Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 132332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
“Char, look at me,” he pleads.
He’s quiet while I work out in my head what the hell to say.
“I know, Charlotte. About Dad. You know, not being my dad.”
“Chuck’s such an asshole,” I mutter, reaching for his hand and squeezing.
He returns the affectionate gesture. “Chuck didn’t tell me. Well, not directly. I overheard him and mom arguing about it a long time ago.”
“You did?” Oh my God. What an ugly argument that must’ve been for Carter to hear. “How come you never told me?”
“I already lost Dad.” He shoots a grin at me that’s more pained than silly. “Mom seemed iffy about me most days. Chuck hated me. I couldn’t lose you too.”
“Carter,” I cry and fling my arms around him, yanking him closer for an awkward hug. “You’d never lose me.”
“Ugh, no crying on your wedding day.” He hands me a tissue. “Have you always known?” he asks quietly.
“No. Chuck told me…after Mom died.”
“When he had his meltdown and you had to stab him?”
He may seem goofy at times, but Carter’s ability to piece information together has always been uncanny. “Yes,” I answer carefully.
“Is that what you fought about?” His forehead wrinkles. “I thought he’d love to let the truth about me see the light of day.”
“No, that’s not what our argument was about.”
He squeezes my hand, neither encouraging nor discouraging me from continuing.
“Does Teller know too?” he asks in a small voice.
My jaw tightens. I don’t want Carter to get the wrong impression. “He was there when Chuck told me. I needed his help to get Chuck to admit…other things.”
He closes his eyes briefly. “Please say Teller beat whatever information you needed out of him?”
“Not quite.”
“Bummer.” He opens his eyes. “Did it have anything to do with what happened to you in law school?”
I suck in a shocked breath. “What…what are you talking about?”
“Char,” he says gently. “You changed. So much. I traced the timeline back to your winter break. I’d been sick with the flu, I didn’t remember much. You took care of me. Then you ended up sick. Later I realized you didn’t catch the flu, it was something else.”
Shit, shit, shit.
How much does Carter really need to know?
He sits back slowly, a terrified light entering his eyes. “Did Chuck do something to you?”
No, Mom did.
Can I sully the memory of the mother he loved? It almost broke me, and I already had plenty of grievances against my mother. Carter tolerated all her hateful antics and continued taking care of her up until the day she died.
But now I see it differently.
He knew the truth for years. All the shit he swallowed from her takes on a new tone. He was silently begging her to love him, despite the violent way he was conceived.
As flawed as Uncle Chuck is, he tried to make things right with me in his fucked-up biker way. I can’t allow Carter to think Chuck is the kind of monster who would violate his own niece.
“No, not Chuck.” I squeeze my eyes shut. The corset I’m wearing under my bathrobe digs into my flesh, reminding me that my future is waiting and the past should stay in the past. “Please don’t make me talk about this on my wedding day.”
“Charlotte, look at me,” he pleads.
When I finally open my eyes, he’s staring at me with a mixture of love and frustration. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. Or you can purge it all out of your system now. So you don’t have to worry about another hidden truth sneaking up on you later. Go into your marriage unburdened by the past.” He hesitates. “Sorry, that sounds dumb.”
“No it doesn’t.” In a way, he’s right. I’ll always be worried about slipping up and him finding out some other way. And the worst, ugliest truth buried deep down is that I’m still ashamed of what happened. That my own mother hated me so much, she arranged for her drug dealer to rape me so she could skip away from a debt. Marcel’s burned almost every trace of that shame away with his love and affection. But hiding it from Carter…even if I think I’m doing it for his own good, irritates my soul like lingering dirt I can’t scrub away.
Is it better for him to know the truth? Or would I be doing it for selfish reasons? A way for me to ruin the last bit of his love for our dead mother?
I just don’t know.
Damn, I wish Marcel was here to give me the answer. Encourage me one way or another. But just like I let him figure out when he was ready to tell Heidi the truth about his relationship to Rock, he’d want me to decide how much to tell my brother on my own.
“Why didn’t Teller want me to know the truth about who my real father was?” Carter asks.