Accidental Heartbreak (The Accidental Series, Book 2) (3 page)

At work, Carter sat at his desk fumbling
through papers looking for a specific folder he needed for a 1:00
p.m. meeting. Monday mornings were hectic enough, but he was even
more irritated with the fact that he couldn’t find what he was
looking for. Frustrated, he began tossing papers to the floor. Had
his desk ever been so disorganized and cluttered?

Carter sighed and mumbled, “Where is it?” He
stood, still looking and pushing papers around and just when he
thought he found the folder, his forearm pushed over a cup of
lukewarm Starbucks coffee. Carter, beyond irritated at this point,
paged Julie to come in his office.

“Yes, Carter,” she said upon opening the
door. “Can I…” she began before she saw the coffee all over his
desk. “Oh, my. Let me help you with that.” She removed soaked
papers, holding them between her thumb and index finger like a
dirty diaper, retreating to her desk to get a roll of paper towels.
She blotted the damp papers then dried his desk. “I’m going to have
to order you a new desk calendar,” she told him. “And I’m sure I
can print all these documents off for you again. Tell me what they
were and I’ll get it for you.”

Carter sat in his chair, not saying a word
to Julie. Things had been tense at work for the past few months.
His head wasn’t there and he knew why which angered him even more
that he’d let Shayla get so close to him, being without her
affected his mood. His co-workers were even beginning to complain
of his demeanor.

“Carter?” she said to get his attention. She
wasn’t sure if he’d heard a word she said.

“Okay, Julie,” he said irritated. “I’ll get
them to you.” He swiveled towards the window, with his back to her,
and stared out into the heart of Charlotte. This is where he found
Shayla near death and homeless. Where he revived her. Where he
saved her life. Why would he deny himself of this woman when he
cared about her so much?

“Carter, is everything all right?” Julie
asked him.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? Forgive my
straightforwardness, but I’ve noticed you’ve been very irritable
for the past few weeks.”

“Everything’s fine…just have a lot on my
plate right now.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No,” he said and didn’t bother turning
around to face her.

Julie sighed. She’d never seen him like
this. Usually, he was on top of everything. Now, he was losing it.
“Okay. Well, I got your desk all cleaned off. Send me an email with
those file names and I’ll reprint them. And I’m going to order a
desk calendar right now.”

He didn’t offer a ‘thank you’ to his
assistant or anything. He just waited until she was gone so he
could make a phone call. He spun his chair around, facing his
computer again. Removing his cell from, his breast pocket and
dialed Jacqueline.

“Hello,” she answered. She wanted to call
him a couple days ago, but she’d been hesitant to talk to him. If
he asked about Shayla, then she’d probably ended up telling him
that she was leaving. For another state.

“Hey Jackie. It’s Carter.”

“Hey Carter,” she said cheerfully, trying to
disguise her disappointment since finding out Shayla was leaving.
“How’s it going?”

“It’s…going,” he snarled, picking up a black
retractable pen, clicking it open and closed.

“Listen, um, I don’t want to take up much of
your time—”

“I’m not doing anything. What’s on your
mind, son?”

Carter swallowed hard. “You know my Mother
never called me that. She never referred to me as her
son
.
For as long as I can remember, Jackie, she treated me like I was
her financial advisor instead of her firstborn.”

“You know she loved you, though.”

Carter left Jacqueline’s comment up in the
air and said, “After Jacob’s father left, she was with a different
man almost every time I saw her. She was always introducing me to
some new, random guy. So I asked her one day, why she wouldn’t take
her time and find someone who she could actually love and maybe
even get married. Do you know what she told me?”

“What?”

“She said, and I will never forget these
words. She said,
‘
I
like my life simple and easy. Men tend to complicate things and
honestly, Carter, what exactly is love but mere weakness? Stuff you
read about in romance novels and watch on TV. Love is an illusion
and you know what an illusion is, don’t you?’
That’s what my Mother taught me about love.”

“Wow.”

“The sad part is, I believed her…believed
that love was weakness, so all my life I’ve been avoiding it. Every
woman I’ve been with that actually wanted a relationship with me, I
turned them down…or didn’t call them back…every last one of ‘em.
And I’ve met some beautiful, successful women, but I had nothing in
me that wanted to love them. Quite frankly, once I slept with them,
I lost interest.”

So Shayla was right
, Jacqueline
thought.
He wasn’t the one-woman type.

Carter sighed. “I didn’t know what love was
or what it felt like and I had no intentions on knowing what it
was, but now, I know what it feels like, Jackie. But what I
struggle with is, how can I love a woman who was so eager to pick
up her stuff and leave me like I ain’t nothing?”

Jacqueline knew there were two sides to
every story and when she saw Shayla for lunch on Saturday, she got
her side. Now it was time to get his. Some things she knew already
– that Carter loved Shayla and that he didn’t want to pursue a
relationship with her since she was once engaged to his brother. He
told Jacqueline that he would feel guilty if he went down that road
with Shayla. Now he was trying to rationalize it, making it seem as
if he couldn’t love her because she left him.

“You there?” Carter asked.

“Oh, yes, I’m here,” Jacqueline said. “But I
really don’t know how to answer that, Carter. Honestly, you have me
confused.”

“How’s that?” he asked, and swiveled his
black, ergonomically charged chair facing the windows behind his
desk again.

“Well, you remember when you came over to my
house for dinner the same night she left? The night you let me read
Jacob’s suicide note? You said you couldn’t be with Shayla because
she was Jacob’s fiancé, remember? Said it was best that you cut
ties with her.”

“I never said I wanted to cut ties with her.
I think
you
suggested that it was probably the best thing
for me to do.”

“Yes, I said it because I didn’t think that
Shayla would accept the fact that you kept your kinship to Jacob
hidden from her. And you agreed with me, right?”

There was no reply. Carter stared out the
window, replaying their two-month-old conversation in his head.

“Right?” Jacqueline asked again.

“Yeah,” he forced out.

“So why are you so upset that she left when
that’s what you wanted?”

He had no answer. After all, it is what he
wanted. But he also wanted her. He wanted her to fight for him, to
love him like she loved his brother. She wouldn’t have walked out
on Jacob, would she? He doubted it. So why was it so easy to leave
him, especially after everything he’d done to make her life
better?

“Seems to me like you want her, then again,
you don’t want her,” Jacqueline added.

Carter continued clicking the pen open and
shut. Jacqueline was right and he couldn’t deny anything she
said.

“If you think she’s worth it, Carter, then
you really need to make a decision as to whether or not you’re
going to correct this rift between you two. And you need to do it
fast. She’s leaving in a couple of weeks.”

Sitting straight up in his chair, he asked,
“What do you mean she’s leaving?”

“She got a job in Norfolk, Virginia. The
flower shop lady is already looking for her replacement.”

Carter couldn’t seem to get the frown out of
his forehead. Shayla was leaving and there was nothing he could do
about it. He had no claim over her. And once again, he told himself
that maybe it was for the best. If she was out of his sight, then
she’d be out of his mind. But that strategy hadn’t work for the
past two months had it?

“Carter, you there?

“Yeah…when did you speak with her?”

“We had lunch Saturday.”

Saturday. Why are you just telling me
this now?
Carter brushed his hands over his curly hair. He’d
been frustrated for the longest time over Shayla and any mention of
her name had him feeling mixed emotions. On one end, he remembered
saving her life that cold, February day and being her hero. On the
other, he could recall her being distant days before she moved out,
their fight in the parking lot and finally the note she left for
him – a note that simply was her way of letting him know she moved
out and nothing more.

And then there was the fact that he hadn’t
told her that Jacob was his brother…

“Either way it goes, Jackie, I can’t
disrespect my brother like that so—”

“So you’re going to let her leave?”
Jacqueline asked, irritated.

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“You could talk to her…fight for her.”

“I’ma fight for a woman who left me…”

“You
wanted
her to leave,” Jacqueline
pointed out, raising her voice an octave. Then she snapped. “Stop
pretending like that’s the reason you’re allowing this distance
between you two. It all has to do with the fact that you’re afraid
to come clean and tell her about Jacob. You need to do that,
Carter. You owe it to her and to yourself. It’s not like you’re
disrespecting Jacob or anything. You said it yourself that he
asked
you to take care of Shayla, right?”

“He didn’t ask me to fall in love with
her.”

“So the answer to my question is yes, then.
You
are
going to let her leave?” Jackie asked, her voice
cracking.

Carter sensed her sadness. His aunt had
grown attached to Shayla like she’d instantly become a part of the
family. And he was the one tearing that family apart. It was Shayla
who reunited Jacqueline with Carter again and now she was going
away. “You thought it was a good idea for me to let her go before,
Jackie. Why are you changing your mind now?”

“Because I know you love her. And I know she
loves you just as much. It would be a shame if you two didn’t work
this out.” Jacqueline dabbed tears from the corner of her eyes. “At
least talk to her before she heads out of town.”

Carter diverted his attention to an Outlook
alarm on his computer, signaling he had a meeting in five minutes.
“Ah’ight, Jackie. I have to go. Maybe I’ll talk to her…”

“You should, and before I let you go, I
wanted to mention something else she said that’s been bothering me.
She made a comment that you weren’t thinking about her because you
probably done had plenty of women since she left.”

Carter grimaced like the words had
physically assaulted him. “She said that?”

“Yeah. She also said she wasn’t surprised
you didn’t want her because nobody else in her life wanted her.
Said her parents didn’t want her and she said Jacob didn’t want her
either. So please make an effort to talk to her.”

“Okay. I will,” he replied, though he wasn’t
sure what he would do at the moment.

“Aw-right, Carter. Bye.”

He set the phone on his desk and ran his
fingers over his head. He blew a breath, sighed heavily then headed
to the conference room.

Fifteen minutes before Carter knew the
flower shop would be closing, he left his office. He had to see
Shayla today, especially after finding out she was leaving. And did
she really think he was out having one-night stands and carrying on
since she moved out? In the past maybe, in the pre-Shayla days of
his life, but he hadn’t been with a woman since he met her. Whether
he liked it or not, he was emotionally attached to Shayla and if he
didn’t want to lose her, he needed to do something about it.

He parked next to her car, watching Shayla
walk out of the building with Rebecca, locking up the shop for the
day. He got out of his truck and began to walk towards them.

Shayla looked up and saw him walking in her
direction. Was this an apparition or was he really there? She
hadn’t laid eyes on him in so long, something about the distance
between them made him that much more appealing. Eye candy at its
best. He was deliciously fine, walking towards her with a swag only
he could pull off, and as he sauntered her way, all six-feet, two
inches of him, all she could think about was their last
communication – a heated argument that left things sour between
them. And what information had Jacqueline told him? It was no
coincidence that after two months of not seeing or hearing from
him, he showed up two days after she had dinner with Jacqueline.
Did he know she was leaving? Is that the only reason he bothered to
seek her out? After eight long weeks?

“Wonder what he wants…” Shayla nervously
whispered to Rebecca, feeling her stomach form into so many knots,
she could barely stand up straight.

“You know what he wants,” Rebecca
hissed.

Carter took a few more steps towards Shayla
and stopping directly in front of her he said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Shayla told him feeling nerves tingle
throughout her body. The scent of his cologne made her remember
certain beautiful moments they shared. And he looked even more
gorgeous than she remembered. His curly hair was fuller and
tapered. His light brown eyes were tantalizing.

He looked her over a moment more, getting
reacquainted with her face – the face he found so beautiful. He
noticed she had her hair straightened, which showed the true length
of it, falling down to her chest and mid-back. With the added touch
of copper highlights, she looked like she just came from the salon.
She wore makeup too, had some peach blush on her cheeks and pink
gloss on her lips that attracted the heat of his eyes. Jacqueline
was right. She did look different. She was stunning.