Between Now and Always: Forever Trilogy Book 3 Page 15

  “What’s wrong?”

  I shake myself and rush to the table where I left my phone. “Nothing, it’s my brother, probably calling to wish my Happy Thanksgiving,” I say and pray that I’m right.

  “Hey you, Happy Thanksgiving,” I answer with an airy cheeriness I don’t feel.

  There’s a beat of silence. “Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving. I’d forgotten that was today,” he says in a weary tone. I turn my back so the rest of them can’t see my face.

  “Did you spend it alone?” I ask, a stab of guilt that I’m here with people and he’s alone makes me flinch.

  “Did you forget where I am?” he asks sarcastically, but with no ire.

  “I’m sorry. So…then why are you calling?” I ask and hold my breath for his answer.

  “I found Dina,” he says.

  “Oh, thank God,” I exclaim.

  He lets out a shuddering exhale and my heart skips a beat.

  “Right?” I prompt when he doesn’t say anything,

  “I’m sending you an email. Read it, and then call me back.”

  * * *

  The entire world has stopped turning.

  We’re in Penn’s office, Dean is on speaker phone, Phil is joining us from mine. We couldn’t reach Carter. I was angry with him, but right now I wish more than anything he was here. When I read Phil’s email, my world stopped turning.

  The documents they shared lay out a damning narrative.

  One that breaks my heart and boils my blood at the same time.

  “Beth, is it normal for you and Dina to go months without speaking?” Deans asks.

  “Well…yeah, I mean. We’ve definitely gone longer, but I called her when I got settled here and didn’t hear back. I didn’t think much of it. When she’s working on something, she tends to be MIA.”

  I’ve thought about her so much and now resent the shame I felt for not being better about staying in touch.

  “Well, these pictures show her going into your grandmother’s house two weeks after the wedding. Less than a week later, we have these transfers to off shore accounts in her name. And then she disappears.”

  “Yeah, probably to a tropical paradise somewhere,” Phil says, his voice laden with bitterness.

  “I can’t believe this. Dina wouldn’t…” I shake my head, not able to finish the sentence because the proof shows that she did.

  “I have her letter of resignation from her job Clo. I mean, she says she’d come into some money and was moving away.” Phil says gently.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for her?” I snap.

  “I told you I was going to take care of it. I wanted you to focus on what you were doing. And it wasn’t until three months ago that I even started my search.”

  “Well, she liked him enough to go on your honeymoon with him. The pictures say everything, Beth.”

  “I don’t understand…she hates Duke,” I say, bewildered.

  The pictures Phil’s PI took of them cut my legs out from under me. She’s kissing him, they’re laughing together, he’s touching her in a way that only lovers touch each other. And even though I can see it with own eyes, it doesn’t make any sense. Dina wouldn’t.

  I turn the computer around, and close my eyes against the wave of nausea.

  I want to scream and cry and tear my hair out.

  I play back all of my interactions with Dina. I don’t understand how I could have misjudged her. She hates my father. Why would she be helping them?

  My stomach feels like it’s been put into a vice as I recall the reluctance with which she agreed to be my bridesmaid.

  I thought it was because she didn’t agree with my choices. Could it be that she and Duke were involved. That she was helping my family? What else could they be paying her for?

  My mind races through the memories, cutting a circuit through all of the times she’d loved me and picked me up and encouraged me.

  But when I get to the beginning of the loop that’s playing, I find myself facing a terrible possibility. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the evidence of her betrayal.

  I turn around, not caring that I’m interrupting Dean.

  “Dina handled Carter’s DNA tests,” I blurt.

  “Oh my God,” Dean breathes out.

  “That fucking bitch.” Phil’s voice is a low as the motor an engine.

  “Do you think she tampered with them?” I ask. The idea that Dina could be involved in that kind of deception, for money, makes me want to throw up.

  “I mean, it’s absolutely possible. She took the samples for testing,” Phil says.

  “We need to get another test done. For all of you. Phil, between you and Carter. And, Beth between you and Carter.”

  Inside of me, hope - audacious and shameless - surges and everything go still and quiet.

  Oh God.

  “Yes. Let’s get that done right now,” Phil says.

  The men start making plans, but I can’t hear anything over the loud whooshing of blood in my ears.

  I feel light headed and reach for the chair to steady myself.

  Half of me is praying that they’re wrong. That Dina didn’t do what they suspect.

  But the other half, is praying like hell that she did.

  Between You and Me

  CARTER

  The doorbell rings and my grimace, my bear soaked shirt halfway over my head. I pull it all the way off and peer at the clock. It’s almost 2am. Who the hell is coming to my house at this time.

  I texted Jack hours ago before I turned my phone off so he wouldn’t worry, but I should have known he would.

  I walk over to the intercom and buzz him up, unlock the door and leave it open a crack and then sit down to wait for him.

  But when the door opens it’s not him who walks in, it’s Beth.

  I surge to my feet, regret is a sharp knife in my gut. After the way I left things at my mother’s I’m shocked to see her.

  Her nose is red from the cold, and her lips are slightly chapped. Her dark hair, flows freely to her shoulders and is flecked with snowflakes. She looks beautiful.

  She yanks the cap of her head and pulls her gloves off and shivers. “It’s so cold here. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this weather. No matter how many layer I wear, I can’t seem to get warm enough,” she says through chattering teeth.

  She turns around to hang her coat on the small hook behind my door and I notice that she’s trembling.

  I walk to her, and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “What happened?”

  She stiffens and slides out from under my touch, and turns to face me. Her expression is unreadable.

  “You smell like brewery,” she remarks in an even voice, as inscrutable as her expression.

  “We went to a bar after practice, someone spilled beer on me. I was just about to shower when the bell rang.”

  “I’m sorry I showed up like this, so late. But you weren’t answering your phone. And this can’t wait.”

  She pulls her phone out the small purse she’s carrying and hands it to me open to an email.

  “Read this.”

  I take it, and sit.

  I read the email, look at the pictures and with every word and every image, I fluctuate between horror and rage as I realize the implications of what she’s laid out.

  “Is this true? Dina? She set us up?”

  “If I hadn’t seen the evidence of it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.”

  My heart is racing at a thundering sprint and I drop my head in my hands. “She…we… we lost so much time,” I stammer in wild disbelief.

  “Carter, we don’t know for sure. That’s why I came. We need to take DNA tests, brand new ones. Between you and Phil.” She looks away from me and swallows hard. “And between you and me.”

  I sit, stunned by the sudden turn in the tide with my ears ringing so loudly that it drowns out the silence that stretches between us for a few minutes.

  “Is your heart racing,
too?” I ask, finally.

  She bites her lip and her eyes don’t meet mine. But she nods. “It has been since I found out.”

  Her quiet, hesitant tone doesn’t dampen my reaction to her admission.

  I feel triumphant, vindicated. “I’ve always known… there’s no way we could be related.” I stand, wrap an arm around her waist and lift her off her feet into a hug.

  “Put me down, now,” she says and the anger in her voice is like a slap.

  I put her down, and take a step back.

  Her expression is glacial.

  “Just a few hours ago, you told me you didn’t want to see me again,” she says and wince at the memory.

  “I didn’t mean that, come on,” I cajole.

  She looks even more upset. “But you said it. And then, you walked out on me. You invited me to join your family and then you left. Do you know how humiliating that was?” she demands.

  “I’m sorry. I know it was shitty. But this changes everything, we can be together,” I plead.

  “That, Carter is the problem. It’s not that easy. What’ll you do if the test doesn’t say what we want?”

  I let out a long sigh, desperate to fix what I’ve broken.

  “I have money saved up to buy a house in Corsica. I love my career. But I love you more. No matter what those results say, let’s just fuck off and go live there. Let’s agree to be happy together, no matter what.”

  She blanches, her eyes wide and impossibly blue against the backdrop of her suddenly very pale face.

  “No… we couldn’t. We have families. Careers.”

  “You wouldn’t give all of that up to be with me?”

  “You shouldn’t want me to. You shouldn’t ask me to. I love you, Carter. I’ll never stop. But I won’t ever give up my entire life for anyone again. I just got it back. I’m finally free. I’m finally doing what I want.”

  “It’s good to know what your priorities are. But I guess I’ve always known. You chose money over me before, ” I say, stung by her rejection.

  She jerks back, as if I spit in her face. Her eyes narrow and she draws her shoulders up.

  “I know you had a great childhood, but, I grew up in a house of horrors. I would have done anything to save Cameron from that. She’s my sister. A completely helpless baby. My father is violent and sadistic. And he doesn’t have that thing called fear of prosecution and jail that stops most of us from strangling each other to death,” she rages, her finger stabbing the air as if she’s conducting a symphony.

  “I know.” I try to grab her finger. She slaps my hand away.

  “I found out months ago that the money’s mine already. If I wanted to, I could go to Texas and demand the will be enforced and be rich beyond my wildest dreams. I wouldn’t be working sixty hours a week,” she says in a voice made harsh by disappointment and hurt.

  “The money is yours?” I gape.

  “But I’d rather find a way to blow all that money up than keep my father’s secrets. I admit that it was a misguided decision. But, I won’t apologize for not being willing to sacrifice my sister’s chance at a better life to run away with you, no matter how much I liked kissing you. That money was a way out. One you couldn’t give me.”

  I flinch.

  “That was below the belt,” I say.

  “It’s true. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just being honest,” she says in a frank voice.

  “And Carter, even if I was willing to walk away now, there’s not a place in this world we could live in peace if what we hope isn’t true. But, we could live right here and figure out how to be friends.”

  The way she says that, as if it’s a suitable substitute for everything else we could be, pisses me off.

  “Fuck your friendship. I want to be your lover. I want to be your husband. I want to plant my fucking seed in you and get the chance to watch it grow.”

  My bedroom door opens. I freeze and my stomach plummets. Beth straightens and scoots away from me, her eyes widening in pained surprise before she closes them. When she opens them half a second later, the disappointment in them cuts me in half.

  Lisa, the sound tech I left the bar with, steps into the living room wrapped in a towel.

  I’d forgotten she was here.

  I only let her come up because I’d spilled beer all over both of us.

  “I’ve been done with the shower forever, what are you doing out here?” She asks in a coy, but accusatory voice.

  “Uh Lisa…shit.” I gawk at her, trying to figure out how I’m going to make this nightmare scenario work.

  She looks at Beth, her eyes narrowing. “Who is this?”

  “Lisa, you should go,” I say between clenched teeth.

  “If you wanted company tonight you could have asked me, she’s not even pretty,” she says with a nasty gleam in her eyes.

  “What the fuck did you say?” I demand.

  Beth stands up abruptly, stalks to the door, and yanks her coat off the hook.

  “Beth, please wait.”

  She whirls on me, the cold fury in her eyes stops me cold.

  “Don’t talk to her like that. Be a better man than that, please,” she hisses angrily while she buttons her coat and pulls her hat on.

  She looks over my shoulder at Lisa, her eyes are cold. “That was very rude. You should get some help and stop working your pain out on other people. It’s really unattractive,” she advises in a terse voice. She stuffs her fingers into her gloves and walks out of my door.

  “Wait, don’t go. We need to talk about this,” I grab her hand.

  She yanks it away and glares at me. “DNA be damned, Carter. You can’t be my lover if you don’t know how to be my friend.”

  I feel the indictment in her words keenly, It’s a rude awakening. My head is no longer up my own ass, but it’s too late.

  I can see from the look in her eye that a simple, “I’m sorry” won’t cut it.

  “I fucked up, didn’t I?” I ask, unable to meet her eye.

  “Royally.” She presses the letter into my still outstretched palm, and then stuff her hands in her pockets as if to make sure I’m not even tempted to try again.

  “Call Dean. He can tell you where to go for the test.” She casts a glance over my shoulder at my open apartment door.

  “Have fun.” She says with cold grimace and then she’s gone.

  Because I’m Happy

  CARTER

  ONE WEEK LATER

  “What are you doing here?” my mother asks from behind the chained door of Joe’s apartment. I lean back, check the number on the door before I peer at her again.

  “What are you doing here?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “I’m helping Joe with a project,” she says cagily.

  “Is Beth with you?” I ask, I didn’t know she and Joe were friends.

  “It’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I think she’s at work. You haven’t said why you’re here. Shouldn’t you be at practice? Your show is in less than six hours,” she says and I forget her weirdness and light up when I remember what brought me down here.

  I hold the paper up so she can see through the small crack in the door. “Because, The DNA results came.”

  She screams and then the door slams shut, I hear the chain disengage and the door opens wide.

  “Oh my God. What does it say?”

  She freezes in the middle of trying to loop her belt and gapes at me. I hold up my phone, waving it in her direction.

  “Phil and I - 99.9% full siblings. But Liz and I have absolutely no DNA in common.”

  My mother’s eyes bug out of her head, and she covers her mouth, muffling her screamed “What?”

  I nod, my heart feels like it’s dancing the reel in my chest. I laugh at her dazed expression as she crosses the room and takes the phone out of my hand. Her eyes race across the screen, growing more frantic in their paces as she reads the results.

  Her head snaps up, her eyes full joy that’s tentative, as if she’s scared to believe it.


  “So…what does that mean?”

  “She’s not my sister, mom. She’s not even my third cousin removed.”

  She blinks rapidly, her face tightening in confusion, her brown furrows with worry. “If she’s not related to either of you… But she’s his daughter. She was born to her mother while they were married, right? So, then who’s sons are you and Phil? I can’t believe that shitty little friend of hers could do this. That poor girl, she’s been crying her eyes out over it every day. If could get my hands on that little Dina, I would rip her—Why in the world are you smiling?” She demands indignantly and crosses her arms over her chest.

  I laugh, I didn’t even realize I was smiling. But I’m not surprised. I’m going to get my heart back. And nothing can dampen that joy.

  “Because I’m happy. None of those things matter. Who cares? We are her family. We’ve always been. And now, at least I don’t have to live with the horror of knowing that she can’t be anything else.”

  Her expression softens, smoothing all of the worry, confusion and surprise from her face.

  “Oh baby, I’m so happy for you. I know—"

  The slam of a door makes her jump and her eyes go back to being wide, but this time from trepidation. Heavy footfalls rattle the picture frames hanging on the wall.

  I turn and watch in horror as Joe comes down the hall. He’s reading the side of a bottle he’s holding. “Who was that at the door? You got my dick hard and left me alone with this shitty ass wine…” Joe’s words die on his tongue and he stops in his tracks - naked as the day he was born - when he sees me standing there.

  My head whips to look at my mother and see what I missed in my excitement over the results.

  Her hair looks like she’s be twirling on her head and she’s tugging at her robe, frantically trying to cover something that looks like it’s made of scraps of lace and not much else.

  I look around the apartment. The two glasses of wine on the coffee table. The men’s underwear draped over the arm of the sectional. My stomach heaves at the picture unfolding in front of me.