Even though her family had put the past behind them, Brandy had still never felt comfortable enough to spend much time back home. She had come back occasionally in the beginning, but not for years now. Until this weekend, that is. She groaned at having to endure four days of bad memories.
Brandy sat up on the bed and rubbed at her eyes. She stood and tied her long hair back into a ponytail. From her purse, Brandy heard the chirp of her phone. She pulled it out and answered the call from her sister.
“Hey, Brandy, we’ve just been talking and Dad’s decided to take us all out for supper tonight. I’ll text you the address and you can meet us after we’re finished here, okay?”
“Sure. That sounds great,” she said, hoping her disappointment didn’t come through over the phone.
She hadn’t been home in years and the last thing she felt like doing was spending it in a restaurant with a bunch of strangers. But this weekend was about her sister, not her, and she only had a couple hours to get her emotions under control.
*****
A few hours later, Brandy stood under the flashing, neon sign of the restaurant Natalie instructed her to go to and laughed. Wild Bill’s Steakhouse was exactly the kind of place her sister would pick. Brandy glanced down at her fitted, navy-blue dress and nude heels and shook her head. She should have known better.
Inside the restaurant, Brandy easily spotted her party. They were loud, boisterous, and taking up a dozen tables pushed together in the center of the dining room. Brandy waved off the hostess and made her way towards the table. From across the room, Natalie spotted her and stood.
“Brandy!” she called to her, garnering the attention of the table and all the other patrons in the restaurant.
Brandy’s step faltered slightly and she returned her sister’s spirited welcome with a small smile. She rushed to an empty chair at the table beside Luca and sat down before she drew any further attention. Her mom was sitting in the chair to her other side and she wrapped her arm around Brandy and pulled her in for a squeeze.
“I’m so happy you’re here, Brandy,” she whispered, and Brandy was grateful for the quiet welcome. Her mother was the calm and steady anchor for their mostly rowdy family.
Brandy ordered a drink and sat back and tried to relax. It wasn’t long before she found herself wrapped up in the merriment of the occasion. Her little sister was beaming and it was contagious. Even Luca was laughing along with the group, soaking up a rare glimpse of his extended family.
After their meal was finished, most lingered, enjoying themselves, Brandy included. After a while, her mom and dad offered to take Luca home with them while Brandy stayed, relaxing into the first night out she’d had in a while.
Finally, the waitress came to announce that her shift was ending and that they would need to settle the tab before placing any more orders. While the others paid for their drinks and decided to stay at the restaurant lounge, Brandy took it as a sign that it was time to go home.
The evening air was still warm as she exited out into the dim parking lot. Her head swam a little and she knew that she would have to call her mom to come pick her up. Once at her car, she put her purse on the trunk, rifling through it to find her phone.
From across the parking lot, she heard a shuffling of footsteps. As they headed in her direction, Brandy turned her head to see who it was. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw Mark Hudson approaching her car. He was dressed in a suit, tie loose around his neck as if he had been in it all day. He was still as handsome as ever: his dark hair was the perfect length to run her fingers through, chocolate eyes with just the slightest creasing when he smiled. Brandy hated that he still made her heart pound.
As he took his time approaching, her mind was whirling with the implications of meeting Mark again. She knew it was a possibility every time she was home, but the chances were low in a town this size. Except the odds were wrong, because here he was.
“Brandy,” he said. His approach was slow, his voice soft, as if she were a feral animal that could flee at any moment. “I’ve been waiting all night to talk to you.”
She drew her brows together. “How did you know I was home?”
“I didn’t. I saw you come into the restaurant. I was just finishing up my meal when you came in, but I stuck around until I could talk to you alone. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to approach you while you were with your family.”
“I’m not sure what you were hoping to talk to me about. It seems like we said everything that needed to be said.”
“Are you kidding me? You ran off before I had a chance to talk to you at all. You wouldn’t answer your phone and my public relations officer restricted me from seeing you in person. After things finally blew over, I went by your folks’ place and they said you moved.”
She shrugged, trying not to let herself be affected by his concern. “You knew I was moving.”
“Not that soon.” His eyes bore into hers. “You got scared and ran.”
She crossed her arms across her chest. “What else was I supposed to do? Me leaving was in everyone’s best interest.”
“You don’t know that.”
Brandy turned away from him. She didn’t want to hear excuses from him then and she didn’t now. What happened was shitty enough without dragging it all back up.
“Listen, Brandy, I don’t want to make you upset. And I don’t want to argue. It’s just that things ended so abruptly between us that there were a lot of things I never got the chance to say.” Brandy didn’t answer him; instead, she resumed her efforts to find her phone.
“Listen, it looks like you could use a ride home. Let me take you and I’ll say my piece and it will be over.”
Brandy turned back towards him. “How would Rachel feel about that?”
“Rachel and I haven’t been together since the last time I saw you.” His dark eyes pleaded with her. “I just want to talk to you, Brandy.”
Finally, she nodded her consent and he led them across the parking lot to his dark town car. He opened the door for her and she let the plush seats envelop her. Once they were pulling out of the parking lot, Brandy turned to him.
“Judging by the car, I assume you’re still doing well?”
“I guess so. I’m in my second term as mayor.”
“That’s impressive, considering what happened. I guess Rachel wasn’t as forgiving as your voters.” Brandy didn’t bother trying to hide the disdain in her voice.
“After you left, I was able to save my career, but not my marriage. If we’re being truthful here, I don’t know if I gave it much of a shot. Everything Rachel had said—that I was distant, selfish, cold—was true. I didn’t love her. It seemed backwards to try and patch up something that had been broken for such a long time. It’s no excuse for cheating on her and I’m sorry for what I did to her, but we wouldn’t have lasted in the end no matter what.”
“So that’s it then? You cheated, but you weren’t happy anyways so somehow that’s okay?”
“You’re still mad at me.” His voice was still irritatingly calm, but she could see the hurt in his eyes. As much as she wanted to be mad, she wasn’t. And she wouldn’t treat him like she was, either. Her days of lying and being deceitful were long behind her.
“No,” she said. She hated herself for feeling that way, but it was the truth. “I’m mad at myself for getting involved with you in the first place.”
“I’m not,” he said, the confidence he felt ringing through.
She shook her head. “How can you say that?”
“Because it wasn’t until I met you that I realized I could be happy. Before our short time together, I felt trapped in the life I had made. Rachel and I married because it was convenient, not because we loved each other. When she found out I was cheating on her, she was mad because I made her look bad, not because she was hurt. I didn’t see a way out of my marriage without ruining my political reputation.
“When my hand was forced and Rachel called me out, it was an op
portunity to do things differently. I started making decisions that made me happy, instead of making choices that I thought were expected for a man in my position. I’ve never felt better in my life, and I have you to thank for that.”
“You can keep your thanks. I don’t want to have any part of your twisted reasoning.”
“Just because I was a shitty husband doesn’t mean I should be punished for it for the rest of my life. I’ve paid my penance and I want another shot at being happy.”
“You just finished saying you have it all. What else could you need to make you happy?”
“I didn’t say I had it all. I said I was happier than have been in a long time. There’s still one thing that would make me truly happy.”
“What?” Brandy whispered, almost too scared to ask.
He was quiet as he maneuvered his car deftly through the darkened streets, his face only illuminated by the dash lights. After turning into her parents’ neighborhood, he finally answered her.
“I want you back, Brandy. And I hate the way I treated you, like you were just a casual fling, instead of telling you how I really felt about you. That’s what I was trying to track you down to tell you. I was hoping you would see that even though I did some terrible things, I did them because I felt a pull to you that I couldn’t fight.”
His words shook her, but Brandy knew it couldn’t be true, even though at one time she, too, was convinced they shared a bond. She also knew that once he found out about Luca, he would be running fast in the other direction.
“I’m not the same person I was ten years ago.”
“I don’t buy that. I watched you tonight at the restaurant. I could still see that intelligent, vibrant woman I knew you to be. What could have changed you enough to make you a different person?” he said dismissively, pulling into her driveway and putting the car in park.
“I had a baby. That tends to change a person.” She watched him close, hoping for a glimpse of his reaction.
“You’re married, then?” he asked, his eyes flickering down to her hand.
“No. I’ve never been married.”
“What happened?”
She took a deep breath. “You. You happened. He’s yours.”
She watched as his face masked his earlier emotions, taking on the passive politician she had seen many times before.
“Is that why you left?” he asked, his tone devoid of emotion.
“No. I didn’t find out until after.”
“But you chose not to tell me? Or answer any of my calls?”
“Not after everything that happened. I couldn’t face you, this place. I could barely face myself.”
Mark watched straight out the window, staring at the faded paint of her parents’ garage door. The quiet of the car was doing nothing for her thundering heart, so she reached for the door handle.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way. But now you know that if you were banking on me to come running back to you, you may want to reconsider that plan.”
Brandy let herself out of the car and walked to the front door. When she let herself in, Mark still hadn’t moved. She watched him out the window until, several minutes later, he started the car and backed out of the driveway.
She turned away from the door and quietly made her way up the stairs to her room. Luca lay tucked into a sleeping bag on the floor beside the bed. Brandy knelt beside him and pushed his hair out of his eyes. She stared at the boy she loved with all her heart. He was more like the father he would never know than she cared to admit. She cared even less to admit that the small reminders of Mark she saw in Luca were some of the things she cherished the most. In the dark, after a long and emotionally straining day, Brandy allowed herself to admit that she was sad neither of them would know that.
*****
The next couple of days flew past in a blur of tulle and taffeta and now that the vows had been exchanged, the pictures taken, and the speeches made, Brandy sat back into her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. If she ever married, she was going to elope.
Over the past couple of days, Brandy kept herself busy by throwing herself into the wedding preparations. While it gained her miles in reconnecting with her sister, it did little to distract her from the conversation with Mark. And as like the days preceding, today had been total organized chaos and she did her best to help things along. By the time Brandy reached the reception venue, she had never been happier to see an open bar.
The room was filled with a sea of smiling faces, all sharing in her sister’s joy. It was a warm Merrill welcome to Natalie’s new husband, complete with all the cheesy wedding reception games and songs. Even though Brandy was soaking up every second of it, when the DJ announced that they would be throwing the bouquet, she took that as her cue to get some fresh air. She wasn’t going anywhere near that one.
Out in the parking lot, Brandy circled the building, breathing in the cool, night air. The sounds of the party could still be heard outside, but there was still a certain sense of tranquility out there. When the crunch of footsteps on gravel interrupted her musing, she was surprised to find it was Mark once again appearing from the shadows.
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were a stalker,” she said, too happy to try and sound irritated with him.
“I’m not accustomed to skulking around parking lots, or waiting for anyone. One of the luxuries for a man in my position.”
“So why are you waiting then?” she asked.
“I figured that would be pretty clear. We need to talk about what you told me the other night.” He stepped close to her, blocking the moonlight and casting shadows across his handsome face.
“What good will it do to talk?” she shrugged and diverted her eyes from him.
“Come on, Brandy, not this again. You’re raising my son. You had to know I’d want to talk about this.”
She didn’t. She thought that by telling him, he would want to keep his distance. He had already survived one political scandal; she didn’t think he would want to jump into another. He was crazy enough wanting to rekindle their relationship; he would have to be certifiable to want to jump into this situation.
“Okay, fine.” It was his political funeral. “But not here. I’m pretty sure my family would run after you with pitchforks if they saw you talking to me.”
“Can we go somewhere, then?”
“Not right now. After the party starts winding down. I’ll stop by your place; it might be late though.”
“That’s fine,” he said, relieved. “Thanks Brandy.”
She headed back into the party with the unmistakable feeling of excitement. She didn’t want to be excited to talk to Mark. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to give him the facts and leave. Except she couldn’t hide the smile that tugged on her lips. She would need to work on that.
*****
As much as she tried to stay focused on the wedding shenanigans, Brandy couldn’t temper the anticipation she was feeling. At the first signs of a yawn from Luca, she pulled him along behind her, declaring it was time to head home. He didn’t argue, which was a pretty good sign that the activity of the past few days was catching up with him.
As they made their rounds to say goodbye, her mom caught up with them.
“I think I’ll catch a ride home with you, if you don’t mind. Things are going to start heading downhill around here and I don’t want to be around when they do. You know how your father gets,” she said with a wry smile.
“Of course, mom.”
The three of them made their way to the car. Brandy surveyed the parking lot for signs of Mark, but she couldn’t see him or his car. She let out a breath and they piled in. The reception venue wasn’t far from the house and in no time, they were back home.
Upstairs, Brandy tucked Luca into bed. His hooded eyes could barely stay open.
“Tonight was great mom.”
“You had fun?”
“Oh yeah. Our family is awesome. We should come here more often.”
/>
“You’re right, buddy. Sleep tight.”
Brandy kissed his forehead and closed the door behind her. She heard her mom still up downstairs and she made her way down. She found her mom sitting at the kitchen table, phone to her ear.
“Yes, dear, I love you too.” She put the phone down and rolled her eyes. “You would think your father is too old to drunk dial me, but apparently not.”
Brandy laughed out loud at the thought. Her parents had a great relationship, even after all the years they had been married. She envied them.
“Can I get you anything, honey?”
Irresistibly Mine: A Secret Baby Second Chance Romance Page 2
