53. Brogan
Her head flew back at my words, which I knew were harsh and maybe even cruel, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Now, I was looking at those luscious lips of hers that more than a few times I’d pictured wrapped back around my cock.
Soon, she pushed the bottom one out in a pout as her eyes narrowed to slits as she stared back at me with her shoulders squared.
The one thing I’d always noticed and admired about Enslee was her ability to stand tall and strong no matter what was thrown her way.
She had a backbone, and…
“You can be an asshole to everyone else, but it's not going to accomplish what you think it is with me,” she told me.
And a mouth to go with it…
“I'm sure you're going to elaborate on what it is you think I'm trying to accomplish.”
“You don't want anyone's love. You don't want my love. You don't want Declan’s love. And I think you're actually glad that you don't have your father's love, either.”
“Is that so?”
“The one whose love you want and need took it away through no fault of your own.”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” I lied, now sure of where she was headed with her observation.
“Do I not?” she asked.
“No, you don't.”
I moved away from her because I knew she’d be able to see that a little of what she was saying was actually hitting home. I'd been so close to my mother growing up. Lauren Sinclair had been nurturing, attentive, and she’d been the first to show me what love was.
I’d thought she’d always be there for me until the day she’d dropped me off at school and never returned. A few years later, I got a postcard or two from her, but I didn't even look at them. Instead, I’d torn them up and thrown them in the garbage the same way she’d tossed me away.
I scowled as those memories came rushing back.
My head was already swimming with everything Layla had just told me, then Enslee’s confession of love, and now I was stuck thinking about the first person who’d ever let me down in my life.
I wanted to hit or smash something. No, I wanted to absolutely goddamn fucking destroy something.
I very well might have until I spun around to find Enslee staring at me.
While I expected there to be some sort of pity in her eyes, she didn't feel sorry for me, which was what made it easier to talk to her. She maybe felt empathy, but she didn't feel sympathy for my situation. Not even the conversion therapy. While most would’ve felt mostly sadness, she actually was more angry about it, as if she wanted to lead the charge against the almighty Stanley Sinclair and take him down herself, not that she’d ever have to.
I’d be front and center for that. In fact, knowing what he’d done to Layla and me, he’d be getting a close-up of karma. I’d make sure to deliver it to him. I couldn't believe I’d actually been foolish enough to think, upon leaving jail, that he’d been the one to have gotten me released.
How fucking stupid have I been?
I pushed thoughts of him from my head, and turned to stare impassively at Enslee.
Maybe she was right that I wanted to see the good in a man who constantly proved himself to be evil.
He’d sired me after all, so I was another branch off his tree.
That, however, was where it all ended. Our name and ambition were the only things we had in common.
Despite what the outside world might think, I actually cared about those close to me while there’d been others I’d tolerated.
Do I truly care about that many people?
As the truth came rushing to me in awareness, I realized I didn't. Sure, I was cordial to those at Sinclair Pharmaceuticals, and even some of Declan’s associates like Edna and Jenni, but I could move on with my life as normal if any of them disappeared from mine.
I really truly only liked or loved the man who'd betrayed me. And the woman who'd knowingly done so when she’d told Declan what my father had done to me years ago. He was never supposed to have known about that, and it wasn't because I’d wanted to keep secrets from him. I didn't like having things unspoken between us, but that time had absolutely nothing to do with him. It wasn't like what he’d done to me when he’d gone behind my back and paid Layla off. Especially after she’d left town…
Lying by omission about it ever since had directly impacted my life because I hadn’t known the extent of what I’d been up against. If so, maybe I could’ve mounted a defense.
Back in my youth, that summer had not affected him.
He hadn’t been to blame. There’d been nothing he could’ve done, and I’d survived with no consequences for him.
Being thrown into that other cell and tortured made Rikers Island look like a three-star resort.
But it hadn’t involved Declan. It hadn’t affected him.
The only person that place had destroyed had been me, and outside of my mother's abandonment, it was the first true betrayal I’d ever known.
My father, a man who’d sworn to love me as he’d paraded me around to his business associates, friends, and the public, played the role of the dutiful father, and I’d been the prodigal son.
He'd acted like he was proud of me until I’d done something so unforgivable that even he couldn't love me anymore. Thinking about the past decade, though, I wouldn’t have changed it.
As much as it hurt now, Declan had been the reason I'd stayed alive all this time.
He'd stolen my heart and soul but mostly had made something my father considered so disgusting such a beautiful thing.
Now, even it was gone because he too had betrayed me.
“What are you thinking about?”
I stared back at her emotionlessly until something nagged at me. “H-how did he react?”
“React to what had happened to you back then? Or that you’d gone to jail?”
“Both,” I responded as I let my breath out in a deep puff.
“He was obviously devastated upon you going to jail. When I’d been in my van and had first seen the footage of them arresting you, I saw him.
Unless you were looking for someone else, I doubted anybody else would’ve noticed him in the doorway.
He loves you, Brogan. Do you honestly think he’d find any enjoyment in watching you get slammed onto a car, handcuffed, then pushed inside while wondering if he’d ever see you again? ”
“It was his guilt and acting ability. Let’s not forget what he does for a living.”
“It wasn’t that, Brogan. It was—”
“I'm sure he was relieved that he no longer had to try covering his tracks.”
She walked closer to me, then jabbed one of her fingers into my chest. “You're completely off base. Are you that far removed from reality?”
I chuckled at that. “My therapist would likely think so.”
“Somehow, I don't picture you lying on a couch, confessing your deepest, darkest thoughts.”
“That's because I don't lie on a couch but instead sit in a chair. I tell him what he needs to know, and nothing more.”
“So you rehearse a script. Is that what you do with your entire life?”
“Some things are best left between you and whatever god you believe in. Over the years, I'd realized there's not one.”
“Praying to a god that may or may not exist isn't a healing strategy I buy into either,” she retorted, and I arched a brow.
“For someone so positive, you sure make a lot of dark statements. Why don't we stop psychoanalyzing me and look at you for a change?”
“There's nothing to find there, but it doesn't mean I don't see the world for what it is.”
“And what is this world that you see?”
“I don't care about the rest of it. I only care about yours and Declan’s.” I growled at the mention of the other man's name.
“You can stay mad at him for as long as you like, but all you're doing is missing out on the chance to be together.
You're missing out on the chance to love someone fully and to be loved in return.
Not everybody in this world gets that opportunity.
Some of us would give anything to have what you and Declan had.
Instead of being grateful, you're willing to throw it all away. I can't understand you. Brogan.”
When I figured she was finished, I replied.
“Well, that makes two of us. I've never understood myself, either.” I stepped away, turning my back to her and walking across the room to the wall of windows, then stared outside.
“Do you know what I see when I look out there?” I didn't need to look behind my shoulder or turn my head to know she’d come up behind me because I could see her reflection in the dark glass.
“What do you see?”
“I see nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Absolutely fucking nothing. But I once did. I used to stare out these very windows and see the city spread out before me like a buffet befitting a lord. This had been my castle, and one where I’d foolishly believed in fairy tales.
This was the type of place that would’ve made the Sinclairs before me proud.
My grandfather… great-grandfather… great-great-grandfather and so forth.
If they’d been here in this day and age, they would’ve stood beside me and told me that everything out there could be mine. ”
“And you don't feel like it can be now?”
“No! I stand up here now as a fraud… an imposter… I’m a fake king sitting on his broken fucking throne with a cracked crown waiting for everything to shatter apart.
“What changed to make you now believe that?”
I didn't answer her right away. Instead, I pressed my forehead to the cold glass. “Reality happened,” I finally said. “When I’d been arrested, I’d realized that nothing I had here mattered.
It did absolutely nothing for me. Not my name or my influence.
Nothing. It could all be taken away, and it was. ”
“You haven't lost everything. Declan’s still—”
“He’d put it all in motion and had been the one to give me that reality check.”
“Do you know what I see when I look out these windows?”
“What do you see, Enslee?”