by BJ Harvey
Finally, I have an explanation to the one big unanswered question in my past. I can finally close the one open door I never thought I’d get the chance to close.
I blink back the tears threatening to fall. “You really hurt me, Luke.”
“I know, and that’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. If there was any way we could try again, see if what we had is still there, I’d work my ass off to be the man you truly deserve.”
I stand. Luke following me, his brows furrowed, eyes resigned. On instinct, I step forward, placing one hand on his shoulder and cupping his jaw with the other.
“We were young, dumb, and foolish, but we were in love, and for six years I’ve questioned whether there was anything I did to contribute to what happened between us. And what I’ve realized is that I forgot who I was while trying to be everything you needed. We’re different people now. I’m definitely different.”
“You’re the girl I fell in love with who grew into the strong woman you were always destined to become,” he says, respect shining through his eyes.
“And you’re the boy I fell in love with who made a mistake and has come out stronger for it.” I lean in and brush my mouth against his, a single tear escaping me when we touch. “Goodbye, Luke,” I say as I pull back.
He presses a hand against my back to hold me in place, his words rough. “Bye, Bree.” This time I let it go.
As I walk away, I’m hit with the realization that I needed this so I could move on with my life and from my past.
Bruno looks at me in the way every woman wants a man to look at her: with absolute and unwavering devotion. It’s like he can’t believe I’m with him, and he’d move heaven and earth to keep me right there by his side.
When Luke looks at me, it’s as if he sees right through to my very soul. It’s the same way he always has, even after all of these years. That roguish grin and those sea blue eyes used to turn me to mush whenever he sent them my way. But it’s not the same anymore.
Spending time with the man Luke is now, I could almost forget the sins of his past if it wasn’t for the all-encompassing love I have for Bruno, despite everything I don’t know about him. I’m inexplicably connected to both of them; I’m hopelessly drawn to Bruno, and have a long and unforgettable history with Luke, yet this lunch has made one thing absolutely clear to me and it’s exactly what I needed.
Luke is my past, a painful learning experience that helped mold me into the strong, independent, and rather forthright woman I am today.
And although I’m still angry as hell at him, I’m desperate to see Bruno again. To let him explain. To see if there is any way we can move past this.
Bruno would not lie to me without a damn good reason to do so.
I’m just hoping he’ll be home soon to tell me exactly what that reason is.
Chapter 22
Four more days of work and no contact from Bruno—not that my mind was focused on anything other than that fact—and my anger has returned. It’s more impatience at waiting for his return but it’s enough that everyone around me has been walking on eggshells to avoid the wrath of Gaby. It’s meant a lot of running, a lot of overtime, and a lot of reorganizing my closet, my bathroom vanity, and the pantry.
What I don’t expect to find after finishing a long Friday night shift is a despondent Bruno on my couch, staring at the door as I walk into my condo.
He doesn’t move. His knees are bent, his elbows resting on them, and his head is in his hands and turned my way. He looks terrible. His eyes are red and bloodshot, his hair points in all angles, and his clothes are disheveled, as if he’s slept in them. This is a man who always looks like he has his shit straight. He even looks gorgeous first thing in the morning or after a two a.m. closing. Never have I seen him like this.
Closing the door behind me, I walk into the kitchen and drop my keys on the counter, bracing myself against it, the hurt threatening to choke me. Then the anger returns, my grip on the benchtop tightening as I fight the urge to storm over and slap him. He could have at least sent a text to tell me he was on his way home.
He goes to talk but my quirked brow and tight lips must give him pause. His attention drops to my bare left hand and his mouth snaps shut again, his jaw twitching. Lifting his hand, he runs his fingers through his unkempt hair before hanging his arms down, and clasping his hands together
Our silent face-off stretches out for minutes, and it’s only when I look away from him that he talks.
“Do you still have the ring?”
Yes, that’s the first thing he asks. Not ‘how are you?’ or ‘I’m sorry.’
I’m speechless, and had this been a week ago, I would have been in a far worse head space than I am now. I probably wouldn’t have given him the opportunity to explain.
“Maybe you should go and come back in the light of day.” My voice is flat, void of everything. My chest tightens, my body still as he stands and walks over to me, dropping a key ring onto the counter with my house key on it.
Without another word, he stops at the door and leans down, grabbing a packed duffel bag I didn’t see when I came in. With one hand on the knob, he pulls it open and takes a step outside before pausing, resting his forehead against the wooden frame.
He stays there unmoving for what seems like forever. When he opens his mouth this time, his rough, desperate words stop my self-absorbed dive into despair in its tracks. “I didn’t know about Oakley.”
I don’t dare say a word. I don’t trust myself to say anything right now. He soon fills the void.
“My daughter . . . I didn’t know about her.” Again, he leaves his statement hanging there.
Why couldn’t he have just left without saying anything? Now he’s started something that I’m going to have to let him finish because despite the myriad of feelings swirling inside me in this moment, I want him to continue. I want to know the what, the why, and the how.
“Close the door.”
He slowly turns his head to look at me. I nod, answering his unanswered question of whether he heard me correctly, tilting my head toward the couch.
My mouth is dry. My head spins at what he’s just said.
He drops the bag back to where it was and returns to the couch, his shoulders slumped, his body language screaming defeat. This is not the man I know. The man I still love despite everything that happened two weeks ago, even when the logical part of my brain is screaming at me to protect my fractured heart.
He slumps down into the cushions and rests his hands on his jean-clad thighs, and again he meets my eyes, letting me see that I’m not the only one in pain. “Whatever’s about to happen, promise me you’ll let me explain.” His plea from the other night rings loud and clear in my ears.
With a deep, resigned breath, I join him in the living room, sitting away from him in the one-seater chair by the window. His gaze tracks me the whole way. .
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Not asking me about the ring would’ve been a good start,” I reply snarkily, snapping my mouth closed as soon as the words are out of my mouth.
He sighs, his eyes pleading. He doesn’t deserve to be cut any slack but I told him to stay so I owe him the chance to speak.
I hate feeling like this—like my self-worth is scattered on the floor, ready to be stomped on all over again. I’m not sure I’ll survive whatever he’s about to tell me, but I’ve come this far already. What’s more heartache and pain to add to the already swirling mix of humiliation and stupidity with a side of gullibility?
I lift my feet to rest on the seat, wrapping my arms around my legs, cocooning myself as I turn to look at the streetlights outside.
You love this man, I tell myself. He just fucked up. Royally.
“Sorry. I’m not exactly myself at the moment. One of the best moments of my life was you saying yes and accepting that ring. I’d hoped you’d still be wearing it.”
My head jer
ks back, almost giving me whiplash. “You asked me to marry you, then your wife walked in.”
He looks over to where I’m sitting. “I filed for divorce a month ago.” He says the words gently, his eyes dead serious and full of determination. “I would never have asked you to be mine without doing that.”
I feel trapped but not in a terrified way. I don’t dare move. After months of me wanting Bruno to share, he’s finally talking. He needs to tell me everything though because having lived through an emotional shit fight once in my life, there’s no way I’m going to even consider the possibility of being with him again without total disclosure.
“She took it upon herself to travel halfway across the country to track me down—something she hasn’t been able to do for the past five years. It’s just unfortunate that she came to the bar Sunday night and walked in when she did.”
“Unfortunate?” I scoff dryly. How unfortunate that his estranged ex-wife walked in just after he proposed.
He winces, his entire body flinching. “You know what I mean.”
I swing my legs back down to the floor, my back ramrod straight. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after my experience with Luke it is that I am my number-one advocate. I’m the only one I trust to get the answers I need. “No, I don’t, Bruno. What I know right now is that my birthday party was interrupted by a before-now-unknown woman claiming to be your wife and the mother of your before-now-unknown child. One would think that the man I love, the man I’m living with, would choose to share those tidbits with me.”
“I said I would share whatever I had in me to share,” he says, raising his voice.
“Oh, so that isn’t something you thought you should tell me? What were you waiting for? The day of our wedding?” Wait, I don’t want a wedding. Why did I even say that?
His shoulders slump in defeat, and he gives a resigned sigh. “I think I need to start at the beginning.”
I cross my legs and lean back in the chair. “I think that’s a good idea.” It’s like a bitch switch has been flicked and try as I might, I can’t turn it off. Usually I use humor as my weapon of choice, not harsh words, but I’m mad that he didn’t tell me he was coming back. I’m mad he hasn’t contacted me in almost two weeks. I’m mad that we’re even in this position to begin with, and we’re here because he hid his past from me.
“I met Tate when I was twenty. We fell hard and fast.”
“Seems to be your M.O,” I mutter.
He pins me with narrowed eyes. “I’d been watching you for months before that blind date at the restaurant, Gabs. I was waiting for you.”
I swallow and bite my lip, feeling guilty but also uneasy. I’m not so sure I want to hear this story. I’m also not sure whether hearing it is going to make any difference to the way I feel. Once trust is broken it’s hard to earn back. If I go back to him, will I forever be wondering what other secrets he might be keeping from me?
I break our locked gaze and look back out the window, waiting for him to continue. I hate that the atmosphere between us is like this. This is the same man I spent half of Sunday in bed with. The man I agreed to marry. The man I was starting to hope would be mine forever. The man I’m looking at in a whole new—not particularly good—light.
“We moved in together our senior year of college. Got married three years later. Everything was good. It was always a bit of a struggle financially as we worked hard to build our careers, but we were happy. I worked security, and she worked as a nurse at one of the big hospitals.” He lets out a sigh and shakes his head. “We made the effort to spend time together even though we were always busy. As we got more comfortable and started saving for a house, something changed. She stopped trying, and whenever I’d talk to her about it or arrange date nights or even short trips away, she’d come up with excuses not to go.” His shoulders drop and he stares at his hands. “So after a while, I stopped trying too.” My heart constricts, a dull ache growing in my chest. Having someone you love slip away from you and not be able to stop it would make you feel like a failure. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s Bruno’s dedication to the woman he’s with—or wants to be with, in my case.
He pauses and shakes his head, as if clearing a painful memory. “I started noticing money go missing from our savings account six months before I left. I’d ask her about it, and she’d give me all the excuses under the sun, and because it was Tate, I believed her, probably because I never wanted to admit that I knew she was playing me.”
My eyes snap to his. “But you worked at a security company. Surely you could look into it?”
He nods. “She tried to get creative with her withdrawals so I got my boss to investigate. Turns out she’d been taking at least five hundred a month for a year and a half.”
I do the math in my head. “Shit.” The word slips past my lips before I can stop it.
“Yep. She had more than ten thousand sitting in an account in her name by the time I confronted her about it.”
I frown, feeling as if I’m missing an important part of the story here, especially when I think back to what he said about his family and walking away.
“Was it drugs? Gambling?” Now I wonder why he didn’t tell me earlier. You’d think having heard my experience with Luke he’d have shared his past then.
“I think I could’ve stood by her if it was an addiction. I would’ve tried to be there for her, get her into rehab, and see her through recovery.”
“Then why did she do it?”
“She’d had a crush on someone since before she met me. She’d held a candle for him throughout our whole relationship.” The penny drops. This is why he acted so weird about Luke coming back. Then something else dawns on me but I try to ignore it.
“She was cheating on you,” I gasp, dropping my feet to the floor and leaning forward toward him. I’m itching to reach out and touch him, comfort him, but something still holds me back. I don’t want him to stop talking. I need to hear it all.
“Had been since I met her and continued doing so throughout our marriage. The money was so she could set up a new life for the two of them on my dime.”
“Oh fuck,” I breathe. Knowing how Bruno loves—protectively, possessively, and fiercely—I can only imagine how devastated he would’ve been when it all came out.
The tight lines on his face and granite jaw show me this is hard for him. He’s a proud man, a strong one too, and loyal to a fault—obviously. The room goes quiet as Bruno wrings his hands in his lap.
“Did you know the guy?” I ask.
His eyes lift to mine. He grits his teeth, his lips curling as if the very thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “My brother, Ben.”
I gasp in shock. I could never imagine my brother doing anything like that to me. No one in my family would ever hurt me like that. It’s the worst kind of deceit. My heart breaks for him all over again.
“It does something to a man to be betrayed by not only his own flesh and blood, but by the woman he’s sworn his life to. It broke me. I was a shell of the man I’d built myself up to be, the man I wanted to be, so I ran, and I’m not ashamed about admitting that . . .” His voice is rough, and it rips me apart to be this far away from him and not touch him.
I know from experience how devastating it can be to be blindsided like that. His was a deep betrayal that I’m not sure anyone—no matter how strong—would be able to get over. Yet where I let my humiliation and heartbreak hold me back, Bruno never hesitated when it came to taking his chance with me. He waited, he made his intentions clear, and then when he got his shot, he pursued me with such a patient determination. How could anyone go against a love so voracious, so intense, so fucking real that any feeling I’ve experienced before in my entire life pales in comparison?
Any woman in the world would wish to be loved the way Bruno loves me and now, knowing his story and seeing just how strong he is despite everything Tate and his family did to him, I feel even more sure in my decis
ion all those months ago to take a second chance at love—and life—with him. I may have had my hand up holding him back at the start, but his love gave me the strength to drop my walls and let someone in again.
I don’t think. I just move, taking the seat next to him and turning toward him. The moment he opens his arms to me, I jump into them, needing to comfort him more than my next breath. My anger vanishes as he falls back into the sofa and pulls me with him, his warmth enveloping me, anchoring me, filling that empty hole that’s taken residence in my heart for the past two weeks. I know we still have a lot of things to talk about but right now, I’m exactly where I want to be.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he rumbles as I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in. Tears prick my eyes, part relief to have him back, part sadness for what Tate and Ben put him through. Luke betrayed himself and let me down in the process, but Tate obliterated Bruno and his entire family. Who does that? And with his brother?
We’re laying down on the couch, side by side, our legs tangled, his arm hooked underneath my head and holding me close.
“This is why you left Indiana?” I ask, resting my head on his shoulder and looking up at him.
“My family tried to talk to me about it, and wanted me to move on with my life, and let bygones be bygones. It turns out they knew about it and never told me.”
I jerk up, bracing myself as I stare down at him with wide eyes. “You can’t be serious,” I whisper harshly. “Your own brother and your wife not only betrayed you, they stole from you. That is not right.”
He lifts his hand to my temple and slides his fingers through my hair until his palm reaches the nape of my neck. “Baby, it was fucked up and wrong, but I had to leave my anger behind a long time ago, otherwise it was going to eat me alive.”
I lean into his touch, fighting the need to dip my head and kiss his lips. He didn’t lie to me to hide the truth. He didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to relive his past and I get that. I totally do.
I lower myself back down onto him. We lie there watching each other, his hand stroking my hair, my fingers drawing circles on his T-shirt-covered chest. “So the divorce?”
