Beyond Bliss (27 page)

“Get me out of here,” she whispered. 

It seemed as if time had frozen.  No one in their little circle moved, until a desperate, strangled sound escaped from her mouth. 

“Get me out of here, now.” 

Something bumped against him, and he belated realized it was Liz’s protruding belly which just so happened to poke into his stomach right before her fingernail sharply connected with his chest.  The other woman’s eyes burned with a sheen of moisture as she repeatedly stabbed her finger into his chest.

“You did this.  She was broken, and she put herself back together, and God only fucking knows she’s the best person outside of my husband that I have ever met in my entire life, but you,” she punctuated the word with another sharp jab,  “You never deserved her, did you?”

Helplessly, he stared at her.  There wasn’t anything he could say to defend his actions.

The tears spilled over in full force, then, as she nearly screamed at him.  “Say something, motherfucker.  Say something and take responsibility for what you did.  At least fucking apologize!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raw and gritty.  “Sophie means the –“

“No!  That’s it!  No more.  You stay away from her.  And you know what kills me the most out of all of this?”  She stamped her feet, and he hoped she wouldn’t break her water.  This couldn’t be good for her or her baby, but this train had been derailed long before he’d stepped foot into the ballroom.

“Liz, please calm down.  This can’t be good for you or the ba—“

“Shut up!  Don’t tell me to calm down fucker.  What kills me the most is that I pushed her towards you.  You ignorant, black-hearted, conniving bastard.   I let this happen.”  Finally overcome with tears, Liz was gently pulled away by her husband, who gave him a sharp look.  He turned back, and saw Sophie moving purposefully toward the exit.

His strong, beautiful girl.

Her step only faltered when her mother placed a hand gently on the small of her back. 

Self-loathing consumed him.

Then Zack trailed behind them, only pausing to turn and raise a brow at him, before he followed them out.

Then pure rage ate at him.

Drama over, he barely heard the whispers die down and the music return to loud. 

And then he was alone with overwhelming grief.  He shut his eyes as tears burned beneath his eyelids, until a hard, smooth object was pressed into his hands.

“Whiskey,” his little sister said matter-of-factly, staring after Sophie and her entourage.  “Four fingers, neat.”

“And there’s more coming from where that came from,” Sean added from beside her. 

Chapter Twenty-Four

“So you’re sure this is what you really want to do?”

She gave him a small smile.  They’d already discussed her decision to death, however, they hadn’t discussed the fiasco that had ensued after the incident at Lucas’s hotel, but there hadn’t been any need to. 

Everyone in her life seemed to already know by the next day.

It was a myth that all sexy, handsome, rich men were constantly written about in the rag and on Page Six.

That didn’t mean local blogs of Manhattan’s social scene hadn’t been littered with blind items alluding to one eligible, entrepreneurial bachelor, a legal ladylove, and a lover’s spat.

Some audacious souls had even posted tweets and photos to Instagram directly to the company’s handle complete with a picture of Lucas standing there after she’d walked away, yearning written all over his face. 

Devastatingly handsome.

Apparently, the public at large thought so as well.

#Iwouldfuckhim

#Girltakewhatyoucanget

#Golddigger

#Menlie

#CanIhaveyourbaby?

When she’d seen them, her fingers wrapped tightly around her phone as she battled the urge to toss it out the window.

Instead, she settled for deleting the apps.

If only she could erase the memory of him as easily…

  Her heart ached, so much so that sometimes she could swear it physically hurt, but in the last few weeks, she’d found that concentrating on other life-altering decisions distracted her enough to ease the pain.

Which was exactly why she stood in front of Carter now, in an old pair of battered jeans, a faded Yankees tee, and her hair up in a haphazard pony-tail.

Her hands rested on either side of the cardboard box filled with her personal belongings, which she’d set on top of his desk when she’d walked in to say good-bye.

“You’re like a daughter to me, you know that Sophie,” he said.

She stared at him while he uttered the words then she blinked furiously to keep the moisture in her eyes at bay.  Carter wasn’t known for his softer side, and a huge piece of her shriveled up at the thought that she’d disappointed him.

“I know that.  And I can never thank you for what you’ve done for me—“ her voice broke.

“No need,” he said, his own voice thick, before adding jokingly, “It’s a good thing, Bernard hit a stroke of crazy fucking luck with his last poker game.  Otherwise, he would have never shown his face, and we’d be up shit’s creek.”

Carter grinned now, but she knew how stressful the events of the last few months had been on him.  Even more bizarre, while on the lam, his college best friend had entered a high-stakes game of poker with a Saudi royal of both questionable intelligence and unlimited funds. 

Two weeks ago, he’d shown up on Carter’s doorstep, remorseful and repentant with a printed transaction record of a failed wire transfer into the firm’s accounts in the neighborhood of several millions. 

When Carter had relayed the story to them, Sophie and Liz had the same initial reaction to that tidbit.

On what planet did Bernard exist on if he thought they would have kept the same account numbers from which he had embezzled?

In the end, he’d gone to the bank with Carter by his side, watching carefully as the bank teller cut a cashier’s check for the same amount of the failed transaction.  That afternoon, Carter had personally deposited the check into the firm’s account and returned to the office with enough champagne to inebriate everyone in the office. 

She stood on the main floor, and toasted her colleagues.  Plastic party flutes tapped against one another, a cacophony of irritating but joyful sound.

And the moment the first rush of liquid bubbled in her mouth, across her tongue to her throat, she knew. 

It happened just before the carbonated liquid pooled in her belly and rushed to her head.

She was going to leave.

After that, everything happened quickly.

Now she stood before Carter, trying to find the right words to say, but this moment ached too.  It didn’t hurt as much as the throbbing abyss she’d been tossed into after walking away from Lucas, but there was still a huge lump in her throat.

One she needed to swallow quickly and from which to move on.  This was the right move for her, she reassured herself.  In the last two weeks, she’d taken serious strides to finally do what it was she wanted to.

Come Monday, she would begin her career as an attorney for a not-for-profit, Hearts of Hope, a battered women’s organization that served the immigrant population and those that failed to earn enough to afford legal care on their own. 

Even though she’d never been in that position, she could identify with women that were helpless, at the mercy of a man to provide in for both them and their children.

It had first happened with her father, when he’d passed.

And even though her own father had been a kind, gentle soul, the upheaval Zach caused was enough to open her eyes to the harsh reality most women faced when their breadwinners turned out to be not just their main source of supporting their livelihoods, but the main source of their pain too.

And then Lucas…

No matter what she did, he was impossible to escape.  Every fucking thing tied straight back to Lucas.

She shut that thought down as immediately as it had wandered into her mind, and smiled brightly at Carter. 

“I can’t thank you enough for releasing me from the contract…not only that Carter, but letting me keep some of my old clients.”

“Idiots can’t get enough of you.  They’d have left me anyway,” he grumbled, but his eyes twinkled under bushy gray brows. 

The man was a veritable Santa, masquerading as Scrooge himself.

“Oh hell,” Sophie muttered, before releasing her box.  Quickly, she circled the large cherry wood desk and threw her arms tightly around his neck.  She closed her eyes when his arms wrapped around her just as tight and soaked in the warmth of his embrace. 

A lone tear slipped out, despite the tightness with which she clenched her eyelids shut.  It trailed down her cheek as she fought to find the right words

“Thank you,” she whispered against his shoulder.  “Thank you so much, Carter.  Thank you for being there when Dad died.  Thank you for protecting me.  Thank you for giving me a shot at a career.   Thank you for loving me.”

When she felt several drops of moisture seep into her hair, she lifted her head with surprise.

Carter was crying?

He pulled back too, but it was slight enough to where he could still keep his arms around her. 

“Don’t you dare tell anyone,” he warned.  “I’ll lie.”

Choked laughter bubbled out.  “I won’t,” she promised.

“I promised your dad, you know.  I promised him I would look out for you.”

This time, it wasn’t just surprise she felt.  Complete and utter shock seeped through her veins as she stared up at him, confused.  “What?” she whispered.

His smiled gently at her.  “You think I just heard through the grapevine that he’d passed?  Honey, this was before the days of Facebook, hell—I barely even knew how to check my email at that point.”

This time, he slipped his arms away from her.  “Sit down, Sophie.”

She’d barely processed any of his other words since he’d told her about the promise to her father, but she nodded mutely.  The chair on the other side of his desk seemed too far away, so she perched at the edge of his desk while he sat down in his chair and fumbled through his top drawer. 

“Goddamnit.  Can’t fucking find anything in this pit.  Wait – ah ha!”

He finally turned his attention back to her after he grabbed a stack of envelopes and a slim box in the shape of a book, wrapped in silver paper. 

She stared curiously at the items in his hand, but he ignored them and started to talk.

“When he was diagnosed, he knew he only had around a year left.” Carter paused for a moment, allowing it to sink in. 

Bewildered, she stared at him.  Her dad was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage four pancreatic cancer. He’d passed barely a month after the diagnosis came.

Or so she’d thought.

“We raised some hell, your dad and I,” he chuckled.  “Even with Bernard, believe it or not.  Your dad got a great kick out of corrupting him. One night, after we’d been out—I think it was in college, or it could have been our senior year in high school, I can’t remember,” he frowned slightly, but kept on.  “Anyway, we all got drunk as hell, and poor Bernard lost a bet to him.”

What the fuck? She’d never even known that Bernard knew her father. 

“Don’t look at me like I just killed your puppy.  They weren’t friends like he and I were.  I just happened to be friends with both of them, and occasionally the three of us would hang out.  Anyway, Bernard stupidly lost the bet—actually, I should have known he was going to turn out to be nothing but a worthless gambler—“

“Carter!” 

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled.  “Anyway, I can’t even remember what the bet was, but then the next thing I know, it’s two o’clock in the morning and Bernard is crying like a little girl.  Not from the humiliation, mind you, but from the pain.  Wimp.”

“So you all got tattoos?” she asked, unclear where he was going with this story.

“No, Sophie!  Sometimes I swear, as smart as you are girl, I want to smack you when you’re dense.  Your dad dared Bernard to get the tattoo.  We all went to the tattoo parlor with him to make sure he got it done,” he smiled wickedly.  “The next morning, Bernard made us swear to keep it a secret, so for the most part we did.  You’re the only person I’ve ever told, but good old Barney has a tattoo of an arrow on his lower back pointing straight in between his ass cheeks.  Right on top of the tattoo, it says ‘Enter Here’.”

She still had so many questions, but horrified laughter spilled from her mouth.  “What?”  She could barely get the word out, she was laughing so hard.

Carter just shrugged.  “Your dad had a sense of humor, and Barney was a wimp.  Anyway, your dad had balls.  After he met your mom, I knew it was over for him.  He was crazy about Jeannie, and although I was a little pissed his bachelor days were over, as fucking crazy, carefree, and fun as the man was, I couldn’t help it.  I was as fucking happy as he was, ‘cause I’d never seen him so over the moon.  And when you were born, little miss, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

All traces of humor were gone from her face as she stared at Carter.