by Peak, Renna
He glanced over at me, his brows knitting together. “Who said that?”
I let out a long sigh. “Maybe that’s just what it feels like. Why did Daniel take me? Why did he drug me?”
He shook his head and was silent for a long moment. “He…” He paused for another moment and I could see he was measuring his words. “He thought you were a valuable asset.”
“Right. And you won’t tell me what in the hell that means?” I had to force myself not to scream the words, even though I really, really wanted to.
“He wanted to trade you for an advantage.”
I clenched my teeth together and squeezed my eyes closed. “Oh, right. Thanks for clearing that up. That makes perfect sense, Brandon. You’re just a wealth of information.”
“Jen, he wanted to give you to someone who would have used you to hurt your father. Your father…”
I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. I could see the pain on his face, pain from the words he was finally speaking to me.
“Your father … he doesn’t have a lot of weak spots. There aren’t a lot of ways to get to him. Everyone knows that.” He glanced over at me, working his jaw. “He’s careful. His one weak spot has always been you.”
That didn’t really make me feel any better, mostly for one reason. “And that’s why you’re with me. To get to my father.” It was all starting to make perfect sense.
He slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “No. Fuck, no.” He glanced at me again, his jaw tightening. “I’m with you because I love you. I fell in love with you, Jen. I loved you the moment I first laid eyes on you, and I had no idea who you were.”
I shook my head. “Love at first sight is bullshit, Brandon. And you couldn’t have fallen in love with me that night. My painting was terrible and I was almost drunk before we ever went back to your apartment.”
“Not that night, Jen. Eight years ago—June twenty-sixth. I took my grandmother to the San Francisco Symphony that night. They had a guest musician playing who had won some national competition thing.”
It was like a vacuum sucked every bit of air from my chest. He did know who I was all along. After all this time—all the lies and manipulation—he knew who I was the whole time. He’d known who I was since I was fifteen years old—I won that competition right before my sixteenth birthday. I was the youngest person to ever win that competition and I remembered how proud my father had been of me. How he had taken time off work to tour with me that summer. My mother had gone to Maine, but my father … the piano had always been the one thing we could agree on before Daniel came along. And Brandon knew. He knew the entire time.
“I thought you were seventeen. Someone in the crowd said how talented you were for only being a junior in high school.” He chuckled. “I fell in love with you that night. I’d never felt anything like it—the way your music made me feel. I knew it then just like I know it now. You’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”
I still couldn’t find a breath and I couldn’t make myself look at him. I knew all about his vendetta. His vendetta. I turned to look at him. “You want my father dead and you went to work for him.”
His brow furrowed. “No, ‘I love you, too?’ No, ‘I knew the second I saw you in that stupid painting class?’ Or maybe when you woke up with my arms around you the next morning? Christ, Jen, I’m baring my soul here…”
I shook my head. “You played me. You played me this whole time. I can’t believe how stupid I am…” All the tears I’d been holding back decided to come out then. I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, burying my face in my lap.
“I didn’t know.” He reached out and squeezed my forearm. “Jen, please … please believe me. I didn’t know. I swear to God. I’ve told you before—I should have known. But I didn’t know. I didn’t want to believe it was you.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying, lying, lying.” The words came out in sobs into my lap. “It’s what you do. It’s all you do…”
“God, I’m not. I’m not! Daniel showed me your pictures before I came back to San Fran. You were blonde, Jen. You were blonde. And you looked different. You looked so different.”
I wanted to believe him. I did. I just knew it couldn’t be true. If he had known me—been aware of me for the last eight years, there was no way he didn’t know who I was that night at the painting class. There was no way he hadn’t known the entire time. There was no way this entire “relationship” hadn’t been a setup from the beginning—a ruse to destroy my father. He had just said it himself—my father’s one and only weak spot had always been his daughter.
“When I heard you play at the hospice … right before my grandmother died … I knew. I did. I told myself it couldn’t really be you. I told myself there was no way that there could ever be a coincidence so huge, that … that unlikely. I convinced myself that you weren’t Jenna Davis and I wasn’t stabbing Daniel in the back. I couldn’t have done it. I couldn’t have fallen in love with you if I hadn’t let myself believe that you were a different person.” He squeezed my arm again. “You have to believe that, Jen.”
“Stop calling me that.” I lifted my head and swiped away the tears from my face with the back of my hand, unsure of whether I had really just spoken the words or not. He was the only person who had ever called me that name, and it had all been a lie. A lie he’d made up for himself—maybe—but a lie all the same. And I was finished being at the center of the lies.
“Jen…”
“Jenna. Don’t ever call me that name again.”
“Please don’t cry, Jen. Please don’t let any of those tears be because of me. I know I’ve screwed up. I know I could have handled things better—hell, I could have done a lot of things better. But I love you and you have to believe that. I’ve never loved anyone else. You were the first person I fell in love with, and even if you were only sixteen…”
“I was fifteen.” I sniffled. He definitely knew how to say the beautiful words, it was just that they weren’t making any of it better. I didn’t believe him. How could I believe him when it had all been a lie?
He sighed. “I guess that makes me a pervert, because I knew it then. I knew it that night I first heard you play. I didn’t meet you until you were twenty-three…” He turned to face me. “You were twenty-three, right?”
A surprised laugh escaped me, even though I tried to hold it back. “Yes, I was twenty-three.”
“My math skills have improved a little bit since I first saw you. Not much, but a little.” He pulled my hand into his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I knew from the first note you played on that huge-ass piano in that San Francisco concert hall that you were the only woman for me. I don’t know why that’s so hard to believe…”
“Because you work for my father. Because you’ve told me you work for yourself—that you’re an entrepreneur. You’ve told me over and over that you don’t work for anyone but yourself. And you do work for him. And how can I trust anything you say when I know you are on his payroll? And you’ve told me again and again that you aren’t?”
“I’m not on his payroll, Jen. I do odd jobs for him. I have for the last three years. I did some one-off things for Krystal before that…” He shook his head. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I don’t work for him. Maybe it’s just grammar, but I don’t work for him, okay? I do some work with him, but I don’t work for him. I do what I want, when I want.”
“And you work with Daniel. You’re the Three Amigos or something. Have you been working with him this whole time?”
He shook his head and glanced over at me. “No. I would never work with him. Daniel is a douche bag of the worst kind. When I heard you had given up the piano for him, I almost cried. I couldn’t believe you’d give up something like that for him. You have no idea what kind of man he is…”
I interrupted. “I have some idea.” It was hard not to remember sometimes, how awful he had been to me. The memories were all too clear, especially after he had put his tongue
in my ear only a short time ago. How much he disgusted me. How selfish he was.
“I’m sorry. I know you do.” He gave my arm another squeeze. “Believe me when I tell you this, Jen. You will not be standing on some stage with him on Monday. I don’t know what we’re going to do yet, but I’ll figure it out. I have one thing I need to take care of, and then we’ll figure this thing out.”
“The job for my father.”
He let out a long sigh. “Yeah.” He shook his head. “I have to do it. It’s needed to be done for a long time.”
His words burst the little bubble I had almost surrounded myself in. The tiniest bit of happiness that had found its way back to my heart because of his words was gone as quickly as he said, “I have to do it.” He did work for my father. I couldn’t let myself forget it. I couldn’t let myself forget that there wasn’t anyone left who I could trust.
* * *
I kissed her on the forehead after I pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building. I wanted to kiss her—really kiss her, show her that I meant every word I had said to her that night. But I could see Cade standing against the wall of the building, waiting for our return. No doubt Senator Davis had called and told him when to expect us. As much as I wanted to kiss her, to take her inside and make love to her for what might be the last time—I knew I couldn’t do it with Cade watching.
“Come in with me. Hold me. Make love to me. Christ, just come in and hold me, Brandon. I need it. I need to believe you.” Her eyes were pleading with me, and I could see she was starting to tear up again.
If I was the type of man who cried, I would have. I wanted to hold her—even if it was only so she could have one more night of sleep. Because I knew nothing was ever going to be the same after I finished that job her father had given me. If Jen so much as even suspected that I was capable of doing something so heinous, she’d never want to see me again.
The problem was, I was capable of it. It did need to happen and I was going to do it. I just had to figure out how to never let her find out what I needed to do.
10
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I don’t think I even slept for a second.
I had memorized every line in the ceiling before I finally decided to get up. I pulled some clothes out of my dresser and threw them into a bag that I hoped Brandon would find suitable should the need for it ever arise. I also put the small amount of cash I had in the bag and reminded myself to stop at the ATM later that morning.
I couldn’t deny that I was disappointed that Brandon had declined my offer for him to stay with me last night. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. His words sounded sincere—his apology had almost melted me into the floor. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I could trust him, but then, I had never been one hundred percent sure about anything with him.
I had looked up the date of that concert, though, the one he claimed was the first time he had seen me. Eight years ago on June twenty-sixth, just like he said. In the San Francisco concert hall, just like he said. I couldn’t think of a reason in the world he would have to lie about that. Or why he would go to so much trouble if he was lying about it. I knew if Daniel wanted to lie about something like that, he would have told me that dates weren’t important or that I had somehow screwed up if he got the date wrong.
I didn’t want to think about Daniel. I didn’t want to allow the thought of having to stand next to him, holding his hand as if nothing had ever happened between us even enter my conscious mind. I couldn’t believe that my father wanted me to do that for him—to stand up for that man. I could still feel the ice flowing through my veins just thinking about my father’s reaction to my accusation. He didn’t want to believe that Daniel was capable of something like that. It was almost sad that it wasn’t anything less than the reaction I expected from him. Daniel had something that was beneficial to my father. I didn’t have anything. I lose.
I wanted to believe Brandon when he told me I wouldn’t be anywhere near D.C. on Monday. I just couldn’t understand how he was going to have time to do whatever it was he needed to do for my father. It was something he hadn’t been able to do in the four weeks he’d already been given, and now he only had two days to finish—and to help me get out of my predicament.
Last night still seemed like a bad dream. I had gone from being with Brandon and being almost happy for the first time in weeks to having the rug pulled out from under me once again. I knew I should have stood up to my father last night. I think I tried, but it wasn’t enough. My efforts with him were never enough. I should have rescued myself—I just didn’t know how. Standing up to Marian was easy. Standing up to my father wasn’t.
I had to get away from this—this feeling of dread. This cloud of doom that was hanging over my head. Every second that passed was like a ticking bomb—I knew I was going to have to go to D.C. tomorrow unless something—anything happened to change it. I just didn’t have any good plans of my own. Wishing for Brandon to come rescue me—for my knight in shining armor to come to the rescue once again—seemed almost ludicrous at that point. Just another stupid Jenna-fantasy that would end up twisted around somehow to make an awful situation that much worse.
I picked up my phone and thought about how stupid I was to have isolated myself like this—to have given myself so few options. I didn’t have friends or co-workers who I could just call and ask to come hang out with me, let alone people who might actually be able to help me. I had pretty much closed myself off as soon as I had met Brandon. I had done the same thing I had always done—wrapped myself up in a man. I had done it with Daniel when we first started dating, too, and now I had done it with Brandon. How many times did I have to make the same mistake? How many mistakes did I have to make to learn a lesson?
I pulled up her number and looked at it. I knew I could try and call Melissa. I was still so pissed off at her that I didn’t even want to think about it, but she was the only true friend I had in the world. I knew somewhere inside of me that she had been sucked in the same way I had—sucked in by her boyfriend and his crazy sister into doing what they wanted her to do. I just didn’t like at all that they thought screwing me over was the best thing to do a few days ago.
I finally dialed, hoping she’d at least have the sense to apologize so that we could move on. I knew I could trust her with what I knew, even if she was solidly on Amanda’s team now. We had been so close for so long—I just prayed she’d have some idea of what I should do. Where I could go instead of back to D.C. to stand next to a man that I despised.
“Jenna?”
I paused for a moment and thought about hanging up. The sick feeling returned to my stomach when I heard her voice—the same feeling I’d had when she asked me to call Robin for her a few days ago. When she’d asked me to invite Brandon’s ex to some idiotic party that her boss was throwing. I managed to croak out my response. “Hey.”
“What’s up, buttercup? Long time, no talk.”
“It’s only been three days, Mel.” Though, three days was about the longest we had ever gone without speaking to each other since we’d met in college. Even when she had moved back to San Francisco, we still spoke on the phone every day. And the past three days had been pretty full of unbelievable amounts of crap—at least for me.
“Three days is forever. You won’t believe the shit I have to tell you about Amanda.”
I rolled my eyes. The sad thing was, I would believe the shit she had to tell me, considering everything I had already heard about her crazy boss. “Are you busy today?”
She let out a long sigh. “What are you thinking? Coffee? I could probably do that.”
“I was thinking yoga. But coffee works, if that’s all you can do.” Mel and I hadn’t been to a yoga class in months. De-stressing sounded like a perfect plan for me that day, but I really needed to talk to my best friend first.
“No can do. I’ve got a ton of crap to do before tonight. I would tell you, but you wouldn’t even believe me. Unless you want to come down
here and help? I could definitely use it.”
I thought about it for only a second. There was no way I was going to help Mel prepare for what was almost certainly one of Amanda’s parties that night. It was bad enough that I was still giving Amanda’s little boy piano lessons every week. “I’d really rather not, Mel.”
“Aw, come on, Jenna. Mason’s here. He’d love to see you.”
I rolled my eyes again. “Sure he would.” The poor kid despised me. If he was a little older, he’d probably realize that it was his mother who forced him to play piano and not me.
“Coffee about noon? You want to meet at our regular spot?” I heard some shuffling on the other end. “Oh shit, I didn’t confirm with the caterer. I have to go, Jenna. I’ll see you around noon.” The phone clicked and I knew she had hung up.
If I knew one thing about Melissa, I knew that around noon was code. Code for, “I’ll be there when I get there.”
It was going to be a long morning.
11
I checked my phone again for the millionth time. Melissa was already almost two hours late. Ten more minutes. That was it—and if she wasn’t here by then, I was leaving.
My knee was bouncing, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the third cup of iced coffee I had sitting in front of me or from the growing nervousness I had about my upcoming trip. Krystal had already emailed me my tickets to D.C. I didn’t even have sixteen hours before my flight left, and I was sitting here alone in a coffee shop with no plan for how to get out of it. And no Melissa to help me. And not as much as a text from Brandon.
I had remembered to go to the ATM, at least. I took out as much cash as the machine would let me, and the nervousness I was feeling about having that much money in my purse wasn’t helping with the knee-bouncing problem.
