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“He was serious, Jill,” I said, taking her hands in mine. “He hinted at it when I was first trying to get you on the boat. Your brother sees me differently than you do. He’s known me since I started college, and well,” I glanced at my coffee, then back to Jill. “Sometimes he still sees the freshman fuckup sleeping off a hangover through his exams. He thinks Emma is living proof that I’m not responsible.”
“What?” Tears spilled down her cheeks, but there was anger in her eyes. “Emma? For God’s sake.! Bruin, Emma is proof of the good man you’ve become.” She reached forward, stroking my cheek with her hand. “He probably hasn’t even met Emma and seen the two of you together. If I had any doubts about what kind of man you are, seeing what an incredible dad you are made them evaporate.”
The word struck me like right in the heart, and for a moment, I thought I felt a tear in my own eye. I’d never really thought about how I looked to other people with Emma. It had always been just the two of us doing our thing. More tears flowed from her face, and I could tell that she saw my emotions written in my eyes.
“I love you, Jillian.” The words spilled from my mouth simply, easily, and immediately, Jillian threw her arms around my neck and hugged me.
“I love you too, Bruin,” she gasped, sniffing before we kissed a long, sweet kiss, then let our foreheads rest against each other.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I said, my voice deep and thick. “But I know what your relationship with
your brother means to you. And he means your career, too.”
“He’s the only family I have.” She paused. “After Mom and Dad died, we’ve always had each other’s backs. Us against the world. I-I don’t want to hurt him, I feel like it would betray everything we’ve built together.”
“But you’re your own woman,” I said, slowly bringing us to an arm’s length apart, my hands still on her arms, squeezing her reassuringly. “Jill, you’ve grown in ways that even Jeff can’t see. You’re a capable businesswoman, and you’re able to make your own decisions, your own life. Emma and I can give you all the family you could want,” I said, looking at her seriously, a kind smile on my face as her eyes went wide. “She already loves you. I want to give you a place with me in Santa Barbara and a place in my life, our lives. Everything you could want.”
I paused, taking a breath. “But like I said, you’re your own woman. I know how much Jeff means to you. I want you more than anything in the world, baby, and I’d move mountains for you with my bare hands.” That made her smile and half-sob, half-laugh. “But I need to know you want it too.”
“I do, Bruin,” she said immediately, with no hesitation, and it made me feel like I was on top of the world. “I want it more than anything else in the world.” I took her face in my hands and kissed her, salty tears on my lips, and she wrapped her hands around my sides before I broke the kiss.
“Then let’s make it happen.”
“I’m going to talk to Jeff,” she declared, wiping a tear from under her eye. “He’s still in town. I think he was trying to figure out what to do about the yacht sale. He’s not totally iced over yet, and if there’s anyone who can get him to come around, it’s me.”
I gave her that confident, boyish smile that she knew so well. “I’ve got your back, Jill. Whatever you need to say to him, I know you can do it.”
She fell into me again, and we kissed fiercely before I whispered into her ear, “And when you’re done, I going to have your back again.”
28
Jillian
I paced back and forth in my hotel room so much I was starting to worry I might wear a line into the carpet. It was eleven o’clock at night. How the hell was I going to convince Jeff not to freak the fuck out when he found out about Bruin and me?
At first, for a brief moment, I had toyed with the idea of just waiting until Bruin and I were more serious, more committed to each other. After all, what was the point of bringing it up and scaring the hell out of my big brother if there was still a chance my relationship with Bruin could just be a passing fling? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn’t a fling. It never had been.
Even from the start, when we were just two horny people fucking each other on that yacht out on the ocean away from prying eyes, it wasn’t just a fling. I should have seen it coming from miles away. Bruin had been the literal man of my dreams since I was an infatuated, idiot teenager. And it was never just an animalistic, sex-fueled thing. No. Even when I was fantasizing about him all those years in between, the fantasies were more than sexual. I imagined the two of us going on dates. Traveling the world together. I imagined us having long discussions about politics, philosophy. Books. And after seeing the state of that gorgeous library onboard Mirabella, I had a pretty strong inkling that Bruin was more of an avid reader than he let on.
I was obsessed with him. Every thought in my head and every urge of my body longed for him, returned to him over and over again like a favorite, safe place to rest. He was my comfort, my home. And that was a lot coming from a woman who traveled so constantly that home was more of an abstract idea than a concrete location.
“Ugh,” I groaned, stopping and placing a hand over my stomach.
I felt like shit. I wasn’t sure what was going on with my gut, but I had been extremely nauseous all day. I assumed it probably had something to do with the constant airplane travel I had been through lately. I was a seasoned traveler. I had so many frequent flier miles I hardly knew what to do with them all. Airports no longer made me anxious like they did when I was younger. I could zone out of any annoying airplane environment. Crying baby, drunken seatmate, extreme turbulence. None of it bothered me much anymore. But still, it had to be a little unsettling for my body to change altitudes so often and rapidly.
“Okay. How do I tell Jeff I’m fucking his old college roommate?” I asked myself aloud, sitting down on the edge of my bed. My stomach churned and I felt a wave of intense dizziness. I had to close my eyes and cradle my face in my hands, waiting for the feeling to pass.
“This is not a good time for me to suddenly get sick,” I muttered. Just then, my stomach lurched again and I jumped to my feet, bolting to the bathroom. I collapsed to the floor and threw up, barely able to scrape my hair back out of my face in time. I coughed, feeling totally awful. “What the living hell is this? Did I eat something bad? Oh God, is this food poisoning?”
I flushed and stood up to brush my teeth and wash my face with cold water. I had hardly been eating much lately. What could have possibly made me sick?
Probably from flying, sitting in a cabin of compressed, stale air surrounded by a bunch of potentially gross strangers who could very well be carrying viruses and contaminations. On the flight to Florida, I had flown business class, but there was still a man sitting near me who kept coughing and sneezing. It was pretty nasty.
“Oh, I bet that gross guy got me sick,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I hope I didn’t get Bruin sick.” God knew we had exchanged enough bodily fluids during our rabid fuck-fest on the yacht. If I was sick with something, surely Bruin would be sick, too.
Wait.
I sat down again, my legs suddenly feeling weak.
