Forbidden Kiss (Carson Cove Scandals 1)

Taylor

Several days later

“It looks like you might get to see Victoria soon.” My mother looked up from the table as I walked into the kitchen.

“What do you mean?” I tensed up immediately.

“Her father is getting remarried.” She pushed the newspaper to the edge of the table. “Alexis Devereaux—I never thought those two would end up together.”

If you only knew half of it…

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Victoria told me they were getting married…”

That’s true, but I knew long before I got that frantic text message from my best friend—and I still didn’t know how I was going to explain why I was the Maid of Honor.

Victoria wasn’t going to wait until the wedding to return to Carson Cove. She was probably already at the airport waiting for her plane to take off. She had tried to talk some sense into her father over the phone, and after that didn’t work, she decided that she was going to pay him a personal visit. I knew it was as losing fight—even if I didn’t know why. Alexis had something on him—and it was probably similar to what she did to me in order to end our relationship. There was no way he would have ever agreed to marry her on his own.

I was just stumbling around an inferno, and my clothes were already on fire—eventually it was going to consume me entirely. Even if Victoria never found out about my relationship with her dad, she would see my willingness to be the Maid of Honor as a betrayal—and she would demand answers—and I couldn’t even come up with a lie that made sense.

One final nail through my heart, courtesy of Alexis Devereaux…

It was Saturday, so I had nowhere to be—I would have much rather been at school. At least that would have given me a distraction from everything. Things were better at home after my mother got her job back—and it came with a sizable raise, just like Alexis said. In fact, my mother was talking about buying Anna a car—which made her ecstatic. Everyone in the Abernathy household was happy except me. I was dying a slow death with each passing day.

“I’ve got a few errands to run. Do you want to come with me?” My mother leaned back in her chair.

“I—I think I’m just going to stay here today,” I sighed. “I’ve got some school stuff to catch up on.”

I’d rather wallow in my misery than pretend to be happy…

“Okay.” She nodded. “I won’t even bother to ask Anna. I know she won’t go.”

My mother left, and I sat down to have a cup of coffee. I couldn’t even imagine what Bryant was going through, and it tore me up that I couldn’t be there to support him. During one of my conversations with Victoria, she told me about her sister, which added another horrible gash to my gushing heart. That probably shredded Bryant worse than the end of our relationship and his impending married to Alexis. I didn’t know if he had figured out that Alexis was responsible for what happened between us, but something happened—or he would have never agreed to marry the bitch.

“I fucking hate you…” I muttered under my breath, picked up the wedding announcement, and started tearing it to pieces.

“Me?” Anna walked into the kitchen and seemed startled by what she heard—and what she saw.

“No.” I stood up and dumped my coffee in my sink.

I ran upstairs before Anna could ask another question. I didn’t mean for her to see how upset I was—and I definitely didn’t intend for her to walk in on me destroying the wedding announcement. My emotions just got the best of me

. I needed an outlet and screaming wasn’t an option with her in the house, so I put a canvas up and started attacking it with my brush. I a few crimson slashes, outlined those in black, and used the brightest red I could find to draw a heart around them. I was just about to start filling it in when I heard my door open—I knew it was Anna—the footsteps were too soft to belong to my mother.

“You’re painting again…” Anna walked in and closed the door.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I don’t even know why.”

“Do you want to talk about it.” She walked up beside me and put her hand on my arm.

“I—no…” I felt tears welling up in my eyes.

“We used to be so close—I know I’m still a kid, but I do have an ear.” He put her head against my shoulder. “You’re going to through something—something bad…”

Tears started streaming down my face, and Anna hugged me. An emotional valve just turned on—and kept turning until it was wide open. I started telling Anna everything. It was foolish—those secrets should have gone to the grave with me—but they wanted to be let out in a mixture of tears and sobs. Anna listened, hugged me, and listened some more—until she was all caught up on her big sister’s mistakes. I couldn’t believe I was spilling my darkest secrets to a sixteen-year-old girl, but she just happened to have the right ear at the right time.

“We can’t let her do this to you.” Anna squeezed my hand. “Alexis Devereaux has to be stopped…”

“Did you miss the part about you being the next one to get one of her horrible gifts?” I wiped away my tears. “She’s cruel and heartless—I don’t even want to think about what lengths she would really go to.”