is the
only place I’ve been outside of North Carolina…well besides
Virginia.”

“Really?”

“
Yeah…kinda sad,
huh?”

“
Not sad at
all…just more for me to show you.” Carter ran his hand through her
curly strands. “This is perfect. Me. You. Hawaii. Wow.”

Shayla giggled.
“You’ve been saying
wow
a lot lately.”

“
I’m just
amazed…didn’t know love would feel this good.”

“And to think you were
all anti-love when we first met.”

“Yeah, I was, wasn’t I?”
he asked adjusting his shades. “But something you said stuck with
me.”

“Really?”

“
Yep. Remember
when I first took you to Carrabba’s?”

“
Yeah, and you
made me eat calamari.”

They laughed
together.

“
I didn’t
make
you eat it,” he said.

“Carter, you held it in
front of my mouth and said ‘open up’.” Shayla giggled.

“
Okay, so maybe I
did make you eat it.” He chuckled. “But back to what I was
saying…you said something about love being perfect. You remember
that? Said that the Bible says
love never fails
so
that means it’s perfect.”

“You were listening,
huh?”

“Yes, and now you’re my
wife. How about that?”

“
This
is
perfect isn’t it?” Shayla let out a satisfying sigh,
enticed by the warm wind and Carter’s touch.

“
Yep. You look
amazing in that swimsuit, by the way.”

“
Thanks.”

“
How ‘bout we get
it wet?”

Shayla stood up.
So did Carter. He lifted her into his arms and walked closer to the
water and, in a passing thought, she remembered Donovan doing
something similar.

“
Carter.” She let
out a nervous giggle. “Don’t drop me.”

“
I won’t,” he
said, stepping into the warm water. He walked out further, until he
was waist deep, then slowly let her fall to her feet in front of
him. “I love you, Shayla.”

“
I love you too,
Carter.” She stared into his eyes, sneaking a kiss from his lips.
And then she dipped her hands in the water and splashed some in his
face, swaying as fast as she could to get away from him
afterwards.

“
You’re gonna pay
for that,” Carter said, chasing her. He gripped her from behind,
twirling her around in the water and pulling her under with him.
When they came up, he brushed water from her face and covered her
mouth with his, kissing her this time.

They returned to
the hotel shortly after to shower and change for dinner and before
they could even make it out the suite, Carter embraced her, took
delightful kisses from her lips and Shayla knew, by his needful
grasps, that they wouldn’t make it to dinner tonight. Instead, they
made love for most of the night, ordered some dinner a time later,
then made love again, making the most of their last night in
Hawaii. Come morning, they would be flying back home to
Charlotte.

Back home now, the concept of marriage was
quickly taking off in its first week. The couple made love on a
regular basis, ate breakfast and dinner together and spent every
available second with each other. Their marriage was the perfect
example of what a new couple imagined their marriage would be.

Shayla took over doing housewife duties –
cooking, washing clothes, tidying up the home – while Carter
continued his role at the bank, making top dollar and happy to be
in love while he was doing it. His job finally meant something –
meant he would build a secure and stable future for his wife, his
family. All the hard work was for her now.

This morning, Shayla woke up alone in the
center of the bed. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the digital
clock on his night stand, noticing it was 11:16 a.m. She slept very
late after spending most of the night talking with Carter about
their future plans.

She inched out of bed, inhaled and exhaled
deeply, then began to make the bed.

“Didn’t think you were ever going to get
up,” Carter said, standing in her doorway with his arms folded,
showing off the cuts of his arm muscles.

Shayla looked him up and down. What a man.
He was wearing a gray beater with blue jeans. No shoes.

“I was tired,” she told him, throwing the
comforter to straighten it.

“Here, let me help you with that, baby.”
Carter walked closer to the bed.

“No. I got it.”

“And I got you,” Carter said, hugging her
from behind, embracing her in his arms. Then he spun her around to
face him and took a kiss from her lips. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she said, smiling
beautifully.

“I made breakfast for you, darling. You want
to come down and eat?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll be on a conference call with
Genevieve in the family room, but if you need something it’s okay
to interrupt me. ‘Kay?”

“Okay.”

* * *

Over the course of the afternoon, Shayla
kept herself busy watching TV court shows, painting her toenails a
Mac shade of Jade Dragon (a dark teal color) and organizing her
room. She washed a few articles of clothing, experimented with
different hairstyles before giving up and letting it hang. She sat
in a bathtub of hot water and bubbles, shaving her arms and legs,
and afterwards, she put on a silk robe, went downstairs to get a
bottle of water, hearing Carter’s voice emanating from the family
room. She thought about how professional he sounded and how
appealing it was to listen to him work.

She walked to the entrance of the family
room, stood there with a bottle of water in her hand and watched
Carter looking through papers while Genevieve, on speaker phone,
called out figures. Now was probably not a good time to ask to use
his laptop, but there weren’t any other computers in the house and
she definitely wasn’t going to a library.

Carter looked up, saw her standing there.
“Genevieve, Genevieve, hold on a second.” He pressed the hold
button, slid off his glasses and said, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just need to borrow your laptop,
but if you’re using it, I can wait…”

“I’m not using it,” Carter said. “C’mere for
a minute.”

Shayla walked over and stood immediately in
front of him. Still sitting, he wrapped his arms around her
waist.

“I’ll be done with this soon.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m having a chef make dinner for us
tonight.” He glanced at his watch. “He should be here in a lil’
while.”

“You’re having a chef make dinner for us?”
Shayla questioned. “What’s the occasion?”

“It’s our one week anniversary, sweetheart,
although I don’t need an occasion to do something special for my
wife.”

“Okay,” Shayla said smiling a bit, bending
over to kiss his lips. It still felt like a dream.

“In the meantime, I want you to relax and
I’ll be all yours before you know it.”

“I like the sound of that.” She winked at
him. With the laptop in hand, she walked away from him and could
feel his eyes burning on her until she had completely exited.

* * *

The chef showed up at four as Carter had
planned. Shayla wasn’t sure exactly what he was cooking, but it
smelled delicious. The ingredients permeated the house…tomatoes,
onions, garlic and oregano. And while he cooked, Shayla stepped out
onto the deck, sitting at an umbrella table, writing down
information for a floral design class, seriously considering taking
classes now that she had the free time. She wondered how the new
girl was doing at the shop, and made a mental note to call Rebecca.
Besides getting updates on the shop, she needed to tell her about
her marriage. To Carter Williams.