They would have forbidden me to bring it there. And the servants would have been punished for not telling them right away about a stranger being near their son. Even if it was a child.
I could not say anything bad about Carter's parents. Or good. I did not know them at all. All I knew was that their son was everything to them, but as a child, I was more afraid of meeting them than anything else. I understood that after this, I would never see Carter again.
And so, whenever possible, I told him about the life that could be without security. After all, Alpha didn't even know how stores worked back then. How goods were sold and bought there. And in general, a lot of things.
I wonder if Carter remembered me in his adult life, as I did him. When he went into the store, did he think about how I was the first one to tell him about him? Although if he did remember, he was thinking about Keli. She took my place, after all.
Opening my eyes, I took another sip of coffee.
I would have preferred to get rid of all these thoughts, but I still remembered something again.
In particular, Carter was strange as a child. I wouldn't say that because I weighed a little over a ton at the time, the other kids bullied me. More likely, they just didn't notice.
Maybe they laughed at me during gym class when I was jumping rope. But, in principle, I was used to being avoided. Carter didn't do that.
On the contrary. Very often, he stood too close to me. Or sat just as close. Once he even took my hand. Then, fireworks were flashing over the main building of his mansion, and Carter pulled me to the eastern part of the garden to show them.
The sight was impressive. Especially considering that I had never seen anything like it before. I stood there with my mouth open, looking at the sky.
At that moment, Carter took my hand. And, to be honest, I didn't understand why. It was weird. I wasn't falling. I was just standing. So why hold my hand? Carter ran his thumb over my wrist. Back then, as a child, I didn't understand it at all. As an adult, even less so.
When the friendship between us was destroyed and the alpha began to bully me with particular cruelty, there was a moment when it seemed to me that Carter was going to kiss me. I will remember him for the rest of my life, too.
That day, he caught me in the hallway and dragged me under the stairs. And I remembered how I was shaking. Almost crying. At that moment, I already had a well-founded reason to be afraid of him.
And Carter didn't say anything for a while, but his lips were millimeters from my cheek. Almost like a kiss. And he stood there for a long time. True, it all ended with him saying something nasty to me and leaving.
Well, there were a lot of oddities. Trying to understand him, I already assumed that maybe Carter liked me, but no, he was rich, an impeccable alpha. I was a poor, plump beta. It was hard to believe in his interest in me.
And then he broke me with such sophistication that it's unlikely that you can treat a girl you like that way. More like someone you hate with all your soul.
Later, I thought that maybe Carter is the type who likes to get too close to others, but no. I looked at how he behaved with his other friends. Everything was normal.
In the end, I just decided that he was an abnormal psycho. And, judging by what happened to us in our later years, I was right.
After taking another sip of coffee, I looked at my phone. Carter hadn't called back and still hadn't arrived. Maybe he won't do it?
But suddenly I caught something and turned my head. In the distance, just at the entrance to the park, I saw Carter.
So he did come after all.
Squeezing the glass in my palm, I looked at him more closely. Alpha was wearing pants and a sweatshirt. Again. Despite the heat. His skin was gray. His eyes were gloomy.
But despite this, he still looked impeccable, as always. Huge and powerful. Inevitably attracting attention and, as always, causing a burning hatred in me.
"So he decided to come after all?" I asked when he came closer.
"I thought, why wait? I can just bury you here under a tree," the alpha stopped about a meter away from me, but it still seemed that even this distance was not there. That he towered over me like a rock and, judging by his look, was already mentally killing me.
"You won't do it." Goosebumps ran across my skin, but I still just shrugged. "I do not doubt that you want to destroy me, but you will do it differently. It is within your power to turn my life into hell, without even touching me with a finger."
Carter sat down on the bench opposite me. He did it casually, but I still felt that rage in his powerful body, which made even the air heavier.
"What did you miss so much, crazy woman?" he asked, looking me in the eyes. "You disappear for no apparent reason, make me look for you in the middle of the night, and then show up and break my girlfriend's bones?"
"Did you know that I was expelled from the university because of Kelly?" I took a sip of coffee, raising the glass to my lips. It had long since cooled down, but it still felt as if the drink had burned me.
"Yes. I found out yesterday," Carter had a hoodie thrown over his head, but I could still see his black, tousled hair, some of it falling over his eyes. "Your constant squabbles pissed me off. The fact that you dragged my girlfriend around campus by her hair…"