Chapter Twenty-Five

Brayden

I push open the heavy door leading to the back patio. It's empty, as it's too cold for anyone to eat outside this time of year. But, as the freezing air hits my skin, it feels nice. It focuses my mind. Helps me think. It centers me.

I pace around the empty tables lined up on the back patio, letting my anger consume me in a red, hot rage. If Holly lied to me, if the real reason we got married was to get her out of some shit marriage arrangement to square her father's debts, why does it matter? Does that change the way I feel about her? About the woman I got to know?

I have the annulment papers with me and she's willing to sign them. Ultimately, the result is still the same. No harm, no foul. But that means she used me to get out from this fucked-up arrangement her father made. Or did she? That's the real bitch of this all. I don't know if our getting married was what it seemed – a spontaneous drunken act of stupidity, or some calculated, pre-arranged act of deception. Had she come to Vegas looking for someone to take her away from her problems? Or had she come there simply to get away from them?

I slam my fist into the brick wall, my knuckles aching from the beating they'd just taken.

“Why does it matter if she used you?” I ask myself aloud.

Because. It does. It shouldn't, but it does.

Her face flashes in my mind. When I asked her the question, the look of surprise seemed sincere to me. Either that, or she is a damn good actress.

My mind is a whirlwind of thought and emotion. Our wedding night is a blur and I cannot recall if it was her idea to get married, or mine. We'd both been far too wasted to make any kind of decision like that. Yes, she had as much to drink as I had. There is no way she could have made a logical, calculating choice like this. There was no way she knew we were going to meet in the first place, which means that she couldn't have planned out snaring me into a marriage I didn't want.

But again, why does it matter? She's willing to sign the papers, allowing us both to walk away from one another and get on with our separate lives. Again, no harm, no foul.

And shouldn't the fact that she's willing to sign the papers, allowing both of us to go our separate ways, prove that she wasn’t trying to use me? That Holly was simply looking for an escape from the fucked-up situation her father has thrown her into the middle of?

It should, right?

My insides coil up tight inside me, and I feel like an absolute mess of thoughts and emotions and shit that doesn't have a name. I've never been very good about dealing with my feelings, and that isn't about to change now. But, Holly has managed to stir up a lot of crap within me and it is clouding my head. Affecting my judgment. Making it so I can't see or think straight.

The reason it matters is because Holly makes me feel something. Her very presence is like a breath of fresh air in my lungs. She has a knack for breathing life into me when I seem to need it the most. No one has ever made me feel so alive or been so willing to let go and experience life and everything it has to offer. Nobody has ever made me feel as safe and comfortable as she does.

Yet, we hardly even know each other.

It's all so crazy, but in the end, does it even matter? Had we not rushed ourselves into getting married by a fat Elvis in Vegas, wouldn't I still have wanted to spend time with her? Of course, I would. I'd want to spend a lot of time with her and get to know everything there is to possibly know about her.

Taking a deep breath of the cold, Colorado air, I let it out slowly, feeling my head clear and my emotions falling back into check. I turn and head back inside the restaurant. I see Holly sitting in the booth still, mascara streaking down her pale cheeks. My heart breaks in that moment and I feel like an absolute asshole knowing that those tears are because of me. I may be pissed, but I never want to see her hurt because of me.

When she sees me walking toward her, she quickly wipes her eyes and sits up straight. She looks away and I can see her trying to compose herself. It's as if she thinks I won't be able to see the makeup smeared across her beautiful face.

I did this to her. I made her cry.

And it kills me.

As quickly as the rage consumed me, it dissipates. And in the void left behind by the rage, the guilt comes flowing into me with the power of a tsunami. When I reach the table, I don't sit down. Instead, I walk over to her and pull her from the seat and into my arms instead. I kiss her, hoping to take the pain from her and somehow absorb it all into me. She gasps but doesn't fight it. Instead, she relaxes. I feel her body melt into my arms as she kisses me back.

Stroking her hair, I whisper to her, “It's going to be okay. I promise you, it will.”

“I swear to you, I didn't –”

“Shh,” I silence her with another kiss, a gentler one this time. “I know you didn't. And I'm sorry I reacted the way that I did. I act crazy sometimes.”

With her in my arms, I feel calm. Relaxed. Focused. Knowing that she's told me I need to work on my anger – and wanting to be a better man for and because of her – I keep my emotions in check. And find that it's not actually all that difficult with her.

I feel as if I know what I have to do to make this okay. I have the power to fix things for Holly, and whether she chooses to stay with me or not in the end – that doesn't matter. All I care about is making sure she doesn't have to marry some creep because of her dad's selfishness and lies. All I care about is making sure she doesn't bear the burden of somebody else's poor, selfish decisions.

We sit back down at the table, and the color almost instantly returns to her cheeks. The tears are gone, and a tentative, unsure smile touches her lips. She's not necessarily happy yet, but we're certainly moving in the right direction. I dig into my steak, blood oozing out on the plate as I slice into it. Holly takes a small bite of her Chilean sea bass. We eat in a companionable silence for a couple of minutes and then I drop the bomb on her.

“I'm going to talk to your father, Holly.”

She's in the middle of taking a drink when I say those words, and she stops, almost spitting out what's in her mouth. She freezes and stares at me for a long time.

“I don't know if that's a good idea,” she says slowly.

“It's what I have to do,” I say. “I'm not going to sit back and watch you be forced into a marriage that you don't want. No matter what happens with us, you don't deserve that.”

“Why?” she asks. “Why would you do this for me?”

“I told you earlier that I care about you. And I meant that,” I say. “I care about you a lot, actually. And the only thing I want is to see you happy. To see you live your life and enjoy it. Whether that involves me or not.”

I don't expect her to feel the same way in return. While it would be nice, I don't wait for a response from her at all before I continue.

“Set up a meeting for me with your father tomorrow morning,” I say. “I can meet him in his office or wherever he's most comfortable. We're going to figure this out, the two of us.”

Holly reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers. A small smile lights up her face, and tears shimmer in her eyes once again. This time, however, I know these are tears of joy and not sadness.

“Thank you,” she says.

We go back to our meals, and I’m eating another mouthful of steak when Holly looks up at me.

“I care about you too, by the way,” she says and gives me a mocking grin. “I also care about you a lot.”

That's when I decide that the annulment is off the table. At least for now. It's leverage. He can’t force her to marry someone else if she’s married to me. Maybe that’s not what Holly had intended on happening, but it’s the plan now.

There is no way in hell I’m going to let her be reduced to a bargaining chip in her father's sleazy games.

~ooo000ooo~

As much as I want Holly to come back to my hotel with me, I know she needs to go to her father's house. She's going to find out when he's free for me to stop by for our little chat in the morning. I want it to be as early as possible.

I'm planning to stop by his office, but I want to make sure he's going to be there. Not that he will be expecting me. Holly can't really tell her dad, “Hey, by the way, I got married in Vegas and my husband is stopping by to chat.”

No reason for him to know I'm coming. It’s probably better if he doesn't, actually. Better to catch him unsuspecting and off-guard. I'm more likely to get truthful answers that way.

I get to my hotel and shower, rinsing off all the day's worries and concerns. I check my phone as soon as I get out. Nothing yet. I put on a pair of boxers and brush my teeth and check my phone again. Still nothing.

I fear she's ghosting me again. Maybe she really is a damn good actress and I've been taken for a fool. Again. Not that I believe it this time though. Not really. I trust her even though, logically, I shouldn't. She's given me no reason to trust her. And yet, I do, all the same.

I'm lying in bed with the TV on National Geographic, watching it on mute and barely paying attention, when my phone finally rings. I snatch it up and answer it right away.

“I'm just leaving dad's now,” she says. “He's going to be in the office at seven tomorrow morning, and knowing him like I do, he's not going to have a meeting until well after nine, if at all.”

“I'll be there waiting for him at six forty-five then,” I respond.

She's quiet for a long time, and I suspect the line got dropped until I hear her breathing on the other end of the line.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, I just – I still don't know why you're doing this, Brayden,” she says.

“I already explained myself.”

“But really, you don't have to get involved,” she argues. “I feel bad for dragging you into this mess. This isn't your problem. It's mine. And I'm the one who needs to sort it out.”

“Don't feel bad, and don't apologize. Also, while you're at it, stop worrying about,” I say. “Whether you like it or not, I'm involved because I care about you, Holly.”

“I care about you too,” she says softly.

“Are you almost to your car?” I ask. “How far away from your dad's place did you park?”

On the screen, a lion consumes its prey, tearing the gazelle apart with such vicious force, I cringe and turn off the television. Not that I'm squeamish about the sight of blood, usually, but the terrified look on the gazelle's face as it goes down fills me with a sorrow for the animal that I don't want to deal with right now.

“Holly?” I ask.

Her response comes in the form of a scream. She cries out my name, “Brayden!” and the phone crashes down onto something – probably the pavement. My first instinct is that she's fallen. But, then I hear voices in the background. Spanish is peppered in with English, and I can't make out exactly what they're saying. Holly's responses, however, paint a not-so-pretty picture.

“Fuck you,” I hear her scream out.

Then her voice is muffled and there's the sound of feet shuffling. It sounds like a struggle is happening and I'm standing there, getting dressed before I even realize it. It's like I'm moving on instinct. Pure instinct.

I don't dare say a word into the phone though, not wanting to give myself away. I'm the only help she has. I have the address of her father's house, and my instinct is telling me she can't be all that far from there.

I rush out of the hotel room and run down to the elevator, the phone pressed to my ear. The only sound on the other end of the phone is that of a car engine starting. A moment later, it pulls away, tires screeching. Then more eerie silence follows that.

And I'm left there, staring at the phone, realizing I've just heard Holly being kidnapped.