Chapter Nine
“Mind telling me what that’s about?” Jordana’s dark eyes sparkled, her cheeks lifting in unexpected amusement.
“I really don’t want to get into it.” Megan reached for her purse and stood. “Thank you for everything, but I really should be going.”
“Sit.”
She responded automatically to the tone, finding herself back in the chair.
“Gemma is a good person.”
“Gemma is a two-timing slut who got caught.”
Jordana lifted one perfectly sculpted brow, as if showing off the cosmetic artistry were more important than Gemma’s tawdry indiscretions. “If that’s true, it’s Danny’s issue. I wasn’t aware they were even seeing each other, but whatever happened, it doesn’t concern you. Don’t make her the target for your anger. You’re better than that.”
“You’re right. I wish with everything in me that I didn’t care. But even though I know what happened changes everything, I can’t get it to change how I feel.”
“And how is hurting Gemma going to help?”
“She had a hand in ruining my life, and I can’t see her without wanting to throttle her.”
“But she didn’t have anything to do with the business deal.”
“I don’t care that Brandon took the company. I care that he didn’t trust me enough to warn me a tsunami was about to hit my life and I might want to head to higher ground, but the business deal didn’t do any damage I can’t fix. He did.”
“What do you mean?”
Megan closed her eyes for a moment, wishing she could confide everything and in return be given the power to make it all right again. But Jordana would make things right for Brandon, no one else. “You’re his mother. It’s your job to believe in him. I’ve seen some things that make it so I can’t anymore.”
“But what does Brandon’s business decisions have to do with Gemma?”
Megan didn’t know what to say, so she stared at Jordana, hoping the older woman could fill in the blanks without a play-by-play.
“You think that Brandon and Gemma…” Her voice trailed off and she gave a decided shake of her head. “They are like brother and sister. There must be an explanation for whatever you saw.”
“I’m sure they’re running through the options right now.”
“It doesn’t make any logical sense, Megan.”
No, it didn’t. Which made it hurt all the more. She couldn’t find a place where she’d done anything to drive him away, having always worked to keep him so enthralled he wouldn’t look elsewhere. But he had. “If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I would have a hard time believing it, too. In fact, it rendered me speechless, which is pretty hard to do.”
“You have to think about this, it doesn’t add up. Why would Brandon have called Gemma and me to help with the charity if not to help you?” She tilted her head to the side, concern shading her expression. “How does he explain all of it?”
“I know how it works, I’ve seen my father do the dance often enough. I don’t really care to hear Brandon sing the same song.”
“Don’t you think you owe him a chance to explain?” Jordana placed her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand.
“I’m trying very hard not to owe him anything.” Megan twisted her napkin in her lap.
“How long have you and Brandon been together?”
Megan looked up, startled by the question. “Why do you ask?”
“Come now, Megan. Let’s not be coy. I know it’s been longer than anyone imagines. I knew he was seeing someone, but he’s always been private about that area of his life. It was almost five years ago that he asked me about cockapoo breeders. I didn’t put any of it together until I saw you with the same dog I’ve seen at Brandon’s penthouse on occasion.”
Megan nodded. “Seven years.”
Jordana’s eyes narrowed with worry. “How old were you?”
Megan felt her cheeks lift in smile at the older woman’s genuine concern. “I was eighteen. Few people get to stay with their first love. We just blew up in spectacular fashion.”
Jordana sat back in her chair. “I don’t understand. You’ll fight tooth and nail for a collection of women’s shelters, but you’ll hand the man you love to another woman without a struggle.”
Her throat tightened and she swallowed over the truth. “I don’t want a competition.”
“Life is competition, Megan. You know that.” She took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Do you think there is any chance, no matter how slim, there is an explanation for what you saw that you can live with?”
Megan moved her head from side to side, trying to shake reality into her brain. “We don’t trust each other, and you really can’t come back from that, no matter how bad you might want to.”
“I disagree.” She blinked slowly, her lips pressed together in the way Brandon did when he was thinking something over. “Did Brandon ever tell you why we sent him to military school?”
“He had a party on the yacht. He says it was almost worth it.”
She rubbed her thumb against a perfectly French manicured nail. “Yes, but he’d been off the rails for a while. After I finished radiation for my second round with breast cancer, a scan found it in my liver and bones. I focused on the next course of chemo and alternative therapies. I didn’t think what fifteen years of my cancer treatments had done to Paul. I didn’t think of him at all, and there was someone who let him forget everything for a drunken night.”
Breath slowed in Megan’s lungs, the world around her fading.
“I was hurting and scared and angry, and Brandon heard every ugly thing I threw at his father. They got in a fight that broke Paul’s jaw and started a spiral for Brandon that wouldn’t end. I was sick and he was angry at us both. Sending him away didn’t fix everything. The first year we had to brace ourselves for when he’d come home on breaks.
“But eventually he learned how to rein in his emotions, probably a little too well. I got healthy and Paul and I worked through everything. It took time to heal for all of us, but I have a hard time thinking that Brandon would ever allow unfaithfulness to enter in to his definition of himself. So I think it’s worth listening to his side of what you saw. And I’m not suggesting you forgive him or ever forget, but seven years is a long time to erase.”
Megan nodded, both out of respect and because in her heart she knew she had to know what went wrong before she’d be able to truly move on. As much as she was tempted to run away and not deal with Brandon and his betrayal, that same behavior had kept her stuck in neutral for the last few months. She had to make a clean break.
The only way to do that was to ask the question she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer to.
…
The door had barely clicked closed behind her when Megan was swarmed by the wagging tails and jumping feet of both Cash and Money. She knelt on the floor to greet both dogs, giving Money a good squeeze until she looked past the entry and breath froze in her lungs.
Gemma Ryan sat on the couch with Brandon crouched in front of her. Megan was glad for the boxer’s height as her body sagged, her hopefulness evaporating. Her gaze caught Brandon’s and the dark, foreboding look he gave her showed no promise of an explanation worth hearing.
She gathered up enough strength to put on a façade of anger to mask the devastating pain. She huffed her breath in disgust and rose to her feet. Her heels clicked on the hardwoods as she marched down the hallway to the guest bedroom, grateful that both dogs followed her. She needed them.
She wasn’t sure what to do next but her pulse was racing too fast to lie down and sob like she wanted to. Packing a bag of clothes so she could leave was the logical step, but she stalled with her hand on the doorjamb of the walk-in closet.
Why was her first instinct to run? It hadn’t kept her from being hurt. This time she’d be wondering when he’d find her, what it meant if he didn’t try.
She pulled down a slouchy satchel from the shelf, deciding it would hold enough clothes to get her through until her next paycheck. Her favorite bag had gotten beat up from use, and then ruined during the break in. “Where the hell do you think you’re going now?” Brandon growled from the doorway.
“The train wreck of my life boards in an hour. Can’t be late.” She pulled a blouse off a hanger and began to fold it.
“This is funny to you?”
Megan spun on her heel and faced him, wishing her heart didn’t lurch. “I will not stay here and listen to your late-night routines with that slut.” She tossed the top into the bag and grabbed a pair of flats.
Brandon snatched them from her hands and threw them at the wall, making both dogs yelp and retreat behind him. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve apologized to Gemma and Danny. You have no right to wreak havoc in their lives with your juvenile behavior. You have no idea what happened that day.”
“Oh, my bad. I suppose I should have followed you in for a little voyeuristic action. You think I want to watch you go down on someone else?” She turned back to the clothes, hoping she made it before her face twisted in pain. He grabbed her arm and spun her around.
“Are you really this insecure?”
She wrenched free of his grasp and gave him a look that should have killed him on contact. Too bad it didn’t even penetrate his hard veneer.
Megan was terrified, angry, hurting and beyond humiliated. A treacherous combination. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how you feel when you see me face first in someone else.”
“Don’t taunt me, little girl.” He stepped closer until she had to back up, the corners of the hangers pressing into her back. “You do not want someone else. You want me. And that’s what has you rattled. You want to believe I did something reprehensible, because that keeps you safe.”
“Funny, I haven’t felt safe since you bankrupted my family.” She sidled away from him and grabbed a pair of jeans.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m working at the bar tonight and I have a shift at the coffee shop in the morning.”
“You’re fired, and you’re staying right here.”
Megan turned slowly around. “Excuse me? You can’t fire me, great and powerful Oz. You may have authority in the financial sector, but in the real world you’re as much of a nothing as me.”
“Ever wonder how you got your job back? Why the bar got a brand new security system?”
Megan felt as if every cell in her body were choking. Her pulse raced, her head reeled with conflicting thoughts and emotions, and the only thing she was sure of was that she needed to escape. “You can’t keep me here.”
“The hell I can’t. You will stay put until you have calmed down and realize what a spoiled brat you’re being.”
“That’s rich coming from you. Ever since you hunted me down, your behavior has been atrocious. This is crazy. You are stalking me. If you could channel this insane talent of yours, you could be a great asset to the country. Maybe if you get a hard-on for a terrorist, you might actually save lives instead of ruining them.” She tried to get past him and out of the closet, but he clutched her arm and drew her to him.
“I am not stalking you,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Get your hands off me.” Megan shoved at his chest, but it might as well have been a brick wall. She couldn’t move him, and touching him only reminded her of all the times he’d held her this tight. They’d played with dominance and submission, she’d tried everything in Cosmo to keep their sex life hot. Who knew the memory would activate now, when she couldn’t afford to act on it.
“You’re going to stay here and listen to what I have to say, and then you’re going to apologize to both Danny and Gemma, and my mother for the scene you made today, and then you are going to do whatever it takes to make it up to me.”
He lifted her off her feet and walked her back until she was against the wall. Though her mind knew it was wrong, her body reacted to him as it always had. In spite of herself, she felt the passion, the bloom of excitement swelling inside beginning to swirl with the anger drowning her. She knew it was wrong, and yet it was as if nothing could overwrite the programming of how she reacted to his nearness. She’d loved him her entire adult life, and nothing he did seemed to change it.
She had to get away, even now he was licking his lips and staring at her mouth. If he kissed her, she’d let him. It wouldn’t be long before he was inside her and the lines she’d drawn would blur again.
She twisted in his grasp. “Let me go.”
“Calm down.” He held her steady, so she did the only thing she could think of. She kneed him in the groin and screamed.
…
Brandon’s stomach churned as he dropped Megan to the floor and took a step back, just far enough so that she couldn’t kick him. He crushed his teeth together and forced himself to breathe over the exploding ache.
Touching her had been his fatal error. No matter what she was doing, he could still look at her and see the woman he loved, no matter how deeply she was buried inside this cruel monster.
“Megan, are you all right?” Gemma’s strained voice called out.
“Tell her you’re fine,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
“I’d rather tell her I’m leaving.” Megan got up and tried to leave the walk-in closet. He held out his arm to block her path.
“Cash stays.” It was mean and dirty, but it was the only card he had left to play. Not to mention he didn’t want anything to happen to the dog.
Megan gasped and her blue eyes glittering as she stared up at him. “He’s mine.”
“Legally, he’s mine. Purchased, licensed, registered, and you have no means to care for him. You abandoned him.” He swallowed back the bile burning his throat. He’d destroy anyone who tried to take Money from him, so he knew the hell she must be going through.
“I hate you.” Megan shoved against him, which made the residual ache in his groin worse. “Go, go be with your whore and leave me the hell alone!”
He took a step back, and Megan barreled out of the closet. She raced to Cash and scooped him up, Money hovering at her feet. If he didn’t know better, he could swear both dogs were glaring at him.
He glanced at Gemma in the doorway, her eyes still red from crying and his ire reignited. “Stop embarrassing yourself by calling Gemma names. Megan, you’re seeing everything through the lens of jealousy, and it’s not very clear.”
“Oh yes, it’s all in my imagination. You would never do anything wrong.” She knelt down, both dogs standing by her.
“I kissed him,” Gemma admitted, her bottom lip trembling. “I’m sorry, it was stupid.”
Megan was the picture of calm as she stroked the dogs. “Yeah, Danny seemed to think you’re both rather worthless.”
Gemma hiccupped. “You leave him alone. He didn’t ask for this.”
“And I did? Careful with this one, Gem.” Megan tilted her head his way. “He’ll take you for every dime just so he can try and turn you into some puppet.”
“That’s enough!” Brandon cut his hands through the air. “I’ve had all I’m going to take from your mouth.”
“That’s not what you said last night.” She covered her mouth in mock embarrassment. “Oops, is she not supposed to know you’ve been playing with us both?”
“Brandon and I are not doing anything!” Gemma pulled in a ragged breath. “It was one stupid kiss, though if it keeps him away from you, it was worth it.”
Brandon ushered Gemma out of the room and slammed the door, wishing that it locked. He wanted to keep Megan here until they both calmed down, but there was no telling when that would be. At this rate, they’d be in their seventies.
“I don’t know what you see in her.” Gemma collected her coat and he helped her into it. “You can do better.”
“You don’t have to flatter me.” He smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel. “You don’t need a back-up plan. Danny will come around.”
“He won’t even take my calls. All he said was that he wouldn’t make it to dinner tonight, and probably not to the wedding, and then he hung up on me.”
“I know.” Brandon sighed, hating the aftershocks one moment had on so many lives. “Go to him. I’ll admit, talking it out doesn’t seem to be going well for me and Megan, but Danny will listen. He might not talk to you, but he’ll listen.”
Gemma nodded and then stretched up to kiss his cheek before thinking better of it. “I better not kiss you goodbye for a while. Your girlfriend might scratch my eyes out.”
“That’s probably a good idea. I keep trying to tell myself she’s hurting, but I could shake her for what she said to Danny.”
“You and me both.” Gemma squared her shoulders and looked up at him. “He’ll listen and he’ll understand and it will be okay.”
Brandon nodded. “You have an easier time of it than I do, trust me. Megan saw it, on her birthday, and when she was coming to have me explain what was going on with my takeover of Carlton International. It was a one, two, three punch. Anyone would have been knocked out by it. It doesn’t excuse her behavior, but it does explain it.”
“Kind of.” Gemma gave him a sympathetic grin. “I still say you can do better.”
After Brandon let her out he stared at the closed door, wanting to follow right behind his friend. He knew how to fix what was happening with Gemma and Danny. He didn’t know how to repair the hole that had been torn in the middle of his relationship with Megan.
She was in the next room, and yet he missed her terribly. He missed her laugh, her wicked sense of humor, the way she looked at him as if he could slay dragons. It cut him to think he’d had a hand in changing her, played a part in making it so that the things he loved most about her might never return.
He did everything he could to put off knocking on Megan’s door. Phone calls, emails, ordering dinner, everything short of turning on the television and tuning out of his life. When room service arrived, he couldn’t put it off anymore and knocked.
He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t answer him, but he was stunned to find the room empty. His heart ricocheted around his chest as he bolted for the balcony. His stomach lurched to find it empty. He looked over the edge, and then reminded himself that she was desperate and angry, not suicidal.
He paced the length of it as it wrapped around the penthouse, and wondered how she’d managed to get past him with two dogs. She was as resourceful as she was stubborn, which was how she’d survived these last few months. He climbed the stairs that led from the private balcony to the rooftop garden he shared with the other penthouse.
His pulse dipped from the danger zone when he spied Megan tossing a ball to Money, who scampered about the ridiculously small piece of grass while Cash had to sniff every single bush twice before doing his business. It was the same thing every time.
Heaven help the pup if another dog came along and changed the scent. They’d probably have to spend twice as long out here with him. That definitely put a tick in the column to join the penthouses into one apartment.
Brandon cleared his throat and Money brought him the well-loved tennis ball. He tossed it behind a potted palm. “Why do you have such an aversion to doing what I ask?”
Megan wrapped her arms around herself, her body-hugging sweater dress probably not doing much against the wind. “I’m not used to being told what to do. I haven’t had a nanny since I was twelve, and I was the one calling the shots with her.”
“Lucky you. My mother was still going to the movies with me at twelve.” Money returned with the ball so he tossed it again, wondering when Cash would get around to deciding which bush got the honor today.
“You didn’t have a nanny?”
He stared at the horizon, the lavender sky of early evening softening the edges of everything. “I was the only kid, and we had a housekeeper to stay with me when they were both out.” His eyes met hers. “Did you like it?”
“Nannies? No, they annoyed me mostly. And usually wound up leaving suddenly because they slept with my father.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked away, wishing he hadn’t brought up the subject.
“Don’t be. It’s just how men are.”
He jerked his head towards her as if she’d slapped him. “Are you really going to put me in a box with your father?”
“Why? Don’t you think both your egos will fit?” Money brought the ball to her this time.
“I am not like him, Meg, and you know that.”
“I’m sure he used a line like that at least once. I’m sure over the years my mother heard every excuse you’re going to try and feed me. She might have believed them at first, but after a while she’d lost so much of her self-worth that she just took it in stride.” She turned and looked up at him. “Too bad my self-worth is all I have. I can’t afford to buy any of your lies.”
“So I shouldn’t even bother with the truth, is that it?” Thankfully her dog finally decided on a bush.
Megan shrugged, staring out at the skyline as the day faded away. Her blonde hair danced on the wind and twice he had to stop himself for reaching for it to tuck behind her ear. When Cash scampered over to them, Brandon scooped him up and started for the stairs.
“I ordered dinner if you’re interested.” Money followed him down the stairs and into the penthouse. He fed the dogs, washed his hands and sat down to dinner alone. He was trying to decide if he had enough of an appetite to eat anything when Megan finally came in from the cold.
“I haven’t had a meal in two days,” she said as way of explanation. Brandon nodded, wondering if starvation was the only reason she’d deign to sit at the same table as him. She lifted the lids from each platter, and then switched them.
“Hey, you like the grilled veggie sandwich.”
“No, I liked being able to fit into my jeans.” She set his steak and roasted potatoes in front of her and began eating with gusto.
“For the record, you looked fantastic in jeans.”
She pointed her fork at him. “You say that because you wanted them off.”
He shrugged. “You look better with them off.”
She gave him a pointed look that made him smile. Megan might be hurt and angry and lashing out at everyone she could, but she was still Megan.
Which meant he had to get her back.
He made his way to the kitchen and returned with a pint of spumoni ice cream. He was more of a rocky-road person, but he knew Megan couldn’t resist the cherry-pistachio-chocolate combination. With as thin as she’d become, he figured he needed the edge.
He sat down across from her and carefully pulled his spoon through a swirl of green pistachio ice cream. She eyed him as he took a bite, her gaze narrowing when he lifted a spoonful of cherry to his lips.
“What’s that?”
“You took my dinner. You can’t have my dessert, unless you want to make a trade.”
“I’m not having sex with you.”
“Who asked you to? Your attitude today hasn’t exactly been a turn-on.” He tasted the chocolate this time. “I was thinking of something a little less athletic.”
“I’m not taking off my clothes, either. You want that, you go track down your little tramp.”
“Stop calling Gemma names. It’s petty. And untrue.”
“Hey, she’s slept with half of Beverly Hills. You want to get in line for some of that, you go right on ahead.”
Pain flickered behind her baby blue eyes. It was the only thing that kept him from walking out of the room. If she was hurting, then she cared.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t go with her. Unless you’ve tired of her already. Maybe she wasn’t as good as you’d heard she’d be.”
“I wonder if your nastiness is in direct proportion to how bad you hurt right now.”
“Don’t try and psychoanalyze me. I don’t care what you do with your life, as long as you let me and my dog out of it.”
“You wish you didn’t care, Megan. If you didn’t care then you couldn’t hurt. But you do.”
She rose from the table. “Like usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He caught her wrist as she turned to go. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Said the spider to the fly.”
“Maybe.” He grinned. “I want to tell you what happened. I want to explain whether you care to hear it or not. You sit down and listen for as long as it takes you to finish the ice cream. Then you can go and lock yourself in the guest room, and I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night.”
She shook off his hold and grabbed the ice cream. “Do your worst.”
He waited until she’d settled herself on the leather couch before he sat on the upholstered ottoman opposite her. “I think I should start at the beginning.”
“You mean you’re not going to start with your tongue down Gemma Ryan’s throat? And I thought this was going to be a naughty story.”
“My tongue wasn’t in any part of her.”
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave…” Megan slid the spoon into her mouth, her eyes never leaving his.