Chapter 30 ~ Carter ~
"C an't you drive any faster?" I nervously shifted back and forth on the leather-covered passenger seat of my red Ferrari. It was already dark, and we were driving as fast as we could from Long Island towards Manhattan. But as fast as it was, it still wasn't fast enough for me.
After I had given Cameron the punch he deserved in the pub, I had felt like I needed a pick-me-up and had downed my still untouched whiskey in one go. Luckily, I could handle alcohol much better than my brother. I had immediately grabbed Don, and we had set off for home as quickly as possible. However, Don had insisted on taking the wheel. He said I was too worked up.
"No, I can't drive any faster here. There are regular police checks in this area. You know that yourself, Carter. If they pull us over for speeding, it'll take even longer to get to Manhattan. This way we might not be particularly fast, but at least we'll get home instead of sitting in some police station for reckless driving."
Don's argument was logical. Nevertheless, I would have liked to have my own foot on the gas pedal, pressing it to the floor. I wanted to go home.
I wanted to see Isabella.
For weeks, I had suppressed every thought of her as much as possible. I had told myself that I had forgotten her as soon as she left my parents' property. I had convinced myself that I didn't miss her and never wanted to see her again anyway. All I needed was a little distraction. Another woman.
I had told myself all this so often that I had almost believed it myself. I had forgotten Isabella. But with Cameron's confession and especially with Don's question, all the repressed feelings had surfaced again. Isabella had meant a lot to me.
Had?
She means a lot to me.
More than any other woman I had ever met. Letting her go had been a terrible mistake that I now wanted to make right.
Letting her go? Admit it, Carter. You didn't let her go. You chased her away and didn't give her a chance to explain herself. Don is right. If Isabella had only been after money, she would have behaved very differently after you threw her out.
Threw her out.
I had to get Isabella back. She wasn't just any woman. She was something special. My life in the past few weeks had been stale, boring, and empty without her. I had terrorized my surroundings with my terrible mood and had thrown myself into work.
And now I suddenly realized what a terrible mistake I had made. I saw Isabella in front of me, sitting in her car during the accident, both fascinated and frightened, looking at me. I saw her approaching me in the hotel and kissing me. Yes, I almost believed I could feel the touch of her lips on mine and her body under my hands...
She had drawn me more and more under her spell with each encounter, which was both wonderful and somehow eerie. I had hired her as my "fiancée" and felt completely normal when I entered my parents' house with her by my side.
Yet I had never brought a woman home before.
Wait, that wasn't entirely true. Abigail had of course been a guest at my parents'. But with her, it had felt rather artificial and forced. Like something I had to do and not something I wanted to do. With Isabella, it had been exactly the opposite: it had felt completely natural. Like something I wanted to do, even though it was actually something I had to do on my grandmother's orders.
In the end, it's the right person that makes the difference.
"What are you thinking about?" Don wanted to know.
"Oh... nothing." I couldn't think of a better excuse on the spot.
"So, about Isabella," Don replied dryly.
"NO!" My voice sounded vehement. Just because I could admit to myself how much I missed Isabella didn't mean I was ready to reveal myself to others.
Don glanced at me from the side. He had known me long enough to know that at this exact moment, it was better not to ask any further questions.
"What's the deal between you and Cameron anyway?" he changed the subject. "I've only known you two as enemies, and that's been forever. Did you fight in kindergarten? Or push each other off the changing table?"
Don once again managed to elicit a grin from me. "No, not quite." My thoughts wandered to the past. "Well, you couldn't know that, Don. After all, we only met in college, even if it feels like we've known each other forever."
"Me too," Don confirmed my perception.
"To me, you're much more my brother than Cameron." In the dark car, I gave Don a light nudge in the side.
"And you're the brother I never had," Don replied. "But what drove you so far apart from your biological brother? You two fight on all levels. Private, professional, with money, in sports."
"It all started in high school," I said thoughtfully. "Before that, we got along well. Cameron is a year older than me and used to help me a lot. But then..." I fell silent as the memory overtook me.
After a moment of silence, Don said, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
"In high school, I had a girlfriend named Maria. Daughter of Italian immigrants." My thoughts wandered to the past. "I was really in love for the first time, head over heels. Maria's parents were very strict. We weren't allowed to meet very often, and when we did, it was only under supervision. It was really exciting every time." I grinned at the memory.
"And what does that have to do with Cameron?" Don had been listening to me but was visibly at a loss as to how to make sense of the whole thing.
"One day I came home and... in my room, in my bed, I heard unmistakable sounds. Maria had snuck out of her parents' house to meet me. Cameron found out she was waiting for me and seduced her according to all the rules of the art. When I caught them in the act having sex, he winked at me and afterwards congratulated me on my good choice. She was really the best woman he'd ever had."
Don fell silent.
"I never saw Maria again," I said tonelessly.
"I never would have thought that of Cameron." Don was stunned.
"For everyone else since then, I was the one who stole Cameron's girlfriends... Abigail... and a few others before her. But I never felt like I had finally paid him back."
"Why? You stole way more women from him than he did from you." Don's objection was justified.
"They meant nothing to him..." I replied thoughtfully. "Maria meant the world to me. But all the women I stole from Cameron were just... episodes for him. He wasn't attached to them anyway. Abigail was an exception."
"Cameron loved her?" Don was astonished.
"I don't think so." I shook my head. "She was good for his business. She had the right father. With her, he would have been successful. The fact that I then fucked her in his bed, just like he did with Maria, that actually hurt him."
"And now?" Don brought me back to the present.
"Now I want Isabella." After the mental excursion into the past, it suddenly became easy for me to stand by what was going on inside me. "I should have... I should have talked to her long ago. This was all a huge mistake."
Don nodded and slowed down. I knew this left turn all too well. It was so sharp that you couldn't take it at full speed. At that moment, red lights flashed in front of us. A police vehicle was parked in the middle of the road and the officer standing next to it was waving us to the side. Don followed the instruction.
I wanted to tell him to just keep driving. Straight to Manhattan, where Isabella was.
"Your papers, please, sir," the officer requested when Don had rolled down the window. This forced pause made me nervous. Would we have been stopped if I had been behind the wheel?
Don't be silly, Carter. Of course, the police checkpoint would have been here anyway. You'd probably even be in trouble then. You would have certainly been speeding, while Don stuck to the speed limit. You have every reason to be grateful to him.
Don rummaged around in the glove compartment and finally found the papers he was looking for. I stared out the window into the darkness. Isabella was out there somewhere. What would she say when she saw me again? Did she even want to see me again?
The thought made an unpleasant feeling spread in my stomach. She had to want to see me again. Nothing else could be allowed. No way.
"Now we'd like to ask you to take a breathalyzer test." The officer returned Don's papers and took a measuring device out of his pocket. "If everything's in order, you can continue on your way, otherwise we'll have to ask you to come to the station."
Had Don drunk his whiskey? I frantically tried to remember as the officer attached a tube to the device. In the presence of the police officer, I could hardly ask Don if he had had anything to drink. I carefully studied him from the side. He seemed quite relaxed. As the officer held out the device to him, Don leaned forward and blew into the tube.
Then we waited.
I hated waiting.
And now, when I wanted to get to Isabella, even more.
After what felt like an eternity, which in reality was probably only a few seconds, the officer read the result from the device and announced: "Zero alcohol. All clear. You can continue on your way, sir."
"Thank you, sir," Don replied and rolled the window back up.
"Finally!" I grumbled. "If this keeps up, it'll take forever to get to Manhattan."
"Take it easy. Isabella will still be there." Don nodded at me. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"What's the worst that could happen? Anything. She could..." I shrugged.
"Why don't you just call her?" Don glanced at me briefly and then focused back on the road. The area was gradually becoming less rural. Even though it would still be a while before we reached Manhattan, we were visibly approaching the city.
"I don't know..." I grumbled. Thoughtfully, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I opened the directory with the numbers and searched for Isabella's name.
It was right at the top.
Isabella Abbott.
I had thrown Isabella out of my life, but I hadn't deleted the number. Had I secretly been hoping all along that Isabella would come back? That she would call me one more time?
Maybe.
Now I took a deep breath and pressed the green phone icon.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
An automated message.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
I hung up.
What the hell did that mean?
"The number is no longer in service," I said out loud.
"Oh," Don said.
"I wonder if she changed her number?" I pondered. The thought was uncomfortable. Had Isabella changed her number because she didn't want to receive any more calls from me? But no sooner had this thought occurred to me than I dismissed it again. That would have been nonsense. In that case, it would have been enough to simply block my number.
"Maybe she lost her phone or something," Don speculated. In the meantime, we had reached the outskirts of New York. The traffic around us was getting thicker and thicker.
"Hm," I said and sank into deep silence. Outwardly I appeared calm, but inside I was in deep turmoil.
And it wouldn't settle until I had seen Isabella.
What felt like an eternity later, we pulled up in front of the older skyscraper where Isabella lived.
Finally.
In reality, no more than forty-five minutes had passed since the police officer had checked Don's ID. We had made it to Manhattan without hitting any traffic, which was an absolute rarity. But still, it hadn't been fast enough for me.
Now, however, I sat glued to the passenger seat.
"Well, what's the matter? Don't you want to get out?" Don eyed me from the side. He had deliberately stopped in the second lane to avoid wasting unnecessary time looking for a parking spot. Behind us, other drivers honked angrily, but Don didn't bat an eye.
"I do," I said, but still didn't budge. Just moments ago, I could hardly wait to get here, and now... Now I was hesitating.
"Would you rather come back here tomorrow?" Don asked, shifting back into gear.
"No." I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. What needed to be done, needed to be done. Carefully, I squeezed between the vehicles parked next to us and crossed the sidewalk with determined steps.
It would work out.
It had to work out.
I leaned forward and searched the long list of doorbells for Isabella's name. When I had picked her up for our dinner together a few weeks ago, I had been here before. Her bell was in the left row, roughly in the middle.
My gaze wandered searchingly over the row of names.
"What's wrong?" Suddenly, Don was standing behind me.
"I can't find her name. It was in the left row, in the middle. Isabella Abbott."
Now I went through the entire list again. From top to bottom.
Miller.
Jamison.
Gonzales.
Ayres.
Li.
Kumari.
Edwards.
Ivanov.
O'Neill.
New York truly was a multicultural city; you were constantly reminded of that.
My eyes jumped from one row to the next, from one name to another.
Abbott wasn't on the list.
Neither in the left row nor in the right.
This just couldn't be happening.
Once again, I started going through the long list of names.
"Abbott, you said, right?" Don asked now.
I nodded.
Don shook his head at the same time.
So he hadn't found Isabella's name either.
What the hell did this mean?
It can only mean one thing, Carter: Isabella doesn't live here anymore. She's moved.
And I had no idea where to.
The thought made me queasy.
How was I supposed to find Isabella now?