Chapter 30 Aurora
AURORA
A buzzing penetrates the warm cocoon of bedsheets and body heat currently wrapped around me.
The sound fades away, and I snuggle deeper into Mabel, burying my face into her hair to fall back asleep. The buzzing starts again, and I groan.
“If it’s your uncle, tell him to fuck off,” Mabel mumbles into my neck, and I laugh as I reluctantly wriggle out of her arms and climb out of bed to follow the sound.
The cool air kisses my body, bringing goosebumps to my bare skin as I search for my phone. It stops buzzing, so I wait until it starts again, then find it in my pile of clothing on the bathroom floor.
The moment I see the name on the screen, my heart drops to my feet. Brady.
I knew he’d be calling. I told him to. But having to deal with him immediately after waking up is not something I want to do. At all. Especially not while naked in another woman’s bedroom after fooling around all night long.
My stomach roils as the phone rings out and his contact photo disappears, displaying ten missed calls and twenty text message notifications. All from him. But then something else catches my eye, and all the oxygen is sucked from the room.
A notification from our tracking app sits at the top of my phone screen.
Brady has his set up to alert him when I leave or arrive home, and when I complete a drive. It tells him my speed and if I’ve made any stops, and I’ve been trained to also text him photos several times a day.
For a while, I believed it was because he wanted me safe, but now I know better. Now I know it’s for control, and I’ve slowly stopped sending those photos since Adelaide. Since the kiss.
My tracking app is only set up for one alert, though.
Brady will travel often for work. Sometimes to San Francisco or Seattle. Once or twice, he’s had to go to New York. I am always left at home.
Since the accident, I sometimes get anxious when I know someone else is traveling.
Because of this, I’ve set my app to alert me when Brady completes a flight safely.
There’s only one reason that notification would be on my phone screen right now, and I don’t know of any business trips on the calendar.
With shaky fingers, I tap the notification, and the app pops up on my screen.
Brady Sinclair has landed safely in Sydney.
I blink several times to make sure I’m reading it correctly, but then it’s replaced by his contact photo as he calls again.
I jump up and start putting on my clothes. I’m so frantic that I trip over my jeans and my phone crashes to the floor.
Mabel appears in the doorway in a silk robe with her hair still messy from sleep. She’s smiling until she sees me, and then her face fills with concern.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
The phone, face down on the ground, starts to ring again, and she reaches for it.
“Don’t! Don’t answer it. It’s Brady.”
She looks confused. “I thought you were planning to talk—”
“He’s here,” I blurt, cutting her off. “He’s in Sydney.”
Her eyes go wide as she starts to feel what I’m feeling. “Where?”
I shake my head as I zip my jeans, then pull on my shirt. I don’t bother with my underwear. I don’t have time to look for them, and they’re probably still wet, anyway.
“I don’t know. If you pull up the purple tracking app, there’s a map. You can zoom in.”
It a matter of seconds, she looks up from the phone with a horrified expression. “Five minutes. He’s less than five minutes away.”
I run.
Out her French doors, on to the terrace, and into my room. I rip a brush through my hair and pull on a hoodie to hide the fact that I’m not wearing a bra. My hand is closing around the doorknob as Mabel comes rushing in through the terrace doors.
“Hey, take deep breaths. It’s okay. We’ll—"
“It’s not okay. He’s not supposed to be here.”
“I know. But we can handle this together. We can talk—”
“No! No. No, you can’t talk to him. You can’t. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”
I rush out the door and down the stairs. I don’t know what to do. I wasn’t supposed to have to face him in person. On the phone. It was supposed to be on the phone, so I could hang up if he yelled. So I didn’t have to listen to his hateful words.
Oh, God, what am I going to do?
Now he’s angry. He must have heard my voicemail by now. He knows I’m not coming home. He’s called ten times and texted twenty times, and I haven’t answered a single one.
When I reach the main level, I grow even more apprehensive when I only see Callie, Claire, and Sav in the kitchen.
“Where are the guys? Uncle Wade?”
Sav looks up from a red notebook. “Surfing. Well, the guys and Brynn are surfing. Ham is probably off somewhere snarling at small animals.”
“No.”
No, this isn’t good.
He won’t check himself if it’s just women here. If the guys were here, maybe he’d pretend. But if it’s just the girls...
I open my mouth to ask about the bodyguards, but my voice dies the moment a loud, forceful knock booms through the house. My eyes whip to the front door, and I freeze. I can’t move, and I can’t breathe. My muscles and organs are lead.
There is movement in my periphery, but I don’t turn to see what it is. Instead, I watch in slow motion as the front door bangs open, and my husband steps inside.
His face is scrunched and ugly with fury, and his eyes scan the room, jumping over everyone until finally landing on me. My hand flies to the pendant of my necklace, clutching it tightly, as I act on muscle memory.
It’s almost pathetic how my body moves on instinct. It’s something I’ve done for years, only this time, it’s like I’m watching it from above.
It’s not me plastering on a smile and walking up to greet him. It’s not my high-pitched, quivering, saccharine voice inviting him inside. It’s some woman who looks like me, some actress in a movie or figment of my imagination. I can’t stop it. I can’t intervene. I can only watch in disgust.
“Brady! Hi. What a nice surprise.”
He scowls at me, but I do my best to ignore it and go in for a hug. His body is rigid and wrong in my arms. Too hard. Too cold. I kiss him on the cheek and hide a wince when his stubble scratches my lips. He doesn’t make a move to embrace me back, and I’m grateful for it.
I widen the distance and try to run damage control the only way I know how.
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
His jaw pops and his nostrils flare as he glares at me. “Maybe if you’d answer your phone, you wouldn’t be surprised.”
The bite in his tone makes me flinch, but I try my best to hide it with a bright smile.
“Oh, I can’t find my phone. It must—”
“You had it last night when you called to say you weren’t leaving the fucking tour.”
I flinch again, and I dart my eyes to the kitchen where all the women, including Mabel, are now openly watching this embarrassing dumpster fire. I step a little closer and lower my voice.
“How about we go to lunch—”
“No, how about we talk about it right fucking now.”
He hasn’t raised his voice, but the barely contained anger is evident to me in every syllable. I reach with trembling fingers to brush his hand, but he smacks me away.
“I’d love to show you around. We can—”
“So, you lost your phone, Aurora? And you expect me to believe you’re responsible enough to stay here? You can’t even keep track of your own shit.”
It’s my impulse to nod, and despite trying to fight it, I apologize. “I’m sorry. I’ll find it. I’m sure it’s here somewhere.”
He opens his mouth again, but snaps it shut when Sav slings her arm over my shoulder and Mabel steps up on my other side.
I look quickly between the two of them, and then at my husband. He’s livid, and they’re too close. I try to take a step back, to get them out of his reach, but their feet stay planted firmly in place. In fact, to my absolute horror, they’re both glaring defiantly at him.
This is not good. This is very, very bad.
“What do you want?” Brady snaps, shifting his eyes between Sav and Mabel. “This is a private conversation.”
“You’re talking so loud the neighbors could hear you, bud,” Sav says, voice all sass and snark. “I’m curious. Is this how you always speak to Aurora?”
“It is,” Mabel says, and she’s simmering with rage. “I’ve heard it before. Apparently, his role is to play the controlling, abusive asshole.”
“This is none of your business.”
Sav holds up a finger. “Yeah, no. You’re not tall enough to use that attitude with me. Bring the audacity down until it matches your height, okay, buddy?”
I think Brady’s head might explode. His height is his biggest insecurity, second only to his receding hairline. How Sav knew to hit on it is beyond me, but it just makes me more scared for her. I need to get him out of here.
“It’s fine, Sav, he didn’t mean to get loud.” I look back at Brady. “Let’s go to the beach, okay? We can talk there.”
He turns his narrowed eyes on me, and I let him see the desperation in my face. I’m not above begging.
“Please,” I whisper, and I feel Mabel stiffen beside me.
“If you leave this house, you’re taking Red,” Sav says, and Brady finally releases me from his glare to look at her.
“Who?”
“Me.”
I whip my eyes to the voice and find Red with his giant, tree trunk arms folded across his barrel of a chest. I don’t know when he got here, or how long he’s been standing right behind Brady, but he eases my tension just a tiny amount.
“That’s Sav’s security guard,” Callie says, and I turn around to find both her and Claire standing behind me. “He’s trained in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jui Jitsu.”
“And you should know that he also used to be a cage fighter,” Claire adds with a smirk. “Just in case you try to get a little too big for your breeches.”
“I’d send someone closer to your weight class, but my twelve-year-old is surfing with sharks.”
Goddamn it, Sav.
She has no self-preservation. Brady is going to lose it if I don’t get him out of here. I slide out from under her arm and inch my way to the stairs.
“I’m going to go get my shoes, and then we can go to the beach, okay? Please.”
Brady tries to walk with me, but Red steps in his path. “She can go alone.”