I stop speaking and stare out the window. In my head, it’s that night. And it’s black and terrible.
“He thought I was lying about not hearing her get up. He thought I was just too much of a chicken shit to follow her into the lake to save her.”
I never knew that speaking the hateful words out loud would be so painful, so much like a scalpel to my throat.
Nora shakes her head slowly, in blatant disbelief. “No. There’s no way he actually believed that. Surely not…”
I shrug, trying to appear nonchalant, like it doesn’t still hurt after so many years. “He did. And he convinced my mother of it, too. They both hated me after that.”
“How old was your sister?” Nora whispers.
“Four,” I answer.
“And you?”
“I was six.”
She stares back at me, her blue eyes unyielding. “You were six years old. Even if you had heard her, and I’m sure that you didn’t, how could you have saved her? You were too little.”
I meet her gaze without flinching. “Nora, I guarantee you. If I’d heard her get out of bed and walk outside, I would’ve saved her.”
Nora smiles a sad smile. “I have no doubt that you would’ve.”
We stand there for the longest time, and the air is heavy around us with the weight of our conversation.
“I can’t believe I just told you all of that,” I admit finally. “I’ve never told anyone before.”
She glances up at me, her eyes soft.
“Not even Gabe?”
I shake my head. “No. Gabe and Jacey were only here in the summers. They never saw my sister, so they don’t even know she existed. They saw the bruises my father gave me when I was a kid, but they never knew why.”
“Didn’t anyone ever try and take you away from your parents?” Nora asks softly, her eyes assessing me, raking me over, searching out my secrets.
I shake my head. “I never told anyone. Gabe knew, to some extent, but I made him swear not to tell. I guess kids are just always loyal to their parents, no matter what. But he and Jacey did their best to help me. They kept me down at their grandparents pretty much all summer, every summer.”
But the winters were endless.
“Why does he want you to ring the bell?” Nora asks, her voice filled with dread.
I stare out the window. “Because that used to be his thing. He thought I purposely didn’t save my sister because I was scared to swim. So he’d come home from the bar and drag me out to the beach, where he’d try and make me swim out and ring the bell. It infuriated him when I wouldn’t. He’d beat me senseless and I still wouldn’t do it.”
Nora sucks in her breath as she stares at me in sympathy.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I tell her firmly. “Because what he doesn’t know is that I stopped being afraid of the water by the time I was ten. But I kept refusing out of principle…and stubbornness. I decided that he could beat me, but he couldn’t make me pay for something I didn’t do. It was my own way of standing up to him.”
Nora’s lips spread in a slow smile. “So that’s why you can swim, but you don’t.”
I nod, curtly, one time.
“And now he’s trying to bully you into swimming,” she realizes. “One last time.”
I nod again.
But Nora’s confused again. “I don’t get it though,” she says. “You said your mom has hated you ever since. Why would your father think that using her as leverage would work?”
I look away from her. “Because one of the things he used to tell me was that I was weak. That I was too loyal, that I should be colder. Like him.”
Nora stares at me, horrified. “He faulted you for being a good human being?”
I shrug. “I guess. He saw kindness as a weakness. And he always called me weak. I guess he wants me to either show, once and for all, that I am weak, or show that I can be a cold-hearted bastard like him.”
Without another word, Nora throws herself into my arms with enough force to knock me backward. We tumble into the chair behind us and she lands on my lap.
“Is your leg ok?” she asks quickly.
I nod. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” My knee is throbbing, but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.
She looks into my eyes. “You’re not weak, Brand. Being kind is not a weakness. You’re the farthest thing from weak that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I don’t answer.
She lays her head on my chest, remaining still. After a while, she speaks without moving.
“I can hear your heart.”
I don’t say anything.
“You have the strongest heart of anyone I’ve ever known.”
I still don’t say anything, although that fucking lump forms in my throat again.
Before long, Nora raises her head.
“Don’t compromise yourself for him,” she tells me, her blue eyes staring into my own. “I don’t know what his game is. But don’t let him compromise you. Do what’s best for you. Do what you’re comfortable with. No more, no less.”
She stares at me fiercely for a minute before she kisses me, hard, with passion.
I kiss her back, pulling her into me, my arms wrapped around her.
She gets it. She’s the first person to ever really ‘get’ my situation and the fucked-upedness that was my father. But the sad part is, I know she only gets it through experience of her own.
Because her father is just as fucked up in his own way as my father was.
That only pisses me off more.
But now, instead of only being pissed at a dead man, I’m pissed at someone living, at a situation that I can actually change.
Nora’s dad isn’t going to hurt her again.
Chapter Fifteen
Nora
I put my earrings in, small diamond studs that shine in the lobes of my ears. With a sigh, I look at my reflection.
My hair is pulled into a sleek chignon, I’m wearing makeup, and I’ve got on an evening dress, small and black.
With a heavy sigh, I glance at the clock.
We should leave soon. I both dread it and want to get it over with.
I spray on some perfume and venture out of my room to find Brand.
What I find takes my breath away.
Brand is leaning against the windows, waiting for me, dressed in a perfectly fitted black tux.
My breath holds on my tongue as I stop dead in my tracks and shamelessly stare.
Sweet Mary. I thought that there was nothing sexier on the planet than Brand Killien. I was wrong. Brand Killien in a freaking tuxedo is unbelievable.
He’s lean, he’s strong, he’s tanned, he’s blond. His blue eyes meet mine, and he smiles.
“See something you like?”
Gah.
My knees literally feel weak as I cross the room and kiss him softly on the lips.
He smells like the woods. And man. And Heaven.
“Maybe,” I answer with a grin. “Do you have plans tonight? Because I have this thing…”
He shrugs. “I could make myself available. I mean, I’m dressed for it and all.”
Yes, he certainly is.
I look him over again, at the way his shirt and jacket snugly skim his muscle, the way his pants hug his slim hips. I feel the butterflies fluttering around in my belly again, the adrenaline rush, rush, rushing through my veins.
He’s mine.
For tonight.
For the summer.
I glance down. “Where’s your knee brace?”
Brand shakes his head. “It’s there. Under my pants.”
“What else you got under there?” I purr, my hand running over his broad chest. Brand neatly catches my hand and restrains it with his own.
“Calm down, Tiger. As much as you’d like to distract me, we’ve got to get this dinner over with.”
I sigh and I feel my shoulders droop. “Fine. Raincheck, then.”
Brand’s lip twitches. “Shall we go?”
>
I nod. Brand takes a step and I stop in my tracks.
“Where are your crutches?”
“I’m not using them tonight, doctor. I’ve got the brace on. The doctor told me I could bear weight as tolerated. It’ll be fine.”
I stare at him.
He stares back.
“You’re stubborn,” I sigh. He grins.
He limps, but he walks to the car unassisted.
After we’re strapped into my car, I turn to him.
“If my father is rude to you, we’ll leave.”
Brand rolls his eyes.
“No, we won’t. We’ll do whatever it is that you need to go to do. It doesn’t matter to me if your dad is rude. Trust me, I can take it.”
His voice soothes me. His presence soothes me. His smile soothes me. Everything about him is calming, like a tonic, and I nod.
“Okay.”
The drive doesn’t take long, of course, and while I wish we could linger in the car out in the driveway, we can’t.
Brand looks at me. “Ready?”
No.
“Yeah.”
My mother opens the door before we even reach it, pulling me into a hug. She looks beautiful, of course.
“Ma belle fille,” she sings, kissing my cheeks. “I’ve missed you.”
She pulls me into the house in a cloud of Chanel No. 5. She looks over my shoulder.
“And you,” she beams at Brand. “Thank you for everything you did for Nora that terrible day.” She glances at his leg. “I’m so sorry you were hurt. It’s terrible. Can I get you anything?”
I nod. “A water would be nice.”
And a valium.
Brand shakes his head. “No, thank you, Mrs. Greene.”
“Call me Camille,” my mother instructs.
She leads us into the formal dining room which is dripping with gardenias and roses and lit candles are everywhere. The long table easily seats twenty, although only two are currently at it now.
My father and my brother, Nate.
William is no where in sight, thank God.
My father barely spares us a glance, doesn’t even stop speaking to my brother. But Nate’s face lights up and he gets out of his chair, crossing the room to envelop me in a hug.
I introduce him to Brand, and they shake hands and everything seems fine.
But then my father intrudes.
“This was a family affair, Nora,” he chastises me. “I didn’t tell you to bring anyone.”
My mother breaks in, laying an elegant hand on his arm. “Maxwell, don’t be rude. After all that Brand did for us, you should be nice.”
Yes, Maxwell, be nice.
If looks could kill, I’d be murdering my father right now. What’s that called? Patricide? Yeah. That.
My father glares at my mother and she pretends to ignore it.
Brand takes it all in stride… my father’s rudeness, my family’s very obvious dysfunction.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” he says smoothly, shaking my father’s hand. “Nora wasn’t sure how large this gathering was going to be and she asked me to accompany her. I can’t say no to her.”
Hell no, he can’t. I remember our day by the lake and smile inside. He might be stubborn, but I am too.
My father sniffs. “Try harder.”
Oh my God.
Before I can make a retort, he returns to his chair, motioning to Nate to join him. Nate flashes me an I’m sorry, but what can you do? look before joining him.
I personally want to chase Maxwell Greene down and punch him in the face. That’s what I can do.
But I don’t.
Instead, I turn to my mother. “Do we have a few minutes before dinner?”
She nods.
“Great,” I smile, putting my hand on Brand’s elbow. “I’m going to show Brand your gardens.”
She smiles, grateful that I’m distracting our guest from my father’s rudeness. Once again, I wonder why she puts up with him. Other than the fact that she’s thousands of miles from her homeland, and my father controls all the money.
I lead Brand out the massive French doors and onto the veranda overlooking the beach.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him when we’re alone. “I had a feeling he’d be like that.”
Brand shrugs. “Like I told you, it’s fine. I don’t care what your father thinks of me. I’ve been in battle, Nora. Words don’t hurt.”
I smile a little, and shake my head, thankful for his understanding even if it’s not true. Words do hurt. My father doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Brand, much less be graced by his presence.
I motion to the gardens below us, the lush greenery, the roses.
“My mother’s hobby,” I say by way of explanation. “We have a gardener who helps her, a dear man who has been with us for a very long time, but my mother tends the roses herself. It’s her getaway, I suppose.”
Her getaway from her reality of my father.
I shudder. I can’t imagine being married to him.
Brand stares down at all of it. “It’s beautiful. Like you.”
He turns to me, his eyes meeting mine, his hand splayed on my back.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you and your father,” he says quietly. “But you’ve got this. I’m here with you, and you’re going to be fine.”
He must’ve noticed my shaking hands. Great.
I smile, putting every ounce of courage into it, to trick Brand into thinking that I’m brave.
I’m brave.
I’m fucking brave.
“I’m good,” I assure him. “I’ve got this.”
He nods. “I know you do. And your mom is gesturing to us. Shall we?”
We make our way back inside, and sit at our places. I’m at my father’s left, Nate is at his right. My mom is across the table by Brand.