Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
brIAR
I close my eyes, lifting my face into the breeze.
It’s slightly too brisk, cold enough to raise goose bumps on my skin, but I don’t go inside.
I can’t go inside.
Not when the moonlight and the stars beckon, drawing me into the past.
Another night. Another couch. Another man.
Another lifetime.
And now I need to shut the door on it.
I’ll tell him the truth, deal with the fallout, and then we can both move on, untangle this twisted-up knot that’s drawn us back together—before he can turn himself into my savior and me into the damsel in distress again.
Before he destroys me again.
I turn around and gasp, not having heard him come out onto the balcony behind me. He’s leaning back against the wall, arms and ankles crossed and, God, why does he have to be so fucking handsome?
Those deep brown eyes. The dark stubble on his cheeks. That chiseled jaw. Broad shoulders. Strong arms. Narrow waist. Thick thighs. An ass I can’t see…
But that I got caught watching time and again during our brief relationship.
It’s a really nice ass.
“I can’t get the USB back,” I say. “And I don’t know what’s on it, but I’m guessing it’s not good because they wanted it.”
He doesn’t move, just keeps his ankles and arms crossed and stares at me.
“What charity did you donate the money to?”
I still, the ice I’d been trying to gather around me shattering and falling to the wayside. “Wh-what?”
“The charity you donated the money I left for you. Which one was it?”
I dig my toes into the soles of my boots, trying to figure out why he’s asking.
Is he going to take it back?
“It was four years ago now,” I say quietly. “I think they’ve probably already spent it.”
“I know.”
The silence stretches, broken only by the faint metallic click of a flagpole, the whoosh of traffic below, the occasional airplane soaring overhead.
“So what charity?” he finally asks.
I weigh whether to tell him for another long moment.
But what are the chances of him dropping this?
Not great.
And really, is it going to matter one way or another?
The man I knew wouldn’t take money from a charity.
You don’t know this man.
Maybe I never knew Brooks at all.
Sighing, I shake my head…and name it.
He doesn’t react for what feels like an eternity. Then his mouth kicks up. “Horses, huh?”
I look away, my throat suddenly tight, my eyes burning.
Then I shrug. “They’re innocent.”
His eyes drop from mine and he nods then pushes off the wall. “Come on,” he says, his voice unreadable and soft enough to barely reach my ears. “It’s cold.”
He walks inside.
By the time I pick my jaw up from the floor and follow him, he’s at the fridge, snagging a beer. He lifts one in my direction and I shake my head.
My stomach is stuffed—full to the brim with omelets and pizza and the couple of bourbons I had earlier.
Yet when he grabs the milk out and starts making a mug of hot chocolate, my dessert stomach wakes up, rumbling softly.
“It’s for you,” he says as though he’s somehow heard it even from all the way across the room. He puts the mug in the microwave, jabs at the buttons, then turns for a cabinet, tugging open the door.
The bag of marshmallows he pulls out makes my heart squeeze.
The microwave dings and he retrieves the mug, topping it with a truly absurd amount of marshmallows.
“Here,” he murmurs, pressing it into my hand.
“I…thanks,” I whisper.
He snags his beer and comes back over. “What happened?”
“With what?” I hedge, plucking out a marshmallow.
He just looks at me.
And God, I don’t want to tell him.
I have to, though.
I have to end this shit.
“They came not long after I donated the money and moved into my own apartment. I was working at a vet clinic answering the phones but figured I’d go to tech school so I could eventually help with the animals.”
“You would be good at that.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“Then what happened?”
I fight back a shudder as I set my hot chocolate aside.
His eyes flick to it then back to mine.
“A woman approached me, said she had a great job opportunity. I didn’t trust her, obviously, and turned her down. Then someone else made an approach, and he really didn’t like it when I turned him down too. But I didn’t relent—I had a job, a place to live. I didn’t need a ‘great’ opportunity.”
His chest rises and falls on a breath, like he knows the worst is coming.
And it is.
“At first, it seemed like nothing—notes in my mailbox I just threw away. But then I started finding them in my apartment.”
He goes stiff.
“Not shoved under the door or anything, but”—this time I can’t hold back the shudder and it vibrates through me so violently I’m glad I put the mug of hot cocoa down—“on my kitchen counter, my nightstand, next to my toothbrush.” I pause. “In my underwear drawer.”
His expression darkens.
“I just threw them all away, knew it couldn’t be anything good.” I sigh. “And then I lost my job.”
He curses.
“I’d given the money away, so I didn’t have much of a safety net, and even though I applied everywhere, I couldn’t get a new position. So eventually…I was evicted.” I nibble at the corner of my mouth. “But it wasn’t until I was living out of my car that things got really bad.”
He sets his beer beside the mug. “How bad?”
I don’t want to think about that time. “What was on the flash drive?”
“My father’s personal journal and enough information to ruin my family.”
No hesitation in unleashing the bomb he just dropped.
“I…what?”
“How’d it get really bad?”
I blink once. Twice. “Ruin your family?”
“My father was a bastard—you knew that much.”
I nod.
“Well, he liked to keep a record of precisely how much…and all the unsavory ways he was creating our family’s legacy.”
“Umm…”
“For the record, that includes blackmail, corporate espionage, and even on a few occasions, human trafficking.”
My mouth has dropped open.
I can feel it.
But I can’t make myself stop gaping at him.
“I don’t give a fuck what the old bastard did and I don’t give a fuck if it ruins my name, ruins me—I looked the other way plenty of times and know my own reckoning might come if that drive gets out.
But I don’t care about me. I care about you.
” He leans closer. “What happened when you were living out of your car?”
I’m blinking again.
Once. Twice.
“You care about me?”
“Yes. Now tell me, baby. What the fuck happened to you?”