𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬: 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐊𝐇𝐈

35. | B Y A N Y M E A N S

His eyes might have been the most captivating of them all - - they stood out like two olives as green as avocado and as intent and serious as anything she'd ever seen. Her eyes traced the beauty of his full lips and the curvature of them and then smirked herself realizing all over again why she was in love with this man, this great figure who she praised for his everything - - poisonous yet beautiful.

Her eyes slowly moved away and across the way she found something that ruined her moment she'd just experienced. The portrait of Carter was so powerful that she'd begun to feel weak in the knees and moist in the panties but when she averted her eyes to the opposite side of the room she saw another portrait but this time it was of Destini, the matriarch of the house. Her eyes turned to fire as she looked at her arch enemy and envied her. How dare she be hung up high like Carter? How dare she be within the same proximity as if she were anything close to worthy of him?

Aiko was sick over it and couldn't stand to look at it, thinking all the while as she stared at the woman with long flowing black hair, in a fitting red dress whose split she could see stopping just at her thigh and that ring - - that fucking huge wedding ring Carter had laced her with - - Aiko felt tears welling in her eyes. She tore off her glasses and stopped them with her fingers and then stepped back to realize that both the portraits were positioned so that Carter's eyes were staring directly into Destini's - - symbolizing a union that nothing could break.

Quickly she looked away from Destini's picture and walked quickly away from the scene where she'd been stabbed in the heart. Aiko wouldn't give up so easily though, she climbed the stairs and as she did she saw the three individual portraits of Khloe, Brooklyn, and Kayden from oldest to youngest. She passed them on the steps and came to think of them as her children - - she could live with that.

After a long journey Aiko got to the top of the stairs and she searched the long hallways for Carter, knowing he was here somewhere. She stopped short of the bedrooms and found a door half open and decided to take a gander at what could be inside.

Aiko walked in, quietly and realized as soon as she saw all the easels around that it was Carter's art studio where he drew, painted, and whatever else he created inside. A green book on the desk caught her eye first and she walked over to it, opened it and was surprised by a picture that Carter had drawn of a woman, beautiful, young, with soul stirring green eyes and a flower in her hair - - his mother.

As she flipped through the pages she found more and more of the same woman but she didn't know the significance; still she could see the great care and detail that Carter took in drawing her perfectly each time. Her finger slid over Carter's signature at the bottom of each page, dating all the way back to 1999. She could see as the years increased Carter grew more and more meticulous about the way the woman was portrayed in his face shot and he grew more and more skilled at drawing as well.

She placed the book back down where she'd found it and walked around the studio some more, finding dried up paints, brushes, and little knacks that Carter used to create his art. It seemed that he hadn't been in there for some time by the dust that she'd found accumulated in the windows. From the window Carter had a beautiful view of the lake on his property and the stable where she saw about two or three horses running - - all belonging to Carter - - gifts he'd bought for the girls when they all asked for ponies.

What a good father, she thought, a little girl always asks for a pony and not many fathers could actually get her one. She giggled at the thought of Carter buying their child a pony - - if she was a girl she'd surely want one but if he was a boy which Aiko was certain he would be, he'd want something a little more rugged.