“I’m sorry. I didn’t let you explain,” he said quietly.
“It’s not all your fault,” I said quietly. “Actually, yes, it is your fault. You didn’t give me a chance.”
He hesitated before taking a step forward and then stopped. “I don’t want this. I want you.”
“Jesus, hell, are you kidding me with this shit?” I snapped, unable to hide the laugh. “You are so up and down with emotions. I thought I was emotional, but Christ, Brody, you are fucking bipolar with everything.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“You said the same thing months ago, and I believed you. You threw me out of our home and banned me from coming back. Our kids think I’m a wicked bitch who doesn’t want to live with them, and your mother hates me.” I turned to look at him. “I’ve been living in a hotel and pregnant because I thought you didn’t want this baby!” Before I could stop myself, I balled my hands into fists and hit him, hard against his chest. “You never let me explain, and I should have pushed.” I hit again, each word hurting as my eyes spilled with tears. “You made me think that you didn’t love me.”
He stood there, taking what I was giving, and then wrapped his arms around my body and held me tightly. “I deserve it and more. I should have let you speak, I shouldn’t have assumed you were cheating on me, but I was scared. Damn it, I was so fucking terrified that you had enough of me after I called you a bad mother, and I thought you slept with someone else. Scott told me you slept with him years ago. He said Lila wasn’t mine. Then when I saw you with the—”
“You saw me with Steven, who delivered our babies.” I looked up at him, confused. “He’s a gynaecologist in private practice. I thought you knew about the baby and was mad I hadn’t told you. That’s what I thought.”
“I could never be mad at a baby, our baby.” He reached up and stroked my cheek gently. “I love you, and I always will. Now, you need to tell me what my brother has done. I promise I won’t get mad or yell. I need you to tell me.”
Shaking my head, I began to remove my hands from his biceps. “Not here, um, the hotel. Come to the hotel?”
“Now?” he asked in a low murmur.
“Yes, we need to lay everything out, talk and don’t stop talking until everything is resolved. No more secrets, there are things I want to tell you about Scott and my father. We need to be honest, and if we can’t then…” I sadly looked at him. “Then we’re never going to make it.”
“I know. I know.” He ran his hands through his hair, and the next thing I knew, his fist was in the stall door. “Fucking Christ!” he bellowed. “I could have lost you over a communication issue! This divorce is off the table!”
Least, we agreed on one thing. Brody went back into the conference room. He was going to let our legal representatives know that we were going to talk privately before signing anything again. I went to the hotel to wait for him.
This time, I was going to open up Pandora’s Box, and nothing was getting left out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Opening the white door after he knocked twice, I leant against it and looked up at Brody, who stood there with sweat against his forehead. He was nervous. This was a “make it or break it” conversation. I had worried that he would change his mind and not show up.
“My lawyer just called. Can’t imagine yours would be too happy with you right now.” I smiled as I pushed the door all the way open for him to come inside.
Striding in as he gave the buttons on his black suit jacket a tug open, he shrugged. “He’s still getting paid. He’ll shut his mouth if he wants to continue working for me.”
Taking a seat on the bed since there wasn’t a couch in here, I leant back on my hands as I watched him take off his jacket and then loosen his tie. Reaching into his pocket, I noticed a rolled of film of white papers. “What’s that?”
Unfolding them, he tossed them to the bed beside me. “It’s a custody agreement with a clause for divorce. If you feel like this isn’t going to work, sign them, and when we can file, you’ll get everything.”
“No, we are going to talk, and if we both can’t get along, then we’ll both sign them. I can’t live this way anymore.” He wasn’t going to make me the bad one. “We both fucked up.”
Sinking to his knees, he kneeled in front of me and let his hands begin to wander up my thighs and toward the hem of my top. I watched as he slowly and hesitantly raised the top until my stomach was revealed to him. His warm hand began to move over my tanned belly, and he rested it there. His ring was still on his finger which hadn’t gone unnoticed. I kept silent. My breathing increased rapidly as I watched him. Moving closer, he placed his soft lips on my skin and gave a tender kiss.
“I need you to be here this time. I was struggling with you working so much and me at home with him. Don’t get me wrong. I loved it, but sometimes, I wished you were there to help a little more. I felt like a single parent at times,” I admitted, not to make him feel bad but to let him know that I just needed him to help me and make me feel like I could count on him.
My fingers found their way through his dark hair as he rocked back on his knees and looked up towards me. “I will be there, this time, every appointment, every scan, and when you want to buy something for the baby, I will be there with you.”
He had no idea what that meant to me, considering he hadn’t done much of that with the other two. “What about when I’m in labour?” I asked, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You can’t show up at the last second again.”
“You go into labour, and I won’t leave your side. I promise you.” His voice was much firmer. “I’ll take a month off work if you want.”
“You said that before,” I said in a scared whisper.
He looked at me, eyes narrowing. “I promise. I will be there.”
With Noah, Brody arrived at the hospital an hour before I pushed our son out, and then with Lila, I was being set up to push when he finally came in. His excuses were work meetings. It was the start of a not so happy future together.
With a nod, I let my hands fall from his head, and he stood up. “We need to talk. I don’t know if you want to go first, but I need to get everything off my chest that’s been bothering me for so long.”
“Okay, so do I.”
“No yelling or fighting?” I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
“None, you go first. I will sit and listen to everything you have to say,” he said, taking a spot on the bed beside me. “I want to know more about the shower and when we were younger.”
Taking a deep breath, I wasn’t holding back; otherwise, I would lose my nerve.
I shook my head, needing to. “Nine years ago, just before I fell pregnant with Lila, I was in the shower, and… you let him stay with us for that week.” Realisation began to sink in as he said nothing. “You were at work, and I didn’t notice until it was too late. He had been filming me in the shower and taking photographs.” It felt so good to finally admit. “He tried to grab me, but I pushed him away and ran into Noah’s room, locking the door until he passed out and you came home,” I remembered everything so clearly like it was yesterday. “He was so angry, and he kept telling me that no one would believe me especially you.”
He cut in. “He’s right.”
“What?”
Sighing heavily, he reached over and took my hand in his. “Gabby, I’m not proud to say this, but I know I was a jerk back then. I was working, always thinking of work, and if my brother, who was also my best mate at the time, told me you came onto him, I probably would have believed him.”
“I know,” I paused a moment. “He moved out the next day, and over the years, he has kept making sexual comments about my weight and body. When he sat beside me on the plane, he felt me up.”
He growled loudly. “Fuck, I am going to kill him! What else?” Brody asked, his voice harsh.
Fighting the tears as the memory clear as day played in my mind; I dropped my gaze, so ashamed of myself. “He was drunk. You wer
e out with your dad, and I had come to visit on a Sunday. Scott grabbed me. He tried to push me to my knees, but I kicked him and—”
“That’s why he spent all day on the couch with an ice pack. You told me you were shopping with your mother,” he finished, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged, rubbing the base of my neck. “He said no one would have believed me. I wasn’t emotionally stable enough to deal with it, Brody.” I was too emotionally unstable to ever say a word about it. No one would believe the housewife. He said Brody would assume I was just a bored housewife and his brother would never betray him. His words rang loudly in my ears and still did to this day. I wished I had been strong enough to come clean back then when I was younger.
“There’s more,” I added timidly.
“I don’t know if I can take more after this.” He paled, pacing the small hotel room.
“Hear me out first.” After he nodded, I kept talking. “This happened so long ago, but I feel as if it needs to be said. When we first began dating, my parent’s warned me to keep away from you, they told me I wasn’t allowed to date someone who wasn’t Italian or anybody until I was eighteen. My mother, she caught us kissing at the school and told my father. He hit me because of it.”
“I’m sorry?” he frowned. “What do you mean he hit you?”
Nodding, I felt tears spring to my eyes. “That’s why I couldn’t compete in the swimming carnival. I was covered in bruises and so embarrassed.”
“No… no… no…” he said over and over again, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it. He sat down beside me, his head in his hands. “You were beaten because of me? Fuck, what if they had caught us sneaking around at night or that you weren’t a virgin when we married? I’d knocked you up a month before the wedding!”
Kneeling up, tears running down my cheeks, I straddled his lap and cupped his cheeks. “Brody, that’s over and done with. Please, it was never your fault.”
“He hit you. You… You should have broken up with me.” He sounded as if I had knocked the wind clean out of him. “What else? Just talk; otherwise, I’m going to lose it.”
“I’m sorry for not telling you about Scott or the baby. I know that I should have done.” I know there was nothing I could do or say to show him just how truly sorry I was for hiding that from him. “You hurt me so many times when you make comments about me not earning money. It really hurts me. I feel as if you don’t think what I do at home is that big of a deal, I work hard to have a nice home for us, and sometimes, it never feels enough.” My hands fell, and I played with his tie. “I’m sorry.”
He looked up with glassy eyes and just nodded. “I know you are.”
“I have some questions, which I need to be answered by you.”
“Okay, ask away.” He seemed a bit wary of what I was asking.
“Why did you kick me out? Brody, God, that broke my heart so much. You knew I couldn’t take the kids with me.”
“I didn’t want to look at you and see what I was throwing away.” Licking his lips, he closed his eyes and blinked away more tears. “To see you crying, it breaks my heart, Gabby. When you were screaming in the bedroom after I told you to get out, I was in the office, crying, because I regretted everything. Why do you think I was giving you everything? If I couldn’t have you, then I didn’t want anything.”
“You followed me? I don’t understand why. I mean we were in such a good place— the holiday, and then staying that way when we came home. I’m pregnant, and we’re back to this. It’s exactly what I didn’t want. I don’t know what I had done to make you feel that way.”
“I was going to surprise you, come home early and try to cook you dinner. I’d put the app on your phone to try to figure out when you’d be on your way home, and then I noticed you weren’t where you said you were. Paranoia got the best of me especially after what Scott had tried to convince me previously. I didn’t want to believe it. Every day, I worry that you’re going to realise just how better you deserve, and I’m scared that you’ll take the kids and leave me.”
“No, never,” I said, completely panicked. I wouldn’t take them and leave him.
Blowing a hard breath out, he blinked back his tears. “Baby, I…”
“You don’t trust me, do you?” It had to be it. “You never take my side with your family sometimes, and it really hurts me. Every day, I have fought for you, for us, and nothing that my parents will say could change the way I feel about you.” I didn’t realise just how hard I was gripping him until I looked at my hands scrunching his. “I take your side. I wished you would have my back.”
He nodded, taking my face in his hand with possession. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better and try harder.”
“Why is Kate still working for you?” I blurted out. I needed to know about this, or it would destroy me with jealousy.
“That day you turned up to work with lunch. There’s more to the story than I have let on…”
BRODY
Her ass perched on my glass desk; I rolled my eyes with a sigh as I leant back and smiled. “Kate.” I kept my voice calm even though I wanted nothing more than to flick her off my desk with the chopsticks she was waving around.
“Brody.” The purr of her voice made me sick.
“No, listen to me,” I began, “You can hit on me all you like, but you’re nothing but a pathetic, desperate woman who’s never going to get that chance.”
Clicking her long manicured nails in front of my eyes, she shook her head. “Come on, you can’t be serious. I mean, you’re married but…”
“But what? I’m married. End of story.”
She didn’t, and I realised I was about to endure a long hour with her. She’s taken the incentive to buy me lunch and then invite herself to join me. Her laughter rang like a cat hissing at a dog. Trying my best to ignore her, I faked a smile so the man I work for won’t fire me for blowing up at his daughter.
The worse secretary by far, she couldn’t even keep her grades above decent in college. I don’t know why Paul thought it would be a great idea to give me an assistant. I didn’t need one. I knew how to answer the phone, and I could take my own calls, get my own coffee. I was more than capable of buying my own lunch. She was more of a nuisance, but the man was close to retirement, and I needed to suck it up, land as many contracts and make him as much money as possible until he left.
I had to sit and listen to her go on and on about a club she was going to. Seven more months, I thought to myself. Seven months and she will be somebody else’s problem. Until then, if I wanted to move up to a higher position, I had to grin and bear it and pretend to be enjoying her company when I’d rather drill a nail into my skull or watch paint dry. When that time was up, and he was gone, be fucked if I wasn’t firing her. She was the first thing I looked forward to changing.
She’d come in here thinking I hadn’t just witnessed her hitching up the dark skirt. Did she assume that my cock would thicken at the sight of her stockings? I wasn’t a fan of them. I did, however, love my wife’s long tanned legs and her bare thigh even in a pair of pyjama boxers. Gabriella trying not to be sexy was incredibly sexy.
“What do you think?” she asked with a giggle. I hated that sound.
Clearing my throat, I grabbed the water and began to unscrew the lid. “About what?” I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even pretend to.
“We could take a working holiday, you know. If you need to travel, maybe I could go with you.” Her brows wiggled, and I almost spat out my drink.
“Like fuck, we will be,” I laughed. Hearing a noise, my eyes snapped up, and my heart dropped. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself. I was a dead man.
“Who’s that?” Kate snorted. “Does she work in the mail room or canteen?”
“My wife.” That shut her up.
For the rest of my life, I would never forget the look on my wife’s face as she stared at me. She’d been mad before, upset too. But that was nothing compared to right now. She
was hurt, and I caused this. She closed the doors on me before I could get to the elevator, and then I ran back to my office, dialling her number, and it went to voicemail.
Kate was strolling out of my office, leaning against the frame. “She mad at you?”
“I had to convince her not to kick your ass, which she’d do in a heartbeat if I let her,” I said low, striding past her and tossing her noodles in the bin. “Lunch is over. I have work to do.”
“But…” she whined. “I wasn’t finished eating.”
“Tough shit, get out.” Oh, I could be an ass to her. If I grinned and looked happy, then on the security footage, it would never be shown that I was truly telling her off, which I did multiple times.
With a wink, she sundered back to her desk. “All right, big boy, work hard. Let me know if you fancy a blow job.” Apparently, Kate just considered this as playing hard to get.
I wouldn’t mind one but not by her.
I couldn’t work. I sat there until I felt sick with guilt. I got up and went to find her favourite flowers. It hit me even harder when I realised I had no damn clue what type of flowers she liked.
She deserved more than I was giving her. I didn’t deserve her. She deserved someone who would listen to her, who would be there when she needed, and I was far from that man. I had hurt her too many times to forgive, and now, as I sat staring into my wife’s dark, almost black eyes, I realised just what I was going to lose if I didn’t make some changes.
“Brody,” Gabby said quietly. “I wish you would have told me. It explains so much.”
“Tell you what? That the big boss had me by the balls, and there’s not much I can do about it unless I quit.” I scoffed, squeezing her hand. “There’s no way I won’t provide for our family, and now, we’re adding to it.”
She sucked in a breath as she cried against my chest while I stroked her hair. “Can’t you report her for harassment?”
I smiled, wishing I could. “Do you know what happened to the last man who reported her? He was fired without benefits and had his name tarnished. She’s lethal. I have a couple more months left. After that, she’ll be gone.”
Forgotten Sweethearts: A Romance Novel Page 23
