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Dear God, could this get any worse?
“Mom, Dad, can I talk to you about this later?” Brooke asked, though she knew it was futile. Her father wasn’t going anywhere, she could tell by his expression.
“Hey, it’s Grandpa and Grammy. How you doing?” Jamie swaggered toward her dad, holding his hand out. Her father looked at him with distaste.
“I see you brought the rest of the scum with you,” Martin said, staring right at Aiden. “What is this, the Black family outing?”
“Well, not all the family. One of us is missing.” Jamie winked at them. God, how had she ever let herself get near him? He was odious.
“I heard about your mother. My condolences.”
“I wasn’t talking about my mother. I’m talking about my son.”
Time froze. Brooke’s breath caught in her throat as everybody went silent around them. Even the auctioneer had stopped calling out, as though realizing there was a far better show happening stage left. Slowly she turned to look at Aiden, whose mouth had dropped open. She began to count down in her head – five, four, three, two, one second to disaster.
“You have a son? I didn’t know.” It was the first thing her mother had said. Brooke turned to look at her. She was surrounded by her usual air of grandeur, her body held straight in a way only years of yoga could maintain.
r /> “Oh, I’m pretty sure you know him very well.”
“Jamie, shut the hell up.” Aiden closed the gap between himself and his brother, squaring his body up.
“Hey, I’m talking to Marty and Lil. We’re practically family, after all.”
“What’s he talking about?” Lillian said, frowning at his shortening of her name. “Brooke?”
Brooke opened her mouth to say something, but no words would come out. They were all frozen on her tongue. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. It was like seeing a train heading straight for you and being caught on the rail.
“Come on, as if you didn’t know.” Jamie’s eyes sparked as he moved his gaze from her father to her mother. “You must have known, right? We’re related, after all. Your grandson is my child.”
26
Aiden couldn’t stand the look of betrayal on Brooke’s face, her eyes full of tears. This woman, the one who dominated everything in his life, he’d hurt her and it was killing him. He reached for her, wanting to pull her into his arms and protect her from the world unraveling in front of her.
But she stepped back and lifted a hand up to wipe away the tears from her cheek. “No lies,” she whispered, her words cutting through him like a knife. “That’s what you promised. You should have warned me. I could have been prepared. I could have done something…”
“Brooke, is this true?” Martin’s voice was low. Menacing. “Did you sleep with this scum?”
“Takes one to know one, Marty.”
“Dad, I…”
“Brooke,” he roared, silencing the room. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”
Her face crumpled. Aiden couldn’t stand the way she looked at him with helplessness in her eyes. He’d betrayed her the way her parents had. Made decisions without believing she had a right to make choices too.
“I need to go,” she whispered.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Martin commanded. But she was already backing away, her hand fluttering at her throat. A moment later, she turned on her heel and ran toward the door, holding her skirt with one hand as she tried to keep herself stable with the other. Aiden turned to follow her when a soft hand touched his shoulder. Ember. Worry was etched on her face.
“Let her calm down,” she said. “Don’t follow her. Sort this out first.”
He followed her gaze to Brooke’s parents and his brother. They were glaring at him, every one of them looking at him as if he had all the answers.
But he didn’t. Not a single one.
Ember was right. He couldn’t leave his brother here with the Newtons. Jamie was too much of a liability for that. Aiden could do nothing but watch as Brooke disappeared through the open doors onto the ocean front, her hair flying in the breeze.
She was gone and he felt empty. So empty. He took a breath and felt the emptiness fill with a whole new emotion.
