Nora’s eyes fill and her lips shakes. “That’s impossible. How…”
Camille shakes her head. “We’ll talk about it more after you put the gun down, my love. Please. Just give Brand the gun. Everything is going to be ok. I promise. It will be okay. “
Each second seems to last a year as I watch Nora’s hand shake while she clenches the gun, as she finally turns her gaze toward her mother. The cold, blank expression is gone, and instead, her eyes are filled with hope.
“If you’re telling the truth… then…they aren’t… William isn’t…my uncle and….”
A tear breaks rank and slides down her cheek.
“I’m not…”
I speak up. “You’re not used, Nora,” I tell her quietly. “You never have been. What they did to you was sick and wrong. And we’ll send them to prison because that’s where they deserve to rot.”
The gun shakes and drops to her side, and it’s finally safe for me to step forward, closing my hand around the barrel, and easing it out of her hand.
She rests against me, sinking into my arms, her head against my chest.
“I hear your heart,” she says slowly, and I know what she’s doing. I’ve done it a thousand times in combat. She’s removing herself from the situation. It’s something a person does to survive, to block out the ugliness, to keep it from overwhelming them.
“It’s beating for you,” I answer, holding her close. “Only for you.”
I turn to Camille to tell her to call the police, but she’s already on the phone, speaking fast, pacing back and forth as she talks to a dispatcher. I look down and find her shoes bloody.
Nora looks up at me, her eyes cloudy, distant, removed.
“You stand on a wall to protect what is yours.” Her words are simple.
I nod. “You’re mine.”
She closes her eyes and rests in my arms.
When the paramedics arrive, I refuse to let her go and carry her out to the ambulance myself.
Chapter Thirty
Nora
I’m afraid to wake up. I’m afraid that when I do, it will all have been a dream, and that it won’t really be over. I won’t be free.
But I open my eyes, and find Brand by my hospital bed.
He smiles, which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Hey,” he says huskily, in a voice devoid of sleep. “Welcome back.”
I look down to find my hand in his, and I look at the clock to find that I’ve been sleeping for almost twenty-four hours.
I blink, confused.
“The doctors gave you a sedative,” Brand explains, seeing the questions in my eyes. “You’ve been through a lot and you needed a chance to rest before you processed it.”
“You’ve been here the whole time,” I say it as a statement, not as a question. Because I already know. I’ve felt him here all along.
He nods. “Yeah.”
I look at him. “You saved me.”
It was real.
He narrows his eyes. “You were all set to try and save yourself. The gun… Jesus, Nora.”
He closes his eyes for a second, then re-opens them. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you trust me?”
I shake my head, clutching his hand. “It wasn’t about trusting you. It was about… being humiliated and entrapped and helpless. I can’t explain to you what it feels like to think that my own uncle and father… made me… I was too dirty for you, Brand. Too tainted. You couldn’t be with someone like me.“
I can’t go on and Brand squeezes my hand, lifting my chin to make me look at him.
“You are not dirty. Or used. You were forced. You didn’t have a choice. But now they won’t have a choice either. They’re going to prison. They can never hurt you again. And that wasn’t your father. Or your uncle.”
It’s like he knows. He knows that it makes such a difference. Yes, I was still raped. But at least I wasn’t raped by my own blood.
“Who am I?” I ask him softly, staring into his blue, blue eyes. “If I’m not a Greene, who am I?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Your mom will be back up here shortly, she just left for some coffee. She has all the answers, Nora. But I can tell you this. It doesn’t matter to me who you are. Because I already know. You’re beautiful and smart and brave. And I love you. I love all of you, no matter what your last name is.”
I suck in a breath and the tears start to fall, streaking hotly down my face, dripping onto my hospital gown.
“I love you too,” I choke, pressing my face into him, squeezing my eyes closed.
This can’t be real.
This can’t be.
But it is.
Brand Killien loves me.
He strokes my back, his hands running over my shoulder blade. He pulls my face up into his hands and looks into my eyes. “You will not sink, Nora,” he tells me firmly. “You’ve been tossed by the waves, but you will not sink. No matter what.”
My tattoo. Fluctuat nec Mergitur. He looked up the meaning. I smile through my tears and nod.
I won’t sink. I won’t.
“Ma belle fille,” my mother says softly from the doorway. I look up, but Brand doesn’t let go. I stay clutched to his chest because there’s no place I’d rather be. I won’t sink because Brand is my anchor. He holds me steady.
“Can you explain?” I ask simply. My mother nods, setting down her coffee and easing herself into the chair by the edge of the bed.
“It’s very simple, really,” she says sadly. “Your father…Maxwell, I mean, has been twisted for a very long time. He and William… they’re an unnatural, hateful pair. I realized it soon after we were married. But I was from France, you see. And after your brother was born, Maxwell knew that he had me no matter what. I knew what he and William were doing together… but I couldn’t stop it and I couldn’t leave, because Maxwell threatened to divorce me, have me extradited and then he’d keep Nate from me. It was… torturous.”
A tear slips down her delicate cheek and even though I should be furious at her for keeping all of this from me, I can’t bring myself to that. She’s suffered, too.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My mother drops her eyes. “Because as long as you were a minor, you were trapped with your father. If he had me extradited, you’d have been alone with him. I couldn’t allow that. And if I told you, I was afraid that you’d play that hand in an effort to get away from him. And he’d never have allowed that without a fight. Not after grooming you for so long to be a Greene. I was too afraid of what he would do.”
“Who is my father?” I ask simply.
She looks up, and she smiles a watery smile.
“Can you not guess? Did you really never suspect?”
I close my eyes and race through my childhood memories and one face comes up in them more often than any other.
Strong hands lifting me onto my horse, strong arms carrying me through the gardens, sharing his lunch, twinkling blue eyes that greeted me every day… and always the warmth. He was always happy to see me, always happy to be near me.
“Julian,” I breathe.
Brand cocks his head, questioning.
“Our gardener,” I remind him quickly. “But he’s more than a gardener. He took care of our house, our horses, me…”
I turn to my mother. “But how… and… I just don’t understand.”
My mother smiles.
“Julian is from home,” she tells me. “You already knew he was French too. I loved him when I was young, but then I was wild and carefree and came to America for adventure. That’s when I met and married Maxwell… he needed a normal family to cover up his twisted side. I didn’t know that, though, at first. We weren’t long into our marriage when I discovered what he was. But I was trapped. And Julian came to save me. I couldn’t leave… I couldn’t leave Nate. So Julian stayed with me. Always with me. And then of course, you were born, and he had even more to stay for.”
Her voice drifts off
and she stares out the window, lost in her memories.
“But you… you can leave now,” I point out.
She nods. “I can. I can do anything I’d like… because Maxwell will go to prison. I’ve already called my attorney. I’ll be divorcing him immediately. All will be well, Nora. Finally.”
I feel Brand staring at me, and I look up, into the ocean blue eyes that I love.
All will be well.
Chapter Thirty-One
Nora
I cling to Brand, my arms wrapped around his strong waist as we fly down the highway that hugs the lake, on the back of his grandfather’s Triumph.
The wind whips my hair behind me and carries the scent of the lake, of the water and the sun, of Brand. And there’s no place I’d rather be.
“You ready to stop for lunch?” Brand calls back to me.
“Sure,” I answer in his ear.
He pulls to the side, to the little lookout I’d brought him to so many weeks ago, back when he was still limping, back before he was really mine.
We crawl off the bike, take off our helmets, and he digs out sandwiches from a pouch on the back.
As we eat at the picnic table, I prop my legs on his lap and he stares at me thoughtfully, the corners of his eyes turning up.
“Tell me again what you said to Maxwell yesterday,” he tells me. “When he called you from the jail and asked you to show leniency, to intervene on his behalf with the prosecutor?”
I inhale, exhale, then smile. Because it had felt really damn good.
“I told him that prison is waiting for him. And that I’ve heard prison life is hard for pansy-asses like him, so it’s a good thing he’s a Greene. He can do what it takes.”
Brand smiles, a smile full of pride and humor and sadness.
“You’re badass,” he tells me with pride. “Remind me never, ever to fuck with you.”
“Don’t you forget it,” I answer, putting all thoughts of Maxwell and William Greene out of my head. I’m only focusing on the future now.
“What will you do with your parent’s house? I mean, now that everything is over.”
He shrugs. “I think I’ll just sell the land. I don’t want it.”
I can understand why. In the weeks since he signed over everything to his mother, she hasn’t bothered to contact him.
“What about you?” Brand asks softly, reaching up with a large hand to tuck my windblown hair behind my ear.
“Your mother will get everything at Greene Corp. She said she’s going to divide it between you and Nate… you’ll be rich, Nora. In your own right. Not working for your father, not under anyone’s thumb. You can do anything you want.”
I nod slowly, staring out at the lake. “I know. It’s a crazy feeling. For as long as I remember, I’ve been told what I want: to grow up, be a good Greene and head up the legal team for the company. But now, I can figure out what I want to do. I can use my degree, or use Maxwell’s money to get another degree so that I can do something I actually want to do. Or we can travel the world. The possibilities are endless.”
I turn back to look at him and he stares down at me, his expression thoughtful.
I focus on the cleft in his chin. That lovely, adorable, sexy cleft. I reach up and place my thumb in it, where it fits perfectly.
“We fit,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes and captures my hand in his.
“In more ways than one,” he answers. I blush at that connotation, when I remember how well he’d fit inside of me last night, as we’d rocked together, over and over and over.
We fit.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you looked in the box,” I tell him suddenly, because the guilt comes back again. It’s been two weeks, and I still feel awful that I left him, that I made him feel not good enough, when he’s better than anyone I know.
He shrugs. “It’s ok. I’m ok. Really.”
I reach into the pocket of his jacket, where I know I’ll find the lock. He’s been keeping it there for weeks. I pull it out and stare at it, as I turn it over and over in my hands.
“I’m glad he finally admitted his own guilt,” I say simply. “You deserve that.”
Brand shrugs again, his eyes guarded as he looks out across the water. “I think I can honestly finally say that I don’t care. I am free. I’ll always miss my sister, but her death wasn’t my fault. I know that now.”
“I’m glad you see that,” I tell him. And I mean it. I’m so freaking glad. I know what it’s like to carry guilt for something you can’t control. I don’t want that for Brand.
I snuggle into his side, absorbing his warmth, soaking him in.
“Tell me about her.”
“About Alison?”
I nod.
“Well, she was only four. But she was bubbly and happy all the time. She followed me everywhere. And being the six year-old boy that I was, I’m sure I wasn’t always the most patient with her, but I did love her. I’ll always miss the sister she would’ve become and I’ll always wonder who she would’ve been.”
My belly tightens, because of all of it… because Alison deserved to grow up and because Brand deserved to have a sister who was his best friend, someone to talk to about girls and confide in and torment and tease.
He didn’t get that.
But he did get me. It’s not the same, I know. But I’ll be his best friend, and his confidante, and I’ll never leave him again.
Brand takes the lock from my hands and stands up. He gazes out at the lake, and I see where he’s staring. From here, there is a perfect view of the buoy, the fucking weathered buoy that has taunted him most of his life.
With perfectly strong steps, Brand strides down the path to the beach, stopping when his toes hit the water. With one quick movement, he hurls the lock out over the lake. With laser precision, it hits the bell on the buoy before it bounces into the water and immediately sinks below the surface.
For a moment, the sound of the bell echoes down the beach, haunting and eerie.
Brand climbs the hill and stands in front of me, a strange grin on his face.
“I rang the fucking bell.”
I smile and shake my head.
“Yeah, you did.”
And all of a sudden, the air around us is lighter and I know why.
Because it’s gone.
All of it… the guilt, the hate, the bitterness… all of it is gone.
I press myself into Brand’s arms, enjoying the way they wrap around me and hold me close, the way all is right in the world when I’m here, the way he loves me.
The way he’s mine.
I stand on a wall to protect what is mine.
I’m his and he’s mine.
It’s the way it’s meant to be.
We’ll protect each other forever, for the rest of our lives.
No matter what.