The Carrero Heart - Beginning: Arrick and Sophie. (The Carrero Series Book 4)

by L. T. Marshall

  Don’t leave me again.

  ‘I’m out.’ Arrick lifts his hands and walks across the room, heading straight for the door in a casual, couldn’t care less, stride. I falter, losing my stance and impulsively reaching a hand out after him, before recoiling it back fast and snapping it to my side. Swallowing down hard to kill the words that were fast behind it, that whiny fucking kid who was about to beg.

  I don’t think so!

  My angry glare dissolves as he disappears out of my life once more, back to square one and the angry way he has been every time he has come to pick me up from nightclubs and bars the last few months. I have pretty much severed what we salvaged last night, and standing here right now I am engulfed with numbness suddenly. A tear rolls down my face but I brush it away harshly, the scowl coming back to keep my pain at bay and filling my body with stubborn rage to stamp down on the heartbreak brimming down low.

  ‘I don’t need you.’ I whisper brokenly, hating how the tears fight through, despite my grip to not let them. I swallow hard and will them away, trying to ignore that overwhelming black hole that has plagued me for months come over me in the worst kind of way. This time it isn’t just an empty gnawing force that drags me down, it is an all-consuming deadness that is threatening to consume me once and for all.

  Chapter 7

  I have mulled around my room for the last few hours, sitting on my bed and sewing embellishments to a pair of jeans I have revamped into a new short denim skirt, trying hard not to get frustrated with the feelings inside. Partly to amuse myself and partly to piss Arrick off after leaving my other one in Ambers apartment, that childish part of me always having to win in some way.

  I used to do this sort of stuff when I was bored, customise my clothes and jazz up anything I felt needed it. It has a way of focusing my mind as I watch the small stitches neatly form wherever I work my needle. I forgot how much I missed this.

  My sewing box is laid on the bed beside me, my box of assorted trim scattered in front of me and the mess of cut denim and scraps trailing off to one side as the housekeeper finishes unpacking what’s left of my luggage and removes herself with items for the laundry. She smiles my way with a warm affectionate look and I catch myself smiling back, despite my funk, as I watch her out the door. My mother appears behind her and manoeuvres around before it’s pulled shut.

  ‘Sophie darling, Can I come in?’ The curvy floral dress she’s wearing suits her bustier figure and I can’t help but notice my mom looks older, more grey to her hair, and more lines around the eyes, lingering by the open door for a moment, regarding me with a little hesitation. In the last months we have drifted apart, that close bond suffering badly and now she isn’t sure how to approach me. I feel that chasm of guilt opening up again, like a canyon of fire and it irritates me, already adding to my tetchy mood and inner darkness.

  ‘It’s open, isn’t it?’ I huff churlishly and then internally chastise myself at the crushed expression fleeting across my mom’s face. I am so used to being prickly with people around me nowadays, I forget what it is like to have someone who genuinely loves you, hurt by it. I put down my sewing and straighten up, clearing my throat to try and shove the attitude down where it belongs and remind myself that this woman is someone who changed my entire life. This woman is my mom in all ways, and I need to stop shoving her along with everyone else far away, like they have all offended me in some way.

  She moves into the room slowly and carefully and nestles herself on the end of the high four poster bed, making the decision to ignore my outburst, wriggling back until she is seated comfortably. She seems to be avoiding my gaze and I know it’s while she gathers herself emotionally, she doesn’t want to show me I have wounded her, and it just makes me feel even shittier.

  Great job, Asshole Sophie.

  ‘Arrick stayed a little while and talked to us. I know you two are fighting Honey, but he only means well and he wanted you to know he didn’t just take off.’ Her soft voice warms me, despite myself, and the lump of emotion that catches in my throat startles me. I’m not sure if it’s from her caring presence and the way she is looking at me like I am still her lost little girl, or if it’s knowing he didn’t just up and walk out like I thought he did. I feel only confusion at my response.

  Arrick can fuck off.

  I have missed this woman so much more than I let myself feel, faced with her now, I cannot deny that there are emotions I had kept buried deep down inside, which are now floating to the surface and some of that outer wall is shaking . Despite everything that has gone on, all I want is to curl up like a child in her arms and have her fix all this mess for me. She used to play with my hair while I laid my head on her lap and sung to me when I was younger. What I wouldn’t give to have her do that right now and act like this was three years ago instead of now. The chasm between us seems huge and I don’t know how to mend it.

  I make a move towards her impulsively, but that old part of me, stubborn, self-reliant and protective when in hurt mode, stops me, wiping my face clean of weakening resolve instead and pick my sewing back up as though I don’t really care. I know I have reverted to that gangly kid who came here from New York, keeping people on the outside and putting the barriers up. I don’t know why. If I knew myself then I would stop it.

  ‘What did he have to say for himself? Tell you what a train wreck existence I was living and how I brought shame on my family?’ I sigh heavily, trying to ignore my mother’s pained expression once again and push down rising waves of rolling, bubbling, tension. Just can’t seem to get my head and mood to coincide right now.

  ‘He told us that you needed help and time, he told us that you feel lost and empty and don’t know where you are going in life.’ She said it breathily, softly and sincerely, with no hint of malice.

  I stop mid stitch, pricking my finger absentmindedly and throw it down in my lap again. Irritation grinding inside of me at the wave of overwhelming sadness coming over me, threatening to make me cry.

  ‘Did he also tell you that he no longer likes who I am, and pretty much bailed?’ I feel that stab of betrayal go off inside of me, anger at him multiplying tenfold. Arrick appearing in my mind’s eye to just make that dull thud in my chest grow larger, the consuming black hole inside of me growing outwards from within and just making me feel exhausted

  ‘He said that you have changed, that your time with people who mistreated you have put you back into that defensive mode we spent years getting you out of. That your wall is back up and this time, like everyone else, you have put him on the outside too.’ She slides off the bed and closes the gap between us by walking around to sit beside me instead, reaching for the child she loved in her memory, but I move back out of reach. I inhale sharply, stabbed with a pain in my heart at his evaluation of me.

  So many warring emotions going off at once means I cannot handle touch right now, even a touch given in pure sincere love. I hate that she’s telling me this, hate that he thinks that’s what I am doing, even if it might be true. I hate the fact that even when he’s being an asshole to me, he still seems to understand me, yet still acts like a fucking douche bag anyway and walks the fuck out on me.

  Bastard! Who does that? Arrick fucking does!

  ‘How very insightful of him.’ I reply blandly. Simmering crazily below the surface, trying not to grind my teeth and shake my head to dispel him from it.

  ‘Is this about the past? About what that vile monster did to you? Or did someone else hurt you while you were gone?’ Her voice is so wary and gentle that it just grinds on my fragile nerves. A topic that I always hated her touching on, hated her even acknowledging was in my past. I can’t stand when she looks at me, the way she is doing now and reminds me of the kid who came here, so wrapped up in fear and pain that I wouldn’t let anyone except Emma in.

  I hate that in all the years, no matter how much I had come out of myself, my parents overcompensate for my past. They have always allowed me to be spoiled, churlish and stroppy with them in th
e worst kind of ways. They didn’t even try to reign me in or control me all these years and never thought of lifting a hand or voice to me, even when I was being an absolute brat. It’s like they always put everything down to what that man did and gave me so much more leeway than any of my siblings. If it weren’t for Arrick being more in control, then I probably would have hit the rails years before I did.

  ‘No! That’s in the past, he’s in the past. No one has hurt me in that way since him….. I moved on.’ I grind it out like a rehearsed speech. One I had given her so many times, whenever she tried to broach this painful subject. Mostly it is true, I have moved on in so many ways.

  Yes, I still bore the scars and the memories but the behaviours, the inability to let people close or to trust, all of that had changed in time. This here, my being closed off and going backwards wasn’t about him at all. It was about this all-encompassing lack of worth I felt right now. Maybe it stemmed from what he did and I didn’t really understand, but really, part of me told me it wasn’t about him at all. This was something else and if I only knew what then I could fix it or find a way too.

  ‘Why do you never let me in that way?’ Her tearful look almost ends me, sighing back the weight of how this is making me feel, my lungs restricted in the effort to breath. I just start to feel panic rising. I could never handle people trying to probe into this; I had let Arrick and Emma in of my own free will and they never pushed for answers, they always let it come from me, in my own time. I just feel that shaking inner rage of defensiveness prickle, barbed wire fence going up as heat and then cold travels up my spine.

  ‘I don’t want to do this right now.’ This whole conversation has just put a sour taste in my mouth. Still too pissed with Arrick to do the whole cosy heart to heart with my mom and too many raw topics I have never gone through with her, trying to be forced out. Even though I know I should be grovelling right now and making amends for acting like a spoiled psycho brat months ago and running out on her, I just need some cooling off time to simmer and some space to get a handle on my brain and heart if she really wants me to do this with her.

  It’s too much, building in epic proportions and I feel like I am going to explode. For my own sanity and for my mother’s sake, I need to get out of here and calm down. I can’t let my defensive, snooty, catty, explosive side loose and make this a thousand times worse on the woman who always ever means well.

  She is the perfect example of a mother, of what a mother should be, and how a mother should love her child and I never deserved her in any way shape or form at all, she means everything to me in so many ways, yet I can’t seem to ever just let her in all the way. I move fast, grabbing a cardigan and my phone from the side unit, leaving my mess strewn across the bed as I slide off for a fast exit.

  Making for the door, my mum quickly follows me. My heart beating rapidly, blood pulsing and my skin itching with the need to just get outside from within these closing walls to just breathe. I always need space when this kind of shit hit me, always some quiet and head room.

  ‘Sophie, wait, please. You only just got here. Don’t run… Please don’t run again.’ The tears in her voice halt me, breaking as the woman behind me begs so heart wrenchingly. I literally feel myself crumble inside, pain crashing through at a hundred miles an hour as her obvious anguish rips my soul in two. The tears hit my eyes hard and the lump in my throat almost chokes me, so sudden is the crash in which it hits me. I hold myself steady, outwardly cool and breathe slowly to calm my reaction.

  ‘I’m not going to run Mom, I just need air, time to breathe. I’ll come home, I swear. I just feel like I need a little adjustment space.’ I force it out with a trembling voice, unable to look her way and show her that I am genuinely torn to shreds by the way I am hurting her, I can’t ever let anyone ever see my weakness. Well anyone except him, but not anymore.

  Little Sophie is still in there somewhere, trying to soothe this woman she does actually love beyond all others. Adult Sophie on the other hand just needs time out to get a grip on herself and walk this off. Put it all back inside.

  ‘Promise?’ My mom catches my hand from behind, her warm hand curling around my closed fist and I let it uncurl to feel her fingers out, and it almost breaks me, that soft gentle warm skin that brings back a thousand happy memories of a life that has healed so much. Squeezing my eyes shut to block out the tears and pain, I swallow hard to steady my voice. Gently squeezing the fingers I have managed to trace out, to somehow assure her.

  Why am I this way?

  ‘I promise.’ I let her hand loose and head out fast, before I cave and change my mind or collapse under this weight and cry in front of her. I need air and walking, I need quiet and freedom away from familiar surroundings to figure out what the hell is going on inside of me. I have everything in life I could possibly need to be happy, I have a wealthy family, a loving home and genuine love and care from parents and siblings and extended family. I have never wanted for anything since I came here and they have never made me feel anything but truly one of their own, any of them. I cannot understand where or why this dark ache inside of me came from as it wasn’t there before. It just seems to have slowly grown over the last couple of years and messes with my head, if I only knew why then maybe I would have a chance of combatting it.

  * * *

  I’ve been walking for what feels like hours, out of the town and into the scenery, before turning back when I realise I could just walk right on forever and get nowhere. My feet ache from the heels I stupidly put on and my stomach is aching with hunger, because I didn’t bring any money with me to stop and eat.

  My hangover is killing me right now, and I just feel like my head is being gnawed off by some internal brain worms. I’m worn out, exhausted and feeling sick, realising that hiking miles in four-inch heels on zero sustenance and a body still ridding itself of a three-day booze binge is maybe not the best thing to be doing today. Walking mindlessly back towards the familiar street in which my life had once begun, with no real sense of improvement, if anything I just feel wiped out instead of angry.

  ‘Sophie?’ The familiar male voice, smooth, deep and husky and alarmingly like Arry’s, halts me mid step and I spin around impulsively to find the owner. There is no mistaking that husky deep tone, or the confident vibes he can give off with just one word.

  Jake Carrero stands beaming at me from the side of his black sports car, casually dumped on the curb as though he had been about to get in it, bent slightly as he tries to catch my face under the veil of long blonde hair that has slid over one eye.

  He looks exactly like he always does, tall muscular and handsome in that dark bad boy way of his, looking ready for a catwalk of an urban designer, rather than dad and doting husband and my infernal, annoying as hell, god father.

  He’s dressed in his trademark jeans and a black shirt and looking effortlessly groomed, annoyingly like Arrick always does. The Carrero DNA is a force to be reckoned with, not one of the family is bad looking in any way, and even his extended cousins and other relations have the hot Italian smouldering sexiness that Arrick and Jake give off in droves.

  ‘Hey.’ I smile at him genuinely, feeling a little shy from months of no contact when he strides forward two steps and gives me his usual an all-encompassing Jake hug. He has never had any inhibitions about man handling his family, and as he has told me for years, I am the eldest daughter he never knew he needed. I stiffen a little, but accept it, knowing if I don’t let him hug me he will more than likely do an Arrick and torture me instead. It seems both of them have this ingrained urge to manhandle me into submission, like I am still a naughty kid who needs a Carrero to tame her. Pretty sure Jake still thinks I belong in diapers, even though I was long past them when he came into my life and whirled me into a new one.

  ‘Jeeze, you have grown a lot in a short time, Mimmo. I barely recognised you Miele.’ Jake grins with that familiar Hollywood smile, dazzling the pants off the female population endlessly and knowing he does, with re
lish. I just eyeroll at his use of Arrick’s childish term for me, something they have all used at some point or another over the years.

  The walk has made me feel more rational and calm, and even I have to admit. I am really happy to see him right now; Jake is one of those people you cannot help but warm too, even when he is being an overbearing, bossy, dominant ass. His heart has always been in the right place, and if it were not for him and Emma, then I would be still living in Chicago as a homeless runaway and no hope of a future that would have ended well.

  ‘I guess. Or maybe you’re just going senile in your old age and are lost in memories of me being fourteen forever.’ I smirk at him, laughing at the way the flawless dark brows furrow over sparkling green eyes, that make him look about ten years younger almost instantly.

  ‘Hey!! I am forever young Bambino, less of the age remarks or I will strap you in the car seat and force a pacifier in your mouth, to shut you up.’ He makes a move to catch me in a head lock, but I see it coming and dodge him quickly. I know only too well what he’s like. Him and his brother, endlessly torturing me for years and sometimes teaming up to make me squeal. He has a serious weakness for hanging me upside down by my feet, while his asshole brother rib pokes me into submission. It’s true that they say men never really grow up. Jake is the definition of a male who will never grow up, despite being a CEO of Carrero Corp, father and husband, and pulling off Mr Mature at times.

  ‘Have you been to see Emma yet? She will be over the moon to see you, feels like it’s been years.’ He moves back to lean his butt against his car, hands pushed in his pockets as he regards me seriously, that hot shot twinkle in his eye and that infuriating Carrero half smile that brings out the dimples in them.