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This was the part I hated, but honesty was better than leading her on.
“I really do have to get to work early.” I walked closer to the bed and sat at the edge, finishing off the last button. “You are welcome to stay till the morning. Breakfast will be delivered.” I took in her tousled red hair, her once-piercing brown eyes … but there was nothing. No spark. No sudden urge to kiss her. Only an unbearable itch underneath my skin to get up, leave, and shower again at home.
“You’re not going to call me.” Her tone was resolute, soft, her high-pitched, trying-to-be-cute voice gone.
This was better than the previous psycho woman who had destroyed the hotel room when I left, but it still sucked.
I sighed resolutely, trying to add some feeling into it. “You’re way too good for me, Olivia. I’m too busy, I would never pay you any attention, and I’m an asshole.”
All of this was true, but really, she wasn’t the right girl for me. Maybe I was looking for something that didn’t exist. My parents had been married thirty-five years, and when my father had met my mother, he said he had known. It was in the way she’d made him laugh. He’d just known that she was it for him. I knew Olivia wasn’t it. And the woman before her hadn’t been it and the woman before that.
Will I eventually find someone I want to be with? What if it isn’t in the cards for me—to have what Charles or my parents had?
My gut clenched at the thought.
She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder, and I resisted the urge to cringe.
“But, if you change your mind, you will call me, right?”
“Of course.” I forced an even smoothness in my tone, knowing I wouldn’t, and I kissed her forehead one last time before standing up to leave. Relief flooded me once I was out of the hotel.
I hopped into my Aston Martin and headed home to the suburbs. I didn’t want to sleep alone tonight, not at my condo in the city. That wasn’t where I called home anyway.
As I drove and the city lights disappeared behind me, my shoulders slumped. I should’ve felt energized. Olivia was a freak in the bedroom, but all I felt was fatigue in my bones and an undeniable desire to knock out on my bed. All this work when dating—the wining and dining and the sex—was tiring. I didn’t mind the sex, but it seemed as though I were on the hamster wheel of dating. I’d pick a girl, repeat the cycle, and hope that it was different this time, that I’d like a girl long enough to keep her. But findingherhasn’t happened yet and round and round the cycle I went.
I hated when my brothers were right, and they were; I was already tired of the game.
I waved at the guard at our palatial estate to open the gates and drove up the winding road to the mansion that my parents had built and expanded over the years.
Thinking of not having them here anymore always sent an ache to my chest, an unbearable tightness in my lungs. It was almost four years ago, and it seemed as though tragedy had hit us one after the other during that time.
Charles’s wife, Natalie, had died when giving birth, leaving him to raise two girls by himself. And my parents asked Charles to move in so they could help with their grandchildren. Charles was an absolute wreck during that time, unable to go to work or properly care for the girls. It was one of the hardest times we’d gone through; we were all afraid he wouldn’t break out of his depression.
And, just when life had gotten back to normal, a drunk driver had taken my parents’ lives. It had gutted us, and we’d never been the same since.
But family was of the utmost importance, so we all tried. Mason and I had moved in to help Charles raise the kids. Though Mason and I had our places in the city, we were sleeping in our Barrington suburban house we’d grown up in because family always came first in the Brisken household.
As I entered our house and stepped into the silence, an agonizing sadness took over me. I took the stairs two at a time and slowly opened Sarah’s door. I could see the moonlight shine a light over my niece’s small twelve-year-old frame, and I released a soft sigh, knowing she was safe.
Next, I tiptoed into Mary’s room. The night-light on the wall illuminated her room in a faint amber glow. The princess decals on her walls smiled down on my sweet niece. I walked closer and took in her petite features, the way she hugged the elephant that I had given to her when she was three, and the way she slept with her mouth slightly ajar.Damn precious.I kissed the top of her head and brushed the back of my hand against her cheek.
Dads weren’t supposed to play favorites, but no one ever said anything about uncles.
