“Damn right I am.”
“Because she’s your bargaining chip?” Darren stopped walking and Carter turned to illuminate him with his flashlight.
“Of course,” he added gruffly. But he knew the truth, that wasn’t why he was worried at all.
“It’s getting too dark,” Darren told him after walking another half an hour.
Admitting defeat, they rendezvoused back at the villa, and Carter called Leondris to ready the chopper. It was attached with night lights, and would be a more efficient way to search.
Leondris, accompanied by Carter and Darren, searched the island for twenty minutes before the lights swept over Scarlett. She was down on the beach, frantically waving her arms. Leondris found a landing area a quarter mile from her, and she met them halfway. “What happened?” Carter demanded.
Scarlett explained getting lost and falling down the abrupt drop as they went back to the chopper and bundled her inside. Darren handed her a blanket, and she huddled inside it as Leondris transported them back to the villa. Carter wrapped and arm around her and pulled her close. He noticed that Darren looked out the window instead of watching them. Good man.
Carter was silent as they departed from the chopper. He was still trying to comprehend that she could have died. Her death would have ended his game with Rocco, but it would have meant so much more than that. He knew it would have been a devastating loss to him. Sometime in her weeks with him, she’d broken down the icy reserve he hid behind and worked her way into his heart. He loved her, and it had taken nearly losing her to make him realize that.
Enough of Carter’s cynicism was intact to prevent him from blurting out a confession of his love. Chances were excellent that she would be pleased, and that she truly loved him too. Still, doubts plagued him, and he was unable to open himself enough to her to say the words. He wouldn’t hand his enemy a knife and stick out his throat, and he wasn’t completely convinced she wasn’t his enemy.
They walked to the front door, and Carter slipped his arm around Scarlett, holding her close to him. Athena, Thea, and Vanna came running out to greet them, followed more sedately by an angry-looking Lydia.
One minute she was standing slightly behind him, and the next she was gone. Carter looked for Scarlett in the milling group of people, but she was absent from them. He met the cold eyes of Lydia and guessed she’d scared Scarlett away. He approached his sister, firmly grasping her arm. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, leading her into the study. He placed her in a chair and took the one beside her.
“What do you want?” she asked, refusing to meet his eyes. Her face was composed, her spine stiff, and her lips were pursed in disapproval.
Carter wondered if the feelings he’d recently acknowledged having for Scarlett were displayed on his face. “You have to let go of the hatred you feel for Scarlett,” he said in a steady voice. “She was not the one who killed your husband.”
“Her father receives his share of the blame for that,” Lydia responded tartly. “But I will not embrace his offspring into my family with happiness. I hate her and her family, and I despise them for what they’ve cost me and my son. Until the debt is paid, and it will never be paid to my satisfaction, I will not relent. I will go to my grave hating all Terinis.”
“I understand your position, Lydia.” He saw the dart of surprise
in her dark eyes before her face closed once more. “I find myself in the difficult position of trying to trust her while knowing she is his daughter. He has cost me a great deal too, and for that I will extract my revenge. My only concern is that we’ll carry our vendetta too far and injure an innocent girl in the process.”
“She is no innocent.” Lydia glared at him. “You are a fool if you believe otherwise. She has blinded you with sex and charm, trying to turn you from your purpose. If you allow her to sidetrack you from your sworn duty, then you are no longer my brother.”
Carter sighed, rubbing his temples to ease the pain building there. “I see reasoning with you is useless, so let me put this another way. My future with Scarlett is uncertain, but I won’t stand by as you try to sabotage any chance we may have together. I’m tired of being alone, Lydia,” he confessed raggedly. “I finally see the opportunity for some happiness, to have love in my life, and I won’t let you stand in my way.”
Lydia’s face softened marginally “I too, am alone, Carter,” she said in a stark tone. “Unlike you, there are no more chances for happiness with Justin. He was taken from me violently, and her father is responsible. I do not wish to cut ties with you, but I cannot find acceptance for her in my heart. I have only love for my son and family in my heart. The rest is consumed by a thirst for vengeance.”
“Can’t you see that’s not healthy?” Carter asked. “You can’t raise your son like that.”
“I learned it from you. I watched you stoke the fires of hatred, carefully nurturing each ember until you were strong enough to defeat Terini and repay him for the sins he has committed. Now it is all being undone by that slip of a girl.”
“I have not lost sight of my desire for vengeance,” Carter said firmly. “I am only allowing for the possibility that Scarlett is not like her father, and some good may come of this. I have asked for your support and it has been denied. So be it.” He slashed his hand through the air angrily. “I demand your silence. Scarlett is not to be told about her father’s actions. No child should ever become that disillusioned of a parent. She doesn’t need to know anything about the past, and I expect you to hold your tongue.”
“Very well.” She agreed to his demand in an icy tone before rising from the chair she had occupied and exiting the study.
Carter remained behind, staring into the fireplace, where no fire crackled at the moment, without truly seeing it. Instead, Scarlett’s face was behind his eyes, pale and forlorn. He couldn’t let go of the idea that she had nearly perished today, and it ate at him. It was all well and good to speak of revenge, of keeping his feelings for Scarlett separate from his plans to crush her father, but he knew that was simplistic and unreasonable. Their fate was interwoven with his treatment of Rocco, and he would be a fool to pretend otherwise. She claimed to love him, but how long would that love last once she learned that he remained unwavering in his determination to bring her father to the justice he had eluded for so long?
Scarlett was curled under the duvet, struggling to chase away the last of the shivers that plagued her, when Carter walked into the bedroom. He closed the door behind himself, turning the lock so that no one else could enter.
He came towards her, noticing she did not move from the bed. Her hair was wet and wrapped on her head in a bun, so he assumed she’d bathed. He longed for words to express how he was feeling, but nothing came to him besides, “Scarlett.” He saw her tremulous smile and eased himself onto the bed beside her.
“I was so worried,” he whispered, hanging his head.
“But you didn’t. I’m fine. I’ve washed the cut on my shoulder, and at most I’ll have a bruise on my face.”
“Are you really fine? You don’t need a doctor?”
“I don’t need a doctor,” she dismissed, before taking a deep breath. “I love you, Carter.”