Chapter 24 Meirna
Meirna
It’s Christmas.
And the suite is brimming with giant bouquets of white roses in clear vases on every surface in the living room.
Poinsettias are mixed in, giving it a pop of color, as a beautiful breakfast is laid out on the coffee table with more roses decorating the exquisite meal.
Fruits, pastries, pancakes, waffles, eggs, and coffee are prepped and ready for consumption, and I’m speechless at what to say because Bobby never put in any large amount of thought into things like this. I was always the one pushing all things Christmas on him.
But Bronte…he was right.
I picked the wrong guy.
There was no underlying message in my head that gave it away.
Maybe it’s because the first memory of Bronte was what I went by, and I’ve trailed down that road the whole time.
The man I met first, he’d never cheat on me.
He gave me no reason to believe he was going to throw me in a position to save face and Harding Holdings.
Bobby is the playboy.
Bronte is the broody specimen of muscle and independence. Put both of them next to each other with those traits, I would’ve picked Bronte every time.
And I wasted two years with rose-colored glasses on.
A face suddenly shows up above my shoulder as my curls are pulled gently away from my neck, and I hear Bronte’s guttural, “Good morning, Daydream. Merry Christmas.”
He places a soft kiss along the column of my throat, then another, prompting last night into a full-fledged movie in my brain.
His eager hands all over me. His lips and tongue tasting every inch of my skin.
I’m quickly learning there’s never just once with Bronte, but several rounds of sex. He’s like a sugar addict going into the kitchen for another cookie.
The man is insatiable as all hell.
I feel Bronte straighten his spine and disappear, as I stand in the middle of the living space speechless over the course of the last few days.
Prague has been everything I’ve dreamed of. This suite is just the lodging, obviously, but it’s the fact that I’ve never seen so many roses in my life, and he had to have spent a fortune getting them here in such a short amount of time.
It’s like he bought every white rose grown in this city and brought them here.
My hand searches for his without much thought behind it, before his fingers are lacing with mine and he’s gently guiding me to the short distance toward the couch.
He knows my every need. He doesn’t need to ask me a million and one questions for validation.
It’s like I’m a book he’s studied for years.
“Coffee first,” he says gently. “Then you can yell at me for all the flowers.”
I’d never do that.
He must not know about the reactions every time I receive flowers because I’m a sucker for them.
When in doubt over a gift for me, flowers.
Every single time.
I take a seat on the plush couch while Bronte is still holding my hand, making sure I’m situated before he takes the spot next to me, reaching for the coffee pot and a mug.
“I wasn’t going to yell,” I retort softly, scanning the room for a space where there isn’t a magnificent display of roses that makes the suite feel like a winter wonderland. “It’s stunning.”
“I bought something for you, but I think it’s too much.” The coffee pot softly clinks against the mug. “So I opted for another small surprise that I think you’d appreciate more.”
I turn my head toward him, feeling a bit uncomfortable. “You didn’t need to do all this. I didn’t buy you anything—”
“That head last night was all I needed as a present, Daydream,” he issues out, his gaze filling with that familiar hunger. “I won’t be forgetting that any time soon.”
Bobby would’ve wanted a Porsche.
“You need to stop spoiling me,” I lightly argue. “I might become a brat.”
“Brats need discipline. You think I’m going to turn down punishing you?” Apparently, not as I’m offered my coffee and Bronte obtains the cream. “Two seconds worth, right?”
How?
How in the world would he know that I count when I pour creamer?
“You’re my stalker,” I blurt without stopping, how stupid it sounds, but also accurate. I don’t care how he wants to word it; everything he does, I like.
“Admirer,” he attempts to correct. “It’s my job to make sure all your needs are met without you having to tell me.”
I blink a few times as he gets his morning brew, trying to think how to casually ask what he wants without him giving me the obvious.
His cock.
“What—um…” I swallow, feeling dumb for getting nervous. “What are yours besides the obvious?”
“What’s the obvious?”
You know, sometimes, I just want to smack him upside the back of the head.
“Fucking,” I deadpan because he’s smart, he knows where I’m trying to land my question here.
“Loyalty,” he returns immediately. “I don’t need much else.”
I nod. “What about small things?”
“Like?”
“Well, your thing is flowers. Secret, intimate weddings and a room full of white roses with a beautiful breakfast and trips to Prague. All to make me feel special and seen. How are you seen, Bronte?”
“As an asshole,” he mutters over the rim of his mug before taking a small sip.
“But, to answer your question, I really don’t have things like you would.
If I’m being completely honest, coming home to you in lingerie that you picked out specifically for me would be a love language I’d be fluent in by the end of the week. ”
Rolling my eyes, it’s noted, but then I have to remember he’s a man. What am I going to do? Buy him ties with a message that says, to tie me up with later?
Actually, not bad.
Noted.
“You don’t like sweets,” I hedge. “Do you like home-cooked meals?”
“I do like any other red-blooded man, but they’re not required.”
“You have a secret fetish with pens?”
A ghost of a smirk plays along his lips as he stares at our breakfast. “Not quite.”
“You like rom-coms?”
“Don’t think I’ve ever watched one.”
“Oh, c’mon,” I drone because, honestly, unbelievable and sad. “Give me something.”
“I thought I did last night.”
A furious blush captures my face, but I’m not deterred from trying to get to know him.
In fact, it’s my goal for the day.
Crossing my legs, I lean back and sit in silence, waiting out the moment where Bronte is going to search for something—anything—that gives him some color.
Yes, the man can fuck me into oblivion, but I want to know his quirks. I know some of his dislikes—not huge on sweets and doesn’t like being called Bobby—but a lot is still unknown.
“I like quiet nights,” he claims a few moments later.
“I don’t like the New York Yankees, but the Boston Red Sox.
I like baseball games over football. I like historical documentaries on leaders who changed the world.
I don’t like tea. I hate sushi. And I don’t like social obligations with people I don’t like just to be friendly.
” My lips part to tell him I don’t like sushi either when he adds, “And I don’t like the Hardings. ”
Fair.
The last comment sparks so much more curiosity than what I was searching for.
I’m sitting next to a man who was cast out by his only family, only to obtain a completely new life.
“I’m going to try never to talk to them again,” I mutter. “There’s too much.”
“Understatement of the year. And I’d prefer it.”
Right.
Running my tongue down my lower lip, I chance Bronte shutting me out when I ask, “Why did they abandon you? Is that too painful to talk about?”
“No,” he replies immediately. “It’s not. In fact, it was the best thing they could’ve done for me in the long run.”
His mug reaches his lips again, takes a few more sips of his coffee as he tries to wake up, and I’m over here peppering off questions like it’s my job.
“Bobby and I were never your typical twins. Maybe when we were younger, and I have no memory of it, but our father pegged us up against each other every chance he got. It was like he wanted to see who was the strongest so he could get rid of the weakest.”
My stomach drops because, as a child, I couldn’t imagine how painful and disparaging that would be. How someone who’s supposed to love you is using you to bait out the other.
Especially between brothers.
“I’m the oldest,” Bronte continues. “So, naturally, my father had in his mind that I would take over Harding Holdings. I was proud to be a part of that for a long time growing up, knowing I had a future before I could drive. Until I started seeing the world my father played in. What kind of man he was. And the things I’ve heard him do, say, and the threats he would make to gain what he needed to move his company.
“Then he was fucking girls at my school. And that was it for me.”
Wait, what?
I aimlessly watch him casually drink his coffee like he just told me what we were going to do today, but he’s had years to think about this.
I’ve only had seconds.
“I guess you can say,” Bronte adds after a minute, ridding himself of his coffee and grabbing a small plate.
“I became the black sheep that rebelled against everything he said, did, or thought. Oh, and I mentioned his underage sexual advances against girls I knew. Tack on that Bobby ran me into the ground with smoking weed, sneaking girls into my room, and fucking teachers to get good grades, that got me shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland.”
Smoking weed.
Sneaking girls into his room.
Fucking teachers to get good grades.
“And, no,” Bronte chimes in, scooping up some eggs. “I didn’t fuck my teachers to get good grades.”
I’m ashamed that it was something I thought could be true, based on the information about Bobby’s infidelities.
However, I’m relieved to know Bronte is still—allegedly—not like him at all. I think time will be the only telltale sign to confirm that, but I won’t convict him of a thing until I see receipts for it.
“Then you found your new father and mother?”
“In Greece,” he replies. “Well, my father. I started working for his company. He saw something in me—probably anger issues and too much energy before he started spending some time with me. He wanted me to come back to the States with him to work, I did. I spent a lot of time with Eleni, my mom, and Callie, my sister. They adopted me when I was nineteen.”
“And the rest is history.” He bows his head, seemingly lost in the past that I didn’t mean to make into something heavy. “What’s your sister like?”
“Mouthy.”
I smile because I like her already. “And your mom?”
“Kind.”
“And your father?”
“Strong.”
I’m not entirely sure how, but the one-word adjectives on his family sum them up pretty well in my head.
“I love that for you.”
“Your father has congested heart failure.”
I frown at his turn on my family and how he knows that. Not that I find myself fully surprised. But, the sudden shift has me a bit on guard.
“He does.”
“And your mother…she still teaches?” I bob my head as he piles some fruit and a cherry danish on my plate. “She does that for the insurance, doesn’t she?”
Yes.
And it’s shit insurance.
As well as her wages, with how much work she throws into her classes and students.
“If you trust me in six months, I’d like to help with that.”
I openly gape at him because my father’s medications, his doctor visits, and specialists would be astronomical if it weren’t for my mother’s insurance.
Not that she doesn’t fork out thousands, but it’s better than not having it at all.
“Why would you want—” Bronte hands me the plate he just made, but I’m not prompted to take it. “You forgot pancakes.”
“I didn’t,” he retorts lightly. “I just ran out of room.”
He did.
So, I take the plate and the fork and sit quietly for a moment.
How in the world did I get someone like him in my life? At a charity event, someone I couldn’t believe was insinuating that he was into me, whom I persuaded. Someone who was wrong and never showed any interest in helping my family, not that I would ever ask Bobby to.
“Bronte, you’re giving me a complex.”
“Am I?” he asks nonchalantly, stabbing two pancakes with a fork before grabbing a knife to butter them. “I can think of something you can give me in return.”
“Like?”
“Giving me time.”
My brows clench together at the simple yet complicated trade deal because time is something that’s extremely rare sometimes.
“We haven’t gotten past New Year’s yet,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “If you divorce me, it still doesn’t mean I’ll abandon you.”
Geezus Christ.
For the love of God and everything holy with all the Latter-Day Saints and angels and whatever else.
How?
Just how?
I’ve given him nothing, and he wants to give me everything.
Okay, besides my body and being on this trip.
And marrying him.
But I was tricked into that-ish. For a minute, anyway.
“I think you need to look up the definition of divorce,” I hedge evenly. “It’s not all that.”
“And I’m not Bobby. Nor anything you can define in the dictionary.”
I know that.
I really do.