Chapter 40
forty
PRESENT DAY
KATE
This pretentious country club event is already making me itch. Everyone here looks like my parents, but in a different font. Dad’s stern glasses are italicized on a man across the room. Mom’s sleek bob is a bolded font on at least four different women tittering with glasses of champagne.
Gag me.
The only reprieve I have during this forced family outing comes in the form of a tall drink of water—if that water happened to have pulled up on a motorcycle wearing a form-fitting tuxedo and glossy helmet.
It wasn’t his fault his tux fitting went late.
The mortified look on my parents’ faces through the window was reason enough to stride over and place a juicy kiss on Brandon’s cheek after he removed his helmet.
From my oversized armchair in the corner, I kick my heels out on the plush carpet, crossing my ankles in my cocktail dress. Leave it up to Liza to pack us both emergency formal wear. But I’m not mad at the dress she brought. It’s one of my favorites.
The short silk dress is almost the color of dusk, whispering on the cusp between navy and indigo. An excess of fabric puddles across my chest between thin straps. Mom probably thinks the short hemline is tasteless, but I don’t care.
I watch the crowd milling about, wondering which charity this event is even for. The lack of signage is abysmal. For how rich these people are, they don’t know how to put on events. The museum would have knocked this out of the park.
A sudden chilling thought invades my mind.
What if H.Y. is in this room? If they truly followed me to Florida, intent on keeping an eye on me, surely they’d be here, wouldn’t they?
Or would they have given up by now, seeing me with Brandon?
I search face after face, not recognizing anyone of importance.
I take a shaky breath, reminding myself that I’ll be safe tonight.
My black-clad savior strides toward me, passing the sheen of a water feature wall glistening behind the country club logo. He holds one fluted glass of champagne and one stout glass of what looks like soda water. I gesture as I tentatively take the champagne.
“Does it bother you if I drink?” I ask.
He tilts his head as if touched by the sentiment. “Of course not. Alcoholism is a disease that doesn’t run in everybody’s genetics.”
I smile and take a tentative sip before tugging him down to share my wide chair. “Come sit with me, fake boyfriend.”
“Kate, my butt is not going to fit—”
“This chair is plenty big.” I squirm to the side. “And quit talking about your butt.”
“But you like my butt.”
I laugh as Brandon maneuvers me onto his lap. My bare legs drape over the knees of his tuxedo pants, and a flush rises in my chest.
“There.” He sweeps a long strand of my hair to the side and presses a kiss to my forehead. The flush in my chest grows wings. Every time this man touches me, it feels anything but fake. There’s no way that kiss was for show.
“Awwwhh! You guys are adorable.”
Liza’s voice makes a rock drop into my stomach.
“Thanks, Liza,” I say.
Many crawling hours later, the evening begins to draw to a close.
If it weren’t for Brandon’s hushed game of “Guess the stranger’s backstory,” I wouldn’t have survived.
There are a surprising number of mistresses, spies, and taxidermists attending this event.
And still none of them would make sense as H.Y.
I yawn, and Brandon takes notice.
“We could probably slip out now, couldn’t we?” he murmurs.
“Maybe,” I say.
Our opportunity presents itself ten minutes later when the thinning crowd parts to create a straight path to the front doors. Hand in mine, Brandon all but jogs toward our freedom. I do my best to keep up with quick, ladylike steps.
My parents materialize in our way, flanked by an unknown face I couldn’t care less about. A scowl twitches in my facial muscles, but I try to smooth it away for the stranger’s sake. It’s not his fault my parents suck.
Liza and Cam appear out of nowhere, as if they had been hot on our tails.
“Girls! I’m happy we ran into you!” Dad says.
Ugh. He’s using his performance voice, and my itch to get out of here smarts into a full-blown rash. Whoever this person is, he’s important to him.
Liza, ever the diplomat, shakes the strange man’s hand with a smile.
“This is Elizabeth. She’s the one wrapping up her medical degree.” Dad smiles, silver glasses shining. “And this is her fiancé, Cameron. He works in finance.”
The boulder-like man with a thick mustache shakes their hands with renewed interest. His beady eyes flit to me, something like recognition lighting them up.
“So this must be the lawyer, then.” He grins with a set of teeth too large and perfect to be real.
“I’ll say, young lady. When your father called my admissions office years ago to ask me to watch for your paperwork, I almost said no out of spite.
Only to punish him for beating me so badly in golf the week before.
” He chuckles. “But, of course I wouldn’t let my vendetta dim your bright future. What law firm are you at?”
My mouth feels like a sock. Dad’s pointed stare orders me to play along. Mom’s tittering laugh is both nervous and amused. My ears are steamed with shame, and it makes anger roil in my gut.
Brandon’s hand presses against the small of my back—a silent communication that I’m not alone. But it’s also as if he knows I want to fight my own battles and don’t want to be saved like a damsel in distress.
I lift my chin an inch, pasting on a smile that feels more like the baring of teeth.
“Actually, I’m not a lawyer.”
The man’s bushy brows pinch as he turns to Dad’s mortified expression. “Do you have another daughter?”
“Nope,” he grates out. “Just the two.”
“I didn’t complete law school,” I say. There. That sounds nicer than “dropped out.” “I chose to get my fine arts degree and pursue art curation. I work in a museum now.”
The man’s eyes light with interest, but Dad cuts him off.
“We would have preferred her finish your program, Stan, of course,” he says, “but this one has a mind of her own, apparently.”
Stan laughs, as if it’s a good natured joke.
Brandon steps beside me, muscles coiled like a panther on the hunt. I smooth my hand down his arm, but he doesn’t relax. Stan blinks up at him in surprise, as if now only noticing the hulking six-foot-four man.
“And what a mind it is.” Brandon’s voice drips with luxury, the sports car of tones. He graces them all with an amicable smile, though I notice the flash of anger deep in his eyes.
“This one is too humble,” Brandon continues, booping me on the nose. “She won’t tell you all about her incredible work at the museum, but I will.” He chuckles, leaving my parents no choice but to laugh nervously beside Stan.
“She happens to be assisting another curator’s exhibition by photographing murals all over Chicago.
The very exhibition, in fact, that Kate supplied the idea for in the first place.
Such brilliance in her mere fingertips”—he dares to raise my hand and press a kiss to the pad of my index finger—“that I’m honored to witness it.
So yes, Mr. Chen. What a mind of her own. ”
Emotion burns behind my eyes, behind my sternum, everywhere.
This man is too good. Too loving. Too incredible to be real.
He’s my other half in every way. The laughter to my cynicism.
The light to my darkness, even after struggling through so much on his own.
I don’t want to go another day, another week, letting him bear his burdens alone.
I want to kiss away the sorrows of the boy inside that feels like he’s not worthy of love.
Not worthy enough for his dad to stay, or for his mother to remain sober.
I’m desperate to be the one who gets to convince him that he is enough.
And here, in the glow of his emerald gaze, I’m starting to believe that my brokenness could maybe be enough for him, too.
Heart pounding, I stare at him as the room melts away.
Decision rushes through my veins. Finality sings in my chest.
I’m never letting this man go ever again.
Liza coughs a sniff, hand pressed to her chest, stars in her eyes.
“What an interesting life you have made for yourself, young lady,” Stan says after a long moment. “I hope all goes well with your exhibition. I must make it a point to tell my aunt—she lives in Chicago, you see—to come experience it.”
We thank Stan, ignore my parents’ murderous stares, and excuse ourselves with a cheery goodbye before finally making our escape.
The warm night sky is slung low with heavy clouds, smothering any twinkle of stars.
I can’t tell if the electrical charge in the air is radiating from my own epiphany or an impending lightning storm.
Either way, Brandon’s hand wraps warmly around mine as he helps me behind him onto the rental motorcycle.
He ducks beneath his helmet, and I tug on my own before curving my jackhammer of a heart against his back.
The salty air soon whips the ends of my hair behind us, and tiny flecks of rain dot my helmet visor. Droplets pepper my upper arms and chest, and I begin to shiver despite the warm rain.
I think I’m in love with this man.
Re-in love with this man?
Words don’t make any more sense in my head than my thoughts do.
I bite my lip. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but maybe now that it has, I’ll be forced to deal with it. Perhaps I’ll have to push through my fears, and instead of running from this terrifying, exhilarating feeling, I’ll have to rise to the occasion in my imperfectness.
If I want something I’ve never had, I’ve got to do something I’ve never done.