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“I love you. Good morning.” The fine hairs on my neck stood up at Brandon’s mumble, and I palmed his face as he cracked open his eyes lazily. “You’re beautiful this morning, Katie.”
“You can’t even see me yet.” Giggling breathlessly as his smirk tinged with guilt, I wiggled closer while his eyes cleared of their sleepy fog. “I love you.”
“I loveyou.” Flopping onto his back, Brandon flung his hand to his face, and his groan bounced off the bedroom walls. “It’s a good thing, too. You wear me out.”
Even though we were back on dry land now, the magic mist hadn’t faded, and I rested my cheek on Brandon’s chest with a hum. His bedroom was becoming a more and more familiar view, and he heaved a breath before he palmed my hair blindly. Closing my eyes, I savored his warmth, the familiar stretch of his body as he breathed, and I blocked out a thought that had been haunting me for some time now.
Every time I said ‘I love you’ to him, I believed it a little more.
“Move in with me.” Tensing at the quiet, barely audible murmur, my lids popped open and my eyes flew to Brandon. He just watched me from under the crook of his elbow, shielding his gaze as he masked his expression like he did so well. My heart flipped, and his chest stilled under my chin before stuttering when I finally managed to open my mouth.
“Okay.” Whispering my answer, I smiled when Brandon lifted his head, his brows disappearing above his messed hair in surprise. Affection wormed deep into my heart, and I reached to caress his jaw. “I will.”
“Really? Just like that? No reassuringI’ll let you keep your apartment, so you have a place to goor anything?” His gobsmacked tone drew a giggle from my lips, and he rolled back onto his side to look me dead in the face. Shaking my head, I wrapped my arms around his neck, but that didn’t stop him from reaching to swipe back his hair. “Oh, I don’t know. I expected a little more resistance, I guess.”
“We just spent a month on a boat on the other side of the ocean, Brandon... and we’re going to get married tomorrow. It’s a little late to resist. Not to mention..." Licking my lips nervously, I inhaled a sharp breath in preparation, and Brandon’s eyes glittered with expectation. “I don’t want to go back to my apartment. I want to stay herewith you. When I leave, I don’t want to need an invitation to come back, and also... I love you, and I love you more and more each day, and I’m afraid. I don’t want this to be some delusion where, in the end, I wake up in some hospital for the criminally insane.”
“Oh, Katie.” Hugging me to him, Brandon placed a sweet, tender kiss to my lips, and I soaked up his love like a sponge. “I would marry you today, and if I died tomorrow, my only regret is not being able to spend more time with you.”
“Don’t say that. If you die, I’ll kill you, dummy.” He huffed a laugh, and the almost overwhelming urge to confess tightened my throat and made my eyes ache. “Sometimes, I stay up at night and get so mad at myself... so mad that ithurts.For so long, I was so empty because of my dad, and my mom, and mylife. I hated everyone and everything, and now..."
“You can tell me, Katie.” Blinking hard, I sniffled in a futile effort to breathe, and Brandon brushed away a brave tear with his thumb. “It’s okay. I love you, and I’ll do my best to understand.”
“I–I lived out of a car. It wasn’t even a van.” Brandon’s horrified, sharp inhale drowned as I laughed harshly and humorlessly, and I tore my gaze off him to stare at one of his chest hairs. “My mom and my dad met in high school, and she’d never had a job, and she couldn’t handle it, anyway. So, I dropped out of high school when I was fifteen, and I got my GED.”
“I got arrested for stealing food from a supermarket when I was sixteen, and DCF tried to take me away from my mom and put me in a group home. With them involved, my mom garnered enough pity from family and friends and got enough money for a terrible apartment. A couple of weeks later, Mason moved in next door, and things got a little easier. He’s the guy I told you about. He lost his daughter to cancer, right? So..." Taking a tight, shuddering breath, I reached to smooth the goosebumps on his skin with cold fingertips. “Anyway, I finally got a break with a modelling agency, and it was enough to move here after a year of that. I was twenty-two, and Mason moved in a couple of complexes over for moral support. So, yeah, that’s the story. I killed to make it this far, but there weren’t many good feelings. I just... I had no choice. I had to do it.”
“That’s terrible. I can’t even express..." Brandon’s voice lilted with something I’d never heard before, and he pressed his lips to my crown to heave an unsteady breath. “I’m so sorry, Katie.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll be married. You’re not going to be able to back out. I want it to be a fresh start. I don’t know if I can be everything you think I am, but... I’m willing to try as hard as I can.” It surprised me how true that promise was, and Brandon cupped my chin to force my eyes to his...and they leaked. My heart stuttered dangerously, and I bit back a sob of my own as he ground his forehead against mine. Even crying, he was so very beautiful, and I tightened my arms around his neck to suck up his familiar, safe smell through clogged nostrils.
I can’t do this. I can’t kill him...
ChapterNineteen
KATERINA
“Do you want to sneak out and get some milkshakes?” Gasping as Brandon smiled against the crest of my ear, I giggled when he groaned suggestively. “Come on, no one will notice.”
“No one will notice because our moms are more in love than we are, and they’re the only ones here, dummy.” Leaning into Brandon to rest my head on his shoulder, I glanced out over the back yard of the absolutely massive mansion that his father had owned. My mom and Marianne sat on the grass, holding hands, completely absorbed in their own little bubble. I’d planned this from a boat, but I had no one else to invite, anyway, and Brandon kissed my temple tenderly.
Mason wasn’t answering my texts, and Renee... well, I wasn’t confident enough in my relationship with her to invite her to my wedding. Brandon had considered inviting Audra and her family, but it’d just never came up again. He started massaging my legs, and one distraction led to another.
Though, to be fair, I didn’t mind having only our mothers here simply because this was a courthouse wedding in a back yard. There was no fanfare, and the only real effort I put into planning was my dress.Which was on sale. A billionaire having a wedding that cost three grand... who’da thunk it?
“Let’s go.” Tugging on my hand, Brandon pulled me from my thoughts to shoot me a secret smile, and I giggled breathlessly. “It’s not a secret wedding if we don’t let people know there’s a secret wedding going on.”
“You want me to go out like this?” Even as I tried to protest, excitement skittered under my skin, and I glanced over my shoulder. Our moms were totally oblivious, so engrossed in their conversation, and my heart ached at howyoungmy mother looked. Following Brandon up the walkway that wound to the house, the biggest house I’d ever seen, I stayed close to him as he wrapped his arm around my waist. “This is okay, right? Having such a small ceremony? You don’t want to tell Audra to at least stop by or something?”
“They say that the wedding is all about the bride, and if it were any bigger, you’d have a heart attack about the money involved, Katie.” Blushing furiously as he squeezed me to his side, I stared at my feet as embarrassment clung to my ribs. “Do you want to meet her, or do you want to minimize how much she’ll be pissed at me for not inviting her? Honestly, I’ve known Audra forever, but I’ve never spent time with her family and actually liked it. Her kids are nice and polite and all, but they’re atrociously inquisitive and never stop talking. A lot like her, actually. Her husband was in the Army and he’s really intimidating. Like, I can’t express how uncomfortable it is to be around all of them at the same time.”
“Um, both, honestly. I mean... I know she probably thinks I’m some kind of gold digger or whatever, and it’s not like she’s not entitled to her opinion, but at some point, we’re going to have to meet. It’s inevitable.” Staring down the sweetheart neckline of my wedding dress, I reached to caress the slight folds of gathered silk. My dress was slender, conforming to the lines of my body to flare out at my hips and drape with tiny sparkles and rhinestones. Brandon’s mother and my mom couldn’t be in the same room together without forgetting I was there, so my mom helped me pick it out.
Marianne had gotten my shoes, a pair of beautiful low heels encrusted in what I hoped were fake diamonds in a floral pattern. My mom had done my hair, but I hadn’t worn any makeup.
I looked exactly like I thought I would when I fantasized about getting married, and a small, happy sigh escaped me before Brandon stole my attention.
“How about we meet her somewhere? Let’s go on an adventure. Let’s go all around the city.” Excitement heightened Brandon’s tone, and I looked up to watch his smile widen. “And if anyone asks, we play dumb like we obviously haven’t just gotten married. It’ll be great!”
