Chapter 27
Evie
Brandon would have a conniption if I told him what I really used to write about.
Every impure thought that I ever had about him would inevitably find its way onto paper.
It wasn’t just my sexual fantasies I’d jot down with a hormone-fueled fury; I used to write entire stories about us.
Getting married. Having children. Adopting senior dogs. Vacationing in Europe.
I’m glad I was wise enough to destroy the evidence.
The first time Francine discovered a loose sheet of printer paper describing one of my R-rated fantasies, she took me aside and asked where I learned to write things like that.
I reluctantly confided that I had been reading the erotic romance novels I found on the bookshelf in the basement—the only legacy my birth mother left behind.
Francine repaid my honesty by confiscating them.
It was probably for the best. Because that’s what happens when you discover your mother’s erotic romance novel collection as a teenage girl, then binge read them over and over. You end up confusing sex for love. But men and women are wired differently when it comes to sex.
I learned that the hard way.
I honestly believed that if Brandon and I just had sex, he’d finally come to his senses and realize that he did, in fact, want to be in a relationship with me. No such luck . . .
At first, I assumed Brandon was afraid of commitment, and that’s why he didn’t want to label our situation. But the more I reflected on his actions in the days after our rendezvous, the more I realized I was destined to be a pawn in one of his twisted games.
Brandon knew exactly what he was doing that night, too. From bringing me back to his place after I’d been drinking, to gifting me that diamond necklace, to the way he played hard to get, which triggered one of my worst insecurities—that he was getting bored of me because we hadn’t had sex yet . . .
He made me believe he was coming around to the idea of us.
That was never the case. To him, it was only ever about the chase. As his best friend’s little sister, I was his forbidden fruit. As soon as he finally got his taste, he spit me back out like I was rotten.
Or poisonous.
The truth is so obvious now in hindsight: I was his dirty little secret.
I might have had a moment of weakness with him last night because I was tired and unwell and in pain—but no number of apologies or heart-to-hearts or whispered prayers will ever make up for what he did to me.
Never.
Lowering my head into my hands, I rub my throbbing temples as I listen to the rain patter against the windows.
I feel so much worse than I did this morning.
It isn’t helping that it’s been a slow morning; loads of people have canceled their appointments because of the holiday tomorrow.
I probably could have stayed in bed after all . . .
Fighting my heavy eyelids, I search the desk for my phone, eager to open Pinterest and fall down the rabbit hole.
I’m dangerously close to face planting into my keyboard otherwise.
But my phone isn’t where I usually set it.
I feel around my person out of habit, but I’m not wearing anything with pockets.
I reach down and search through my bag, but it’s not in there, either.
I must have left it in Brandon’s car.
I rise and head to his office. He’s in between patients, so I knock on his door and poke my head in. “Brandon?”
He’s on the phone, but he waves me in anyway, seeming eager to see me. I tiptoe into the room and point at the keys in the bowl on his desk. “Can I borrow your keys?” I mouth. “I’m looking for my phone.”
He nods, gesturing for me to go ahead.
Outside, the air is damp and chilly, with sheets of rain still pouring from the overcast sky. I pull my hood up and hustle across the parking lot. Wrenching the passenger side door open, I climb into the seat to escape the torrent of rain.
Brandon’s car smells like rain, leather, and luxury—his woodsy, masculine cologne permeating the immaculately kept space.
I breathe it in eagerly, wishing he didn’t have the effect on me that he does.
My boots squeak as I glance around the space, and I lift them up, worried I’m dirtying up his mats.
I just know he’s going to have them dry cleaned as soon as the weather is nice again. He’s a freak about things like that.
When a quick scan of my surroundings proves useless, I shove my hands down all the cracks and crevices and wiggle my fingers around. No phone.
Frustrated now, I climb back out of the car to search beneath the seats, but it’s not hiding there, either.
Huffing my bangs out of my face, I get back in the car and look around one more time, trying to think like a lost phone.
Where would I hide if I wanted a break from a Pinterest-scrolling, battery-draining baddie?
On a whim, I pop the center console’s lid and peek inside.
I know I didn’t put my phone in here, but I have to cover all my bases.
His center console is just as tidy as the rest of his car. And just as I suspected, no phone. Disappointed, I start to close the lid, but there’s a cracked notebook standing up on its spine, and it looks . . . scarily familiar.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. With a trembling hand, I reach for the journal, gingerly pulling it out like I’m excavating a rare artifact. Heart thumping, I mark the page with my finger and turn it over to look at the front.
It really is my diary.
My missing diary.
I fall back against the seat, my mind racing and palms sweating.
Of all the worst-case scenarios that ran through my mind about what could have happened to this diary—or who might have been reading it—never once did Brandon cross my mind.
No wonder he was asking me so many questions about my journaling habits this morning.
Is this his sick way of getting inside my head?
With a racing heart, I flip the journal over to the page I have bookmarked with my finger—the page that the diary was cracked open to.
When I see which entry it is, white-hot rage blazes a trail of fire through my veins.
It’s the kind of feral anger I haven’t felt since I was a teenage girl—the kind I’d get just before taking a blade to my skin.
Abandoning the search for my phone, I grab the diary and clamber out of the car. My vision tunnels as I slam the door and storm across the parking lot through the rain. The back door bangs against the wall as I throw it open.
I don’t bother knocking on Brandon’s office door this time.