The Carrero Effect - Falling for the Boss (Billionaire CEO)

Chapter 69

I tried to run, but he was on me with the fury of a psycho, beating me and pushing me into a corner, blackness wrapping around me. I thought he would kill me for sure, but then there was a thud … a low, empty thud, and he stopped. His face turned blank, his eyes glazed over and zoned out and he crumbled to the floor to reveal my mother standing behind him. A huge, twisted, wooden sculpture from the wall unit, held above her head. She glared at me, her eyes red rimmed, her face white and bloodless; it’s what I saw in that look that will always haunt me; worse than what he had done, what he had been attempting to do that had finally ripped my heart right out and stomped it to death. The anguish on her face, the accusation in her eyes as all I could see was—

“What did you do, Emma?”

I close my eyes against the fresh torrent of tears as I try to push that memory away again and again, but her face stays insistent. My mother always blamed me for Ray leaving. I was eighteen by then, no longer a child. No longer her sweet innocent little girl, but she saw me as a capable woman who must have given him some sign that I wanted it. She felt betrayed by me; it’s the one thing I’ve never been able to admit to myself. Her jealousy and blame. If she believed that of me, then, why wouldn’t I?

All of this with Jake … Has it been because of me? Because I led him to believe I wanted these things from him?

How can I recall these things and feel like I asked for them? I didn’t ask for them … I didn’t ask him to try to rape me, but deep down, somewhere inside, that child is nodding at me and she’s saying: “Yes, Emma, yes you did. Why else would these men, one after the other, try to touch you? Try to take you? You must have done something, Emma. Your own mother believed it.”

It’s the guilt that I forever shy away from, the shame and misery of my internal battle. It’s what she programmed me to accept.

Is this what I do to Jake? Do I make him want to push things further between us? Like them, will he take what he wants, then leave me broken on the floor, the way my mother was left. I was left.

Jake isn’t capable of such things, but I must be doing something for it to turn out this way.

What has Jake done to me? Why is he doing this to me now?

My mind is a messy scramble of thoughts and emotions, half of which make no sense and I’m dying inside.

I didn’t drink before Jake Carrero, I didn’t like how it made me feel. Like I lost control. I never kissed men ever, because all it did was bring back memories that make me feel ill. Never wanted anyone sexually, or even felt turned on by anyone before Jake.

I never opened up and told anyone the things I’ve told him. I never kicked back and just let go, relaxed and had fun, before him. Never took my hair down, let alone cut it. I never cried, and now I can’t seem to stop.

has no clue. He has no idea the depth in which he has infected me, changed me. That damn Carrero and his effects on me can’t

her anything that would justify that title. I don’t blame her for drifting away, because I’ve never given her a reason not to. I know everything about her, yet she knows very little about me. Only what she witnessed at being around me. I

leaving behind. She gave me a purpose, someone to take care of, and when she no longer needed me, I pulled away. I didn’t want her looking at

safety, and security. Independence and self-reliance. I could focus on someone else’s existence and deny my own. Sarah never really knew

except Jake. He broke through the

moving away and starting over. Men have a way of making that wall go up. I don’t trust them,

Until Jake.

I did …

through my brave facade. He saw it right from the start,

troubled, and emotionally all over the place. What would

to anyone, even a friend, in case they rip her heart out like her own parents did. Her first

let anyone else look after me, I’m the only one I can rely on. But I let Jake … so many times, he’s taken care of me. It hurts to remember the countless ways he’s done so over the

people in just takes away your defenses and they learn how to wound you deeply, like Jake has done now. People say

why let anyone love you at all? Why care about him leaving you now? Stop caring, stop crying. Go back to numb, it was always better that way. Loving no one, letting no one

* * *

boat is still and quiet and I feel so alone. I wonder where he is, and it slices across my heart cruelly; I wonder who “she”

to yourself, this isn’t worth

try not to dwell anymore. I create a new little black box in the recess of my mind and push everything in there … I’ll label this one “Jake” and file every single hurtful memory in there. Every kiss, every

I’ll lock it tight and throw it into the deepest part of my crazy mind. That’s what I do when life throws me so much pain and misery. I

wall, to keep him on the other

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