Chapter 29
Selena
The next day, I left my marketing class and headed for a shift at the library.
Surprisingly, I was still ahead in class.
Brody’s rules that saw me home most nights, and up early to exercise in the mornings, were giving me more time to study.
I enjoyed the feeling of being ahead for the first time in my academic life.
It was nice. More than nice. I even wondered what it would be like to work after I graduated.
There was nearly a sense of excitement there, which wasn’t something I’d felt in a long while.
During my library shift, I popped my earphones in, put my audiobook on, and went through the almost calming motions of returning books to their rightful places.
One of the books to go back was Much Ado About Nothing. I lingered over it, turning the pages and finding one of the scenes that I’d read in the audition. I pulled my earphones out to concentrate on the words.
The feeling of reading and disappearing returned to me. God, it had felt good. It had felt different than anything else.
“Wow, you’re really into Shakespeare,” someone said beside me.
I spun around to see who had walked right up next to me without me noticing. Great situational awareness, Selena. Well done.
Nick leaned against the stack to my right.
His left eye was bruised, and his nose still looked tender. I clapped a hand over my mouth, shocked at the sight.
“Oh my God, did Brody do that?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s nothing that doesn’t happen at least once a season on the ice, don’t worry about it.”
“Still, it wasn’t cool,” I muttered, feeling responsible.
Nick shrugged again uncaringly, but his eyes were hard. “Sinclair will get what’s coming to him, don’t worry about it.”
Okay, well, that sounded ominous.
“Anyway, I didn’t come over here to talk about that asshole, though I’d really like to know why he feels entitled to tell you who you can and can’t hang out with. I mean, I had no idea you were pretty much part of his family now. You kept that on the down-low.”
“What, you’d expect someone to go around and brag about it?”
Nick nodded. “Why not? Marrying into the Sinclair family is like winning the lottery, isn’t it?”
“Not to me.” I shoved a book onto the shelf. “Anyway, what can I do for you? You need help finding a book?”
“Nope. I’m not a model student, to be honest. But I wanted to see if we could give our date another shot. We didn’t even get to the fun part.” He smiled.
A shot of reluctance lanced through me.
I laughed awkwardly and then shrugged. “I think we had enough of a chance to see if there was something here or not.”
Nick narrowed his eyes at me. “That means… you don’t think there is?”
“I’m just not in the right mindset for dating. Winter should have told you that. I wanted to give it a shot for her sake, more than anyone else, honestly, but it’s not fair to the guy—to you. I’m not ready.”
“Not ready for anyone, or just not interested in me?” Nick paused. “I mean, are you thinking of dating anyone else?”
Brody’s smug, arrogant, entitled face flashed through my mind. God, it was a condemnation. I shoved it forcefully out.
“No one,” I quickly told him.
Nick was quiet for a beat. “Is this because of what happened last year?”
I froze for a second, trying to see where he was going with that line. Because I always imagined the worst. I always went to the worst possible scenario every time, and usually it wasn’t the case.
“What happened last year?”
“You know, everyone knows,” Nick prompted. “The reason you took a year off.”
Fuck.
I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. “No, I don’t really know, and I don’t think ‘everyone’ knows anything. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re talking about, because I’m not filling in any blanks for you.”
I already knew my mind was capable of making up way more hurtful things than anyone else could.
Nick paused. “You had a bereavement or something, right?”
I stared at him and then nodded slowly, painfully. Yes, my dad had died a few years ago, but that wasn’t what had prompted my flight to California. I wasn’t about to tell Nick that, though.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. There’s no pressure. Let’s just play it by ear. We don’t need to do anything right now, except maybe get to know each other a little more. Even as friends,” Nick suggested.
It felt churlish to refuse such a good-natured suggestion, so I nodded.
Nick grinned like I’d made his day, and I wondered if I was judging him too harshly based on one random dinner. Even if I was, it didn’t change the fact that I had no interest in dating him.
I got behind my cart.
“Well, I better get a move on. At work and all that,” I told him, apologetic.
He nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you at the game this week? If you’re coming along to watch?”
Right. The Hellions’ first match of the season.
“I’ll be there. See you on the ice.”
I got back to the house after a long day on campus. The novelty of being by myself was lessening day by day. The house was too damn big to rattle around in all alone.
I ate dinner in the quiet and then called my mom.
“Darling! How nice to hear from you,” she enthused.
“Yeah, well, I figured I should make sure you’re still alive,” I said.
She laughed, like it was a joke.
“Actually, I was going to call, but with the time difference, it got all complicated.”
“Time difference? Aren’t you in New York?”
“John surprised me with a little trip. We’re in Paris!”
“Paris, wow, I had no idea.”
“Mm-hmm, it’s technically for work, and Arthur is with us, but I don’t mind having plenty of shopping time to burn during the day. I’ve gotten you some nice things, and Cici, too.”
“Thanks.” I sighed and fought back the urge to tell her that instead of nice things, I’d rather she was here.
“How are the boys?”
“They’re in London,” I reminded her.
“Oh, right, okay. Of course, the anniversary,” my mom muttered.
“So, you know what happened their sister?”
“Of course, it’s such a sad story.”
I waited a beat. “Well, what is it?”
“It’s not really my story to tell.”
I waited for her notorious urge to gossip to overcome her prudence. I didn’t have to wait long.
“Well, it seemed that their mom had a lot of problems. You know, once the boys were born, she moved out without a word to John. Went away to live halfway across the world in India at an ashram or something.”
That didn’t quite match with the impression Brody had given me, but the confidence in my mother’s tone told me she had no interest in anyone’s point of view but John’s.
“Anyway,” my mother continued, “the daughter—Emily, I think her name was—inherited those problems. She drank a lot, and apparently, got into drugs at thirteen years old at one of the fancy boarding schools she went to outside London. From there it was a downward slide into an overdose at the age of eighteen.”
“Wow. That’s so sad,” I murmured, staring across the kitchen island at the sitting room, unseeing. “They all must have felt so… alone.”
“Alone? You mean the boys or Emily? John certainly did. His wife abandoned him and then his daughter died, can you even imagine?”
I didn’t bother pointing out that the boys had also lost their mother and their sister.
Minutes later, my mom hung up, rushing off for a massage.
I went upstairs, too restless to sleep but having nothing else to do. It was exactly the kind of night that called for a sexy audiobook and vibrator. But Brody still had my goddamn stuff.
I paused in the hallway outside his door. Had he bothered to lock it? What if it was hiding in plain sight in there? I’d love to find my stuff. First of all, so I could be reunited with my little friend, but also to get a win over Brody.
I grabbed his doorknob and turned it slowly. The door opened. Yes!
I stepped into the room, the smell of the empty space immediately enveloping me. It was pure Brody.
I breathed in way too deep. I turned on the lamp by his desk and sat in his leather swivel chair.
It was one of those ones that was perfectly designed to ergonomically fit one person, and it was comically big for me.
Still, I spun around and looked around the room, trying to see it through Brody’s analytical mind. Where was a good hiding place?
I couldn’t come up with a single idea. So, I got up and started in one corner, checking every single place I could find and working systematically across the room.
I checked under furniture, behind it, knocked on walls and lifted rugs. There was nothing. Eventually, I was left with the walk-in closet. It was enormous, just like mine, though Brody had way more clothes than I did.
I walked around, touching T-shirts and polos as I went. Half the clothes were smart and casual; the other half was sporty.
It smelled even more like Brody in here. The clothes suffused with whatever cologne he wore. It smelled exclusive and expensive. It was very him.
I checked for false backs in the closet, knocking here and there. My phone rang. I answered quickly, imagining that it was my mom calling back, forgetting something.
Instead, a deep voice spoke in my ear.
“Distract me, heathen. I really need a fucking distraction.”
I pulled my phone away from my ear to check that I wasn’t imagining Brody’s voice.
Noise came over the line in the background. It sounded like a party. London was five hours ahead. I hated that I’d checked that this morning. So, it was the small hours of the morning for Brody, and he was somewhere noisy.
“So, you called me? I thought me being a distraction was a problem?” I asked pointedly.
“Yeah, it is. Everything about you is a problem, Selena Carmichael… and I really fucking wish you were here right now.”
Warmth filled my limbs, permeating my blood.
“Why, so I could drink too much, make a scene, and jump into the pool?”
“Exactly.” Brody sighed, the background din cut off as it sounded like a door shut.
“You know, you could just do it yourself,” I told him. “I bet you haven’t been wasted in forever.”