by Piper Rayne
Jack looks up at me from the bed sleepily. He’ll be okay. I have to move. No more time to spend feeling sorry for myself.
I shut the shutters on the ground floor at record pace and leap into the car. There’s not a speed limit in town that I don’t break, but I don’t care either. Granny’s is mine, and I need to protect it at all costs.
We keep rope in the back room for emergencies like this. But I don’t have time to go through the back. Which is how I find out that Brandon is still here, cleaning up from the shoot, though he’s alone.
“Ellie—”
“I don’t have time, Brandon. Storm’s coming. You need to get back to your hotel right now.”
Of course he doesn’t go, following me to the storage room and seeing me grab the rope and jog out the back door. Outside, the rounded front of the sandstorm is visible, billowing towards us, and Brandon curses loudly when he sees it. I’m already halfway up the ladder to the roof. “Go to your hotel,” I yell down at him.
The slight shake of the ladder tells me that the command was ignored, and that he’s following me up here. I tie down the vents, making quick work of them, and then I go to work on the damaged portion of the roof, securing the rope in a net and reinforcing individual pieces.
Brandon is beside me, silently noting what I’m doing and following suit. I don’t argue. He’s doing it properly and I don’t have time to refuse his help. The roof is done. Perfect. Now we need the windows.
I slide down the ladder, moving swiftly around the exterior of the building and latching all the shutters. It’s unlikely that a sandstorm would shatter windows, but sometimes sand isn’t all that’s flying in the storm, and I’m not going to take any chances.
When I reach the front of the building, Brandon is there. I see that he’s tackled the other wide of the building and the shutters. Fine.
On the porch there are a few cacti. Chairs that people use to smoke and socialize. Ash trays. All of it needs to come inside. I haul the biggest cactus into my arms only to have it taken me from me by Brandon.
“What are you doing?” I yell at him, the wind starting to pick up and steal my voice. “Get the fuck out and go to your hotel where you can ride out the storm.”
Brandon doesn’t say anything, just carries the cactus inside Granny’s now dark interior. And he keeps helping me until everything is inside. Everything is tied down. Everything is as prepared as we can be, and the storm is almost here.
Already the wind brushing against the walls is filled with the low hiss of sand, and it’s only going to get worse. It’ll be here in minutes. “Go, Brandon. You can make it to the hotel if you leave right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s the first thing that he’s said, other than my name. “Yes, you are,” I say. “I’m not staying in here with you through a fucking sandstorm. There are a lot of things I’d rather do than that.”
Slowly, Brandon shakes his head. “No, Ellie. You and I need to talk. Because I don’t know what the fuck happened, and like hell if I’m going to let you walk away from me over something that I don’t even understand. And since it seems like we might be here for a while, it’s the perfect time.”
“Fine, I’ll go. I need to make sure that Jack is okay anyway.” I make sure I have my keys and head to the door. A little sand never hurt anyone.
“Ellie, please,” he says, catching me by the arm as I pass him. “Talk to me. Tell me why my entire life just got turned upside down.”
“Why? You mean the fact that you only ever came here to humiliate me and make me suffer? You mean that? Cause that’s the last thing I want to talk about right now. Let me go so I can drown my sorrows with the rest of the whiskey I have at home, or get out.”
“Not without an explanation.”
I grab his hand and rip it off my arm, and shove him towards the door. “Get out. Right now. This is what I should have done the first time you were in here. Get the hell out of my bar right now.”
He turns to me, all pretense disappearing. Taking me by the arms, he pushes me against the nearest wall, both of us slamming together. We’ve been here before in breathless moments that are now too painful to think about, and my body is a traitor for still liking the way he’s holding me captive.
The warmth that’s currently rushing through me used to feel like safety and happiness, and now it just feels like betrayal and despair. I’m not going to cry in front of him. I refuse. He’s never going to know how much he hurt me.
Brandon’s mouth crashes down on mine, a kiss that’s as angry as it is desperate, and for a moment everything is washed away. That fire that he kindles in me is a perfect storm, taking me over. No one has ever made me feel like this. Ever. Not Chris, not the smattering of exes I had before that. It’s only been him, and it’s too late.
It’s a bad time to finally realize that I’m in love with him after he’s already broken my heart.
The way he’s kissing me doesn’t make sense. It’s so full of fire and want—things that he shouldn’t need now. Not after everything. But I let it happen. For just a moment, because this is the last time that I can live in the reality where Brandon can kiss me. I try to savor it.
Outside, the storm slams into the bar. Roaring and hissing shake the walls as the wind hits in full force. It brings me back to myself, and with it, everything else. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
Anger surges, and I want to lash out. I want to hurt him, even if it’s only a fraction of what’s been done to me. I bite his lip as hard as I dare, and he jerks back. “Guess you can’t leave now, but you stay away from me.”
He steps back, letting me go. At the very least, I know he’ll cross a boundary like that once I set it. But he doesn’t look happy. In fact, there’s a fierce determination in his eyes. Now that we’re trapped here together, he’s going to want me to listen to what he has to say.
Fat chance of that.
The only good thing about this is the supply of alcohol. Time for a drink.
17
Ellie
I shove myself off the wall and stalk to the bar, slamming down a shot glass on the bar. And what the hell, I put one out for Brandon too. If I’m getting drunk, so is he.
He follows, watching closely. “I want to know what the hell happened. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. About anything. About myself. About Chris. But you have to be honest with me too. Why did Chris try to have me sign a non-disclosure saying that he was never here?”
I give him the most scathing look I can muster. “Take the shot.”
He does, and I do too.
“Like I said, Brandon. I don’t believe in coincidences. And the easiest explanation is that you came here with Chris to continue burning my life to the ground.”
“Just because you don’t believe in coincidences doesn’t mean they don’t happen, Ellie.” His hands slam against the bar. “This isn’t what you think.”
I don’t really care about his frustration. “So what is it then?”
“We were out for a drink, and Chris mentioned that he’d heard about a place in Arizona from a friend of a friend, about the best barbecue sauce he’d ever tasted. He knows I like chasing down food like that, and so I did. I had no idea who you were before I tracked down Granny’s.”
I don’t say anything, and he just looks at me, misery plain on his face. “And the fact that I fell head over heels in love with you was not a part of the plan. It was the opposite of the plan. I tried to make myself stop, but I couldn’t. And now I’m here, fucking in love with you.”
My breath catches in my chest.
He’s never said that before. Even though it was fast there had been moments where we’d been on the verge of it, but never said it out loud. Even just now when I admitted to myself that I love him too.
“And I don’t know what to do, Ellie. Except for the fact that I want to fix it. The things Chris said—” he looks down at the floor, leaning against the bar. “I punched him. And it fel
t fucking good.”
All the warmth drains from me. “What did he say?”
Brandon clenches his jaw. “Nothing that you ever need to hear.”
I’m staring at him when something clicks in my brain. “Chris was the one that gave you this lead.”
“Yeah,” he nods.
“And you’d never heard of me before that? Didn’t know who I was? Or about the photos?”
His head snaps up then. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Only that he made it clear that you two were together.”
“I signed away my rights to talk about this,” I say softly. “If I tell you, you have even more power.”
“Ellie, I swear to you. I swear that I had nothing to do with this and I would never hurt you. Please just help me understand.”
I take a breath and pour another shot. Knock it back. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. He’s already done everything he can.”
Brandon starts to say something and I hold up a hand. “It’s going to be hard enough for me to get this out. Yes, Chris and I were together. For years. Two years. I told you I worked in PR and marketing. He was a client of the firm I worked for, and we met at a party. I was…completely swept away.
“Because he was a celebrity, and a client, we had to keep it quiet. And I didn’t care because I was so in love. I’m talking about that kind of love that you see in cheesy romantic comedies. And we were happy—or at least I thought we were happy.”
Brandon sighs. “That explains why I never met you with him, I guess? You guys weren’t really public?”
“No. We thought it was better that way. Less attention from gossip magazines and online tabloids, and less trouble for me at work if people found out that I was dating a client. Wasn’t until later that I realized he was really just hiding me for other reasons.”
I pour one more shot. At this point, I don’t care if I get drunk. Who knows how long we’ll be here, and this is painful enough as it is. “I thought we were going to get married. My entire apartment was in boxes ready to move in together.”
“Clearly that didn’t happen.”
A laugh escapes me, though nothing is funny about this. “No, it didn’t. There were rumors about Chris being connected with that actress Kira Harris. He told me that it wasn’t anything, just PR tidbits thrown to the media to help promote the movie that they’d done together. We’d done that same thing half a dozen times at the firm, so it didn’t even phase me. It should have.
“And then Chris’s phone was hacked.”
“Fuck,” Brandon says, and I can see him putting things together. But I still have to say all of it.
“All those photos of me—nude ones—sent to the press. I suppose I was lucky that even the ones of us having sex didn’t show my face. But my tattoo…they showed that. And the intimate texts that he’d been sending back and forth to Kira.”
I swallow and wrap my arms around myself, nausea invading my stomach with all the memories. “It wasn’t rumors. They were together. Every time he was in L.A. he was with her, but it was on the down low, just like me. But they were serious. They’d gone ring shopping. And I was just the faceless whore and home wrecker who dared to fuck a man who wasn’t hers.”
“Ellie—”
I push forward. “Kira dumped Chris, and he was furious at me for ruining things with her. His real relationship. And because he was so valuable, I was the one that took the fall. My firm was the one that made it look like I was a deranged stalker who made it my mission to seduce my celebrity obsession. He came out looking pristine. Like the victim. And I came out with nothing. No one would speak to me after that.
“All of my friends were from work and they all knew that it wasn’t the all true, but they didn’t know the whole truth either.”
There’s silence for a moment, and Brandon is staring down at the surface of the bar. His hands are clenched tight enough that his knuckles are white, but he doesn’t say anything.
“They made me sign a non-disclosure, and Chris made it clear that if I ever came near him again that he’d use the evidence that made me look like a stalker to press charges, and ruin me—like he hadn’t already done that. Because he was somebody, and I was nothing. I was an acceptable sacrifice.”
I shrug, trying to shake off the heaviness. “So basically overnight I went from having what I thought was my dream life, to nothing. The only good thing is that since my face was never leaked, I’m just a nameless slut in that story and I don’t have paparazzi banging down my door. So when Dorothy called and asked me to come home, I ran.”
“I heard about that,” Brandon says. “Vaguely. I didn’t look too closely. I was busy with another project, and even though Chris was a friend, we’re not that type of friends. I really thought he’d been stalked and duped, and so did Kira.”
I smile grimly. “So does the rest of the world. You’re not alone.”
“Ellie, I’m sorry. No one should ever be treated like this. And if I’d known what he’d done, I never would have brought him here. Hell, if I’d known any of this he would have gotten a lot more than a fist to the face. He’d seemed perfect for what we wanted. Talk about a mistake.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I say. “But I guess I’m going to have to start believing in coincidences.”
“But it wasn’t. He sent me here indirectly, probably because he knew you were here and was hoping that I’d do something like this.” Brandon suddenly stands and walks around the bar. “That’s the one thing I don’t regret about this. Him telling me about the rumor. If he hadn’t, I never would have found you. And I can’t imagine that.”
He’s in front of me now, not touching me, stopping himself before he does. “I believe you,” Brandon says. “All of it. And I’m so sorry. I love you. I don’t care if it’s fast or that it seems too good to be true. I love you, and I don’t want to hide you from the world. If there weren’t a fucking storm outside I would go back up on the roof and shout it for everyone to hear.”
“I love you too,” I manage to say. My voice has nearly evaporated from emotion, but I’m already there. So much for not crying in front of him, it’s going to happen either way now.
“Can I touch you?”
“Yes,” I breathe, and I’m swept up into his arms before the word is complete. It’s so fierce and so tight that I can’t breathe and I don’t fucking care. One of Brandon’s hands weaves into my hair, pressing my face to his chest where I can cry. And I do. Again. I’ve cried more today than I have in months. Since the entire thing happened and I realized that I had absolutely nothing left.
He holds me, never wavering as I pour the rest of it out. And when it’s gone, I feel empty. But not blank. It’s like I was finally able to purge some of that pain, and hopefully it won’t be back.
“I ruined your shirt,” I say quietly.
Instead of responding, Brandon just releases me long enough to strip the shirt over his head and toss it aside. “There.”
“It’s still ruined.”
“I don’t give a shit about the shirt, Ellie.”
I take a shaky breath. This is all new now. No one knows about this—not the whole truth—except for me and Chris and the CEO of the PR firm. It feels good to have someone know. But there’s one more thing. “Will you tell me what he said to you to make you punch him?”
“Do you need to know?” He looks at me carefully.
He’ll gladly keep it to himself. I can see that. To protect me. But I’d rather know. “Yeah.”
This time it’s Brandon that pours a shot and knocks it back. “Just like you said, he called you nothing. And I didn’t realize I was hitting him until it happened. He also implied that I was an idiot for settling for someone that he’d had first.”
I’m glad that the words don’t hurt me. They roll off me like I’m impervious. He really can’t hurt me anymore. “That sounds like him.”
“He’s wrong, by the way,” Brandon says, reaching down and tugging my shirt over my hea
d. I don’t resist. “You’re everything.”
“I don’t know about that.”
He unbuckles my belt and strips my pants off in one smith motion before he lifts me to sit on the bar. On this side of it, I’m at the perfect height for all kinds of…interesting things. “You are everything to me. And not that I know everything that he’s done, I wish I could go back in time a couple of hours and rip his fucking dick off.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. He’s bringing me back piece by piece. “As entertaining as that might be, that would mean your dick is in jail, and I rather like your dick.”
“You do, do you?” He smiles slowly. “That’s nice to hear.”
He’s standing between my legs, grinning, and I’m very aware of the fact that I’m naked, and the only thing separating us is his jeans. But before we go down this road, there’s something else.
“What happens when this is done?” I ask quietly.
“What do you mean?”
I clear my throat. “When Granny’s launches and you go back to New York?”
“New York is just a place.”
“But your whole life is there,” I say. “Your business.”
Brandon takes my face in his hands. “My business is this,” he says. “It’s been fine this month while I’ve been gone. I’ve got good people running the place. They’re smarter than I am, and they let me do things like this. And the way I travel, my apartment is mostly a placeholder for stuff. That’s also what airplanes are for. I don’t care where my home base is, but I know that I don’t want to be long distance.”
I thought that I was cried out, but my eyes blur with tears again. “Really?”
“Really.” He kisses me, and this time I kiss him back. Wholly. Entirely.
“You better let go of that hotel room then,” I whisper, and he laughs. “Maybe we should get a bigger place?”
“Your place is perfect. But that’s something we can talk about later. Right now, there’s only one thing on my mind.”
