Chapter Twenty-Three

Brayden

The hired car from the airport pulls up in front of the Gilmore Academy and stops at the curb. The driver gets out and comes around, opening the car door for me. I step out and stare up at the brick facade of the building and feel a nostalgic smile touch my lips. It reminds me a lot of the high school I attended back in the day.

The Gilmore Academy is a historic red-brick building with ivy growing up the sides, giving it that expensive, ivy-league air of elegance private schools tend to go for. However, the historic nature of the building is somewhat spoiled by the addition of newer amenities like central air conditioning, satellite dishes, Wi-Fi towers, and updated windows. The building has tall willow trees out front, their long limbs cascading down the pathway leading into the school.

The school has a very exclusive, old money feel to it, I'll give it that. It is easy to picture society’s elite spending their schooldays here. I often wonder, though, if a private school education really is that much better than public school. I've known plenty of people who were brilliant and never attended a high-priced, elite prep academy like this – my father, for example.

But, that's a question for another day. I'm not here to debate the merits of public versus private education. I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. And she's still in there.

I arrived a bit early and school is in session still. It's only two in the afternoon and I'm not entirely sure what time classes let out, but I'm sure it's not this early. I could have gone and waited at her place, but I got into town slightly earlier than planned, thanks to the pilot, who ended up making better time than expected.

So, here I am with papers in hand. I just want to get this done as quickly as possible, so I can hop back on my company jet, get back to Austin, and move on with my life.

But if I'm being honest with myself - there's another reason I'm in such a big hurry and don't want to wait for her at home. I want to see Holly again. I want to look into those green eyes and feel the way she makes me feel again. The way we left off, without even saying goodbye, sat badly with me. After a few amazing days together, I found myself hoping for more. Something I don’t think I've ever felt about anybody in my entire life.

Of course, we did get married - but that is not what I mean by something more. Our marriage is a joke. Two drunk people not stopping to think of the consequences and doing something stupid. What I realized through this experience, though, is that what I want with Holly is something real. What I want is genuine. Something deep and enduring. Even now, still pissed off, I know that I still want that with her.

Maybe I'm stupid or a masochist. You'd think after getting ghosted by a woman who'd married me, I'd take the hint. But, I can't accept it. Not until I look her dead in the eye and hear the words come out of her mouth. I want her to say she doesn't want to see me or have anything to do with me, herself. If she says that, then I'm gone. I'll move on with my life.

Call me crazy, but there is still a small part of me holding out on the small spark of hope that she can't say it.

I walk through the big, double doors at the front of the school and stop when an alarm sounds. I look around, frantically trying to figure out what was setting the damn thing off, when a stout, tiny old woman with a gray beehive style hairdo, rushes from a nearby office.

“You weren't buzzed in,” she mutters under her breath.

She shakes her head as she punches some numbers into a keypad on the alarm. A moment later, the obnoxious blaring of the alarm dies down and the hallways around us are silent again. Thankfully.

“Didn't know I had to be,” I say, scratching my head.

“Are you a parent?” the woman asks.

She pushes her glasses up higher on her nose to get a good look at me. She scrutinizes my appearance, looking at me from head-to-toe and I guess when I pass her visual inspection, her face and body relax a bit.

“No, I'm actually here to see one of your teachers,” I say. “Ms. Gallagher?”

“And you are?”

Her eyes narrow as she looks at me, a sudden tone of suspicion in her voice.

Her husband? Yeah, I'm sure that will go over really well.

Instead, I say, “A friend. I have a surprise for her.”

“It's not her birthday, is it?”

“No,” I laugh. “Not that kind of surprise.”

“Good, because I try to keep up-to-date on those sorts of things, and I sure hate to forget birthdays,” she says. “We do cards and a cake in the teacher's lounge for birthdays, occasionally we'll order in pizza –”

“Uh huh,” I say, interrupting her before she can really get rolling. “If you could just point me in the direction of Ms. Gallagher's class, I'd –”

A bell rings, its shrill bleating echoing through the hallway, and for a moment, I worry that I've somehow set off the alarm again. Except this bell is louder than before, and only a couple of seconds later, a horde of students comes rushing out of the various classrooms. It's not long before the corridor is filled with bodies, kids gathering at lockers, standing around in clusters gossiping, and pushing past me to get out of the building.

“Early release today,” the woman says. “Parent-teacher conferences are tonight.”

“Ah.”

At the end of the hallway, I see red hair bouncing among the mass of students. I squint and cock my head, trying to determine if it's actually Holly or just another ginger. And that's the exact moment when the throng of students in the hallway parts and her eyes lock on mine.

The look of recognition – accompanied with wide-eyed panic – answers my question for me.

It's Holly.

I hurry toward her, the old woman calling after me, “You have to sign in!” but I don't listen. I keep heading forward, plunging through the mass of bodies right at her. Now that I've seen her, I'm not going to let her out of my sight again. Not until I get what I came here for – one way or the other.

Holly ducks into her classroom just as I draw closer, probably thinking she's lost me. She's shutting the door of the classroom, but I reach out and grab onto the doorknob, preventing her from closing it fully. Instead, I pull it open and she drops it, stepping backward, her lips trembling and her eyes shimmering with tears.

I step inside and shut the door behind me, locking it, and then turn to face her. She looks, for all the world, like a man with a machete intent on cutting her head off had just stepped into the room, rather than a man she'd recently shared more than a few amazing nights – and orgasms - with. I lean against the door, blocking her only way out. I’ve left her no choice. If she wants out of this room, she has to talk to me now.

Her beautiful red hair is pulled back into a French twist with soft tendrils floating around her face, framing it and accenting her alabaster-colored skin. Her green eyes are wide and filled with what looks like absolute terror as she backs away from me. The way she's looking at me, you'd almost think that I had been beating her on the regular. Not that I'd ever hit a woman and especially not this one. She, of all people, should know that.

Her black pencil skirt hits right above her knees but does little to hide the luscious curves of her body. And even though her long-sleeved blouse is high-collared, I can still see the hint of her full, perky breasts underneath. Damn. She must give her students plenty of dirty thoughts and wet dreams. I bet she doesn't even realize it.

My cock grows hard in my pants, remembering the way she sucked it the last time we saw each other. Those red lips around my shaft, sucking and licking and – fuck. I stop that train of thought before it can continue any further. This is not the reason I'm here. Chill out, Brayden, I silently snap at myself, and stop thinking with your cock.

“Well, golly, my dearest wifey,” I tease. “Long time, no see. Guess you can't avoid talking to me now, can you?”

The look on her face tells me all that I need to know – she is just as conflicted about me being here as I am. Her cheeks flush, turning a soft shade of red, and her chest heaves up and down as her breathing grows ragged – no doubt, adrenaline is flowing through her body, free and unfettered. Her heart is probably beating like she’s just run a marathon.

She swallows and clears her throat before she opens her mouth to speak. She looks at me and I can see a maelstrom of emotions reflected in her eyes.

“Brayden, I – I'm sorry,” she says, her voice barely higher than a whisper. “I didn't mean to avoid you. I didn't mean to hurt you. I - I just had a lot going on and a lot to think about. But, I promise you, I will file the paperwork to have this marriage annulled. You don't have to worry about that.”

Though it is exactly the outcome I've been expecting, just hearing her say those words, with that tone of cold detachment in her voice, causes my heart to drop into my shoes.