Her CEO Stalker and Her Second Chance Mate Chapter 117

Carter

I watched Briar take off with Rosie chasing after her. My heart felt like it had shattered, my wolf howled in my head pining and my soul felt like it was dying. She may not feel the bond, but I realized what I had caused was worse than the torment I was going through now. I had broken the trust of a woman who had used me as a pillar to stitch herself back together. That pillar had literally  disintegrated within the last hour and she was scrambling to hold herself together, along with to bond pulling from Creedon, the tether she still miraculously held to me so thin and fragile. I had felt the strength of it waver through it all. I followed that thin thread as I flopped onto my couch. Total and utter devastation was what greeted me and it gutted me. This was all my fault. I poured from the bottle still on the table into both glasses and took mine. I stared at her glass, accepting my fault in all of this. I had downed a few when I got a text from Mazzie.

Mazzie: What the fuck Carter? Boss says you're off her case… what the fucked happened.

Carter: I’ve literally fucked everything.

My phone rang and I let it ring for a while before I answered. I didn’t want to admit to it all. My shame was a weight and a burn on everything I was.

“She’s gone.” I choked out.

“What do you mean Carter?”

“I fucked up the best thing that could have ever happened to me Maz,” my choked voice replied before I let out a sob.

“What the fuck did you do!” Lana’s voice came close to the phone and the click of Mazzie putting the phone on speaker sounded in my ears.

“I was going to tell her everything but he called us in today. I was too late. She thinks everything was a ploy.

“For fucks sake Carter,” Mazzie sighed as Lana’s expletives cursed me in the background.

“Where the hell is she!” Lana yelled as she took over the phone.

“Jake’s” I let her know. The two women hissed at each other in whispers I didn't bother to attempt to decipher as I poured the end of the bottle into my glass. I lost myself in the full one still sitting on the table, forgetting I was on the phone. Mazzie said something, Lana argued and Mazzie came back on the line.

“I’ll be there soon, I’m dropping Lana to check on Briar on my way to you.” I closed my eyes.

“Thank fuck for Lana,” I whispered cheering the air with my glass. 

“You can go fuck yourself,” I heard Lana spat in the background.

“What am I chopped liver?” Mazzie asked.

“No, I just don’t deserve you.”

Mazzie sighed. “We're coming,” she insisted. Lana wouldn’t be coming here, she was going to be with Briar and I was so thankful for that, she would understand her in ways nobody else could. I wandered into the kitchen for another bottle and a glass for Mazzie, cuz nobody was going to touch Briar’s glass. That would stay there until I could convince her to come home. 

An hour later and I heard Mazzie’s car pulling up. She didn’t bother knocking and just strode through the door. She took me in and shook her head.

“You’ve made a right mess of it all,” was all she said as she glanced around before she plopped down beside me.

I nodded.

“Wheres Rosie and Tucker?” she asked as I poured her a glass.

“On strike, they don’t agree with me either,” I confessed as I handed her the glass. She threw it back at that.

“Lana is with her?” I asked

She nodded before adding. “With $50 worth of Chinese, 2 gallons of ice cream, and a bottle of taquila,” she let me know.

I owed my friends so much, they were taking care of my mate when I had destroyed her.

“She’s not doing it for your Car. She loves Brair like I love you.” she pointed out.

Good, Briar needed a friend in this torn up world I had created for her. I just nodded.

“What happened?” she asked.

She knew our Alpha as well as I did, but I needed to tell her as much as she needed to hear it herself. So I explained it all in detail, and poured and explained some more. Down to how the bond was so newly strengthened to how frail it was now after it all.

“Shit,” she said taking her fourth glass. She eyed the one on the table. 

I shook my head. “That’s hers,” I explained.

She just nodded in understanding till I expressed my real fears. That Creedon had been trying to get into the territory and how desperate those negotiations had been. That Clyde had refrained from giving Briar protection but seemed to want her to stay for some reason…her father.

“You think she’s Jake’s kid?” she asked, tipping another glass back.

“I honestly don’t know what I think anymore, if not his then who's?” I asked.

“How would I know any better than you?” she asked.

I sighed digging deep into possibilities but instead I found my mates anguish. I started to sob. Mazzie slapped me and my eyes widened.

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself. You did this, that woman is going through so much right now because of you. 

“There was never a good opportunity to tell her,” I tried to explain.

“There never would have been one,” Mazzie pointed out and she was right. I had been so undeniably selfish. I was worried about her for sure but deep down I had been more worried about our too thin bond that tied her to me and how the truth could change everything between us.

“This is your mess to fix but I’ll stand by you, but—the word carried out–don’t expect me to give you information because that woman means a lot to Lana and I won’t go against my mate just to give you comfort. You need a friend for support. I'm here, I’m not going to push her to you. It’s your job to earn her back.”

“You're the best Mazz, I just don’t know how.”

“Give her some space. Trust her to sort some things out and have faith she loves you enough to see past it all,” she said as she poured another round. Her phone pingged and she looked at it and sighed sadly, which made me nervous, before it pinged again and she snorted.