SWNOVELS The Charade: Chapter 40
‘WHAT ARE they doing in Mr. Hastings’s office?’ I said to Elyse, but mostly to myself as I sat on the chair beside her, my legs bouncing as I waited for our mom to come out.
It had been over thirty minutes since Carter told me that he’d seen my mom go in there with his dad and Dr. Aarden. She wouldn’t have slipped out another door without saying anything to us, would she?
‘I’m sure they’ll be done soon,’ Elyse said, putting a hand on my leg like she was trying to stop me from bouncing out of my seat. ‘They probably just have a lot to talk about.’
‘Well, I wish they’d just get it over with already,’ I said. ‘Just rip off the Band-aid.’ I sighed and pushed myself off the chair, needing to walk around because just sitting here was going to make me crazy.
I paced back and forth in front of my sister as the string quartet played the song “In My Blood/Swan Lake” by The Piano Guys. It was an angsty song, and it was the perfect theme song for my current mood.
I walked to one of the ballroom’s columns and then turned on my toe to pace back in the opposite direction. I’d never really paced before, but I had so much pent-up tension in my body that I finally understood why stressed-out people did it.
When I made it to the refreshment table, I turned around and headed back the way I’d come again. I went back and forth about six times, but on the seventh time, Elyse stood and pulled on my arm, saying, ‘Everyone is starting to look at you.’ She looked pointedly behind me at the dance floor. When I turned to see what she was talking about, there were indeed several sets of eyes staring at me.
One of those sets belonging to Carter.
He was standing on the opposite end of the room, leaning against the wall with his legs crossed in front of him.
What was he thinking right now?
Was he fine with all of this?
He’d said he wanted to dance with me tonight. That he thought I was beautiful. But was he as bothered by our predicament as I was?
I couldn’t tell, because from this view, he seemed completely fine. Like it was just another fancy ball at the Hastings’s estate to him.
Ugh.
How could he be okay with all of this?
How was he not pacing the floor and feeling like his heart was being ripped out of his chest and stomped on by our parents?
‘I need some air,’ I said, turning back to my sister.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ she asked, the look in her golden-brown eyes telling me she was worried I might just be on the verge of insanity.
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll just be a few minutes.’
‘Okay,’ she said, watching me carefully, like she thought that if she said anything else she might break me. ‘I’ll text you if Mom comes out.’
‘I left my phone upstairs,’ I said. This dress didn’t exactly have pockets. ‘I’ll probably just go to the bathroom and then come back.’
I left the ballroom, noticing Carter stepping away from the wall when he saw me through the windows, as if he was considering coming after me. But Nash gripped his brother’s arm and said something that seemed to make Carter rethink his pursuit. I hurried down the hall to use the bathroom near the conservatory where Carter had taught me a few constellations one night.
I took care of business quickly and then looked at myself in the mirror. I tried to give myself a little pep talk as I adjusted my dress and washed my hands in the sink.
Everything will be fine , I told my reflection. Carter might not be the guy for you, but you’ll have a dad and a stepmom and three new brothers and a sister. It might not be happening in the way you chose, but it will still be pretty great. You may not get to have the relationship you had with Carter when you started out, but at least he’ll still be in your life.
I continued giving myself the best inspirational speech I could think of. The kind where I told myself that everything was happening for a reason. And even though it didn’t seem like this was happening for my own good, one day I’d look back on this time and laugh at myself for thinking that being with Carter was the best path for my life when really, something else that I didn’t know about yet was going to actually be the thing that gave my life the meaning and fulfillment that I’d always wanted.
I channeled my inner Oprah. I made up my own graduation speech. I repeated all the inspirational quotes that came to my mind as I tried to convince myself that being related to Carter was actually what I wanted.
But after quoting guru after guru for about three minutes straight, I still didn’t feel any better.
Because I wasn’t at that future point in my life where this would all make sense yet. I didn’t have the hindsight that I’d have in twenty years.
I was still in the here and now. And inconveniently for me, in the here and now, my heart still raced every time I stood close to Carter. My nerve endings still burst to life with the slightest touch from the tall guy with dirty-blond hair and bright blue eyes that I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with.
As I kept trying to visualize a future where I was happy and smiling as I watched Carter stand next to his faceless bride in front of all our family and friends, all I could picture was the way he’d glared at me from across the room tonight as I danced with other guys.
Was that how it was actually going to be for us from here on out? Was he going to treat me like a pariah from now on because we’d had a normal high school relationship before we knew we were related?
Were all our future family dinners going to be him just scowling at me across the table and making me wish that I’d never been anything more than an acquaintance before we found out the truth?
The years stretched out ahead of me. Years where I’d walk in a room and he’d instantly leave. Years where I would be at Cambrielle’s wedding or Nash’s Broadway show and Carter and his future girlfriend or wife sat on the opposite end of the aisle because he couldn’t bear to be within ten feet of me.
Years where we would barely say two words to each other because he knew I’d once cared for him in a very unsisterly-like way and he was disgusted that it had ever happened in the first place.
I dropped my head forward and closed my eyes as I tried to push those images away.
I didn’t want that to be my future.
I didn’t want that to be our future.
I turned off the water, dried my hands on one of the fluffy white hand towels on the rack, and left the bathroom. But instead of heading back to the ballroom, I turned left and went into the conservatory at the very end of the hall. The room was dark, but it had a glass roof where one could look up at the night sky above.
The mid-October night was clear, not a cloud to be seen—just a full moon and stars that twinkled like diamonds against the inky-black sky. I was looking for the Big Dipper, the only constellation I could remember right now, when footsteps sounded behind me.
I twirled around to see who had found me. It took me a moment, but once the dark figure was about ten feet away, I realized it was Carter.
He stepped closer, and when his face was illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the glass roof above, I saw a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before.
They were wild.
He looked wild.
His shirt was haphazardly tucked into his slacks, his tie loose around his neck, his hair mussed.
When he came closer, my heart thumped against my ribcage. And when he took another step forward, it didn’t just thump, it crashed against my ribs like it wanted to jump out of my chest and into him.
Into his chest to be with the only other heart that had matched its beat so perfectly.
And when I looked at his face again, for the first time since meeting him, I wasn’t completely sure I was safe.
Not unsafe in the sense that I should fear for my life or anything, but unsafe because this guy who always followed the rules and kept himself and his actions carefully controlled might just be as on edge as I felt.
‘I found you,’ he said, his voice low and husky.
‘You found me,’ I replied.
My eyes darted back and forth between his, trying to figure out what he meant to do now that he was here. I couldn’t sense exactly what he was planning, but the feral look in his eyes told me that I should probably tell him to leave. I should tell him that it wasn’t a good idea for us to be alone when we were both on edge like this, that we needed to take time for our feelings for each other to morph into something more appropriate.
But I couldn’t force the words out of my mouth because my heart just wasn’t in them.
My heart was already somewhere else.
With him.
It had left my body without my permission and was now burrowing itself away so deep inside him that it would have to be dug out piece by piece before it could be sewn back together and returned to me.
And suddenly, the part of me that had been hurting all week—the part that I knew was irrational and sensitive—started asking, ‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ My voice broke. ‘Why have you been skipping all of our tutoring sessions? Why have you been glaring at me all night like you can’t stand to see me anymore?’ My chest heaved as the pain from the past few days poured out with my questions. ‘Why have you been acting like I’m some sort of infectious disease that you can’t put enough space between us? Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Can we not even be friends?’ I looked up at him, desperation tearing through my body as the words flooded out of me. ‘If we’re related, are you just never going to talk to me ever again? Are you just going to ignore me for the rest of my life?’
By the time I was able to stop vomiting words all over him, I had so much pent-up frustration coursing through me that I could probably light the whole strip of Las Vegas with the barely restrained energy.
Carter just stared at me with his chest rising and falling rapidly, his hands flexing at his sides as if trying to calm himself after I’d assaulted him with my words. But then he shook his head and in a too quiet voice, he said, ‘Do you think I like this?’ he asked, stepping closer. ‘Do you think I like it that I can’t look at you without wanting you? Do you think I like that when you walked down the stairs tonight and I saw you in your dress, all I could think about was how much I wanted to just take you away from here so I could hold you and touch you and kiss you until we both forgot who we really might be to each other?’
I took a step back, feeling hot all over, not expecting the intensity of his words.
‘What do you want me to say?’ He took my hands in his. ‘I. Can’t. Stop. Thinking about you.’ He enunciated each word, each admission pumping blood back into my heart. ‘I mean, I have dreams about you, Ava.’ He glanced to the side and bit his lip. Then he looked down at his shoes.
‘I—’ he started. ‘I wanted to keep tutoring you. I wanted for us to still be friends and hang out with everyone like it’s normal.’ He flicked his cool blue eyes back up to mine and said in a husky voice, ‘But I’m too attracted to you. I’m so freaking attracted to you Ava, it’s insane.’ He sighed heavily. ‘And I mean, I know we can’t be together. It’s perverted. It’s wrong. But…’ He sighed again. ‘I don’t know if I can control myself when I’m around you.’
His shoulders drooped, as if he felt defeated admitting all these things to me. And as everything he’d just said sunk in, it felt like lightning striking me right in the heart.
Like lighting striking his heart and mine at the same time because they were one.
He looked down again, rubbing his thumbs across my knuckles, sending electric waves coursing up the veins in my arms.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter—just a whisper that I could barely hear over the music drifting to us from the ballroom in the background. ‘And I’m sorry.’ He leaned his forehead against mine. ‘I should have told you I couldn’t make it on Thursday. I should have warned you that I needed space—that as much as I want to spend every single waking minute with you, I can’t. I can’t tutor you anymore. I can’t be your friend right now. Not when I’m trying to come to terms with being your brother.’
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath through his speech until my lungs felt like they were going to collapse as they screamed out for oxygen. I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with much-needed air, hoping it would clear my head which had become fuzzier and fuzzier the longer Carter spoke.
He hasn’t turned off his feelings. He doesn’t hate me.
He’d only been trying to come to grips with our possible new reality and putting the necessary space between us so we didn’t do something we’d later regret.
Which meant, I should probably leave.
Right now.
‘I should go back to the party,’ I said, knowing that if I stayed here with Carter for much longer, we both might actually give in to our feelings and do something we couldn’t take back. ‘Elyse is probably wondering where I am.’
Carter’s jaw flexed and he gave a slight nod. ‘Okay.’
But neither one of us made a move to leave. We just stood there, face to face, his hands still holding mine, our foreheads still pressed together, our breaths still mingling, our hearts still racing.
I was working up the nerve to really leave him, to go back to the soirée like a good girl and wait for my mom to come and tell my sister and me that Mr. Hastings was the father she’d kept us from our whole lives when Carter spoke up.
‘This might be selfish of me, but I basically just bared my whole soul to you. Just told you a lot of things that I’ll probably kick myself for admitting to as soon as we leave this room. But…’ He swallowed. ‘I can’t help but wonder if you felt any of that at all this week.’
Did he really not know?
Could he really not tell just how hard this was for me, too?
But I guess I hadn’t told him, had I? In fact, I’d just danced with a dozen other guys, flaunting it in his face.
Since this was probably the last chance I’d have to tell him how I felt before we officially heard the truth from our parents’ mouths, I whispered, ‘Being with you is all I can think about, too.’
‘It is?’ His chest expanded, like he actually had thought my feelings for him could disappear in the span of just a week.
‘Of course,’ I said, reaching up to caress his high cheekbone with my thumb one last time. ‘I’ve been dreading tonight because while I knew the party would be amazing, I knew I’d still hate it because I couldn’t spend it with you.’
‘It’s been a pretty bad night,’ Carter admitted, leaning his cheek into my hand. ‘I was actually fighting the urge to punch my best friend in the face because I was so jealous he got to dance with you when I couldn’t.’
I couldn’t help the half-smile that lifted my lips. Even though violence wasn’t something I’d usually condone, it was nice to know Carter felt so strongly about me.
Carter returned my smile, and it was a welcome sight after the glares he’d been shooting me all night.
After a few seconds where the world seemed to disappear and we got lost in each other’s eyes, Carter said, ‘Don’t you want just one last moment?’ He took my bare shoulders in his hands, running his thumbs across my collarbones. ‘Don’t you want just one last time to be together?’
My stomach tilted inside me as I thought about what he was saying. And while turning him down was the last thing I wanted to do, I made myself shake my head and say, ‘We can’t. It would be wrong.’
His brow furrowed and he searched my eyes. ‘But is it really?’ he asked. ‘Because what I feel for you doesn’t feel wrong.’
When he slipped his hands over my shoulders and down my back to rest at my waist, I had to agree. Being like this with Carter didn’t feel wrong. It felt like exactly what I wanted to do.
But we couldn’t act on our feelings.
We couldn’t steal one last moment from fate, could we?
And so, since one of us needed to stay here in reality, I said, ‘Do you know how bad it’ll be if it comes out that we’re related and we still acted like this?’ I pressed my lips together. ‘This is the twenty-first century. People go to jail for having relationships like this.’
I expected Carter to nod. To accept what I was saying as the truth. But instead of agreeing to my logic, Carter just bent closer and whispered into my face with his minty breath, ‘I don’t care.’
What?
I shook my head, not believing I was the one who had to talk about the rules when he’d been the poster boy for rule-following a month ago. ‘I looked it up, Carter,’ I said. ‘You can go to jail for up to five years for this.’
‘I. Don’t. Care,’ he said more firmly, his towering height and muscular physique more intimidating than it had been a moment before.
‘Carter…’ I braced my hands on his chest, needing him to see reason. ‘It’s illegal . There’s no future where we can be together.’
‘It’s illegal if we know that we’re related and we break the rules anyway.’ He gripped my waist tighter and pulled me impossibly closer. ‘But your mom still hasn’t told you. And my dad certainly hasn’t said anything to me. As of now, the only evidence we really have are a few photos that place them together at the scene of the crime.’
‘But that’s just a technicality.’
‘No one has to know.’ He leaned his mouth close to my ear. ‘It can be our little secret. Our last goodbye.’
‘But Carter…’ I sighed, feeling my resolve wilting like a dahlia that had seen too much sun.
Because even though I knew I shouldn’t, I wanted to do exactly what Carter was saying.
I wanted to have one last memory before everything was taken away from us.
‘Just one last night,’ he whispered, his hot breath on my neck. ‘One last moment to remember what might have been if the universe was kind.’
My heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest. Because until my mom confirmed my worst nightmare, I couldn’t get in trouble for feeling the way I did, could I?
And so, even though the logical part of my brain knew I shouldn’t, I gave him the slightest nod.
Carter cradled my head in his hand and whispered, ‘I love you, Ava. Even if everything changes after tonight, I just want you to know that I love you—not as a brother, but as a mere mortal man who fell under the spell of a goddess.’
A tear escaped my eye because I knew this was a goodbye. It was the last time I’d ever be able to admit my true feelings for him. So I whispered, ‘I love you too, Carter.’
His lips descended on mine then, and as he led our mouths in a slow and passionate kiss, I felt my heart ripping apart inside me. It slowly unraveled like a ribbon, because this kiss was not a promise of more good things to come. It wasn’t like any of our previous kisses that burst with the excitement and anticipation of a future we could have together.
No. This was the kiss of death—the death of all my hopes and dreams where Carter and me and the future I still selfishly wanted were concerned.
His arms slid more firmly around my waist and he pulled me against him. He was solid and strong, but even though he was both of those things, he was also mortal and vulnerable to the same overwhelming feelings I was susceptible to.
In other words, he was human. Imperfect and only able to be tempted so far before he inevitably fell.
We were both falling.
I wondered if this was how Adam and Eve felt in the Garden of Eden. To know that the consequences of their actions would affect them for the rest of their lives, but to still fall to the temptation standing right before them because not giving in was worse than forever living without.
Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit, and not wanting to be without his other half, the woman born from his rib, he tasted the fruit and exiled himself to an eternity where he could no longer live in the beautiful, lush garden—the only home he’d ever known.
It made me wonder about the person who had named Eden Falls. Had they somehow known that this town, this little paradise, had something brimming in the air? Something unseen that made its inhabitants act out in ways they normally wouldn’t?
Was that what had happened to my mom? Had she come back to Eden Falls and gotten caught up in its spell only to wake up the next morning and realize too late that she’d done something she hadn’t really meant to? Something she couldn’t continue?
Carter’s hands flattened against my back, and when he flicked his tongue along my lips, I opened my mouth to his. If I was already falling to temptation, I might as well make the most of it.
I knotted my hands in his hair as tears trickled down my cheeks, telling him with my kiss all the things I’d never be able to speak aloud after we were torn apart: I love you, Carter. I love you, and I don’t care that I shouldn’t. I don’t care that loving you like this is wrong because loving you makes me feel more alive than not.