“I am crazy about you.” He wouldn’t lie to her about that.
“Then it’s the second. You think I’ll leave. You think I’ll change my mind somewhere down the line and you’ll get your heart broken. I’ve thought about all those women you’ve dated over the last couple of years. I wondered why I was different. Now I realize I’m not. You were willing to indulge yourself because you knew I was leaving, and you didn’t have to take that leap of faith. That’s what love requires, and yes, I’m using that word because I thought it was where we were going. Love requires risk, and you can’t take it. Love requires you to be out of control, and you won’t risk that. You would rather send your father back to hell than lose his physical body.”
He felt his gut knot. “Don’t bring my father into this.”
“But he’s part of it, too,” Brynn said. “He’s told you what he wants, but your needs are greater than his. You wrap it up in sacrifice, but at the heart it’s selfish. You can’t stand the thought of him dying so you keep him here though it’s not his will. You can’t stand the thought of losing me so you push me away so you don’t have to.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt the scene,” Ally said. “It’s a good one. Like, I kind of wish I was taking notes.”
“Ally,” Brynn began.
Ally shook her head. “Sorry. But you need to watch this. She wants you to know she’s not going to leave you alone this time. Not ever again. No matter how much it hurts.”
Brynn gasped as the national morning news shifted to a new story, and her mother was suddenly on the monitor, Gavin beside her. They sat by the pool not a hundred yards away from where they were right now.
“What is she doing?” Brynn whispered the question.
“Coming clean,” Ally replied.
Major had the distinct feeling he was no longer needed, but he stood there listening as the anchor in New York laid out the whole sordid tale of the photographers lurking around, taking pictures of Brynn and Gavin. She then asked Gavin if he was in a relationship with Brynn.
That was when he noticed Gavin’s hand folded around Diane’s.
“I have a very healthy and loving relationship with my fiancée’s daughter.” Gavin pulled Diane’s hand up and kissed it. “Bria Knight has been my costar, and I loved working with her, but what I loved more was being able to be a real father figure to Brynn Pearson and her sister, Allyson. And loving this woman beside me has been the challenge and joy of my life.”
“Is she crying?” Brynn’s mouth had dropped open.
“I can’t get past the fact that I think her forehead moved,” Ally continued. “And he called her his fiancée. I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“I was hesitant to come forward with our relationship because I work in the industry, and I wanted to be more than Gavin Jacks’s girlfriend,” Diane was saying. “And honestly, I was afraid to trust again. But I have to come forward because life is too short. I want to live and love openly. And I want to apologize to my daughter.”
“We both need to apologize to Brynn,” Gavin insisted. “We could have confronted this the first time those nauseating rumors came around, but we valued our privacy over her comfort, and that was wrong of us.”
Diane wasn’t the only one who was teary now. Brynn was crying, and Ally had linked their arms together.
“Now you won’t get fired,” he said, trying to find the positive in all of this.
Ally took a step back. “I’m going to talk to them. Can I let them know you’ll be by soon?”
Brynn nodded. “I’ll get dressed and come up there, but you should prepare Mom that while I appreciate what she did, I’m still sure of what I want to do.”
“Okay.” Ally opened the door. “Proud of you.” She turned Major’s way. “You’re a dick.”
She slammed the door behind her.
He ignored Ally. He’d handled this all wrong. “Brynn, I’m sorry. I should have thought about what I was saying. I am crazy about you, and maybe that’s why I fumble so often. The truth is I was already wavering on the idea of letting this relationship be over when you leave Papillon. I was already looking into ways I could come see you.”
Brynn sniffled into a tissue and then tossed it aside. “It doesn’t matter. As much as I’ve come to care about you, I can’t be in a relationship where you think you can make decisions for me.”
A spark of panic started to run through him. “I wasn’t trying to . . .” He had been. “I was trying to do what was right for you.”
“What you thought was right for me,” she corrected. “What you still think is right for me. And you’re doing it even after I’ve told you what I want. Major, I’m still staying. They asked me to walk away and already negotiated how to do it. I’m going to keep that deal and I’m going to do exactly what I said before. I’m going to find a place here and be me for a few months. I don’t know how long I’ll stay. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to go to Paris, but I am going to give myself time to figure out what’s right for me. I wish you could have cared about me enough to go on that journey with me. I hope we can be polite when we see each other around town.”