Accidental Lovers (The Accidental Series, Book 3) by Tina Martin Read Free Book Online

don’t deserve her. She deserves
someone better than me. Still, that doesn’t justify what I’ve done.
I was wrong and though I know I should tell her about it, I can’t.
It would break her heart and I’d rather die than break her
heart.
    Today, my aunt Jackie came to see me.
    * ~ *
    Carter scratched his head again. Jacqueline
went to see Jacob, when she claimed to not have had any contact
with him? What exactly was she hiding?
    She said she was worried about me. Said she
hadn’t seen me in a while and asked me if I was still taking my
pills. I told her I was, but I’d stopped taking those things a long
time ago. Then she asked me about Carter. Said she wanted to see
him. Said she saw him a month ago at some swanky Uptown restaurant,
having dinner with a group of folks. She went on and on and on,
talking about Carter and I just sat there and looked at her like
she was crazy. She knew my issues with Carter, so I’m not sure why
she was so eager to talk about him. Anyway, as I listened to her
ramble on and on about him, all I could think about was our messed
up family – a family that forced you to believe that some woman is
your mother when really some other woman is your mother but no one
wants to tell you the truth. Maybe that’s why I’m so screwed up in
the head…why nothing seems to go my way…why I can’t get a job…why I
cheat on my fiancée…why my life is one disaster after another.
    But I’m a grown man now. At some point, a
man, whether screwed up or not, has to take responsibility for his
own actions. I cannot blame my Mother for my current state of
affairs and I cannot blame Carter. Even though we are first
cousins, we were raised like brothers and I love him, as much as I
hate to admit that.
    * ~ *
    And there it was again. What did Jacob mean
by that? Raised like brothers? First cousins? Carter scratched his
head.
    I love him and I looked up to him like a
brother but Lenora made me hate him. She put him on a pedestal and
always asked me why I couldn’t be more like him. Why I didn’t dress
like him and talk all sophisticated like him. Be charismatic and
charming like him. She made me dislike him, and now I’m all alone
in this world, well besides my Shayla. And just what kind of man
would I be for her in my current state? She doesn’t even know the
doctor prescribed pills for me. She doesn’t know I wait until she’s
sleeping to go outside, sit in my car and cry. She doesn’t know
that for the last few days, I’d been thinking up ways to kill
myself and she doesn’t know I’ve already written a suicide note to
Carter. She doesn’t even know Carter exists. But she soon will
because as much as I have grown to dislike him over the years, I
know that there isn’t another man on this earth I would entrust her
to.
    * ~ *
    Carter turned up the glass of wine to his
mouth, finishing it. What on earth did he just read? There was no
doubt about it. Jacob was screwed up in the head. One minute he
loved his family, the next he couldn’t stand them. And he cheated
on Shayla? If she was everything to him, why would he cheat
on her?
    Carter glanced at the clock, wanting to call
Jacqueline. It was twenty minutes after ten. It was late…well for a
fifty-something-year-old it was, but he had to call her now. It
couldn’t wait until the morning. He took his cell from the
nightstand and found her name in his recent call history. She’d
been illusive the last time they’d spoken, but now that he had a
little more information to go off of, maybe he could get some truth
out of her this time.
    “Hello,” she drawled out.
    “Hi, Jackie.”
    “Hey, Carter. You worked things out with
Shayla yet?”
    “No, but I need to talk with you as soon as
possible,” he said, thinking that if they had this conversation
over the phone, he couldn’t really discern her true feelings and
emotions. And he really needed to see her facial expressions. “Can
we meet for lunch tomorrow?”
    “What is this about,