Escape Route | ✓

14

It seemed as though time had frozen. Carrie couldn't believe that Greg was actually here, in Texas. Her father hadn't actually been bluffing when he had said that she should expect a visit from Greg.

The grin on his face was cocky. 'How have you been? We have a lot of catching up to do, don't we?'

'What are you doing here?' she hissed venemously, her knuckles white as her hands clenched into fists.

A large smirk formed on his face. 'Your dear father told me that you were here, and I didn't think I could pass the opportunity to come and see you, now you don't have that dog of an older brother constantly kicking around.'

Her eyes narrowed into slits as she glared at him. 'Well, I still don't want to see you. We don't have anything to talk about, so you can just leave now.'

Greg chuckled. 'Honey, I just arrived here. Surely you're going to be hospitable and let me stay for a while? We do get on so well after all.'

'We don't get on well at all,' she countered coldly. 'I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you, so you really need to just go home.'

He laughed. 'Oh, I've missed you, Carrie. Who's the boyfriend, by the way?' he glanced at Jace, his eyebrows raised.

Carrie tensed. 'We both know that's not true. I don't miss you at all, either. And Jace isn't my boyfriend, he works on the farm with me.'

Jace's jaw was tight, and his arms were crossed firmly over his chest. His eyes were cold as he surveyed Greg. 'Who are you?'

Greg smirked. 'I'm Greg, a family friend of Carrie's.'

'You're no friend of ours,' Carrie interjected venemously. 'You're nothing to us.'

'Oh really?' he grinned. 'So that's why I talk to your father on a regular basis? And that's why he told me where you are? I don't think so, honey.'

She glared at him. 'We both know that he's not really classed as family anymore. He doesn't care about either Sebastian or I, and I don't care about him.'

'He didn't care about your mother, either,' he added in casually.

She tensed again, her fingernails digging sharply into her palms. 'What is that supposed to mean?' she raised an eyebrow.

'Come on, you can't possibly believe that your mother's death was an accident,' he laughed. 'Your father just didn't want her around anymore. It didn't help that she had fallen in love with another man.'

Red clouded Carrie's vision and she stepped forward menacingly, only to be held back by a strong arm. 'Let me go!' she yelped at Jace, trying desperately to twist out of his grip. 'I'm going to kill him!'

Greg was looking at the situation, pure amusement on his face. 'You didn't even realise?'

'She wasn't- she...' Carrie stumbled over her words, finally quitting her struggling. 'She wasn't in love with anybody else.'

He laughed, yet again. 'Yes, she was. She had to have been in love with your uncle for at least two years before her death. Your father went ballistic when he found out.'

A stunned silence followed, and Carrie just stared at him, open mouthed. 'W-what?'

'Your uncle Simon, who used to own this farm from what I've heard, was in love with your mother, but she was in love with your father and married him,' he explained, a cruel expression on his face as he watched her struggle with the information. 'However, your father began to treat her badly and started cheating on her. Your uncle would pick up the pieces, because he was in love with her and eventually your mother fell in love with him, but it was too late for that, because your father found out and he said that if she left him he would do everything in his power - which is quite a lot - to make sure that they got into financial difficulties and he would just genereally cause a nuiscance, so she decided she couldn't do that to dear Simon, and stayed with him.'