The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 162

The flight is long and depressing. I barely sleep at all and now after two nights of zero sleep I am a walking zombie as I push my way through the people exiting JFK airport onto the street in the hopes of finding a cab. It’s still another thirty minutes or more in a car back to Manhattan and I’m literally seeing double with fatigue. It’s around seven a.m. now, the sky bright with a new day and cold as hell. You can tell there has been a recent bout of storms and snow, due to how icy the air around me is and I swear it’s colder than Europe right now. Never thought that was possible.

I’m so beyond happy to be back on American soil, my feet planted on familiar sidewalks and looking around at people who sound like home. If we move our ass we will get to my apartment before Arrick leaves for work and I’ll get a chance to shock him with my presence and give him a piece of my mind.

I may still be due him some mad Sophie, but really, now all I want, and need is Arrick to give me a huge hug and tell me it’s all going to be okay. My moods have been swinging full circle on this long flight and I am no surer about how to feel about him than I was nine hours ago sitting in a French terminal.

***

I haul my suitcase with me from the car, luckily, I chose a small one and hand the driver some money. Pulling myself into the sidewalk in front of our building and I have to admit, the sense of elation at just seeing our familiar gorgeously tall luxury apartment block looming up in front of me, does amazing things for my mood. Up there in the clouds is our penthouse pad, my heart and my home and seeing as it’s still before eight a.m., my prince too. I don’t know what his training schedule is anymore for the gym here but even if he is still doing his five am slots he always comes home to get ready before eight to be at the office for nine am. Arry will be here. He is ritualistic with his routines and habits; I can set a watch by him. Steadily regular and reliable, usually.

I pull my case with me and smile at Frank the desk clerk as I pass, beaming at him with the hugest grin I can muster. He seems to take a double take then grins right back at me. Probably shocked that me of all people can get to New York alone and before daybreak.

“Miss Sophie… it’s great to see you home, Mr. Carrero. never mentioned it.” He keeps grinning at me as I pass his desk and I wave his way with a “Shhhhh” motion

“It’s a surprise, he doesn’t know I am home. It’s great to see you again.” I wave him off with a smile as I head for the bank of elevators and move to the last in the row. It’s the only one which goes as high as the top floor and usually other tenants don’t use it much because of that. It’s pretty much Arry’s exclusive elevator nowadays.

When the doors open, I’m surprised to see two men in suits emerge, but shrug it off. It is still one that is used by other floors too, so I guess they are visitors to the building and just assumed this was like the other ones. Although they look a little rumpled to be starting anew day, especially with so obviously expensive suits.

When I get in, I key in the pin on the pad to access the penthouse and lean back against the back wall as tiredness overtakes me. I’m almost home, almost there and just need to hold on for a couple of minutes more before I can throw myself on the couch and flake out.

God, I miss that couch so badly.

I don’t know what his reaction will be, but all I can think about after that long ass trip is some hours in a bed, sleeping this off. Beyond exhausted, hungover, and so overwrought and emotional because of it that I know I am hardly functioning. I sigh when the doors slide shut and close my eyes for the few minutes it takes to get to our floor and our home. I have no clue how I am going to react when I see him, still haven’t turned on my cell for his messages and no idea what I am even going to say when faced with him. I’m a little apprehensive seeing as last thing I did say to him was I didn’t want to see him, and he could go fuck himself.

Even if he deserved it, I’m nervous.

I’m alerted to the doors opening with the ping of reaching my destination and straighten up, pulling my case in firmly beside me and pull off my handbag across my shoulder. I plan on dumping both as soon as I get in and go find my man, even if I’m still hating on him.

The doors slide open onto the familiar open plan interior of our apartment and I walk in confidently, inhaling it like heaven. Halting briskly when I realize I’m not faced with the clean and neat haven like it always is, but instead a takeout littered sitting area, with dishes and evidence of a night of food and wine. It’s messy and slobby and the Arry I know would never leave it like this for love nor money. His anal germaphobe OCD tendencies would have an all-out meltdown.

Looking from the messy center table my eyes span the space, partially lighted and still gloomy from the dullness of the hour and halt in shock at the new sight that catches my eye, one that makes my heart stop dead and my whole body freezes with the icy wash that consumes me.

A woman cozily standing in my kitchen making herself a mug of coffee and looking totally at home.

I can only see her from the waist up but she’s standing in a blouse that’s unbuttoned to cleavage level and she looks sleep deprived. Startled as her eyes meet me in shocked silence and we regard each other wordlessly as reality seems to slip away from me.

My heart skips a beat as I stare at her, completely unsure how to react as we both gawp at one another and then Arry walks into view from the bedroom, pulling on a shirt over his naked torso and buttoning it up as he wanders out towards the middle of the room.

is doing, oblivious to my presence like I am having an out of body experience. Literally, like all time halts and I can’t

kitchen and stand like a statue, unsure what else to think as my heart breaks into a million pieces with the

and it draws Arry’s eyes up to mine in a split second as he sees me. Frozen, paralyzed in complete disbelief,

seems pleased to see me in that second, weirdly, then blinks as he takes in my expression and obvious growing distress. Looking around him, from her to

It says it all.

begin to close, my instinct to run from pain, unable to breathe, unable to function and grab at the wall to hold myself up as everything comes crashing in on

done to

us and the realization that she was two years into her relationship with him and it was falling

he’s doing

and falling apart. This is fate coming back

what to think or how to feel. Like I’m going to vomit, or pass out, or die from the pain that’s consuming me all over. My skin is rippling with horrid sensations as though I’m being pricked all over, my lungs deflating with heaviness. Every part of me aches with an agony I

it… Is that me? Am I blind

around me and I’m stood here breaking into

all cozy in the morning

wouldn’t do that to

still been the

couldn’t do this to

Natasha… I’m not her. He always loved

all comes pouring out at a hundred miles an hour. I’m so confused. My eyes told a story that everything inside of me cannot believe. I trust him, this can’t be

the months

and looked elsewhere for a cure to his high libido

do that to me. He

I don’t get why so many people would be here at this time and thank god they hide me from Frank’s view. I know he’ll stop me in this state, so clearly visibly broken as tears pour down my face and I stumble out onto the sidewalk. I don’t even have my bag, I must have dropped it in the apartment before backing into the elevator again, I have no

getting out of the cab and going upstairs and I’m immediately drenched in a good old New York downpour. The kind of rain that gets through every layer of clothing in seconds, but I don’t care. Aiming left and walking fast blindly. No idea what I am doing or where I am going as it lashes in my face, I just need to keep moving and get away from here. I’m dying inside, and my heart is breaking while the rain mingles with my tears and stings my face with icy

to throw up in the gap between that and the next building, sagging against the stone wall to try and catch my breath as I retch up the few contents of my stomach and sob through the effort. Fatigue and dizziness combat the overwhelming need to throw up and I am bereft and lifeless, standing in

an actual injury could be this bad, this intense and all-consuming and I thought I had suffered the worst kind of pain in my past. I may really die from some sort of heart failure and people are giving me a wide berth as they catch sight of me. The crazy

control of anything at all anymore and running is futile. I sink against the

by the wrist to him, pulling me off the wall and

but that little tornado inside of me lashes free and I turn on him in full

and pulls me hard against his torso, holding me tight so I am rendered incapable of doing much

at us by his ex-girlfriend, so long ago, flashes

this to her… Why am I

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