Chapter 32

Brooke

It’s absolutely perfect.

A brisk fifty-five degrees out that’s not cold at all with the light jacket I’m wearing and the way I’m warmed from the stroll I’d taken through Washington Square Park. The west entrance is a mere two blocks from Elizabeth’s apartment, and there’s a fantastic bakery on the way where I picked up a coffee and croissant.

Horns honking, construction noise, and the endless throng of New Yorkers beating the sidewalks.

I really, really missed this.

Granted, not as much as I miss Bishop right now, but it’s a close second.

Well…third. I miss my dad a lot too.

This was the right thing to do, though. After I’d given every last drop of information I had to Dominik and Fred, I knew that I needed time, distance, and a familiar setting to help me make sense of just how screwed up things have gotten.

Elizabeth is my former boss at the magazine, and she graciously let me crash on her couch. She has an awesome apartment, but it’s only 550 square feet and all she could offer me was a couch.

It was enough.

It’s been so nice to see her again, and she’s given me such refuge. Of course I filled her in on every sordid detail of what’s been going on in my crazy life, even admitting to my deepened feelings for Bishop. She wasn’t surprised in the slightest by Nanette’s psycho ways, and told me that she was fired for bizarre behavior and sleeping with, well, most of the men in the office. Totally doesn’t surprise me. Nanette told me she’d quit, but in hindsight knowing what I know now about her craziness, of course she was fired.

Elizabeth is at work, and though she desperately tried to get me to come in and hang with her today—no doubt to tempt me right back into my position by her side—I needed some time alone to think.

I woke up this morning to no texts from Bishop, and that made me sick at heart. He’d frantically tried to reach me yesterday, but I knew that if I spoke to him, I’d talk myself out of coming to New York, and I knew instinctively I needed to get away. But there was nothing from him today, and I wasn’t sure if that was a kiss-off or what. I do intend to call him, and that will most likely be today.

At some point.

Maybe tomorrow.

It’s not to say I didn’t have texts, though. There were several, mostly from old friends and acquaintances who had been watching this sordid story unfold in the hockey sports world. Of course, the big news was the multimillion-dollar lawsuit Nanette had filed against the newly minted sports franchise. But it didn’t mean people didn’t want to talk about the juicy stuff like Bishop and me perpetrating a false relationship while I had a scandalous affair with Sebastian in order to beat Nanette out of a job. That’s actually what was being reported, and it made me sick to my stomach.

There was one text that made me feel a little bit better, and weirdly, it was from Dominik Carlson. I didn’t give him my number, but I’m sure it was easily accessible to him. It was a bit lengthy for a text, but I sort of got the feeling that was his preferred method of communication.

It had said, Hope you are feeling better today. The news is out and it’s going to be brutal for a while. The team’s official position is that Nanette’s allegations are 100 percent false and will be easily disproved in court. Also, we are dismissing the rumors about you and Bishop as being petty and vindictive, and also are no one’s business. Just be prepared…reporters will call you. It is up to you and Bishop to issue any or no statement at all, but whatever you do, you both have our full support. Keep your chin up. Your job is waiting for you.

It was a really nice text.

It made me realize that I had to seriously consider a return to Phoenix. When I’d left, my mind was firmly made up that I was going to come back to New York permanently and take Elizabeth’s offer of my old job back. Of course, the terrible ache of missing Bishop had me reconsidering it. Dominik’s text made me also reconsider.

The walk to Elizabeth’s is nice, punctuated every so often by trees planted right into the New York sidewalks. Her building is made of taupe-colored bricks, and because there’s some construction going on, the entrance is covered by a tented walkway. My focus is on that as I approach, but just before I reach her apartment building’s entrance, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

I stop midstride, ignoring the man who had to quickly step around me to avoid running me over as he curses at me, and look around. Let my gaze sweep in an arc, across the street to a small community garden surrounded by wrought iron fencing with sharp spires on top. Sitting on a bench right in front of it is Bishop.

He’s leaning back, both arms stretched out, and casually resting an ankle on one knee. He’s wearing a suit that’s wrinkled and rumpled in a way that tells me he’s been in it for a while. Given that he should have been on a plane yesterday flying from Washington to Phoenix, and I’m assuming immediately flew from Phoenix here to New York, he looks appropriately disheveled.

As I stare at him, he merely raises a hand to wave at me.

I can read nothing on his face—not anger or disappointment. He doesn’t seem bent out of shape because he’s chased me across the country. Yes, he appears to be a little tired, but that’s a given. However, he doesn’t look happy to see me either. Maybe a bit resigned.

While I’d like to turn tail and run into the safety of Elizabeth’s building, which has a security pad on the door, I know that I have no choice but to find out why Bishop is here.

Stepping to the edge of the sidewalk between two cars parallel parked there, I check the oncoming traffic to my left since it’s a one-way street before making my way across to him.

He studies me as I move closer, eye sweeping from face to toes and back up again, before they really only roam over my face. He’s trying to read me the way I was reading him, and whereas I’d normally see only bold confidence in Bishop’s eyes, I see nothing but hesitancy there now. It doesn’t bode well for either of us.

“Hey,” I say as I step onto the sidewalk and come to stand in front of him.

He has to look up at me, squinting slightly from the morning sun at my back. “Hey. Time to sit down and talk?”

“Of course,” I say as I move to sit beside him. I hold the bag I’m carrying out to him. “Croissant?”

“I had breakfast on the plane,” he says with a shake of his head as he turns it to look at me. With his arms still splayed out across the back of the bench, I can feel his heat radiating and have to make myself not scoot into him to snuggle.

“Take a red-eye here?”

“Nope. Took Dominik Carlson’s private Gulfstream. He gave me the keys, told me to take it for a spin.”

I give a tiny blink of surprise and shake my head. “That was generous.”

“Indeed.”

Turning away from Bishop, I place the pastry bag and cup of coffee on the seat next to me before turning back—so much so that my knees bump into him and I don’t care. I keep them there, pressed against his leg. He pulls his arms in and shifts a little more to face me head on.

Staring face to face, eye to eye, no time for lies.

“I missed you,” I tell him bluntly. “Even though you weren’t in Phoenix when I left, the minute I got to New York I was really missing you. Even more so than when you were on the road trip.”

Bishop chuckles, his expression amused. “Here I was thinking I had to chase you down to make you realize how much you really care for me and need to come back to Phoenix.”

“Oh, I care for you,” I tell him softly. “But I’m not sure I want to go back. I’m horribly embarrassed, and Bishop…I brought Nanette down on this organization. It’s all my fault.”

“You know this story will die down in the news,” he tells me as he leans in a bit closer. “It’s gossip. Tomorrow there will be a juicier story.”

“I know,” I say glumly.

“And you do realize that it’s absolutely ludicrous to blame all of this on yourself,” he continues, punctuating just how serious he is by putting a hand to my face, curling his fingers around the back of my head so I would never dare to look away from him. “This is all one hundred percent on Nanette. She’s manipulative, narcissistic, and I’m going to make an official diagnosis that she’s a little bit sociopathic. There was nothing you could have done to know what she was going to do or to even prevent it.”

All of that sounds good and well to me. I truly want to believe what he’s said, but there’s still that one thing that really sent me scurrying away.

“The truth is out about our relationship,” I murmur in a small voice. “There is no need to extend this charade anymore. So there’s no need—”

“Just stop it,” he commands, giving me a small shake with his hand. “Did you already forget that just moments ago you said you cared for me?”

“I didn’t forget that,” I reply softly. “But I also didn’t hear the words back from you, nor did you say that you missed me too.”

“I’m getting to that,” he says with a lopsided grin, dropping his hand from my face. “But first we need to put all this bad shit behind us, babe. I’ve done it, but you’re still struggling with that. Can you do it?”

“Just put it all behind us? Just that simple?”

He beams the most beautiful smile at me and it makes my heart sing. He sticks a hand out for me to shake. “Hi. My name is Bishop Scott. I read The Count of Monte Cristo in high school and really enjoyed it. What did you think of it?”

I gape as I look from his hand to his face back to his hand, and then settle on his face. “You just want to…what? Start over?”

“Fuck no I don’t want to start over,” he barks with a chortle. “That would mean I’d have to court you all over again and I don’t have time for that. I want you to get on that fancy Gulfstream plane—which has a bed by the way—and let’s get our asses back to Phoenix. I want to start the next step of our life together. And I want that, Brooke—sweet, beautiful, lovely Brooke—because I’ve fallen in love with you over the course of our charade…which, by the way, you know your dad knew it was all bullshit, right?”

“Wait a minute,” I say as I tuck a chunk of my hair behind my ear. I tilt my head and lean a bit closer. “Say that again?”

“Your dad was on to us from the start?” he teases.

“The other part,” I correct him with a demure smile.

“Oh,” he drawls as if it just dawns on him what I’m asking. “You mean the part that I’ve fallen in love with you?”

“That’s the part,” I mutter.

“Well, it’s true. I’ve fallen. Off the market. Not a bachelor anymore. If I propose, it will totally be way better than I did the first time.”

I ignore his remarks about a proposal. That’s way down the line.

I think.

“I thought it was just me,” I admit to him softly. “Who had done the falling, that is.”

“So you love me too?” he asks with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“You know…I do believe I do.”

Bishop lets out a whoop of triumph, and then somehow I end up sitting on his lap and he’s kissing me like there’s no tomorrow. When we come up for air, the city of New York is still bustling on without us. People walk by oblivious to the fact we’ve just offered to each other the most precious words you can give to someone.

Not one of these New Yorkers care that today is the happiest day of my life.

That’s all right. It’s enough that I know.

Even better than I know the happiest days are still to come.