Chapter Thirteen
Brandon
Two months later…
I didn’t understand any of it. The Monday after Tammy’s party everything changed. Selena quit her internship a couple weeks shy of it ending naturally because of the school year starting back. She informed Tammy that she was moving and changing schools from NYU, and by early September was just gone. I’d gone to the apartment on the guise of offering to help her move her few belongings. I’d tried to get her to listen to me to stay, to just talk out what had happened. She’d refused. Every day, I still emailed and called her, but I was screened every damn time. Even Tammy hadn’t heard from her. That both confused and scared me. They’d gone from being so close that they were almost sisters to now Selena not being able to be in the same city as her best friend.
None of it made one goddamn ounce of sense, and I couldn’t even get her to so much as shoot me back an email. It angered and frustrated me, but mostly it scared me. This wasn’t like the tiger I knew, and something was happening.
I just couldn’t stand being shut out of her life. I knew where she was; she’d moved back home to a tiny shit town in West Virginia. She wasn’t living at her home, seemed to be renting an apartment and going to a local state school, but I had no idea what had caused the drastic flight from New York and from me. I was planning to go down there soon. I’d only held off this long because I didn’t want to seem like some kind of in-person creepy stalker. But I couldn’t live without her.
I’d suspected that since the day I’d taken her to Tiffany’s, and I’d first defended our relationship to my CFO, Jonathan. I needed Selena, and whatever was wrong with her, we’d figure it out together. Fuck, if she was sick, I had all the money she’d ever need for treatment. I could convince Tammy to come around. Now that the Orbit merger was over, even Jonathan didn’t have leverage over me. There were no rules for me to follow. Whatever was going on, I was going to get to the fucking bottom of it.
I was sick of the empty side of the bed, the cool sheets under my hand. I missed the hint of strawberry shampoo in my nostrils. I missed the softness of Selena’s ample curves. Hell, I missed ramming into her wet pussy and feeling more complete than I ever had in my life.
I needed her.
But first I had one fundraiser I was obligated to go to. It was a charity that continued to fund those who, even five years later, were struggling with rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy. Most of the currently collected money went to helping children with whatever school needs or college funding the needed. It was a group near and dear to my heart. I’d promised to be the emcee, so I couldn’t get out of it. Tomorrow though I’d be flying out to whatever passed for an airport in West Virginia, and then I’d be tracking Selena down.
I schmoozed the room like normal, then eased my way onto the balcony. The view of New York City rose before me, and I had to admire her beauty. I had a killer view from my penthouse, but I often took the vantage point for granted. Somehow, thinking of Selena brought the wonder out in me too, made me see the city I’d lived most of my life in with the same eyes I had decades ago when I’d gotten off a bus from Ohio.
I wanted her beside me on the veranda so that she could enjoy what I was seeing. Damn it, I wanted—no needed—her in my life permanently.
“You look contemplative tonight.” Mel’s voice was playful.
I groaned inwardly. We’d learned to be polite to each other at big family events and the occasional holiday, but I knew every mood of my ex-wife. She was happy because she was like a cat with a mouse. There was something she wanted to hold over my head.
What joy.
I rounded on her and drained my glass of champagne. “I don’t have time for this.”
“I don’t think I ever had time for your bullshit,” she said. Then she arched her head over her shoulder and made sure the door shut behind her. It left us alone on the silent balcony. “What did you think you were trying to pull?”
“What?”
Mel strode over and glared into my eyes. In her heels, she was almost eye to eye with me; a reminder of having fallen once for a model with a love for stilettos. “Do you really think I’d never find out? You’re fucking lucky that I took care of things before that tramp you were with could ruin everything between you and Tammy.”
“You found out about Selena?”
“You were hardly discreet. For fuck’s sake, sneaking off to a bedroom during Tammy’s birthday party? Really? It’s a wonder half the party didn’t figure out right then and there what you were doing. Or, you know, who you were doing.”
“What the hell did you tell her, Mel?”
She laughed and sipped her drink as if we were making casual party conversation. “The truth: that you’ve had dozens of girls in your life, to put it mildly. That you’ve broken hearts before.”
“I’m sorry about what happened… That I worked so hard. That I cheated.”
“I don’t care about that. I’m actually happy now, but how do you think I was going to put Tammy back together, yet again, you selfish bastard?”
“We were waiting for the right time to tell her,” I hedged.
“The right time to tell her she was going to be a big sister because you knocked up her whore of a best friend?”
I dropped the glass in my hand and cursed when it shattered. “What? She’s what?”
“Pregnant. You can’t even bother to use a condom. You used to be less risky.”
“She was on the pill.”
She finished her drink. “Then apparently the little strumpet is more of a conniver than you thought. I saw the test myself; she was using it in a spare bathroom of my house during the party.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly,” she said. “You must be so proud of yourself. Don’t worry, to save Tammy’s sense of self, I sent her away.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, grabbing her shoulders.
She pulled away from me as she sent a death glare my way. “Don’t pretend this isn’t easier for you. I paid her off, Brandon, and now your whore can go and be far away from all of us. Who knows if she even kept the child. For a cool million plus, I’d do a lot of things.”
I couldn’t swallow. The thought that I had a child and that something might have happened to it already was too much to bear. “You’re a monster.”
“I’m protecting our family… What’s left of it.”
“Fuck you, Mel. You’re a selfish bitch, and you had no right to do this.”
“Just like you had no right to have the most clichéd midlife crisis ever and drag our daughter into it. Just give it up, Brandon. Selena wanted the money, not you. So just ignore her. You know I am.”
I shook my head and stomped toward the sliding glass door and the gallery. “I know you’ve messed with my family for the last time, Mel.”
“Where are you going?”
“To West Virginia. Right now.”