Page 27 of Living La Vida Mocha
I cringed before I asked. “And Bea?”
He dropped his gaze to the table and resumed his paper creasing. He twisted in his seat and pinched the bridge above his nose. “About her.” A sharp inhale of air preceded a swig of water. “I need to be honest with you.”
A ribbon of morbid curiosity coursed through my veins, and I’d worried something awful had happened. I braced for the worst case while I ran through thoughts and ideas of what could cause Carter to look so concerned. “Is she okay?”
With that, he locked onto my eyes and held firm for a heartbeat. “She’s fine. Actually, she’s better than fine.” He fiddled with the edges of his placemat.
“Why the cloak and dagger?” He was hiding something, but it was hard to figure out how bad it was. He claimed she was okay, so the way his words and demeanour changed sent up a few red flags.
“There’s no… well… I haven’t been honest with you.”
My sigh was forced out in a quick whoosh. Another flag shot up.
“You see, the thing is, Beatrice, well she, and I’m not.” His expression swirled and changed with each broken sentence. It was impossible to stay on any one thought for more than a microsecond. “Geez, Louise.” He stopped his fiddling and clasped his hands together firmly, his knuckles turning white. “Listen, I’m not the big shot you think I am. I’m a fraud.”
My eyes narrowed in confusion. In fact, my brow pushed so low over my right eye, it was almost like an awning over a shop window. “I’m not really following you.”
“Bea owns the Coffee Loft.” His shoulders fell and rolled forward with the admission. “I own the building, but she has the rights to the franchise. In essence, I work for her. I’m the manager, but not the owner.”
“Oh.” I sat up straighter and let the words sink in. That wasn’t at all bad. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I was trying to impress you. To show you I’ve done big things with my life.” Crimson was splashing out from behind his beard, up over his cheeks, and heading straight into his hairline.
“Oh, Carter. You don’t have to worry about impressing me.”
“Yeah, I do. When I left you to go overseas to study, I planned to come home and be this big shot. Someone you deserved. Someone who would lavish expensive gifts on you and whisk you away on last-minute tropical vacations. We’d bring our three kids and we’d see the world, like Darcy is doing.”
I reached out to hold his hand. “You envisioned us with three kids?”
“Yeah. Two boys and a little sister they doted on.”
My heart skipped a beat, and my breath caught in my chest. As much as I had hoped, I never knew he had envisioned such a future for us. “That’s probably the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You need to get out more.” The blush faded as he grew some strength.
“Yeah, well, the jury is still out on that one.” Still, I had questions. Lots of them. “So, if you had all these big plans for us, why did the communication drop? Why did you decide to end us?” The first of two devastating moments in my life; the kind deep down I’d never gotten over.
Once again, his focus fell, just like his rolled in shoulders. “Because I came to the realisation how, even though you deserved all those things and so much more, some things in my life had changed to the point where I knew I was never going to be able to give them to you.”
“Like what?” What could he have possibly done that would’ve affected us? Had he kicked a puppy or something? Because that was a deal breaker for sure, although I couldn’t imagine Carter could even think such a thing.
“Just… things. We can never be more than just friends.”
My brows pinched together, and not caring about my makeup, I rubbed my hands over my face in a weak effort to wipe away the questioning yet witchy face I knew was settling over me. It was a bad reaction and all it did, as my former boss would say, is to turn people off. “Well, that’s not much of an explanation.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but it’s all I can give. I wanted to give you the world, but it turned out, I couldn’t even give you all of me. I can’t. I’m not worth it. I’m not the man you deserve, so I set you free. I had to.” Like he’d just been shocked, he jumped out of his seat, shrugging, and muttering under his breath. “I’m so sorry, Cara, but this isn’t fair to you.”
In a heartbeat, Carter zipped down the stairs.
Fishing around in my purse, I located some change and piled it up, making sure I had enough to cover my wine and a small tip. By the time I got outside, Carter had vanished into thin air. No footprints in the freshly fallen snow. Nothing. What was going on with him?
Chapter Eight
Unimpressed with Carter’s sudden abruptness, I descended back into the town, angrier than I had been when he rejected my marketing idea. Thankfully the trek down the stairs was easier, although my knees were threatening to lock up.
I wanted answers and Carter had them all.
Why was henot worth it? Who had told him that lie? But most importantly, I wanted – needed – to know what happened between the third year of college and a few years ago. He was hiding something, I just had to figure out what and uncover it.