The Other Girl

“Where do we go now?” he asks.

His trust in me gives me hope, gives me strength. I kiss his knuckles and look up into his pale-blue eyes. “There’s someone I need to see,” I say. “Then we can be together. This time for good.”

His hand covers mine as he places it on his chest, right over his heart.

“What about Black Mountain?” he asks. “This is my home, where I’ll always be.”

He’s right, of course. I can’t leave for too long. Carter needs me here, to help protect him. Just because the threat from Sully and Addison has been taken care of, doesn’t mean there aren’t others.

This place is full of dangerous people. As long as Carter is here, I have to stay with him.

I find my phone on the ground near the waterfall. I hold my breath as I power the device on, waiting for the time to read…

5:59 a.m.

A laugh springs free. The past is really buried. I open the web browser and search a name I hadn’t thought about in years. He was so insignificant to me…at least it seemed.

I wonder where Mr. Whitmore went…

It’s time to find out, as he has a lot to answer for.

Carter’s hand in mind is a soothing balm to the scars. Physical and emotional. His unknown energy isn’t a mystery anymore; we were designed for each other by the heavens.

I had once pondered the existence of dark energy, for how can we believe in a thing that we can’t feel, touch, or see?

The answer is right here with me. Carter. His love is a dark energy so powerful that it dominated and changed the course of my whole universe.

In every story of love and obsession, the saint wins. She gets the boy in the end. The other girl is destroyed. By madness, death, sometimes both.

This time, the story has a happy ending for that neglected girl. She has a heart, too. She deserves to be loved, also.

And as Carter embraces me in his arms, sheltering me from the cold cruelty of the world, the dawn his energy, the morning stars my solace, I know I’m deserving of his love.

I will never be the other girl again.

Epilogue

That Night

Whitmore: Before

I find her near the water’s edge. The ocean laps at her bare feet as she stares out over the horizon. She’s that place between, where sky kisses water, that perfect, fragile glimpse at absolute beauty.

A goddess.

And she’s waiting for me.

Irina’s auburn hair shimmers in the moonlight, and I long to touch it. Curl my fingers around those lovely tresses and snap her neck.

I spotted her right away that first day in my drama class. I on the stage looking down, her in the audience staring up at me with admiration.

She was too tempting to ignore.

For weeks, I fought my urge to have her. But she was a tempting little vixen, testing my willpower with her sensual, naughty looks, those teasing touches during our private sessions.

Oh, she knew what she was doing. She knew how to bring a man to his breaking point.

At sixteen, Irina had me wrapped around her dainty finger. The eight-year age gap between us meant nothing. When I finally caved and gave in to her desire, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.