Page 3 of Single Mom’s Undoing (Lucky Lady Reverse Harems #1)

CARTER

“ C arter,” Damon calls.

I ignore him, choosing to make my way down the stony path leading back to the road. The farther I get away from Stephan’s cabin, the less it hurts.

“Carter!”

“What?” I snap, stopping to turn and face him and Jace. “What is it?”

“We know that wasn’t easy,” Damon says, “but we had to stop it there.”

I point back at the cabin, the anger taking over again. It’s a miracle I was able to hold back until now. “She disappeared, Damon. Her brother killed himself, and she disappeared. Almost five years later, she shows up with a kid and treats us like we’re the fucking enemy.”

“She’s obviously going through something,” Jace sighs deeply.

“I don’t fucking care. ”

“Yes, you do,” he retorts. “It’s why you walked out just now, to give her space, because you care. And yes, you’re angry. We all are. But we’re also adults.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” I scoff and run a hand through my hair. “I thought she was gone for good, that we’d never see her again. Any hope that I’d be able to forget her was dashed.”

Damon exhales sharply. “Clara isn’t an easy woman to forget, that much is obvious. And the kid, Carter?—”

“I’m aware.”

“She’s been in Portland this whole time, building a life,” Jace mutters.

“We don’t have the details yet,” Damon points out. “We can’t make assumptions or guesses about what she’s been doing. What matters is that we just gave her a chance to stick around, at least for a while. It’s better than nothing.”

“She just up and left and I’m not supposed to ask why?” I argue.

“Clara always had a strong will, Carter. It’s one of the things we liked about her the most,” Damon reminds me.

Jace chuckles dryly. “Also one of the reasons why she and Stephan always butted heads. But man, he’d be relieved to see her now.”

“Would he?” I shoot back. “I doubt it.”

“Carter, give her time,” Damon insists. “What happened that night with Stephan…. She’s not ready to talk about it nor is she ready to talk about everything else that followed. But she will. Pushing her before she’s ready is only going to have the opposite effect.”

So many thoughts rush through my head, so many questions left unanswered.

I’ve spent the past few years trying to get her out of my mind, to forget what it felt like to lose myself, to bury myself inside her.

And the boy…dammit. He’s a little piece of Clara, and my heart aches at the thought of something ever happening to him.

“What matters now is that she’s safe and here. She’s getting the trust fund money for her son, and she will do anything to protect their peace,” Damon says.

“I think the question that Carter is trying to answer is what do we mean to her?” Jace replies with a bitter smile.

I think I may already know but Clara isn’t ready to hear it. As much as I hate it, Damon is right. I’m not letting her leave again, yet I can’t force her to stay. I can only offer incentives.

I’ve already offered her a job. Everything else should follow.

She needs time. It seems I need a minute, too, if only to adjust to this new reality, to Matty’s presence, to the idea that someone else shared Clara’s bed after we…

“Carter.” Damon pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts.

“I heard you the first time,” I grumble and start marching toward my car, waiting for them at the base of the path.

Seeing Clara again has me itching to revisit a past I’d hoped to keep buried, not because of the pain it caused, but because of the many questions it left unanswered. While I can’t press Clara further about any of it just yet, I still have my sister, though Margot’s story never sat well with me.

Lockwood Manor is imposing, massive, and quite uppity for a town like Blackthorn Falls. It reminds me of something out of a Charlotte Bronte novel, with sculptural archways and a sprawling front terrace. Climbing its steps makes one feel like they’re ascending to another level.

“My dear brother,” Margot says as she greets me in the foyer.

“You look well,” I reply with barely a glance.

There are times when I can hardly believe I was raised here. Almost every memory of my childhood happened within these halls with their tall ceilings and fancy wood paneling, the wall-hung portraits of our Lockwood ancestors gazing upon us, judging us, judging me, in particular.

“Don’t tell me the prodigal son wants to return,” Margot scoffs.

I turn away from the paintings to examine her.

She doesn’t look well despite what I’d said before, but she does look better than the last time I saw her.

At least she’s healing. She hides her slim figure under oversized black dresses, with just enough concealer on her face to mask the dark circles and pale complexion that comes with opiate use.

“No, the business is still very much yours,” I say to her. “Where’s Dad?”

“Still in Paris, luring our board of directors into a trap of their own making,” she giggles. “He should be returning in a few weeks. I believe he mentioned something about a detour to St. Tropez before he heads back. Or maybe a yacht race along the coast of Marseille. I’m not sure. ”

“You’re running the show all by yourself, then?”

“The execs are helping me,” she sighs. “I can’t be bothered with the minute details.”

“Too busy popping pills to numb the pain, I reckon.”

She scoffs and crosses her arms. “Get off your high horse, Carter. You’ve barely gotten the color back in your cheeks since Clara left. This is the first time in five years you’re looking at me like you actually see me.”

As suspected, Clara has been keeping a low profile. Margot is not aware of her return.

“At least I didn’t resort to drugs in order to cope,” I shoot back. “Any word from Emmanuel?”

Emmanuel is Margot’s husband. They are currently going through a divorce.

“He dropped off the face of the earth two years ago. Why do you keep asking about him? I have moved on.”

“Oh, and it shows.”

She feigns a smile and motions for me to follow her into the living room. “I need a drink. Want one?”

“Are you sure you should be drinking?”

“My God, Carter, since when did you become such an insufferable Mr. Goody Two-Shoes?”

There’s no point arguing with her. Margot has self-destructive methods of dealing with reality. Every time I’ve tried to help her, it blew up in my face. I should know better by now.

“I’m driving, but you can have a drink for the both of us, sis. ”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” she chuckles, then pours herself a double vodka on the rocks, swirling the crystalline poison around the tumbler. “My divorce should be finalized soon,” she says. “It should keep Emmanuel from trying to come back and get his paws on any of the family’s fortune.”

“I suppose he forfeited that privilege when he disappeared, right?”

“He abandoned me.”

I make myself comfortable in one of the leather armchairs facing the massive French windows.

“I find your toxic relationship with the man quite fascinating,” I confess.

“He married you for the money and the Lockwood prestige. You knew that from day one. I told you that you could do better, but you were so convinced that no one else would dare come near you.”

“And I was right.” Margot sighs and sits on the sofa, slowly sipping of her drink.

“Yet five years ago, you almost divorced him. Almost. What happened then?”

She gives me an annoyed look. “We’ve been over this before. Nothing happened. Emmanuel and I went through a rough patch like all couples do. We worked it out.”

“Margot, you’re my sister. We grew up together right here in this house. I know everything about you, just as you know everything about me. So why lie to me?”

“You think you know everything,” she flashes a grin.

“What happened five years ago?”

“A series of unfortunate events,” Margot sighs. “You lost one of your best friends, for starters. ”

I give her a hard glare. “Stephan was your friend, too.”

“And not a day goes by that I don’t miss him,” she says sadly, her voice slightly trembling.

Margot was always hanging around whenever Stephan and Clara came to visit.

The girls didn’t really get along, but they didn’t hate each other either.

Neither one has ever told me why there was such unspoken animosity between them.

“I know Clara had something to do with it.”

“Bullshit; she was devastated.”

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? That Clara was devastated and that’s why she ran off? She left you and the guys to pick up the broken pieces. She couldn’t be bothered to even come to her own brother’s funeral.”

I shake my head slowly. “Nothing else makes sense, Margot.”

“People in town talked about it a lot in the days after Stephan died,” she says. “I heard the rumors. Hell, I saw Stephan and Clara arguing.”

“What about?”

“Damned if I know, I wasn’t close enough to hear. But I saw the anger on her face, the pain on his. There was something going on between those two, and I’m willing to bet my entire inheritance that his death had something to do with it.”

“Margot, Stephan drove his car off a bridge. On purpose. It was a clear night. It was a well-maintained road. There were no potholes, nothing to justify why he swerved,” I reply, trying hard not to relive the agony that followed after I got the sheriff’s call.

“Whatever was going on with Stephan, that was how he chose to handle it. Don’t fault Clara.

If anything, I reckon she left the way she did precisely because of how hard his death hit her. ”

“Yes, you’ve been telling yourself that for five years now. Any luck in actually believing it?”

I stare at Margot for a hot second. How did we get to this point, so bitter and estranged, so quick to poke, prod, and hurt each other while our father continues with his plans and machinations.

Damn, she’s gotten really good at deflecting.

“What happened five years ago between you and Emmanuel?” I ask again.

“I told you; we hit a rough patch.” She looks at me with suspicion glowering in her gray eyes. “What is this about, Carter? I haven’t seen you in months and now you show up to drill me, yet again, about a man whose been gone for two years.”

“Don’t you find it odd that a man who stood to lose so much from leaving you would just drop off the face of the earth?”

“I honestly don’t care,” Margot replies.

“I’ve already asked myself these questions.

In the absence of an answer, I chose to move on.

But to answer your persistent inquiry, five years ago, Emmanuel and I had some issues, personal issues that are none of your concern.

I was to blame. And when I came back into our marriage, he was there, eager to work things through. So, that’s what we did.”

“Then three years later, he disappears.”

“Carter, what are you getting at?”

“Five years ago, Emmanuel started using. Heavily.”

“Don’t I know it,” Margot rolls her eyes.

“Right after you worked things out. ”

She exhales sharply, utterly exasperated. “I swear to God, if you’re here just to rile me up and piss me off, then leave. I don’t have the energy or the patience for these half-assed mind games.”

“Have you considered that he might be dead?” I ask the difficult question.

“Not according to his credit card trails. According to his recent expenses, he’s been living it up somewhere in Baja.

And if I take a closer look at his company’s financial records, I reckon I’ll find enough embezzlement there to justify calling the Feds on his sorry ass.

But I won’t do that. If he stole from us through his subsidiary, I’ll consider that his one-time alimony payment and bid him adieu. I’m better off.”

“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” I say, and I mean every word. “I really am. And I hope it gets better.”

“It is getting better.”

“You’re popping Oxy like they’re Pez, and you’re washing it all down with vodka. I don’t know if any of that qualifies as better. Does Dad know?”

Margot sits up, her cheeks flaring red with fury. “Ah, so you’re here to make sure I’m not running Daddy’s business into the ground? That’s what this is about, right, Carter? You want your seat at the table back because little Margot can’t hack it.”

“No, I am genuinely worried about you and seeing as you and Dad spend a lot of time together, I figured he’d have noticed.”

“Our dear father hasn’t been around, Carter. He’s too busy traveling the world with his business buddies and greasing the right wheels to nab himself a state senate seat. ”

“State senate. That’s new.”

And deeply concerning. If my father intends to take his business practices into public policy, then the entire state of Oregon is practically screwed. The man is ruthless and has nothing but contempt for the little guy.

“You haven’t been around, so you wouldn’t know,” Margot retorts, leaning back into her seat. “The man is ambitious. He took our grandfather’s fortune and tripled it. He thinks he can do more from a higher seat of power.”

“He tripled our grandfather’s fortune by crippling any small business that tried to coexist with Lockwood Industries in the same market,” I point out. “Thousands were left without a job. The unemployment rate for this district alone plummeted.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you opened up your fancy private security firm, huh?” she sneers. “You created a few jobs to make up for Daddy’s sins.”

“It’s sad, really, looking at you now,” I say as I get up. “I thought you’d matured, that maybe, just maybe, I’d catch a glimpse of the real Margot today. But you’re still buried under all of that self-loathing and misery. My mistake.”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, brother,” Margot calls out after me.

I’m halfway to the foyer when I pause, listening to the sad silence I left behind.

Except it’s not silence, per se. I can hear Margot sighing and sobbing.

She works so hard to keep up that stony, spikey facade, when deep down, she’s crumbling.

She’s been crumbling for the past five years, but at least she was able to hold it together when Emmanuel was around .

Now, she’s plummeting, and I don’t know where it’ll lead her.

She is right about one thing. There were a series of unfortunate events that happened years ago. It didn’t start with Stephan’s suicide, but it ended with Clara’s departure.

And I’ve got a feeling that some of the answers are hidden deep within my own family.