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

by L. T. Marshall

  ‘Leila! What the fuck?’ I jump up, turning rapidly to sit in bed and face that fiery demon, throwing daggers my way. I know her scathing ‘I will fuck you up’ look and take all of about thirty seconds to calm my jets, knowing Leila could easily take me in a punch up. She is crazy as shit.

  ‘Don’t what the fuck me, young lady! I have no qualms about dumping a bottle of dish soap in that mouth. I have been trying for months to pin you down and see you, and you have been evading my calls and visits like the plague. Then I find out you’re here and you didn’t even fucking tell me. I have every right to be pissed as hell with you, so don’t even think about giving me any Sophie attitude right now.’ Leila is in fierce mode, riling my own temper as we glare coldly at one another. That fiery standoff between two equally matched souls, well, she’s maybe about a thousand times scarier than I could ever be, and like ten years older.

  ‘Ugggh! See! This is why I don’t fucking talk to you. You’re bat shit crazy like ninety nine percent of the time, and your idea of dealing with me, is to act psychotic, or just yell.’ I spit out accusingly, but Leila only glares harder, that tiny crazy twitch of her left eyebrow that signals she is like sixty two percent of the way to complete psychotic break, and maybe I should reel it back a little if I want to live to see tomorrow.

  ‘I’m your big fucking sister. It’s my job to be hard on you when you’re ruining your god damn life.’ Leila sobs sharply, a sudden noise as she breaks a little, only to replace it with new fury as she ups to like seventy percent in a sudden jump.

  ‘I fucking love you, and it kills me that I am the last person in the world you talk too.’ She stalks forward, grabbing me by the naked ankle, hauling me off the bed ungracefully so I fall into a heap on the floor with a massive yelp and huge thud that reverberates through my entire body.

  ‘Now get your ass up, as momma is downstairs waiting for you, and we three are having a womanly chat!’ Leila stalks off to my wardrobe and begins throwing sweats and a t-shirt in my direction. I am trying so hard to keep my temper while untangling myself stiffly from bed sheets and nursing my various new bruises.

  ‘You know, becoming a mother made you a hostile bitch!’ I crawl to my feet using the bed as leverage and come to face her as she stalks back, holding an array of mismatched clothing.

  ‘I was always a hostile bitch, you just never used to piss me off so much.’ Leila smirks my way, the anger softening and I can only eyeroll at her. This is nothing new between us, all fire and rage and yelling, while underneath, nothing but sisterly love at its core. Leila is still a crazy hoe, even if I do love her, and right now I do not love the fact she has just pretty much abused me, because she is pissed.

  ‘I’ll tell mom you threw me on the floor, she will whoop your ass.’ I pout, picking up the sweats and pulling them on over my underwear lazily, knowing that defiance is futile, and if I attempt to get back in bed she will have no qualms about throwing a bucket of water over me, like she did when I was seventeen.

  ‘I’ll break your nose if you tell on me, then I’ll burn all your ‘My little ponies.’’ Leila’s locates slippers from my early teens in the depths of a drawer and throws them at my head with accurate aim. I manage to duck at the last minute and scowl at her even more fiercely.

  ‘I would probably love you more if you didn’t think violence was acceptable in a sisterly relationship, Leila.’ I pull on the t-shirt over my tank top and slide the slippers on obediently.

  ‘Where’s the fun in that. Now move. Don’t make me wait, as the twins had me up all night with god damn chicken pox, and I am a hell of a narky bitch today.’ She commands, now crossing arms across her t-shirt clad, yet still perky, bust. She is still a looker for an old broad that is getting on in life, and close to retirement age.

  ‘What’s new, and what’s the matter? Has Daniel stopped letting you beat him through sex, and you need another outlet for all that rage?’ I grin as Leila hits me with an unamused look.

  ‘Funny. Don’t think you can sass me and I will forgive and forget the past year of our lives. You lady, have a lot of explaining to do and I am not leaving until I get some explanations.’ Leila motions me to move first, and then shoves me hard from behind through the bedroom door when we get to it.

  ‘Besides, my husband likes me being aggressive in bed, keeps the kink alive.’

  I shrug her hands off my shoulders with attitude.

  ‘You know this is not the way to welcome someone back into the loving family fold.’ I sarcastically grumble, but Leila ignores me. I focus on trying to keep my sisters clawing hands off me as we make our way down the sweeping staircase. Leila seems to have it in her head that I am a flight risk and keeping a vicious grip as we near the bottom of the stair, near the main door.

  ‘Leila, can you calm the fuck down. I am hardly going to bolt out the door in Rugrats sweats and a pair of pink pig slippers, for god sakes.’ I struggle once more as we hit the floor but Leila only regards me coolly.

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say something?’ Leila smirks, so I poke her in the face. Right in the cheek, I was aiming for eye, but she moves at the last second and just slaps my hand away.

  ‘That wasn’t even funny five years ago.’ I stick my tongue out and finally manage to disentangle ‘cray crays’ bony fingers from my body.

  ‘Well seeing as you’re still the same mental age as five years ago, it was worth a shot.’ Leila slaps my ass sharply as she heads into the breakfast room, making me yelp and flinch with the impact. I make faces at her back and follow her in, giving her the bird before my mom can see what I’m doing.

  I feel a little more alert than yesterday, sleep has helped, I don’t feel so distraught today, in fact, I feel like yesterday was just one massive dream and the effects are yet to catch up. I trip on my slipper as I manoeuvre the bright room, table already laid for breakfast and my mother sat in a robe, bleary eyed and chipper. Leila has obviously ripped us both out of bed, seeing as it is barely seven am.

  ‘She threw me on the floor and threatened to break my nose.’ I immediately point out as she sits at one end of the table, grabbing a croissant and jam as she does so. I know my dad is probably already up and showering for work and we won’t be seeing him anytime soon. He takes breakfast with him on the commute to his offices, about thirty minutes’ drive away. Not that he needs to work, his company pretty much runs itself and we are hardly poor.

  ‘Leila… Don’t be harsh on your baby sister.’ Mom gives her a serious frown as Leila slides in at the table opposite her instead of the seat she had been hovering at a minute ago, I guess she figures close and cosy at one end of the table will make me more likely to spill my guts, or I will be close enough to assault with the butter knife.

  ‘Momma, when you start beating her, then I won’t need too.’ Leila smiles cheekily and delves into the pile of pancakes being laid down by the new young housekeeper. I think her name is Olivia or something, we haven’t actually been introduced. My parents forget that the housekeepers are people too sometimes, and I happen to be around the same age as her. I smile her way and get a blush in return, before she scurries off.

  ‘I will never beat my children.’ She says in almost sheer outrage, as though the very thought is abhorrent to her.

  ‘That’s why we’re all spoiled brats who think alcohol is gods answer to all our problems momma. God knows, I could have used a few spankings in my time.’ Leila smiles brightly and I curb the urge to say out loud, that I am sure she has many a spanking, and that Daniel probably still provides.

  ‘I’ll spank Sophie for you if you like?’ She smirks my way, eyebrows raised in that ‘and I’ll like it’ sort of look she’s good at, I giggle, that she is only confirming my thoughts on her sexual preferences.

  ‘You will not. I won’t hear of any of you hitting one another.’ Mom’s now buttering toast, small happy glances at my presence at the table, and of the familiarness of this unfolding scene, obviously making her happier today.

  ‘Too
late.’ Leila smiles as I stick my tongue out at her. Our mother looks up in alarm as I raise my own eyebrows.

  ‘She slapped my ass three times already. Pretty sure she has left permanent marks.’ The childishness of my tattle telling only makes her sigh.

  ‘Why is it my grown children behave like ten years old whenever back under this roof? How do any of you function in the adult world?’ She sighs and looks to both of her girls as we systematically shrug.

  ‘Booze.’ I offer as way of explanation, and sort of poking fun at myself.

  ‘Men.’ Leila nods. Knowing her poison had been a lot of sleeping around when she was pining for one ‘Daniel Hunter’ back in her twenties. We both grin at one another and go back to eating.

  ‘Yes, two words every mother wants to hear uttered from her innocent babies’ mouths.’ She looks alarmed, resigned to the fact this isn’t new to her, after raising now, six children, and carries on preparing her toast.

  Everyone falls silent for a moment as we tuck into the food. I’m all too aware that we’re just delaying things. No one wants to burst this happy little play pretend bubble that we are all okay, and ask me anything. Even Leila has given the over bearing asshole act a moment of respite and seems wary about pushing me. I look nervously at the two of them, heads down as they work on their food and realise the only way to get this over and done with is to rip it off, like a Band-Aid.

  ‘I’m home to stay…For a while anyway. I have some stuff I need to work out, work through, and I promise I’ll be better after I get over it. I’m sorry that I’ve put you through hell. All of you. I was in pain, and doing what I thought I needed to get through it. I know that it’s wrong and it isn’t how I want to continue living my life.’ I keep my eyes averted as tears smart in the depths, willing myself not to break. Trying to keep that stony faced, sassy Sophie, that they are all used to seeing.

  ‘It’s a man, isn’t it?’ Leila cuts in matter of factly.

  ‘Some guy fucked you up and you have been out there trying to get over him, all on your own.’ Leila is always too sharp, it’s crazily unnerving and when my head darts up in alarm, it only confirms what Leila is saying. Leila shakes her head angrily.

  ‘Do I actually have to beat seven shades of shit out of some asshole who broke my baby sister?’ She seethes, brows furrowed furiously and that twitch is back in her brow.

  I feel the nerves hit me low down, anxiety that she will maybe suss this out, and I don’t want any one of them too.

  ‘It’s more complicated than that.’ I sigh, my poor mother wide eyed and staring at me with sheer desolation on her face. Mom has seen years of Leila going off the rails over the man she is now married to, and knows only too well how the heart can send a girl over the edge when they have the same fire as we do. I am like Leila in a lot of ways, and now I know I pretty much have been being her for the past couple years, without even knowing it, minus the sex. Leila was never sexually abused, so she had no qualms screwing around.

  I think my sister might be some sort of nymphomaniac, judging by Daniel’s constant grin.

  ‘So, tell us.’ Leila points her fork at me, lifts her eyebrow over a sternly fierce expression.

  ‘I can’t… Not yet, maybe when I’m stronger, and more able to put this to bed. Emma is arranging for me to go back to Mr Thomson to resume counselling for a couple of sessions, and she thinks she can help me get my act together again.’ It’s not that I don’t want to tell them it’s just, I never have really. My family were always the support but never the shoulder I used to cry on. That has always been Emma and then Arrick.

  Arry got all the stuff I needed to let out and no one really expected me to vent anywhere else after I made it clear that wasn’t who I was. Leila and I are close, but not in the sisters who share all the details of their life way.

  There is silence at the table as they both ponder what I have said.

  ‘What can we do?’ My mom cuts in adoringly, reaching her hand out to me and smiling when I don’t hesitate to take it.

  ‘Be patient with me, understand that I’m not doing this to hurt you. I don’t know how I go from here, and I may not be an easy ride, but I’m trying. Emma made me see sense and I realise that none of you are to blame.’ I hate the way a fresh tear rolls down my cheek and jump nervously when Leila stands up abruptly, sending her chair reeling back and marches towards me like a woman on a mission. Leila wraps herself around me in an awkward bear hug over the top of me, and buries her face in my messy long hair.

  ‘You’re my sister. I love you, and I will literally kill men to protect you. Don’t shut me out Soph’s.’ She sobs and I am helpless to do anything but hug her back. Pushing down my own tears.

  ‘I’m trying. I really am. I just need a little time to find my feet again.’ I cry too, still clinging to my mother’s hand and wrapped in my sister. I take a deep breath and try to push Arrick out of my mind’s eye, willing him to stop tormenting me for maybe five little minutes.

  I will get through this and I will move on without him. I have no choice. I need to be a better person for those that I love, I need to make amends for the shit I have put them through and I need to get used to a future that he is not a part of. Even if it kills me.

  Chapter 9

  I’m in my bedroom after showering and pulling on jeans and a t-shirt after breakfast, looking a lot more like the wholesome kid of days gone by, rather than the hot mess of clubbing from days ago. My hair is up on top of my head in a messy ponytail of sorts and I am texting back a so-called girlfriend ‘Sissy’ in New York. Finally, my absence had been noted, and now that I am clear headed and have some distance, I can now see how shallow these people really are.

  She didn’t text to see how or where I was, she only wanted to know if I was bringing my gold card to the next party to fuel the champagne supply. I have only ever been a source of free loading for these girls, taking my designer clothes and shoes, that I take great pride in hunting down with every new season release, and crashing in Ambers apartment anytime they saw fit. I haven’t heard from Terry, not that I expected I would, or even care, or any of the guys from my old group of friends, and throw my phone aside in irritation. I flop back on the bed, pulling my fluffy pink unicorn, Princess Snuggles, over my face and sighing out loud.

  How I could have gone months, blind to these people and how little they actually give a shit about me, is crazy. It’s no wonder I was falling to pieces and feeling worthless, when I was surrounded by self-centred dickheads who used me and discarded me effortlessly, I had been looking for completion, and set myself up for serious loneliness. I squeeze the stuffed toy tightly and quell the urge to scream into its little soft belly.

  ‘You could replace the bear, with me.’ The familiar male voice catches me off guard, yanking the unicorn away and snapping my eyes to the open door with a heart hammering panic. Arrick stands leaning against the door jamb a little sheepishly and I literally have to stop myself from having a visible reaction. I feel my heart catapult into my mouth at speed and all of a sudden, a nervousness I have never known around him, envelopes me. I pull myself to sitting and tighten the hair bauble on top of my head. Averting my eyes to the toy I am awkwardly now picking at, and trying to appear completely normal.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’ I say quietly, torn between still being hurt and mad at him, and not knowing how to behave anymore. I was so sure he would have gone back to the city by now and not standing in my bedroom doorway, looking every bit like the fantasy man in a casual t-shirt and jeans and sneakers, and devastating my insides in ways I have no way of dealing with right now. Having something made crystal clear for you changed everything you did after, and right now, my entire body is only too aware that what I am feeling is in direct connection to knowing I love him.

  Fuck.

  ‘Because I could do with a forgiveness hug, after being an asshole yesterday. Tell me what you need to forgive me Soph’s.’ He smiles my way, catching his eye and I look away shyly, complet
ely freaking out with how not normal this feels right now and how crazily cute he is when he’s being this way. All I am seeing is hazy brown eyes over dimpled sexiness and my heart is like a mass of freaking butterflies.

  Jesus H Christ.

  ‘Maybe I don’t forgive you.’ I whisper, resisting the urge to recoil when he walks over and climbs on the bed close to me. He stays on his knees a moment, so he towers over me, his hand coming out to mess with my hair childishly. I slap his hand away and pull my knees in, cuddling Princess Snuggles into my abdomen in a bid to feel more in control, less likely to you know, lick his abs or throw myself at his mouth.

  God, why have I never noticed just how kissable those perfect pouted lips are?

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  ‘Looking like a kid again Soph’s, are you back to sulking like one, and making me suffer for being a shit head?’ He flops down on the bed beside me, so he’s sat on his butt and more level with my height, trying to hook an arm over my shoulder, but I lean away so he misses, and try not to jump off the bed like a loony whose pants are clearly burning right now. I feel like an absolute freak. Hating that three little words can destroy the peace and calm I always felt with him.

  ‘Don’t stay mad at me.’ His husky deep voice is even lower today, gentle and somehow, even more devastating to me as he tilts his face in tantalisingly close, I can smell everything that is good about him; my heart lurching in pain and feeling immediately claustrophobic with the five thousand sensor alarms going off in my body. I literally think I may have another panic attack at this rate.

  ‘I’m not mad at you anymore.’ My voice breaks and I slide away fast, out of reach of his embrace, unable to bear his touch anymore and afraid of him trying. He’s always just effortlessly touched me, innocent touches. Except now, to me the innocence is gone, and I know a single touch will cause me pain.