Accidental Lovers (The Accidental Series, Book 3)

ACCIDENTAL LOVERS

Book Three of the Accidental Series

Tina Martin

Copyright @ 2013 by Tina Martin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior
written consent of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and products are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual
events is entirely coincidental.

Visit the author’s website at:
www.tinamartin.net

Book Cover Design by Dynastys CoverMe
(
www.dynastyscoverme.com
)

*PLEASE NOTE:
This novel is
the third book of The Accidental Series. The first book in the
series is
Accidental
Deception
. The second is
Accidental Heartbreak
.

Accidental Lovers

Chapter 1

Another long, lonely, boring night at the
office…

Carter leaned back in the chair, sitting
behind his desk at work nine o’clock at night, dreading going to
Terrance’s place yet again. Since voluntarily leaving home, so that
Shayla wouldn’t leave, he’d been staying with Terrance for two
weeks now, waiting patiently for a phone call from Shayla or some
indication that she wanted him to come back home.

He didn’t get one.

Even after calling Shayla every, single day
since he dropped the bombshell about Jacob, he didn’t get an
answer. All of his calls ended up going to voicemail, which only
fueled his frustration.

He took out his cell and scrolled through
his call log for today. Did he miss a call from her? Probably not.
Shayla wasn’t receiving calls from him and she definitely wasn’t
making them. Once he realized there were no calls from her, he
slammed the phone on his desk. So much for wishful thinking…

Never had he been in a predicament like
this, his future hanging on the actions and decisions of a woman
who completely had his heart. He’d been intimately intertwined in
her life, in her thoughts and feelings and somehow, and it still
surprises him to this day, he let his guard down and fell in love.
It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she was his
deceased brother’s
fiancée
. He
was in love with her, and now she was angry with him after he’d
mustered up enough courage to tell her something she needed to
know. Something that haunted him every single day.

Maybe there were some things in life that
were better left unsaid – things that were outright unforgivable –
acts that were so betraying, one could never recover from them.
Things that, no matter how much you want to tell your spouse, you
know it’s just too damaging to the relationship to ever reveal it.
But ‘reveal it’ is what Carter did because his conscience wouldn’t
allow him to keep this secret from her, even though it allowed him
to hold on to it for months and carry it over to their marriage. He
should’ve just told Shayla from the beginning – that her
ex-
fiancé
, Jacob Dempsey, was his
brother.

He had his reasons for keeping Jacob private
from her. One – he wanted Shayla. He wanted a life with her. Two,
when Jacob was alive, his relationship with him was nonexistent.
Yeah, they were brothers, but the natural affection one feels for
their siblings – the brotherly bond that’s supposed to tie men
together – hadn’t bonded them. And the third reason he kept Jacob a
secret was because he didn’t want to dredge up any bad memories for
Shayla by bringing up his brother’s name. He didn’t want her to
relive the pain of losing Jacob, remembering the suicide and other
events of that sad day when Jacob decided to take his own life.

So the longer Carter waited, the harder it
became to tell her and now, not only was he left feeling the pain
of losing Shayla over his bad decisions, but additionally he was
also thinking about the broken relationship he had with Jacob,
beating himself up because, though he tried to help his little
brother, he hadn’t tried hard enough. His fabulous life got in the
way.

But those things hadn’t kept him from
Shayla, had it? When a man
really
wants something,
especially a woman, he finds the time and resources to devote to
the cause. And in his lifetime, Carter couldn’t recall ever wanting
anything more than he wanted Shayla. Not the cars, the substantial
income or the women who had met his acquaintance before her. And
despite what guys say, men
will
change for a woman if they
loved her enough, respected her and couldn’t imagine her being with
anyone else besides him.

That’s what Carter did. He changed for the
woman he loved, gave up his wild, bachelor lifestyle and became
something he never wanted to be – somebody’s husband. Nothing was
more important to him than Shayla, and though they were in the
middle of a dispute, a setback, a bump in the marital road to love
and happiness, he wouldn’t give up on their marriage. He just
needed the signal from her, something that indicated she was ready
to sit down and talk through this mess. Like many other nights, he
probably wouldn’t be getting that sign from her tonight.

He picked up his cell phone again, dialed
their home number and talked into the voicemail, hoping she’d be in
the bedroom and would hear his message in real time:

Shayla, baby, it’s me again…just calling
to say goodnight.
He frowned.
Hopefully we can talk soon. We
need to talk. I love you.

He hung up the phone, feeling knots of
nervousness in the pit of his stomach. What if Shayla never wanted
to see him again? What if this marriage was already over for her?
What if…

Carter blew a defeated breath and buried his
face in his hands. What to do? He
could
just roll up to the
house and force a conversation with her, but realizing that would
probably cause more harm than good, he stayed away. In anguish, in
love and all, he stayed away.

Then there was the matter of going to
Terrance’s house…

Terrance tried to be a friend, but Carter
didn’t want to talk to him every day about his personal situation
with Shayla, and he wasn’t in the mood for Terrance’s big, loud
mouth tonight. So standing up from the desk and packing up his
briefcase, he left the office, thinking about staying at The Blake
Hotel for the night. A quiet room would give him the time to think
about every thing that was going on in his life without
distraction.

Before heading to the hotel, he drove by his
home that he shared with Shayla, riding by slowly to make sure her
car was in the driveway and that the house appeared to be in order,
something he did every night since their fight, but this time, he
pulled off the road, next to the curb and sat there in the car,
looking at the house, wanting to go in. He was satisfied that the
place appeared to be in order and now that he’d verified it, he
drove on to what would be his resting place for the night.

Chapter 2

At the hotel, he stripped off his clothes
and took the longest, hottest shower he’d ever had in his life.
When he finally stepped out, he stared at himself in the mirror
while towel-drying his curly hair and his body. Then realizing he
didn’t have any clothes, except the ones he took off twenty-five
minutes ago, he slid on his briefs and sat there on the bed, close
to the pillows and next to the nightstand.

Dr. Westbrook was right all along
, he
thought. She was blunt and forthcoming but she was right. He
should’ve taken the doctor’s advice and told Shayla about Jacob
from the start. Now he wished he could travel back in time and tell
her, and then rush back to the present so they could resume their
lives as normal. If only it was that easy…

Thinking about Dr. Westbrook’s advice
reminded him of Jacob’s therapy notebook that the doctor had
covertly left on his doorstep, coincidentally the same night he had
the argument with Shayla. Carter was so busy trying to rescue his
marriage from disaster, he hadn’t had the time to thoroughly read
all the sloppy, handwritten passages. Besides, the first entry in
the notebook left him confused. He took the notebook from his
briefcase, opened it and read Jacob’s words again:

Most of my life, my Mother compared me to my
big brother, if you can even call him that. To be considered
siblings, we would have to have either the same Mother or same
Father. We have neither, and Carter, as smart as everyone says he
is, is too dense to realize that our “family” isn’t really a family
at all. For a long time, I knew something wasn’t quite right
between us, and when my Mother knew I had figured it out, she wrote
me out of the will. But I don’t want to spend my therapy focused on
people who don’t give two cents about me. I want to get myself
together so I can make a happy life for Shayla.

She cooked breakfast for me today and all
she talks about is the wedding. We’re getting married soon, but
little does she know that I can’t afford it. I lied and told her I
had enough savings to cover our wedding and the bills for the next
few months, but I barely have enough money to put in my gas tank. I
can’t afford anything. But I wanted so badly to make her happy. I
was so desperate to satisfy her that I decided to ask my Mother for
the money. Of course she wanted to know why I wanted the money and
since we didn’t speak, she had no idea I was getting married, so
reluctantly I told her about Shayla, my engagement and the wedding
plans only to watch her laugh to my face. She said she couldn’t
afford it. I only needed three-thousand dollars, a drop in the
bucket for her, and she couldn’t afford it. Liar. I knew I
shouldn’t have gone there, but I did it for Shayla. I didn’t want
to let her down. But that’s what I did. I let her down, and all I
could do was cry as I sat in my car in front of our apartment. I
felt like a failure…no, I was a failure. I am a failure. I failed
her. I’d let Shayla down many times before, and after each and
every disappointment, she always assured me that she loved me, that
together, we could get through anything. I’m not sure she’d be so
forgiving this time.

* ~ *

Carter frowned. After reading the entire
passage, he had one thought:
What does he mean by saying we
don’t have the same Mother?
Was he speaking
figuratively?
Carter knew they didn’t have the same Father, but
Mother? Impossible. Admittedly, he and his brother were polar
opposites. Jacob was quiet and introverted while Carter was the
life of the party, the excellent public speaker, the leader, the
boss, the Vice President of Global Operations at corporate. Still,
that didn’t mean they weren’t brothers…

We grew up together
.
And we do
have the same Mother. Maybe he wrote this out of anger…

Carter then recalled the last conversation
he had with his Mother. She’d flat-out told him she didn’t know
Jacob was seeing anyone and she didn’t know he was engaged. But
Jacob’s words, if they were true, revealed his Mother was lying.
She had known Jacob was engaged because Jacob went to her for
money. So why’d she lie about it?

Carter rubbed his hand over his face. If his
Mother lied about this, what else did she lie about? His thoughts
were interrupted by his cell. He hurried to look at the display
thinking that, by some remote chance, it could be Shayla, but he
was disappointed when he saw it was Terrance instead.

“What’s up, man?” he answered, crestfallen,
placing the notebook back into his briefcase.

“Yo…you still at the office, dawg?”

“Nah. I’m at The Blake—”

“Dang…you got over Shayla real quick, huh?”
he said, then grunted out a laugh. “Who you got over there?”

Carter frowned and felt his body temperature
rise a degree. “Terrance, are you implying that I’m cheating on my
wife.”

“I’m just sayin’…you’re supposed to be
staying over here and you done ran off to a hotel and whatnot.”

“I didn’t
run
anywhere, Tee, and the
reason I’m here is because I can’t hear myself think at your place.
I got a lot on my mind and listening to you play Xbox, crunch on
Doritos and crack jokes about my situation is not working for me.
And in case you didn’t know, I would never cheat on Shayla, so
don’t ever make that implication again.”

“My bad, Carter. Lighten up, dude. I was
just being silly. I know you love Shayla.”

“Then don’t say things like that. I’m
already going through enough trying to save my marriage. I don’t
need extra crap from you.”

“Ah’ight, man. Ah’ight. I get it.” Terrance
paused a moment, realizing how serious Carter was and said, “Just
do what you gotta do to get it worked out. I’m sure she’ll come
around. And I’m here if you need me, bro.”