Brandon McVey is.
Chapter 16
Frankie
Istep around the closet door and stumble over a pair of jeans I’d tossed on the floor. “Bran…what are you doing here?”
He shrugs like he just happened to walk into my apartment by accident. Sunlight streams in behind, illuminating him like some kind of ghostly specter.
“Can I come in?”
I hesitate, then nod.
He shuts the front door. Without the sunshine backlighting him, I get a clearer look at his face. His hair sticks up like he’s just rolled out of bed—a little overgrown, as usual—and still bleached blond from too much time in the sun. His shorts and faded t-shirt are deceptively casual, belying his killer instinct for a story and his unstoppable need to pursue a good one.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Fran.” Brandon’s lip pulls into a smug look that used to make my heart stop. Still does, apparently, but for very different reasons.
I curl my fingers into my palms to hidetheir shaking. “Didn’t really want to be found by you. Thought I’d made that clear when I left.”
“Come on, Fran. Have a little sympathy for the man whose heart you left broken.” His voice cracks slightly, unleashing a flood of feelings in me.
Not necessarily for Brandon, but feelings that can’t be separated from him. Before I came to Serenity, he was the only person who ever called me Fran. We were Fran and Bran. Us against the world.
Or at least us against Malcolm.
“You know why I couldn’t stay.” I take a couple tentative steps toward him, almost unconsciously.
“Yeah,” he says. “And you know why I had to publish the story.”
Those words are enough to freeze me in place and loosen his hold on me. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on thehad topart.”
He lets out a small laugh. “Sort of come ’round to your point of view on that. It was a choice I made. And if I’d known how much it would cost me, I wouldn’t have done it.”
For a second, I think he’s apologized. But when I sort through his words, I hear what he’s really sorry about. Not what the story cost me. What it costhim.
Bran shifts his weight, moves like he’s going to come closer, but I put up a hand to stop him. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know what it would cost. I told you I’d leave.”
“You’re right. I should have listened to you. I should have believed you.” His apologetic tone threatens to pull me close again.
“I told you Malcolm would come after me. You got a promotion and applause. I got slaughtered in the press.”
“I didn’t think Malcolm would be so ruthless with his own daughter.”
I blink and look away. I want to stay angry at him for not knowing, for not realizing what Malcolm would do. Ineedto stay angry.
But the truth is, I was surprised too, the way Malcolm twisted things to make me the villain. The way he was fine treating me like a business partner who’d betrayed him rather than as his only daughter who wasn’t comfortable with the direction he wanted to go with our resort.
But I remind myself that I’ve already made the mistake believing Brandon wouldn’t use me the same way Malcolm had. “Right. I get it. So why are you here, yeah?”
“Because he reached out to me.”
“Who?”
“Malcolm.”
I choke back my surprise. “Malcolm? Why would he go to you?”
He sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks on his toes. “To find you.”
