Dangerous Beauty: Part One: Destiny (8 page)

“I know you,” he said staring into her eyes.

Her brows furrowed. “What?”

His hands came up and cupped her face. “I know you Carter, I know who you are and you know me too. It’s just completely unbelievable to me that it’s you.”

Carter shook her head not understanding. “What are you talking about, Nathan?”

“The story, Carter. That was me and my mother, you’re Spook’s daughter. I just don’t understand, everyone said that you were dead, that you were killed with your father,” Nathan said staring at her with disbelief. He was so fucking shocked right now he had to blink to make sure this was real. This was the girl he had wished for, had cried for, when he was five years old. “Carter Steele? I can’t believe it! You’re still as perfect as the first day I saw you, when I led you out to the garden and gave you the yellow rose. My mother told me I would find you again one day but I…I just thought she was trying to get me to shut up,” he said still looking at her in shock.

Carter’s heart sped up and she began to panic. She grabbed Nathan’s hands and took them off of her face and tried to stand up. Nathan reached for her and pulled her body back to him and held her tight.

“No, no don’t. Please, please don’t panic. Carter just listen to me,” he said the words quick to avoid her trying to leave.

Carter squirmed in his arms. “Nathan please, I…I…I don’t know.”

“Shh just listen to me. Stop trying to run away, and listen to me.”

He was relieved when she stopped trying to get free from his grasp. He loosened his hold on her. “Look at me, Carter.”

“My Carter. That’s what I used to call you” he whispered.

And there it was. The declaration. Nathan knew there was no going back now, he just said she was his, and he’d never meant anything more in his life.

When Carter looked up at Nathan the look in her eyes made his heart break. She was afraid. She looked defeated and tired, like she had been fighting so hard for so long and now she just wanted to give up.

Nathan brought his hands up and cupped her face, wiping her tears with his thumb, she closed her eyes and relaxed against him. “It’s just us out here, you and me. I beg of you sweetheart, don’t ever be afraid of me, don’t ever think I would hurt you.”

Nathan was relieved when Carter nodded her head. The last thing he wanted was for her to run away from him before he got a chance to tell her all he needed to. “I asked for you too, after the day in the garden. I cried when my mother told me that you weren’t coming back. I even stayed away from the garden for a few days if I’m remembering correctly. My mother finally got me out of my room by telling me that if I wished to see you again, then it might happen,” Nathan chuckled. “I made a wish on every rose I could find in the garden, convinced that it wouldn’t come true if I wished on the same one. My mother was not very happy about all of the damage I did to the garden.” Nathan ran his fingers over her hair and pulled her close to him.

“I tried to look for you after…after I heard your father was killed.”

“Why?” she asked softly

“Your father may not have brought you around, but he was around an awful lot. I used to hear my father talk to him about keeping you so isolated. He asked him why he kept you a secret and locked up all by yourself.”

“I wasn’t alone, I had Chrissy,” Carter said still curled up against Nathan’s chest.

“Where is Chrissy now?” he asked already knowing the answer.

“Dead,” Carter whispered, her voice drenched with pain. Nathan wanted to take the pain away, but he knew that he couldn’t and hated that, it killed him.

“Tell me why, Nathan,” she said, urging him to move forward with his story.

“When my father told me that Spook was murdered I was shocked, and I immediately asked about you,” Nathan continued, “My father said that he didn’t know. He told me that the situation was dangerous and that I shouldn’t ask any questions or get involved. If somebody went after a man as dangerous as Spook, then there must be a serious problem,” Nathan sighed. “I told him I’d stay out of it, but I lied because I knew that I couldn’t. I kept seeing the image of that girl with the sad hazel eyes and the tear stained face, except I pictured her older, and she was alone, and it broke my heart.” Nathan lifted her chin until he met his eyes. “I felt like it was my responsibility to find you and take care of you. Hold you while you grieved the loss of your father. Just like the little boy felt it was his responsibility to do everything he could to make the beautiful little girl happy, to hold her while she grieved the loss of her bubby,” Nathan smiled and kissed her forehead lovingly. “And when my father told me you were dead…and that I should stop looking, I don’t know I just…” Nathan couldn’t describe the sadness he felt when his father told him that Carter had been killed along with her father.

Carter couldn’t stop crying. She hadn’t cried like this since before her father’s death, but Nathan’s presence had now burst open a part of herself she’d thought she’d lost forever. Going against what her father had always taught her, she shook her head and cast her eyes downward. “Nathan, you don’t have to feel that way, and it isn’t your responsibility to take care of me, you don’t even…”

“Carter, listen to me. I know what you were going to say and it’s bullshit. I know you feel this too.” He cupped her face looking straight into her eyes. “It’s crazy baby, I know, and I know it’s ridiculous but… I don’t understand how this happened so fast but I…” Nathan shook his head firmly, determination filling his eyes. “I can’t, I can’t let you go and I won’t. I made a wish when I was five years old Carter, I prayed to see you again before I went to sleep at night, and for whatever reasons my prayers as a child weren’t answered till now. I don’t care how much sense it makes, I know what I’m feeling and I…I think I…” He pressed his forehead against hers. “I love you, Carter Steele,” he whispered against her lips.

And he did, and it scared the living shit out of him. He didn’t know where the hell it came from all he knew was that he had never felt anything like it before. He had never experienced such an intense, consuming feeling. Love was the only word that could describe it! Nathan had never been in love before, he never even planned on falling in love. He had been prepared to live a life devoid of love, marriage, and children, to avoid putting a woman through the same pain his father inflicted on his mother. But from the exact moment he laid eyes on the woman in his arms, love, marriage and children were all he could think of. He loved her.
Loved
her. He wanted her to be his, to have his last name. He pictured her pregnant with his child, lounging with him in the garden on the large plush swing where he first held her in his arms. In the garden where he remembers holding her face in the palms of his hands and taking his first kiss from her soft beautiful lips.

Jesus Christ! In one day, Nathan had gone from a cynic to a damn sap.

Nathan felt Carter tremble in his arms. “I’m not a good person, Nathan,” she sobbed unable to hold back her tears.

Nathan shook his head. “Neither am I, but I still love you,” he said. Damn, he had no idea it would be so easy to say when he actually felt it.

“I’m broken, Nathan,” she whispered.

Nathan kissed her tears. “So am I, sweetheart, but I still want you.”

Carter was overwhelmed by the intense emotions rushing through her as Nathan continued to hold her close. He held her like she was precious to him, like she was important to him, she felt safe and protected, and for the first time in a long time, she felt loved. Her feelings for him were instant the moment he said her name and didn’t run away. The fact frightened her, but she loved him, simply because he knew who she was and he was still holding her like this. He was her bubby, her bubby was holding her, loving her. But she didn’t deserve love. She had to tell him the truth about what happened the night her father was murdered, even if it meant he would get up and leave her sitting on the beach with her heart shattered.

She tried to catch her breath and stop the tears the best she could so that she could explain. “Nathan, my father was very good at his job,” she whispered. Nathan tried to get her to look at him but she wrapped her arms around his body and curled into his chest. She couldn’t look at him while she told him this. “Whoever wanted him dead had to hire six men to actually do the job. Some of the men even knew my father personally. I recognized two of them that my father had done business with before.” Carter worried her bottom lip. She was nervous, but she continued, he deserved to know what type of person she was. “They came to the house when we were sleeping. My father had already known that someone wanted him dead, and he was planning on going away from me for a very long time, but I begged him to come home for just one day to say goodbye to me, just one more day together before he left me again. The night they came I was sleeping in my father’s room and I felt like something was off, so I woke up and my father was next to me crouched down telling me to be quiet. He pulled me from the bed and walked me over to the window. He told me that no matter what, I was to run. I begged him to come with me so we could get out together but he said no, he said that they came for him and that he would not risk them chasing after the both of us, he would stay and fight while I got away.”

Nathan’s arms tightened around her and she melted into the warmth of him as she continued. “Right when I got out of the window I heard a click and my dad fell to his knees and turned over quick, I heard another click and I knew it was the sounds of silenced guns so I screamed for my dad, I needed to know if he was alive. I heard him scream telling me to run, and that’s what I did. While I was running away from the house I heard Chrissy scream and I stopped. I heard things crashing and men yelling, but I didn’t hear my dad, and then all of a sudden all the yelling stopped,” Carter swallowed, it was getting close to the hard part.

“I went back because I saw the living room light come on, so I went to the window where there’s a small crack in the shade. I saw my father, he was in a chair and five men were surrounding him, I found out later that my dad had killed one of them. I recognized two of the men as Patrick and Kent, two men my father introduced me to before. I was shocked because when I met them they were so nice to me. I heard my dad say, “Take it all, take everything, just please leave her alone. She has nothing to do with this, she’s just a kid.” Patrick had my dad write something down on a piece of paper, which I now know was the number to his safety deposit box where he keeps all of his important information, including access to our finances. It turned out the person who hired them to kill my father told them that they could have my father’s possessions on top of what they were already getting paid, and he gave everything we had to them, they promised they wouldn’t go after me.”

“Did they say all of this to him? How did you find out?” Nathan asked.

Carter took a deep breath. “I’m almost there. Not even two seconds after they got the safety deposit box number, Kent slit my father’s throat. I didn’t cry because I didn’t feel sadness at the time, I was just really pissed. I wanted to make each one of them suffer for the pain that I had yet to feel. I was numb, just standing there watching them walk around
my
house with
my
father’s lifeless body in the middle of the floor, like he was nothing. I knew right then that I wasn’t going to leave.”

“What do you mean? Carter, you had to have left because you’re here and still alive.” Nathan didn’t understand where this story was going.

“Yes, you’re right I did leave, eventually. But I knew those lying assholes weren’t going to let me run,
especially
since I heard them say find the girl after they killed my father. If I ran they would have caught me and killed me, Nathan. I had nothing to fight them with, so my best bet was to ensure my freedom by making a… statement.” Carter took another deep breath before continuing. “Kent and Patrick left to go to the safety deposit box, and the other three guys stayed behind to clean up any trace of their presence there, and to find me. They figured I didn’t get far. Once Kent and Patrick left, one of the men started to clean the place and the other two said they were going to look for me outside.”

Nathan furrowed his brows and shook his head in disbelief. “Wait a min—”

“The first one came out back,” she continued cutting him off, “I caught him by surprise and broke his leg before I did this little trick my dad taught me, and broke his neck. Since I caught him by surprise it didn’t take more than ten seconds to shut him up. It gave me time before his friend came running in the back to see what was going on, and before he even saw me I shot him in the head with the gun I took from his friend.”

Nathan’s eyes widened in shock. “But—”

Carter held up her hand silencing him. “Let me finish, Nathan, then you can tell me whether you love me or not.” Nathan stopped talking, but he already knew his reply to that, she was only making things more clear.

“The third guy was still in the house, but he had made his way upstairs to my father’s room to wipe it clean of their blood from the fighting, so that gave me time to make my statement.”

“Your statement?” Nathan asked confused.

Carter frowned. “Yes Nathan, my statement. Stop interrupting.”

“Fine. I’m sorry, continue,” Nathan said.

Carter rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I knew I needed to make a statement because if I didn’t they would never stop looking for me. I dragged the bodies into the house, which took forever because they were fucking bone crushers, and I lined them up next to the chair with my father’s body. I heard movement up stairs so I went up there. Since I’m small I was able to get upstairs and get what I needed without making any noise. I wanted to make the last man suffer, so I had to make a plan. I got my knives.”

Knives?
Nathan thought, but he wouldn’t dare interrupt her again.

“Long story short, I waited until his back was turned and threw two knives into his back. That gave me my chance to approach him and enact my plan. He’s the one I got the information from. I don’t need to get into exactly what happened in that room,” Carter cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I just want you to keep in mind that I was grieving in my own way. Anyway, I left a note for those fake assholes Kent and Patrick. I told them to take that damn money, which I didn’t want anyway, and go as far away as possible because soon I was going to find them, and the scene would be way worse than the one upstairs.”