The Scandal and Carter O'Neill (18 page)

“Well, you found me,” Zoe said. “What do you think?”

Penny looked around. “Is this for the academy? It’s such a big step. Can you afford—” Penny stopped mid-sentence and Zoe fumed, wondering if her mother was ever going to change. Was ever going to treat her like an adult. “I’m sorry,” Penny said, and Zoe held her breath, getting the sense that her mother was apologizing for more than just that comment.

“I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted, and the way I reacted to your baby. I think that in all my fear for you, I never once told you how excited I am. And what a good mother I think you’ll be.”

“Thank you,” Zoe breathed, flattered beyond measure.

“About Carter—”

“You can say I told you so, if you want,” Zoe said, her heart so tired and sore she couldn’t even say his name. “You were right. He’s left.”

“I’m not here to say I told you so,” Penny said. “I’m not here to make this pain worse.”

To Zoe’s utter amazement, Penny’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re so brave, Zoe. So much braver than me.”

Zoe stepped forward and reached for her mother’s hands. “That’s not true, Mom. You were twenty. A kid—”

Penny shook her head. “I’m not talking about being a mother. I’m talking about…” She sighed heavily. “I don’t know, being a woman. Being a lover or a girlfriend. You throw your heart around like it can’t be broken. You’ve always done that.”

Zoe rested her head against her mother’s shoulder. Her broken heart pounded and throbbed in her chest, proving what a reckless mistake that had been.

“I had relationships, you know,” Mom said, and Zoe lifted her head, slightly scandalized.

“What?”

“Boyfriends over the years. I just never cared enough about any of them to bring them home to you. Or maybe I just cared so much about you…” She stopped. “Either way, I think…now, I think that was a mistake. I should have opened our world, even if there had been some pain involved.”

Zoe laughed. “No, Mom, you were right. This pain…” She touched her chest, rubbed at the sore spot as if it might help. “Nothing is worth this pain. I thought I would never regret what Carter and I had, but I was wrong. I wish I’d never stood on that damn chair.”

“Oh, honey,” Penny said. She folded Zoe in a tight hug, and Zoe was ready to go back to that world. The world of the two of them, insulated against everybody else. And her mom could make that happen. Things were safe with her mom; no one got in and no one got hurt.

“You don’t mean that,” Penny said.

“I do, Mom. I do. Carter…that was a mistake.”

Penny blinked and stroked Zoe’s face. “No, honey, a mistake is not trying. A mistake is never opening the door to the possibility of love. Don’t let this pain change you like it changed me.”

Zoe’s phone buzzed in the pocket of her raincoat and she fished it out, her heart hammering hard in her chest. Sure, she could talk a good game about regretting Carter, but she wished it was him on that phone. Longed to hear his voice.

“Hello?” she said.

“Zoe, sorry to bother you, but this is Savannah Woods…O’Neill. This is Carter’s sister.”

“Savannah, hi,” she said, surprised. “How did you get this number?”

“I’m so sorry. This is illegal in a bunch of different ways I’m sure, but my sister-in-law has friends in law enforcement and I would never have done this, but we’re having an emergency.”

“Emergency? Are you okay?”

“Fine. But we can’t find Carter.”

ZOE STOOD OUTSIDE CARTER’S dark condo with his spare key in her hand. He’d shown her where it was a week ago. God, had that been last week? It felt like a lifetime ago.

If she used this key and he was in there, he was going to lose his mind. Rightly so, she had to admit, but he wasn’t answering his cell phone. Savannah had talked to him briefly, a few days ago, right after the news had broken. He’d said he was going after Vanessa, but after that, five days of silence. And going after Vanessa—that could mean anything. New Orleans. New York. Hell, he could be in Beijing.

Savannah had called the police and hospitals, but neither had any information. She’d tried his assistant, even the mayor’s office, but no one had talked to him in a week. Zoe called Eric Lafayette, who said Carter had just disappeared off the face of the earth.

There was a good chance he was just holed up in his condo. Lying low. But enough was enough, she thought, sliding the key in the lock—people were freaking out.

Not her, of course, she told herself. She didn’t care. Since there was nothing between them, why would she care? But her hands were sweating, and she really, really hoped he was in there, maybe drunk. Hungover. She’d even take him angry.

But please, she prayed, let him be safe.

“Hello?” she cried, stepping into the dark foyer. His running shoes were there, the iPod still in them. She kicked over a pile of mail from the mail slot, which made her nervous. He hadn’t been here to move it. “Carter?” she cried.

She ran through the rooms but it only confirmed what she knew.

Carter was gone.

Carter was gone, and no matter how much she pretended she didn’t care, it was a lie.

Love was alive in her.

She called Ben and Phillip and then her mother.

And then her love for Carter pushed her back into her car and onto the highway. It pushed her all the way to Bonne Terre.

CARTER LAY ON HIS MOTHER’S bed in the crappy hotel room she’d rented off the highway. Some of her clothes were there, a raincoat, a turtleneck. Cold weather clothes, left behind. Like him.

Why am I here? he thought, staring at the same cracks on the ceiling that he’d been staring at for five days. Today was his last day. Vanessa had paid out the week and that was it.

Five days waiting here and he knew what he’d known when he’d first arrived.

There would be no satisfaction from his mother. No explanations. No tearful apologies.

She’d left, taken her thirty silver coins, and she wasn’t coming back. But this time, she had to know that if she came back, he’d send her to the cops.

The rage billowed in him, but he’d already destroyed the lamp, broken the mirror. The TV would never work again. His cell phone was trashed.

There was nothing left for him to throw. Nothing left to keep him here.

It was over. Done. The secret was out and there was no more protecting anyone. All those secrets and lies, the distance he put between himself and anything he wanted to keep clean—it was all over.

The shell was gone and his skin flinched in the cool air.

But still he couldn’t walk out that yellowed door.

What do I have to go back to? he wondered. What did he want to go back to?

Before he’d smashed his phone there had been a dozen calls from Eric Lafayette, messages offering him a job—but Carter couldn’t work up the enthusiasm.

Zoe?

His heart spasmed fresh hurt. Fresh pain.

He missed her. He missed her more than his job. His condo. His life. He missed her like he missed his family. Like he missed being touched and loved. He missed her like he missed himself—the man he was without the secrets.

But what could he possibly say that would erase what he’d done? The words he’d used to slice her into pieces?

He cringed and sat up, hanging his head in his hands. This suddenly felt so familiar. This place—not the room or the cracks on the ceiling—but this place in his head.

Giving up something he wanted. Something he loved, because it was easier not to fight. Easier to numb the pain and let the distance take over.

His mother had pºut him in this place again, left him here all by himself, and he had the same choice to make.

Love or no love.

Alone or with someone. With a family.

When he thought about it like that, it seemed so clear.

“Oh God,” he muttered, scrubbing at his face. “I’m so stupid.”

His hands ached to touch Zoe. His arms hurt without her in them.

He stood, opened the yellowed door.

“Goodbye, Mom,” he breathed and shut the door behind him.

THE LIGHTS WERE ON in Zoe’s loft and his stomach dropped into his shoes. She was going to be so mad, he thought. Hurt. Maybe badly enough that she’d never forgive him.

And she was right, he thought, remembering what he’d said to her, like she meant nothing to him.

But he had to try.

He looked down at his wrinkled clothes. No doubt he smelled bad. He’d been living on fast food and beer for a week.

But somehow, the man under the smell was worse. He had no job, no career, and his mother had sold him out for what looked like a plane ticket to South America.

Even if Zoe wasn’t so mad she never wanted to see him again, it’s not as if he was bringing her his best game. The best version of himself. He didn’t even have flowers. What was some abject groveling without flowers?

He should go home. At least shower off the stink.

But God, every minute now felt like a year and he was all too aware of every second he’d wasted already.

“You going to stand out there all night?” a woman asked from the open doorway.

“No,” he said, and stepped toward the concrete step and safety glass door where he’d first tried to kiss Zoe. A Christmas elf was stuck to the door. Mocking him. “Thank you. I’m looking for Zo—”

It was Penny standing there, holding open the door like she expected him.

“Took you long enough,” she said, her lips a firm line. “If you didn’t surface here or at your condo tonight, I was under strict rules to call the cops.”

“I’ve been…” A hundred lies came to his lips, but he didn’t have the energy to build a new house of cards. “Scared.”

“You should be,” she said. “You hurt that girl pretty bad.”

His stomach flopped around like a dying fish and there was nothing he could say.

“This is a mistake, isn’t it?” he asked her, naked and vulnerable in a way he’d never been before.

Penny took a deep breath. “No,” she finally said. “Zoe’s tough, and once she loves you, well…” Now Penny looked chagrined, as if remembering all the hurtful things she’d said. “It takes a lot to change her mind. And frankly, once you love that girl—you’re hers. Forever.”

That’s what it felt like. Like she’d sewn her name on his collar and no matter where he got lost, he’d always find his way back to her.

Hope was a very weak candle in his chest.

“I’d like to speak to her,” he said, stepping up on the cement step.

“She’s not here.”

“Where is she?” he asked, suddenly panicked.

“She said she was going to wait for you,” she said. “Where she knew you’d turn up eventually.”

IF CARTER HAD FELT ROUGH at Zoe’s, after a five-hour drive in the middle of the night he felt like week-old roadkill. But that glimmer of hope that Penny had ignited in his chest had become a fire of purpose.

He arrived at Bonne Terre at dawn, ready to storm any gate that stood in his way. The red front door wasn’t locked, and he stepped into The Manor and felt as though he’d been sucked back in time. A kid again, walking through these doors for the first time. Alone. Scared. But determined to keep his family together.

What he wasn’t expecting was his grandmother.

“Well, well,” Margot said, sitting in a fresh pool of new sunlight in the kitchen. She looked somehow both old and young at dawn, as if the years behind her were long but not nearly as interesting, in her estimation, as the years to come. Her sleek white hair was loose around her face, and her blue eyes were as sharp as hooks. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Is Zoe here?”

“She is. But she’s sleeping,” she said, her voice sharp when he started up the stairs to find her. “And that woman needs her sleep, Carter. She’s upset and pregnant.”

Guilt body slammed him, and he stepped back into the kitchen and collapsed into an empty seat at the table.

She stared at him over her teacup as if she was the queen and he was less than nothing. “You’ve been busy.”

He didn’t know what to say to that so he was silent, playing with the homemade jingle bell centerpiece in the middle of the table.

“Vanessa?”

“Gone,” he said. “For good. South America maybe. She’s got people after her for money. The gems…” He paused, tired of the words before they even came out of his mouth. Tired of his life.

“She thought the gems would get her out of a jam. Get her out of the life.”

“Those damn gems,” Margot said, her voice burning, and his gaze flickered to hers. “Caused us more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Uncle Carter?” Carter spun to see a sleepy, wild-haired Katie on the steps.

“Hiya, Katie,” he said, standing as she leaped off the steps into his arms.

“We’ve been so worried!” she cried. “Mom is totally freaking out and Uncle Tyler is pretending like nothing’s the matter but he and Aunt Juliette are thinking about hiring a private eye and Zoe is—”

There was a thump and a patter of feet on the floors above them and within moments Zoe was on the steps. His chest collapsed at the sight of her. She was so pale. Big black circles lined her eyes, and the swell of her belly against a long white nightgown seemed to dwarf her.

Margot pulled Katie out of his arms, and he stared, blind and dumb, at the woman he’d hurt.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed.

She was dry-eyed, but her hand trembled against the banister as she stepped down into the kitchen. “For scaring us?” she said. “Or for being so cruel before you left?”

“For both,” he breathed. “For everything.”

He became dimly aware that his whole family was filtering into the kitchen. Savannah and her husband, Matt. Tyler and his wife, Juliette. His whole life, everything he’d denied and turned away, left behind in an effort to protect, was right here, right at the worst and best moment of his life.

But not for a moment did he take his eyes off Zoe.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her little chin lifted, and he wondered if she’d been taking royalty lessons from Margot. He nodded because his throat was so clogged with words. All the things he wanted to say to everyone in the room were suddenly desperate for freedom.

My family, he thought. This is my whole family.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter, wanted to spare her the seediness of his last five days, but he looked over at his brother. His sister. Their blond hair like halos in the morning light. He saw them as they were and as they had been as children, and he knew he wasn’t that different from Zoe’s mother. They watched him with knowing eyes—Tyler’s in particular seemed to be telling him not to be an idiot anymore.

And he knew for the rest of his life he wouldn’t spare anyone anything.

It hurt too much. Cost too much.

“I’ve spent the last week in Mom’s hotel room,” he said, and just about everyone’s mouth fell open. “Thinking she might show up and tell me it was all just a big mistake. But she’s gone. Without the money from the jewels she thought we had…I think she had to leave the country.”

Margot stood, her chair raking across the hardwood and then she left out the back door. He wondered what pain Margot had suffered over Vanessa, but he had more important things to worry about than the past.

He had his future on the line.

“It was her,” Carter said to Zoe. “She gave the information to Blackwell. I knew it all along. Those things I said to you…I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked, and he couldn’t believe it but he was about to cry. Tyler was never going to let go of this, but Carter couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t control it.

“I was scared,” he said. “My whole life I’ve been scared. Of being hurt again like I was when my mom abandoned us. I froze you out because my life was falling apart and I was terrified. I still am. I have no job, Zoe. No career. Nothing but a bad reputation, but none of it matters. Nothing matters…but you. Your mom said—”

“You saw my mom?” she asked.

“She sent me here, sort of,” he said. “But she said once someone loves you, they’re yours. And it’s true, Zoe. I’m yours, whether you want me or not. You told me that you were falling in love with me and I need to tell you that I am in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since the moment you stood on that chair.”

“Carter—” She sighed, but it wasn’t happy. “So much has happened to you. Is this some sort of…I don’t know…?”

“Act of desperation,” Tyler filled in. The ass.