CARMENThe world seemed to stop when Jasper kissed me, but it wasn’t because I enjoyed the kiss.As his lips grazed mine, his tongue getting shoved down my throat, images started to flood my head. Images of everything I had shared with Dave – and then, they all disappeared.I opened my eyes and broke the contact with Jasper, taking a deep breath and moving away from him even though we were at the top of a Ferris wheel, and there was no taking back what had just happened.“I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t want to leave without having to do that first. I really wish you would open up to me completely without having to run away from me, Carmen. I don’t understand you and why you pull me close one day and push me away the next.”I could have told him that I didn’t understand why either. I knew why, but I didn’t understand it. I knew that I was involved in a closeted affair with my stepbrother, which was abominable enough to even think about. I knew that even though my stepbrother and I had part
CARMEN“Carmen!” Dave hissed in a panicked voice, cursing and scrambling to cover up what I had just caught him doing.I had caught him sucked way too deep in his fantasy, jerking off to his thoughts with his eyes closed and moaning to himself.“What… Oh, God,” I laughed, turning away from him and giving him the time to put his shorts on. I heard him getting into the shower room with a sigh.“I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t hear you come in,” he panted. Of course, he didn’t hear me come in.“It’s dinner time, in case you forgot. I was told to come tell you to join us,” I sputtered through my laughter as the situation still seemed comical to me.“I’ll join you later, I…” I turned around just as he opened the door to the shower room.“Carmen, I can’t do this any longer. I don’t think staying away from you and separating will do anything to me but make it worse. I want you,” he said, his eyes holding desperation.“I do, too. We just… It’s too complicated. We are too complicated,”
CARMEN“Run away with you?” I asked Dave, my brows coming together in a frown. “Where could we possibly go?”“Anywhere. Heck, we could even go out of the country. I don’t want to remain like this. I don’t like how close but far apart we are. Just tell me you’ll go with me, please.” He took my hands and gently squeezed them as he looked at me with the same desperation he had looked at me with earlier in the bathroom.“And how would we do that?” I raised my brow.“I have a mature fund. I could pull it out and take us anywhere. It’s more than enough for us to start a new life together.”I do not doubt that Dave had enough money for our survival if we ran away, but the running away part was scary to think about. It had never crossed my mind and, now that Dave brought it up, it didn’t sound so bad an idea, but I knew it wasn’t the best one.I sighed with a nod.“I’ll run away with you…if telling them doesn’t work out,” I gave him my condition.“Telling who?” He knew that I was talking abou
CARMEN“What… What are you talking about? That is absurd.” I frowned and stepped away from Jasper just as the camera clicked and took a picture of us. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?”Jasper laughed, walking towards the photographer and asking to see the pictures taken of us.“Look at your face,” he laughed, showing me the picture taken of my confused face when he had asked me that question out of the blue.“I’m sorry, Carmen. I just wanted you to make a funny face so that I could have it made into a portrait. It make for an heirloom of sorts. I just saw you staring a little too much, and I know it’s because you miss Kate. I heard you two haven’t really hit it off in a long time.”He said something in a low voice to the photographer, who nodded with a smile and left.“How about I distract Dave for a while and you go talk to your best friend?” he suggested, slinging his arm over my shoulder and pulling me towards Dave and Kate.“No, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. We c
CARMEN“I don’t think I understand.” I shook my head, confused. “What do you mean you didn’t find a video like that?”“It’s not on the phone, Carmen,” he attempted to confirm once more, but I wasn’t buying it. It was just not possible.“But she…” I paused, my mind taking me to a place of near impossibility. “Do you think she deleted it?”Dave sighed, shaking his head. “If she’s using it against you, I don’t imagine that she would have deleted it so soon. Then again, you’re engaged to Jasper. If she has nothing to worry about anymore, maybe she did delete it.”I looked towards my mom. She was going around, hugging people and sharing air kisses. If I tried to test her…“I’m going to get information about it,” I informed Dave, heading for my mother before he could stop me.“Mom,” I said to her just as she was picking up a glass of red wine from the tray of a butler.“Oh, my darling daughter,” she mused, hugging me and laughing. She smelled like coconuts and wine, a contrast that seemed t
CARMEN“We’ll be having a double wedding between Carmen and Jasper with Dave and Kate in one month. The invites will be getting sent out from next week. We would love to see you all there on that special occasion,” Mom announced, and the crowd cheered and clapped.I looked at Jasper, wondering if he knew about all this since he would have talked to his father about it, but his expression was just as confused as mine.“You didn’t know about all of this, did you?” I questioned, just to be sure that I wasn’t being deceived.“This was not what my father and I discussed. We talked about holding it off for a little over four months. I don’t understand. Wait here, I’ll go talk to him—”“I’m coming with you,” I interrupted him, walking with him to where Frank stood, accepting the congratulatory greetings from whoever would give them to him. It took a while of us waiting in line with the people who wanted to say a thing or two to even reach him.“Dad, what is this?” Jasper asked his father wit
CARMENBefore I could comprehend the heaviness of what this person had just said to me and how to handle the situation, the person hung up, and a text which said the exact things that the man over the phone had said popped up on my screen.My eyes skimmed over the text I had just received from an unknown number, wondering if my brain was starting to make things up.I looked behind me to see my mother and Dave – the only people who knew about the incident. They couldn’t have possibly sent the text; I was with them.A floating bar showed on the bottom of the screen; a sure sign that the person behind the unknown number was typing. Then, another text came in.‘I’m quite curious, though; why did you do it? Why did you kill him?’I gasped, my hand going up to cover my mouth.Someone else knew, and it was either because my mother had told them about it, or they had found out about it coincidentally.‘Who are you?’ I texted frantically, sending it and biting my nails nervously.“This is bad.
CARMENMy stomach turned, and I felt all of the wine and the small bits of food I had taken that evening travelling up my throat as I stared at the picture that was taken of me by someone I had to regard as a danger and a threat.“You look shaken up,” Dave said as he approached me, causing me to almost jump out of my skin in fear as I hugged my phone close to my chest.“Dave, I’m in big trouble,” I announced, walking towards a less crowded area of the room as he followed closely.“What’s wrong? Is it the wedding? Our parents are already considering moving the date, so—”“Someone texted me. He has the video that we have been looking for,” I said, cutting him off.Dave creased his brows in a frown of confusion. “What do you mean? I thought your mom had the video. Why would someone else have it?”“I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s in on it with him, but it doesn’t seem like it. He threatened me, Dave. How could she have trusted a stranger with a video like that? Do you think I should c