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ChapterTwelve
KATERINA
“P–please... I can’t live like this anymore.” My heart ached for the woman as she crumpled like a piece of wet tissue paper, and her sniffle echoed beyond the blood pounding in my ears. “I can’t pay you anything right n–now, butI–I..."
“You can pay me whatever you think this is worth once you have it.” Mason’s sharp gaze bore holes into the side of my head as I spoke, but I shirked off his glare. The woman started crying in earnest, and I clenched my hands in my lap to stave off the urge to touch her. “I have a P.O. box, 22530 at First National Bank, and you can drop it off there.”
“Th–thank you, thank you. I promise... I promise to repay you. I promise.” I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised at how quickly the nameless, beautifully tragic woman collected herself. Nodding firmly, her blue eyes twinkled with a renewed sense of life, a promise at a second chance, and she held her extraordinarily expensive purse with white-knuckle tightness. Silently leaving the booth of Mason’s favorite Italian place, she didn’t look back, and I blew out a hot breath as I slumped back in my seat.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, accepting an IOU? That’s not how this works, Katie.” Rolling my eyes as Mason snapped angrily, I picked up my fork to stab a ravioli, and waves of annoyance rolled off him across the booth seat. “I thought we agreed to half up front.”
“Mason, quit it already. If you want your rules, you do it. We agreed to half up front if it was possible, but you and I both know that most of the time, it’s not. Besides, you only want your half first so you can blow it on sports.” He couldn’t deny me, I knew, because he hated lying, and his huff lost its bluster long before it reached me. Shoving my forkful in my mouth, I groaned slightly at the wonderful tangy taste before continuing. “It’s good business not to take advantage of clients. She’ll pay me. They all do. And they usually pay me more than what I would ask, so it’s not like I’m making a stupid decision here.”
Blinking hard, I shook my head wildly in an effort to snap back to reality, and I glanced down to frown. My porch plants were soaked to the point of drowning, and my watering pot was almost completely empty. Rolling my lips between my teeth, I heaved a harsh sigh before a soft giggle drew my attention.
“You wanna talk about it, Kat?” Renee leaned on the railing of the porch, and I huffed softly as I scanned her slowly. “Maybe I can help.”
“What do I do if I had sex with someone, but I didn’t really mean to?” Her brows rose high, the wrinkles around her mouth becoming prominent, and I clenched my jaw hard. Tearing my eyes off her, I shook my head again, but my own question still rang in my ears. “It just... I don’t know, it just happened. We were hanging out, and there was no part of me telling me to stop. I didn’t even think about it until I left. I don’t know what to do now.”
“You mean now that you’ve had time to think about it, you realize that it might not be a good thing?” Jerking my head in a nod, I grunted softly, and Renee shuffled over to lean on the rail next to me. Gazing out over the back yard, or what little patch could be called a yard, I sighed heavily through my nose before she broke the quiet. “I think it depends, honestly. Do you like him that much?”
“Y–yes. I didn’t think it’d go this far, Renee.” Frowning as I turned my gaze to my plants, I pursed my lips as I chose my next words very carefully. “I thought he was just a rich jerk, but he’s the exact opposite. I’m not sure what to do.”
“Ah... yes, well, men do seem to surprise us when we least expect it, Kat. You know, I think it’s those moments when we forget that are the most dangerous. My husband and I, for example. Technically speaking, he’s also my ex-brother-in-law. He married my sister before we met, and they divorced before we met. I went to college across the country, but the point is that sometimes, the universe doesn’t care what happened in the past. Sometimes, you need a person who makes you forget because it’s the only way you can go back and look at things with fresh eyes.” Renee’s words hit me squarely in the chest, and I clenched my jaw as I propped my forearms on the railing. “I’m not saying not to go in with some degree of caution, but you shouldn’t overthink things, Kat. We’ve been neighbors for a couple of years, now, so having a fresh set of eyes might be a good thing.”
“I thought it would be harder.” Glancing over at her as her aged face stretched in a smile, I licked my lips nervously. My mind worked to sort through my predicament, and I hung my head with a low groan. “I mean, everyone, especially my mom, tells me to be careful. This guy, he’s, like, obscenely wealthy, and he lives so differently than me... but at the same time, a lot of the stuff we’ve gone through, respectively, is so similar. Sometimes, I feel like nothing can get in the way, but other times, it’s like we’re so far apart..."
“Everyone goes through trauma. Happy times, sad times, and money can’t change that, Kat. This guy is still a person with human feelings and wants and fears. If you enjoy being with him, you should enjoy it. Don’t let your worries get the better of you. Regardless of who or how or when, there are always going to be bumps in the road. It’s just a matter of how you deal with them and whether you let them impact the future. When I first met my husband, I thought he was a loser because of what my sister said about him. Then, I really got to know him, and I realized that he was a lot more than what I originally thought.”
“What if he hurt you but he didn’t realize it?” The question slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I tilted my head to stare at Renee. Her pointed features scrunched up as she thought, and I held my breath beyond the lump that formed in my throat.
“I would tell him what I perceived and how it made me feel. Just because it happened a long time ago, or he thought it didn’t hurt you, that doesn’t make it less of a problem. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, Kat, no matter what people want to say. You need to put effort into it, and if that means communicating, then you need to communicate. Do you mind my asking what you think he did?” Alarm bells rang in my head, but I was desperate. I wasn’t afraid to admit that I needed help, and Mason and my mom just didn’t cut it at this point. Inhaling deeply through flared nostrils, I knitted my brows as my troubling thoughts all came to a head.
“I think his company is responsible for the events that led my dad to commit suicide.” Renee’s brows shot up, surprise sharpening her features, and I blew out a hot breath on a ghost of a chuckle. “I wanted to know—I needed to know—what kind of man would do that... what kind of man would sign a paper that caused that to happen. The thing, though... I’m not so sure anymore that itwashim. Everything he tells me, it’s like... it’s almost like he was under so much pressure that he couldn’t think about anything, let alone someone he’d never met. When I’m with him, though,Ican’t think about anything but how good it makes me feel. I don’t think about my dad. Sometimes, I wonder if I even have the capacity to remember the things my dad valued, and if so, would my conclusions be true to him? Doesn’t any dad want their only child to be happy? Or would he want to have justice? I don’t know.”
“Kat..." A soft, small palm settled on my shoulder blade, and I stiffened as Renee caught my gaze and held it steadily. My heart tried to break through my ribs, and she smiled reassuringly before speaking up to drown out the blood pounding in my ears. “Your father sounds like a wonderful man from everything I’ve heard about him, but your happiness can’t hinge upon him. No one wants you to be happy more than you do. If it were me, I would bring it up with your boyfriend. You’re young, but you’ll understand eventually that the things we do when we’re your age are more likely than not terrible mistakes. Whether it’s as simple as being lazy or as incredible as trying to be someone he shouldn’t..."
“Yeah... you have a point. Thanks for talking to me, Renee.” Trying to end the conversation, I cracked a smile as she rubbed my back before heaving a sigh. “Uh, I’m waiting on a call from my agent, so I have to go sit by my phone all day. Thank you again.”
We said our goodbyes, and I closed myself into my apartment to slide down the door and hide my face in my knees.Doing this with Brandon was my terrible mistake. I should’ve just killed him before I got too close. I should’ve never tried to even consider that I could marry him first to get his fortune.
If Brandon were anything like the men I’d dealt with in the past, I could’ve done this with ease. My plan to forgo sex until marriage, induce a heart attack, and play the grieving new bride was faulty from the start. It never had any hope of succeeding because my view of Brandon was rooted on a single incident fifteen years ago. He wasn’t an abuser like the others, and I knew in my soul that he wasn’t playing me.
But I couldn’t back out now. If Brandon knew how this started, I might as well follow in my father’s footsteps.
ChapterThirteen
BRANDON
Pacing the length of the sitting room, I raked my hand through my hair furiously while my mom just watched me from the sofa. Staring past the carpet, my eyes narrowed as anxiety burrowed deep into my gut and I stopped short to whip around. Inhaling deeply, I rubbed my neck and face before working up the courage to open my mouth.
“I’m gonna do it, Mom. I’m gonna propose to her.” An invisible mountain of weight lifted from my shoulders, and my mom smiled serenely as she clasped her hands in her lap. “That’s what I’m doing. For sure. I mean that’s the logical next step, right? Should I worry that I’m trying to go too fast?”
“You should do whatever feels right, Brandon. That’s what I’ve always told you. If proposing is what you want to do, you should.” For a fraction of a second, irritation flashed through my chest like lightning. I knew my mom would say that, after all. She was awful at giving advice. “She makes you happy, so there’s no reason not to.”
Katie might freak out, though.Covering my mouth to hide my frown, I rocked back on my heels from the force of the notion. Yes, Katie would probably, most definitely, freak out. She’d tried to get out of coming to dinner with my mother and metwice, after all—not that I let her, since I knew it was just nerves. If I tried to propose, there would be a chance that she’d slap me from the shock of it.
Normally, though, my surprises worked out, by some miracle, so I had that going for me. The horseback riding had shoved us into discomfort and deep, hard discussion that brought us closer, and the blanket fort...
