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2021-08-19 01:44:06The wedding party is insane. Carreros know how to throw a good one and their house is dolled up and trussed up like the best function lounge in the world. Marquees out back and wide-open rooms that have all been cleared in the last ten days. I hardly recognized it when we got here and even the dance floor in the heated tent where we had our first dance was cozily illuminated to the hilt with fairy lights and disco balls. They have pulled out all the stops for this one.
Glitz, glamour, food and four bars complete with bartenders and waitresses, all wandering around the milling guests as a live band in the huge gardens get people dancing. The neighboring houses have opened their grounds for seating and quiet areas as they are long-time friends and guests and this place is probably a lot bigger than most venues could have offered.
Our meagre guest list somehow turned to more than we could count once word got out and even though I know a lot of pictures have been taken, Ar
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The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 190
Arrick picks me up outside my bedroom door, being lame about carrying me over the threshold and orders me to close my eyes. I eye him warily, grinning like a weirdo and cover my eyes with my free hand as I cling around his neck childishly. I have the giggling fits after our stealth maneuvers to get in here undetected. All it did was highlight how drunk he is when we almost fell in rose bushes in the onset of drizzle when he tried to piggyback me across the garden before we got soaked.“Are they closed?” He nudges me, and I can hear him messing with the door to get it open while still holding me up. The slight sway as we stand here has me a little seasick though and I wish he would hurry up. Fresh air just made my queasiness intensify.“Yup” I peek at the side of his face and melt with how ready I am for him to get th
Last Updated : 2021-08-19The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 191
Arrick hands me water and helps me sit up on the bed to take a drink before laying me back down.“I’m sorry” I say for the hundredth time since he picked me up and carried me back to bed and tucked me in. He’s spent the last two minutes sweeping off petals and pushing stuff off the bedside to lay a bowl from my bathroom for me and feels my head with the back of his hand.“For throwing up? Don’t be … It’s not your fault you’re sick.” He seems a little odd as he says it and I catch a flicker run across his face. My stomach drops that after all the effort he made in here, I destroyed it all. He’s disappointed, I know he is.I am. I’m devastated.“What is it? Are you upset because I ruined our wedding night?” I catch his arm and pull him back to me needily as he lays my glass down. Hating that I could ruin our special day in this way.“It’s just se
Last Updated : 2021-08-19The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 192
“Don’t be nervous. We will soon see what’s what.” My mom pats my hand as she leads the way into her clinic and turns on all the lights quickly. Illuminating the empty building with a ‘blink, blink’ of strip lighting that hurts my eyes. I can’t speak, so numb with shock, not sure how to feel and Arrick is being equally silent.He went and got her for me. After the tests, as we didn’t know what else to feel or think and she came right away. It was surreal and hard to tell her everything, but he did most of the talking as I kept staring at all three identical tests and kept asking myself how. She was upset that I never told her, that I never got checked out by her when I was staying here but she put her doctor hat on and went to fetch her keys for her clinic and brought us down here in a cab. She runs her own practice and as key holder she had no qualms about doing this tonight. None of us would sleep otherwise.It’s a
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Arrick is face down on the kitchen counter counting to ten and trying to not strangle me this morning.He’s had seven days in this apartment with me, instead of heading off on our honeymoon, because I cannot fly, and he has taken the time off work to do just that. I think it’s probably making him question life in general. Question about everything about marrying me, living with me, even sleeping beside me.I made him go search for a bakery at five a.m. this morning because I really, really, could not sleep with thinking about lemon meringue pie. He was gone over an hour trying to find one for me and when he came back, I didn’t want it anymore… I wanted cherry, and pizza, and then I fell asleep after eating Cheeto’s instead. I’m supposed to be in the bath he made me, resting, being pampered because I’m bored and restless and the walls are starting to close in on me. I was never really one for long bouts of staying home and doin
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“Take it easy” Arrick guides me from the car towards our building and towards home. We have been shopping, last minute nesting items as it gets crazy close to my due date and I am so done with being pregnant. I’m like New York’s answer to Free Willy and my feet are like long lost sisters I maybe will see one day again. A woman cuts in front of me aggressively as I reach for the door handle and knocks me over into him as Arrick almost takes her head off.“Watch the fuck where you’re going.” He snaps at her and I look back at him in surprise at his non-typical response to another human. He’s been tetchy as hell since we got into my last month, antsy, nervous and overkill in protective mode. Today he is having a bad day, because I have been having a bad day and he is trying to not lose his shit with me over it.Me… I’m suffering every day and absolutely despise this endless growing rounder and waiting. Whoever s
Last Updated : 2021-08-19The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 195
“Stop fucking telling me to push. I AM FUCKING PUSHING!” I scream at our doctor as she pats my leg and throws me a haughty look and Arry takes my hand and tries to turn possessed rage to face him. My body is turning itself inside out with a pain they no way in hell prepared me for and the stupid women is getting on my very last nerve. Sweating, heaving, and panting and trying to not break my teeth with every wave of bone gnawing agony that rips through me. The room is coming down on me and I have lost all concept of time.“Baby… Breathe, count with me, look at me. You’re doing so well. Just breathe and relax a little.” He’s stroking me, trying to get me through this, being sane and calm while my doctor and her nurse are making me crazy. I’m trying so hard, but I was not expecting this to be so traumatic. I don’t think I can do it. It feels like we have been here days and I am so overheated and achy that even my teeth are
Last Updated : 2021-08-19The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 196
Settled in the bed of my private room with our baby asleep in his arm, Arrick sits beside me on the bed with his free arm around my shoulder as we watch her. My head nestled on his chest and my finger in her little tiny grip. We have sat like this for the last hour, enamored with the little miracle that we created. Perfect in every little miniature detail and I cannot stop inspecting the sheer amazingness of her. I finally get why Jake keeps wanting more. Nothing compares to how it feels right now, sitting here together like this. How much I love her already.She’s clean now, dressed in a little pink sleepsuit that’s adorned with tiny unicorns and wrapped up snug in a fluffy pink blanket. Arrick did the fatherly duties and got her trussed up in her little outfit for me. He was a total pro, from years of helping with Emma’s kids and looked totally at home maneuvering a frowny
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Sophie’s POV~ Meeting Arrick for the first time ~I drop the wooden spoon in the bowl as batter splashes back in my face and recoil in disgust, wiping the wet mess out of my eye and huff stroppily. Temper riling slightly because I cannot get the knack of this at all. Sylvana laughs at my expression and tends to my face with a dish towel she has over her shoulder, dabbing at me lightly to clean it off. That gentle motherly smile and soft manner that soothes my temper tantrum and I calm slightly at her ever-tender touch to my fiery moods, warming inside at her easy manner.“Oh, Sophie,Bambino.... Don’t be so aggressive with stirring. Be gentle with the batter, or you will pound the air out of the mixture.” She smiles softly and picks the spoon back up to hand to me encouragingly, pushing the bowl back against me on the wooden surface with an eyebrow lift that is meant to endear me to try again. I
Last Updated : 2021-08-19
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The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 222
I deserve it, I know I do, probably worse, it’s not even that painful but as I stare at her again, I can’t hide how much it actually wounded my heart. Sophie has lashed out at me before, sure, in crazy ways, frenzy fueled attacks when lost in her pain or triggered with her PTSD, but she’s never slapped me in the face for anything. This was a direct ‘how fucking dare you’ kind of assault that speaks volumes to the depths of the carnage I’ve caused on her soul.“You lost me. You don’t get to do that anymore.” She wails at me, pulling my hands and arms from her body and shoves me back with as much force as she can muster. Prickly, seething, hating me with utter crushing heartbreak. She’s breathing as heavily as I am although her pain and hysteria seem to be calming mine and I know I need to stay patient and cool if I’m going to bring her down from fierce.I know how to deal with her at her worst, I can hand
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Arrick’s POV~ Leila’s party ~Leila’s party is losing its sparkle for me. Too drunk, too miserable at having to see Sophs swanning around with golden boy Christian all night and I am done with being here. I’ve said my goodbyes to my brother and I’m leaving before I do something stupid I’m going to totally regret concerning ‘boyfriend’ and drag Sophs into a dark corner to kiss the shit out of her if I stay here. Seeing her looking this beautiful, this happy with someone else is killing me.I spy Sophs, Leila, and Daniel huddled together at the front door as I head that way, a little too late due to not watching where I was going and swerve at the last second before she spots me. My heart lurching at running into her again when I’m already a complete emotional wreck. Hating that even still, my initial reaction to seeing her is a swift kick in the gut. Almost keeling sideways because I am way too
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 220
Arrick’s POV~ Seeing Sophie again. (Restaurant) ~I push the money in the driver’s hand as I follow Charlie and Tom out of the cab onto the sidewalk. I’m still tired from my three hours in the training ring and starving, it’s my turn to pay for lunch and I got to pick the venue. This place is new and no chance of Natasha hitting it with her colleagues on her lunch break either. I’ve been trying to put distance between us since the breakup, trying to stay out of her way and I hate that she has a knack for showing up wherever I am. It feels like she just won’t let go, and although I understand her pain at our breakup, it’s also stifling, and I just want her to move on. She won’t do that if she keeps trying to cling to me.“Hurry up, man.” Tom, my sparring partner today is impatient as hell and throwing me a look that is supposed to hurry me up. I straighten on the street and glare him down.
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 219
It kills me that I can love her this much and was stupid enough to give that up, to give her up. It’s so black and white in the clear light of my brain defogging and how fucking dumb I am. It was never about what my heart wanted; it was always about what was best for everyone else’s.I don’t want Natasha; I don’t think I ever really did. I want Sophie. If I’m being honest then I’ve always wanted her, needed her. It’s why I could never ignore the two a.m. cries for help. It’s part of my soul to be there for her to fall on, to depend on, to call, and lean on. I grew up for her and became her rock, gave her that safe space to grow and heal and kept the world at bay so it didn’t touch her. I created our bubble together so Sophie could thrive and feel secure, enjoy life without fear and I always told myself it was because I never had a kid sister and she just screamed out for protection. So precious, so angelic and I wanted to
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 218
Arrick’s POV~ Breaking up with Natasha ~Sitting on my couch, leaning forward with elbows propped on my knees, I stare at my cell for the millionth time and scroll to Sophie’s name on the list. Last call was twenty-eight days ago... twenty-eight long days of hell, silence, loneliness, and lack of Sophie. Twenty-eight days; the last time I felt anything but the constant absence of her and heavy pit in my stomach, from her disappearing in every single way, and leaving a gaping silent sunless space in my life.I’m missing her like crazy, keeping her last texts messages because it’s all I have left of her to hold on to. I scroll to the very last one, again. It’s a nothing text; I don’t even remember what it was in response too, as it’s not connected to the conversation before it. Just one single text, one that sums her up in so very few words and I stare at it as my chest heaves with that same ingrained weight
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 217
Natasha’sPOV~ Life after Sophie ~I watch Arrick push his food around his plate distractedly, eyes on what he’s doing, yet he seems completely detached from the here and now. We’re in a busy restaurant, the food is good, the company not so much; he has barely said two words the whole time we have been here, and he has had about four beers with dinner so far.Arrick never drinks excessively, normally, but I guess this sums up our life of the past three weeks. I’m irritated, upset but I am trying to keep the pleasantries going. I am trying so hard to not let it get to me, to keep a smile on my face, a positive outlook that we can get through this bump in the road of our relationship, but he makes it so hard.I try not to watch him too much as I eat my own food and give up on small talk. His nods and ‘hmm’ responses make me want to throw my wine glass at him, and I am trying to avoid all forms of naggi
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 216
Arrick’s POV~ Letting Sophie go ~I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling of my room. I haven’t moved from this spot all night, still fully dressed and unable to even get up and function. The weight in my chest is almost holding me in place, crushing me with the pain, and I can’t stop running last night through my mind endlessly. I’m restless, torn, scrunching my fingers in my hair like I can rip this out of my head. The worst sort of agony that surpasses all.I want to go to her room and see her, but I can’t. I can’t get her out of my head, even though she is only feet away and it’s torturing me.I kissed Sophie... I did more than kiss her, and it felt good, it felt right. It made me feel a thousand things about her that I can’t even begin to analyze, comprehend how to, and all it did was make everything fall apart even more than it was, especially when Natasha showed up and slapped me back to
The Carrero Heart (series book 2) 215
Arrick’s POV~ After the nightclub ~I sink back on the couch and stare into the semi darkness, cradling my second coffee since we got back here, and try like hell to sober myself up. Head swimming and sinking slowly into the softness of my couch, while trying to get a grip on reality. All I have done since we got home is sit here and try to pull all the shit in my head back together. Try to make sense of the entire night that pretty much went to crap from the moment I downed the first vodka.Drink and I are not friends right now, and if I have any chance of salvaging anything, then I need to sober up fast. Sophie is in the shower, she headed there as soon as we got back, and I sat here waiting for her. I need to talk to her, to figure some of this out and I have no clue what to do. Tonight, taught me a couple of things.One. That drunk, I feel about Sophie the way she feels about me and I want her in every way; physically, menta
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Sophie grabs my wrist and tries to yank me to the side, but I cannot tear my eyes from her. I want to tell her I made a mistake, that she is who I want, that she is all I can even think about. I want to wipe away the memory of that asshole on her body, and replace it with memories of kissing her softly, cherishing her always. No one should ever touch her, except me.“Natasha.” She snaps at me and slaps my hands down from her face harshly, bringing my focus back to reality again. I tear my eyes from her and glance up as I see Tasha heading our way, looking completely non-plussed and again the accompanying guilt is like a constant shadow with her, and wracks me to the bone and almost smashes me in the skull. Nothing hits home and drills to my shame brain, like Natasha’s appearance.It makes me feel shit for even thinking what I just did. That same doubt and uncertainty hitting me with equal force, and I sigh hard. So much for fucking choosing.&l
