Chapter 2
brOOKS
My head is spinning.
I so badly wanted this to be a bad dream.
I so badly wanted my dad to be a good man.
I so badly wanted there to be a way out of this.
But it’s not a dream. Innocent women are getting hurt—have been getting hurt—for God knows how long.
And yet, all I can think about is my mom.
The mistress.
The twenty-something-year-old massage therapist that my dad left his first wife—my brothers’ mother—for.
When he was in his fifties.
She had nothing. And when he decided enough was enough, he made sure to leave her with nothing too.
I’ve spent so much of my life hating him for what he did to her. But I knew the only way to take care of her, the only way to give her everything she deserved, was to play his games. Make the money. Give her back everything he took.
And over the last few years, that’s what I’ve been doing—slowly but surely getting my shit together, trying like hell to leave my joke persona behind.
And it’s been working—until now. Because now, I have to help my brothers turn the world as we know it upside down.
And it would be a little less nerve-wracking, except for the fact that this fiery brunette just came storming in and verbally assaulted me. And what’s wilder is that it made my dick hard.
Not a lot of people in my life tell me what to do or how to do it.
I get away with a lot. I’m the youngest wild child of the richest man on the planet.
And I was the mistress’s kid. The bastard.
So I didn’t exactly have a reputation to uphold, and it helps me remain pretty sure of myself.
The self-fulfilling prophecy never disappoints.
But then Wren walked in and metaphorically bitch-slapped me a few times. And I can’t stop thinking about it. She’s enraging and infuriating and condescending, and all I want to do is bend her over a fucking desk until all that smart little mouth can say is my name.
I shake off the image of her. Her tight little skirt. Her blouse that left little to the imagination. Those perfect fucking curves of her body that my hands were itching to explore. Her pouty lips that I wanted to take in my teeth. The big brown eyes that could have had me down on my goddamn knees.
But I still don’t trust her.
Not that I don’t believe the stories. I do.
I just have this gut feeling that justice isn’t the only reason Wren brought this to us.
And now it’s up to me to find out why she’s really here.
The elevator moves slowly down from the eighty-third floor, and I sigh as I lean back against the wall. It dings and comes to a halt at the seventy-third floor. The doors open, and I feel my stomach flip and my dick twitch.
She gets on without looking at me, but just as she goes to press the button for the lobby, she realizes it’s me.
I see her roll her eyes and let out a sigh.
“Missed me, huh?” I ask. She scoffs, but she doesn’t say anything else. “How’d you end up on the seventy-third floor?”
“I walked,” is all she offers.
“Ten flights?” I ask. She nods.
I wait a bit before I say anything else, taking the opportunity to scour her with my eyes.
Her calves flex in her pointy heels. But after a few moments, I notice one of her feet tapping nervously.
Then I notice that she’s chewing on her bottom lip, her eyes staring ahead at the screen that ticks away each floor as we pass.
“You seem a little, uh…nervous,” I finally say. “I promise I don’t bite.”
She scoffs again, turning her head slightly toward me. Her long raven-colored locks slide over her shoulder as her eyes meet mine.
“You, I can handle,” she says. We’ll see about that. “I’m not afraid of a spoiled rich boy. It’s small spaces that make me nervous. And this ride seems to be never-ending.”
I look ahead at the lights.
Only twenty more floors to go.
“Ah, that’ll do it,” I say. My instinct is to continue poking the bear, but she seems genuinely uncomfortable. “Looks like we’re almost there.”
“Yeah,” she breathes, and I can tell just by her voice that the cool, controlled persona she had earlier has vanished.
She clears her throat.
“Look, I—” I start to say, but then the elevator jolts to a stop, and it feels like the floor bottoms out beneath me. Fuck.
I grab the railing behind me with one hand, to steady myself, as her hands frantically begin to hit the buttons in front of us. Now, the screen doesn’t read a floor at all. Instead, the word “stop” flashes on it, accompanied by an awful buzzing sound.
“Oh, my…” she starts to say. “Did we…uh…did we just…”
Her face is pale, and there are already little beads of sweat forming on her forehead. I step forward, pressing a few buttons. I look around for an emergency exit then open the emergency door and hold the large red button in.
“Hello?” someone answers from the speaker in front of us.
“Hi, yeah, we are stuck on the elevator. It just stopped on the twentieth floor.”
“Ah, dang it. We’ve been having some issues with that one,” the voice says. “I’ll call maintenance. They’re fixing a burst pipe right now, so it might be—”
“We can’t wait, sir. We have someone in here with claustrophobia,” I say.
“Lemme give ‘em a ring. I’m sure Ike will be along soon. He just has—”
“Never mind, thank you,” I say, impatient now.
I turn to her, and she’s leaned back against the wall, one hand pressed to her chest. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and she’s drawing in sharp breaths through her nose and blowing them out of her pursed lips.
I take a step toward her and put my hand on her shoulder gently.
“Wren,” I say, “can you look at me?” She draws in one more sharp breath, and then those beautiful eyes open.
“We’re gonna get out of here ASAP, okay?
Just hang in there with me. You’re not alone.
” She looks unsure, but she nods slowly.
I nod back, and then I pull my phone out of my pocket, not taking my other hand off her shoulder.
“Hey, I’m stuck in the elevator. Mm-hmm.
With Wren. Yeah, they said it could be a minute.
Yeah. Thanks.” I put my phone back in my pocket and turn to her.
“Julian is calling someone. It’s only going to be a few minutes,” I tell her.
She nods again, taking her hands and holding them to her face.
I hear her breathing shallowing out, so I step in front of her.
I reach my hands up and take hers from her face.
They’re clammy and shaking, but I hold them steady.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice low and trying to be as soothing as possible. “Look at me.”
Her eyebrows are drawn together, but she slowly releases them and takes a peek at me. “Julian is going to have someone come out here. My brothers are still in the building. They’re not going to leave until we are out. We will just hang here until then, okay?”
She nods slowly, her hands now clutching onto mine, but I feel her body shaking more and more. Her breathing becomes more erratic, and I realize she’s starting to hyperventilate.
“Wren,” I say, “I need you to look at me.” Her eyes open again, and I see they are glazed with tears. “I need you to breathe when I breathe, okay?”
She doesn’t say anything, so I take my other hand and press it against her side, holding her steady. She straightens up, and I take a step closer to her.
“Breathe with me, Wren. We will do it together. Eyes on me.”
She finally nods, and I see her matching her breaths with mine. In through our noses, out through our mouths in perfect unison. Her shaking starts to slow down, and I take her hand and press it to my chest.
“Keep breathing. Feel my heart beating. Focus on slowing yours down,” I tell her.
She nods slowly, and we stay like this for a few moments until I feel her body steady.
“Okay. This is not me trying to get you out of your clothes, but what do you say we take that blazer off? It’s warm in here, and you’re already a little clammy. I don’t want you overheating.”
She thinks for a moment, then the slightest little flicker of a smile appears on her lips.
She lets go of me and undoes the button of her blazer then slides it off.
Underneath, she has on this cream-colored blouse that makes my pants get tight, but I do my best to ignore it as she folds the blazer over her arm.
There’s a loud creak above us, and she jumps.
“Hey,” I say, “we’re okay. We’re okay.” I take her hands again. “What if we sit down?”
She looks at me and raises an eyebrow, still working on her breathing. I shimmy my own coat off now and lay it down on the ground, pulling her toward the middle and motioning for her to sit down. She does, and I sit down across from her. I take her hand again, and she doesn’t drop it.
“Tell me how you got into reporting,” I say. She raises her eyebrow again.
“Is this you trying to distract me?” she asks. I smile and shrug.
“Maybe,” I say. “But since we have the time, we may as well get to know each other a little bit.”
She nods.
“I love writing, and I love people,” she says. “I like the mystery of it. And I like talking to people. Journalism is never-ending learning.”
I smile. I would kill to feel that passion about something.
“Okay, your turn,” she says, her breathing still shaky. I give her hand a squeeze.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why didn’t you come to those first meetings?” she blurts out, and I chuckle again. She wasted no time. I take a breath and lean back on my free hand.
“Well, it’s not often that my brothers include me on anything big,” I say.
“So, the first one, I hung back. I decided to wait to see what it was all about. But after that first meeting, when they called me, I knew deep down that this was it. That the world was about to change. And that second meeting fell on my mom’s birthday.
I had promised her a trip back home to Italy.
And I decided that since everything was about to come crashing down, I was going to honor those plans.
Honor her before God knows what happens to us. ”
I bite my bottom lip when I finish talking, after I realize that this is the most truthful I’ve been with anyone about what’s been going on, where my head has been.
She doesn’t say anything at first. She just keeps her eyes trained on me. I offer her a slick little half smile and nudge her arm.
“I’m not as much of a dirtbag as you think, Wren,” I add playfully.
She chews on the inside of her cheek. Her eyes drop, and it’s then that she notices our hands are still linked.
She slowly pulls her hand from mine, and I feel the mood in the elevator change.
Just then, there’s another small jolt, and we hear something above us.
She looks up, her body stiffening, and I stand up, pulling her up behind me.
The emergency compartment at the top of the elevator car lifts open, and a man’s face pops in.
“Sorry about that, guys,” he says.
“Oh, thank god,” she whispers.
“Sir, I’m gonna have you give the lady a boost up to me, and then we will get you out of here, alright?” the man asks.
I nod.
“Of course,” I say. We walk to the center of the car, and she moves in front of me. She turns around and backs toward me slowly, and my breath hitches in my throat. Great. Can’t wait for them to pull me out of this thing with a raging fucking hard-on.
I put my hands on her hips, and I feel her body tighten.
“Ready?” I ask. She nods. “One, two, three,” I say, hoisting her up.
The man grabs her around the biceps and pulls her out.
I reach up and hand her the blazer before the man reaches down to lend me his hand.
Another man is also waiting, and they both pull me up.
They guide us to the emergency escape ladder, and we follow their directions out the emergency door, which dumps us back onto the twentieth floor.
Finally, both men get out into the hallway.
“Sorry about that, folks,” one of the men says. “That car’s been giving us some trouble.”
“Thanks for your help,” I say.
“Unfortunately, it’s still not in service. You can wait for the second car,” he says, motioning back toward the elevators. But before Wren can say anything, I shake my head.
“I think we will take the stairs,” I say. “Thank you.”
I guide her down the hall to the stairway, and she lets out a breath.
“Thank you, Brooks,” she says. We walk down the twenty flights of stairs slowly and quietly. I imagine she’s coming down from her panic attack, but me…I’m reliving that last half-hour. Stuck on that elevator with her. Touching her. Holding her. Smelling her.
I want more.
Just preferably not while she’s in the midst of a mental breakdown.
But now that we’re back on solid ground, I remember who she is and why she’s here.
And as if she’s reading my mind, she turns to me as we get to the ground level.
“I know you don’t trust me, Brooks,” she says, “and I definitely don’t trust you.
But unfortunately, it sounds like you’re my only hope for making this work.
I may not be able to handle broken down elevators, but I promise I can handle you.
I would really like for this to work, but I’m not intimidated by your name or your money.
It’s important to remember that one of us has the story, here. And it’s not you.”
And with that, she walks out the door, her heels click-clacking against the marble floors, leaving me speechless for the third time today.