Chapter 34
Lucian Driver: I have what you’re after.
Chase: Send it over.
Lucian Driver: Are you planning on doing something stupid?
Chase: Does that sound like my style?
Lucian Driver: Point taken.
CHASE
“How did you know you were in love with Mason?”
Mia’s lipstick-coated mouth twitches at my side, her ocean gaze never wavering from the milling crowd of dancing patrons in the ballroom below drenched in glamorous attire.
The annual Walker Charity Fashion Show has been a roaring success as always, even if my mother decided not to show up.
Emily had been the star of the show, the high fashion model returned from Milan and lending her talent to our charity showcase.
The garments have been suitably shown off, and the charity has fundraised over three million dollars in pledges.
I should be thrilled, but a heavy ballast lives in my stomach—where it has ever since Pepper shared her story with me.
“When I saw all of his fractured pieces and wanted him exactly as he was,” she responds quietly over the tinkle of piano music below. When she turns to face me, she offers a warm smile.
I return it, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and squeezing her into my side. Even though Mason and I haven’t spoken a word since the Hamptons, I remain endlessly grateful he somehow fumbled his way into marrying Mia. She’s a second sister to me, and I can’t imagine life without her.
“When are you going to tell her?” Mia slides a knowing glance my way.
“Don’t do that matchmaker shit with me, sweetheart, I don’t need it.” Rolling my eyes, I drop my arm from her shoulders and take a sip of scotch.
“Hmm,” she hums discerningly, tipping back a sip of sparkling champagne from a slim flute.
“Can I cut in?” The deep gravelly tone I recognize from behind makes my jaw flex.
I turn to see Mason enter the discreetly hidden balcony overlooking the ballroom, and watch as he silently communicates with his wife in that way they always do.
“I’ll leave you boys to it,” Mia says quietly, pausing to squeeze my arm affectionately on her way out, the long champagne trail of her dress slithering across a deep red carpet.
Silence falls as Mason takes up a position beside me and I make zero effort to change it.
I throw back the rest of my drink—so large a mouthful that it makes my whole throat burn on the way down—and suck the inside of my teeth audibly.
For a mad moment, I contemplate smashing the thick crystal glass over my own head just to have an excuse to leave.
“I’m sorry,” Mason says gruffly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his tux. “For being unfair.”
I frown. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
He looks sharply up in what could almost be considered an eye roll. “Take it or leave it.”
I can’t believe my ears. Or in fact, I totally can because this is Mason we’re talking about. He waltzes in here after thirty years of animosity and expects me to wipe all that away in a matter of seconds?
“You’ve got some nerve.” I place my glass down onto the curved wall of balustrades that circles the balcony harder than intended.
I have every plan to leave his grumpy ass here and go to look for Pepper, but he stops me by holding his arm out to block my path.
“I know I’m an asshole, and I know you don’t deserve it.” The glacial blue in his eyes glints, clean-shaven jaw clamped tight.
“Then why do it?” I throw back in challenge, feeling years of repressed animosity boil to the surface.
“You’ve got his eyes,” he says softly, darkness flitting across his own. My body goes rigid, adrenaline pumping through my system. We battle silently, his icy blues to my browns—the ones I inherited from our father. “And you look more like him the older you get.”
I feel my lip threaten to curl into a sneer and work very hard to stop it, heart hammering against my ribs. “I’m not him,” I growl through gritted teeth.
I think deep down I subconsciously knew it might be this, especially as my own mother grows more reluctant to be near me when she’s having an episode. Sometimes I see it in her face; the betrayal, the disgust, like I’m the one who—
“I know, but it’s hard sometimes.” Mason shrugs, lowering his arm. “I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s the truth.”
“And what am I meant to do with that piece of information? Print it off and wipe my ass?”
Part of me wishes he hadn’t bothered. On one hand, it’s validating to have him acknowledge the unfair way he treats me, but on the other…ignorance is bliss. Anything that places me in my father’s likeness makes my skin crawl and is something I can live without.
He lets out a low sigh, his gaze glued to the guests who dance around the catwalk. “I’ll try and work on it.”
“It wasn’t just you, you know.” I steeple my spine, watching his face turn pale.
He whips it my way. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
The piano song below shifts, transforming into something more upbeat.
It does nothing to lift the overpowering density that cloaks the air between us.
Mason had it worse than me. A lot worse.
And for that reason, I never told him about my own experience with our delightful father, although I’d always wondered if he knew.
“Mother fucker!” Mason curses, turning away from me and pacing to the back of the balcony, swiping a hand down his face, hard. “I swear to god, if that piece of shit weren’t dead already, I’d kill him myself.”
“You didn’t know?” I swallow thickly around the wedge in my throat.
Mason turns back around, his face drawn tight and tortured. “He told me he wouldn’t touch you if I kept quiet.”
A strange sensation splits my stomach in two, taking me aback. I stare, and stare, and stare. Reality seeps in, that Mason suffered in silence for all those years in some misguided attempt to save me.
“Well, he was a liar.” I sniff, running a finger around a collar that suddenly feels claustrophobic. “Which is no great leap, considering what we know about him.”
“There is that.” Mason presses two fingers and a thumb into his eyes and sighs. “Look, it was shitty and it happened. We can’t change that, but I’ll try and do better. Okay?”
I shrug. “Okay.”
I’m not sure that a leopard can change his spots.
Mason was so locked down before Mia that I’d expect to see more emotion on a robot.
The version of himself that he is today is worlds apart.
Perhaps some people max out their capacity for change, but we’re brothers and there is no getting away from that, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
He steps up to me, placing his hand on the back of my neck.
I’m a big guy, but at six-foot-seven, my brother is bigger.
In more ways than one. I don’t think you ever quite grow out of the way you idolize your older brother.
What he fails to see is that I spent most of our childhood trying to be him.
Because to me, he was the coolest fucking thing on this planet, and yet all he did was shun me.
“And in case it isn’t clear, I love you and I always have.”
The bridge of my nose stings, shock barreling into every corner of my body. I’m too stunned to even say anything in return as he offers me a final nod and walks away.
***
“Just how many models in this room have you slept with, Chase?”
I choke on my drink, looking at Zeke in alarm and then at Pepper by my side, whose eyebrows hit her hairline.
I thud my chest with my fist. “Not cool, bro.”
He grins, the thin scar splitting his lip stretched.
Pepper rolls her eyes and fixes me with a perceptive look.
She looks like an angel on earth in a cobalt blue silk dress that makes her skin pop and her eyes glow like warm jewels.
She damn near took my breath away when she came out of my bedroom, her long hair elegantly dragged up into a pile on top of her head.
She stands out in a room like this in the best way—dark, swirling tattoos snaking down one arm, bright colored hair and her slim nose ring switched out for one that sparkles.
I’m the luckiest man here tonight to have her on my arm, and a completely foreign sizzle flashes over my skin each time I catch a man gawking at her.
I can’t wait to get her home and trail my hand all the way up that slit that travels to her thigh.
“He tried to sleep with me once,” Chloe shares wistfully, tapping a red nail on her arm.
“Don’t I know it,” Zeke growls sulkily by her side.
I point at her, a distinct feeling I’m about to get my comeuppance for years of winding my friends up by flirting with their women. “That was a long time ago and I didn’t know that you knew Zeke.”
“Me too.” Mia grins, taking a sip of her champagne.
“That was just to wind Mason up. You know you’re like a sister to me.”
“Speaking of sisters…” Chloe trails off suggestively, a mischievous sparkle in her eye.
God fucking dammit. I have no defense there, and dare to glance sideways to see Pepper’s unphased smile, seeming more exasperated than annoyed. I feel more relieved than I care to let on.
“Hey, why didn’t you try and sleep with me?” Teddy cuts in, holding one hand up as if to say, “What the hell, dude?”
“Erm, hello?” Jax frowns down at her. “Husband standing right here?”
“Yes, yes, you’ve had your fun.” I grumble, taking another sip of my scotch. “I’m sure Pepper gets the picture.”
“She does,” Pepper confirms sarcastically, sliding her hand into mine and flashing me her pearly white teeth. “Let’s go and dance, community dick.”
My friends all burst out laughing, so loud that they draw the attention of all the bystanders in a twenty-foot radius.
I probably deserved that. I allow her to pull me away, finding it hard not to smile at the way she doesn’t hesitate to take me down a peg or two and handing my glass off to a server with a tray as he walks by.
When we reach the densely packed dancefloor, she wraps her body around mine and smiles ruefully up at me.
“About that—”