AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Damon had been lying to her. Manipulating her. He was as bad as all the other men she’d ever known. And on some level she wasn’t even surprised. She’d known all along that he was withholding something from her. Known she’d given over her trust too easily and freely...that she had pinned her hopes on a man destined to disappoint her. She should have listened to those repeated warnings from her head.
‘That’s why you wanted that contract,’ she said, realising the extent of his deception. ‘To get back at him. To ruin him.’
Carrie had expected it to strike her with the force of a wrecking ball, but it didn’t. It was much slower, sinking into her like a thousand thorns, a pain that pushed in deeper and deeper until it was all she could feel.
‘The board are going to vote him out. He’s going to lose everything because of this, Damon. Because ofyou. How could you do this?’
She stared at him, but before he even came close to mustering up an answer, another thought barrelled into her.
‘AmIpart of this revenge?’ she demanded, aghast at the thought that she’d somehow allowed herself to be used against her father. That she’d been a pawn in his twisted vendetta. ‘Is that why you changed your mind about wanting to be involved with the baby? So you could take his family too?’
Damon opened his mouth, but she was already shaking her head, warding off anything he might say.
‘On second thoughts, don’t bother answering. It’s not like I can trust anything you say or do, is it?’
Carrie paced away from him, sucking in lungful after lungful of air, but it wasn’t enough. Every inch of her chest burned...every beat of her heart ached.
‘At no point did you think about how doing this would affect me or our child...’
‘I have thought about that—’ he began.
But Carrie didn’t want to hear his defence. It would only be more lies!
‘No, you have not! Because if you had you would have stopped. You would have called off whatever you were doing before it got to this point. But all you’ve thought about is yourself. Whatyoufeel. Whatyouneed. If you loved me the way I love you—if you had any feelings for me at all—you wouldn’t have done this.’
But he obviously didn’t love her. Because, just like her father, he had placed his business and his thirst for revenge ahead of her and their child. Ahead of the life they could have shared. And that was shattering.
‘You are a selfish man, Damon. You never deserved a single piece of my heart.’
And it was with that agonising realisation that the anger drained out of her and all she felt was the pain of her heartbreak, the disappointments of the past and the present colliding, and it was so excruciating it threatened to cleave her in two.
She knew she could no longer stay there. Without looking at Damon, she ran for the door.
‘Carrie, don’t leave...please.’
His anguished plea followed her, clawing at her already shredded heart.
‘You don’t understand everything. Let me explain... Where are you going to go?’
She threw open the door without looking back at him. ‘Far away from you.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAMONSTAREDATthe gravestone bearing his beloved father’s name. He was holding the Caldwell contract in his hands. But it was still unsigned and it would remain that way—because whatever triumph he’d thought he could achieve it would never have been more than a hollow victory.
He’d brought Sterling Randolph to his knees. He was attached to wires in a hospital bed, being forced to reckon with his mortality and the fallibility of his power, but it hadn’t healed anything within him.
His father was gone, and nothing could change that. There was nothing in the universe capable of making that absence bearable. It was a loss that had to be borne, a grief that needed to be endured. That cavernous hole inside of him still existed and anger continued to roil in his gut.
He had realised it in time and yet also too late.
Because he’d not completely stained his soul, but he had lost Carrie. He had destroyed everything good between them, decimated all the faith she’d pushed past her fears to place in him.
Carrie, who had eased the burden of his emotions, who’d made every day bright and beautiful. Who’d shown him that the past was far less important than the present and the future. But when he’d had the chance to prove that to her he had failed.
He wished he’d realised the error of his ways earlier, halted his plans sooner!
He didn’t blame her for storming off, refusing to hear him out. He had let her down in the worst way.
