“Who the hell do you think you are?” he chortles, his too-small glasses sliding down his nose as he shouts at me.
“You know exactly who I am,” I respond in a bored tone. “I am the man who is going to marry your daughter and if you ever want to see her or any grandbabies we will have, I suggest you learn how to talk to her. Until you do, let your pup see you out. Be careful, Mr. North, it’s wild up here.”
Brielle gasps as her father lets go a lengthy line of expletives. Her brother glances her way, and I can see he is not proud of being here. Not proud to be forced to follow any of his father’s commands. This is all they have known. A father who tries to dictate the life he feels is best for them.
After all she has told me about her father, I do not doubt he loves her. I just doubt he knows how to let her go. How to let either of his children go. It sounded to me as if he loved his wife very much and when he lost her, I think just maybe he felt they were all he had left of her. He has tried to be careful with them, but really, he has just controlled them out of fear.
Her father filled my bunny with doubts no father should ever give their children. It was wrong of him. Wrong of her brother. They were meant to protect her. It was their job to make sure she felt safe, loved, and worth something. They failed at their jobs, but I will not fail her the way they did.
“Get out. Caleb don’t let him do to you what he tried to do to her. And she loves you, please don’t cut her off the way he threatened to.”
“Threatened? You want to hear a threat? Hear this threat,” her father puffs his chest up as he shouts at me, “that lodge the people told me you love so much. Consider it gone. You might have money and may think you have some power, but boy...cross me, and I willshow youwhat real money and power can do. You will not take my family from me. I won’t allow it.”
“Daddy, stop it,” Brielle speaks up at last. Her voice is strong, clear, but her eyes are sad, and I step back as she pushes at me. “Stop making threats. To me and to him. To Caleb. You cannot force us to live the life you want us to. If you want to be part of our lives, you have to let us choose our own lives. You have to let me make up my own mind. Can’t you just trust me?”
I am proud of her as I watch her stand up to her father. So goddamn proud. The air is tense, and I wait for him to speak. Wait for him to cut her down as she tries to stand tall. But when she steps closer to him, I feel off. I am hit with panic as her and her brother seem to speak without words. Maybe I should not be shocked when she speaks, but a feather could push me over.
“I will come home with you,” she says gently, her head bowing. “I know where I belong and I realize it’s not up here,” her voice breaks as she trails off.
“Brielle? What...what do you mean? How can you think that?”
Blood pounds in my head as she spins to face me, her guards back up. Her eyes are as distant as they were that very first day on the mountain. I can get past her guards again but not if she walks out with them. Not if she leaves believing that this is not where she belongs.
“I just don’t want to keep faking it, Brett. We knew what it was. We were faking it and you can fake things for a while but...not forever. I am so sorry I did this to you. That I made you...take care of me. I need to go back home where I belong. Because Ido notbelong here.”
My heart stutters to a stop as she swipes tears away from her face. One simple sweep of her fingertips across her cheeks. There is something so final about the way she does it. As if clearing the slate. Giving up or starting over.
There is something behind her gaze that keeps me standing. That holds me back from losing it entirely. Something I am missing. But I am confused, and I am cut deep so I can’t get to whatever it is. I cannot figure it out.
I watch her slip her coat on as her father and brother wait at the door. There are things of hers here, but she decides to leave them behind. To torture me, perhaps. Her shampoo in the shower, her panties in my drawers, her favorite sherbet in the freezer. None of it matters to her, I guess.
Brielle walks out leaving me and all her things behind.
Chapter Ten
Brielle
They say you always hurt the one you love.
Well, whoever said that is an asshole and I would like to punch them right in the pussy. Because Iknowa chick said that. I know some ice cold, wrecked and wretched woman said that shit. How do I know? Because I am just like that kind of woman because I just broke the hurt the one man I thought I could never hurt.
I hurt the man I love because he doesn’t love me back.
Sitting in the back seat of a truck too big and too powerful for a brother who usually gets chauffeured around, I want to laugh. He looks so silly in his cashmere suit and expensive leather loafers in this big truck. My Brett might be a rich boy, but he earned that title on his own. He was never pampered or prissed up the way brother is. He would look right behind the wheel of this big truck.
Pain blooms in my chest as I glance back to watch the cabin sink into the darkness. The further away we get, the more it hurts. The more off kilter it beats. Clawing at my chest, I wish I could rip it out. It has never done me any damn good has it?
“We do not expect you to get married right away, sweetheart,” father’s tone is scarily soft, the voice he always uses after he crushes parts of me. “What with all you just went through, Greta and I understand you will need time to find the right husband. We just want you back with the family.”
“I amnevergetting married. Tell your partners they can rent me for whatever rate you think I am worth. You and Greta can get fucked.”
Beneath me, the truck, sways, and I gasp, clutching at my seatbelt. I figure the icy road caused the slide until I hear the chuckle. The truck slides off the road to just narrowly miss the mountainside. A chime dings and the cab lights come on, lighting up the dark road. Behind the wheel, my brother’s shoulders are shaking, and I tear my belt off, afraid he is hurt.
“Caleb! Oh my god did you get hurt?”
“No more than you, Bri,” he calls, twisting slightly to flash a smile. “I have never heard you talk to him that way. Not sure I ever laughed that hard. I am turning this beast of a truck around, Brielle. I am taking you home. Back where you really belong. Oh, and I am not getting married either. At least, not to that cold bitch Greta wants to sign our fortune off to. I will choose when and who I marry. And so will my sister.”
“Caleb, I am coming with you. This is not my home. Brett and I were just...we were faking it. Just long enough for me to figure out...”