“Bullshit. You have friends. And where’s Brooke in all this?”
“She’s with her father, where she should be.”
Sinclair shook her head. “That’s not right.”
“It is what it is. The point is, when I resign, you’ll be acting mayor. Make it work, Sinclair. Don’t give Stark and Wallace any ammunition to use against you.”
“No. You can’t resign. I won’t let you.”
I sighed. “Sinclair.”
“Just wait. You said it’s been a couple of days. Maybe Stark won’t out you. Maybe he’s sitting on it for later. But that gives you time.”
“For what?” I asked. “Whether it’s now or later, I’m going to be disgraced. Better you get the experience—”
“No. Wait a little longer. Give it until next week to think about it, at least. Please, Mo. Don’t give up. As your deputy mayor, I insist that you stay a little longer.”
I didn’t know what she expected would happen between now and next week, but maybe she needed time to wrap her head around being mayor. I could give her that time.
“Okay.”
“Good. Now, what’s the deal with you and Brooke?”
I looked away, not wanting to talk about it.
“Do you love her?”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Yes. I know it’s wrong—”
“Wrong? Why?” She sounded completely perplexed.
I gave her a you-know-why look. “She’s Frank’s daughter. I’m nearly twenty years older than her. I’m her boss. Take your pick.”
Sinclair pursed her lips. “Don’t be a baby, Mo. The heart wants what the heart wants. She’s an adult. You clearly care about her and her father after giving them a small fortune. You’re a good person. I just wish she was worthy of you.”
“She deserves better—”
“Bullshit.”
I jerked.
“You’ve given her your trust money. You’re about to give up your job. Where is she? Not with you. In fact, are you sure she didn’t connive her way in all this?”
“No. She’s not like that.”
“Are you sure? She’s got your money for her dad and has no consequence while you’re about to lose your farm and job. You know Trina kept saying that Brooke was gunning for her job, and I thought she was just being Trina. But maybe she was right.”
I shook my head, even as her statement gave me an unsettling feeling in my stomach. “I’m the one that assigned the work. Trina’s feelings are my fault. I think we’ve worked it out, though.”
“Brooke still has your money and isn’t living up to her end of the deal,” Sinclair said, arching a brow. “You did get a prenup, didn’t you? She can’t take the farm, can she?”
“I did get a prenup, but that was just to protect my existing assets. I could take the parcel that Frank put up as a type of collateral, but…what for? It won’t help me pay what I owe.”
“Sell it to Stark.” She said it as a joke, but then she seemed to like that idea. “That would get them back.”
“I don’t want to get them back, Sinclair.”
She gave me a look of sympathy. “What do you want?”
I wanted Brooke as a real wife. I wanted to fill my house with babies we’d make. I wanted Frank to forgive me and give his blessing for all that to happen. But I didn’t say any of that. “Right now, I just want to make sure I don’t fuck up your future as mayor.”
She waved her hand. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it.” She stood. “I have some work to do. Don’t you dare do anything with that resignation, do you hear me?”
“Next week,” I said, giving her time to get ready.
“Promise?”
I nodded. “I promise.”
She left, and I went to work cleaning out my desk, making lists of projects she’d need to get to first thing after becoming acting mayor, and dodging the call from my lawyer.
30
Brooke
I’d felt miserable many times in my life. But now, I was in the pit of despair. It was bad enough that my father had confiscated my phone and made me take the week off from work. I felt like I was a teenager, and a part of me wondered why I didn’t ignore him and do what I really wanted, which was to see Mo. I didn’t because I knew Mo worried about being exposed, and the only way to keep my father quiet was to do what he asked.
A few days into my father’s grounding, I wondered if Mo had called or texted. Did he feel abandoned by me? Maybe he felt relief. He’d been resistant to a relationship with me. Maybe this was a welcome turn of circumstance.
Needing air, I went out onto the front porch. I thought about calling Tucker, but I didn’t want him to think he moved here to spend all his time listening to me cry and whine. I checked my watch, noting my father would be back from mending fences soon. He’d be hungry, but I didn’t have the energy to make him dinner. Dust kicking up on the drive made me look up. My heart leaped as the hope it was Mo bloomed. Maybe he was coming to confess his love and whisk me away.
As the vehicle drew closer, I realized it wasn’t him, and my heart went back to it’s shattered state. The SUV parked in front of the house, and Sinclair exited. Her gaze looked at me from over the car, and in it, I saw anger. I tried to think about what project I’d been working on that left her in a lurch by not showing up for work.
I stood to greet her.
She strode toward me. “You are a terrible person, Brooke Campbell!”
I swallowed, shocked at her hatred toward me. “What?”
“You’re a conniving, thieving bitch.”
I staggered back and sank into my chair.
“Was that your plan the whole time? Seduce Mo and steal his money.”
“I…I didn’t,” I stuttered.
“Oh? That’s not how he tells it. He says he married you, gave you his trust and his love, and how do you repay him? You walk away with his money, leaving him in financial ruin. How does that not make you a conniving, thieving bitch? Does your daddy know you slept with him to get his money?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I mean, yes, I did sleep with him, but how she was characterizing the situation was all wrong. Was that how Mo saw it? He certainly could.
“Sinclair?” My father’s voice came from the side as he walked toward the house. “It is. Sinclair, how are you?”
She turned to look at him, and he stopped short when he saw her expression. “I’m pissed, Frank. Your daughter used Mo—”
Immediately his eyes darkened. “He took advantage of my little girl.”
“Did you not agree to the marriage so you could save your farm?” Sinclair challenged him.
“It was an arrangement.”
“So, you sold your daughter to—”
“It wasn’t like that,” he spat. “Mo was my friend, who seduced and ruined my daughter.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Dad. I’m not a child. He didn’t seduce me. I told you, it was me.” I was getting tired of his broken-record insistence that Mo ruined me.
Sinclair whirled on me. “So, you admit you seduced him for his money?”
“No. I mean, I did seduce him, but not for his money.”
“And yet, you got his money and then left him. Now he’s going to lose everything,” she said.
“Good,” my father said with a nod.
“What do you mean he’ll lose everything?” I asked, feeling like I was missing something.
“Well, your father and Stark are planning to ruin his reputation—”
“No, you said you wouldn’t,” I said to my father.
“He doesn’t have to. Stark will do it for him. You knew that, didn’t you, Frank?” Sinclair sneered.
My father looked down, and I was horrified. “Dad?”
“Then, there’s the trust money that he has to pay back,” Sinclair added.
“What?” I said. “No. That’s not right.”
“It is right. If you’re not married a year, he has to pay back the money he got.”
<
br /> I looked at my father, and his surprised eyes suggested he didn’t know. But now that he did, surely, he’d at the very least finish out the deal we’d made.
“He deserves it for what he did,” my father said.
I stood, stunned, not quite sure what to say or do as Sinclair and my father argued.
“He helped you when you were going to lose everything, and what do you do? You try to ruin him. You’re an asshole, Frank!”
“You won’t be mayor talking to me like that,” my father snapped.
Sinclair turned on him. “You think you can keep me from being mayor? If you think this town won’t know that you pimped out your daughter and screwed your best friend, you can think again.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what—”
“She admits to sleeping with him. You agreed to the marriage. How else will this town see it?”
“He—”
Sinclair held up a hand. “You ruin him, I ruin you, Frank. If Mo has to sell the farm, I’ll make sure it goes to Stark for his waste treatment plant. It will be my peace offering to him since he didn’t get his prison or your land.” She made a face like she was thinking. “He didn’t get your land because Mo risked everything for his friend. Too bad he didn’t know what a snake his friend was.”
“He’s the one who betrayed me.”
Sinclair looked up at me. “Is that true?”
I shook my head. “No. He was torn about hurting you, Dad. But I didn’t care. I was the one who betrayed you.”
“You’re too young to understand these things,” he said. “Mo knows better.”
“Mo loves her,” Sinclair said.
My heart did a little flip-flop in my chest. Was that true? Did he really love me? Had he told her that?
She looked up at me. “What’s wrong with you that you’re letting your father do this? Unless you’re in on it, too.”
“No. No, I love Mo.”
She pursed her lips. “You have a fucked-up way of showing it. And I’ll tell you what, Mo won’t do anything to you over this because he’s a good man. Me, I’m petty. So, I promise you, if I become mayor, not only will I fire you, but I’ll make sure you don’t work in public administration in Salvation…maybe even all of Nebraska.” She looked from me to my father. “And you, Frank, you’re going to meet the terms of whatever deal you set up—”
“No.” My father’s hands fisted at his sides.
“Then you’re going to give that money back to Mo, or I’ll ruin you. I hope you like having a shit factory as a neighbor.”
“Get off my property,” my father said in a low, menacing voice as he pointed out toward the road.
“No problem.” She sniffed. “The company here stinks, anyway.”
She walked to her car, giving me a hateful glare as she got into the driver’s seat and drove away. I felt sick. My whole body was shaking as I realized the ramifications of my father’s decision.
I stood and started inside.
“Where are you going, Brooke?” my father asked. “It better not be back to that pervert.”
There was no use in talking to him, so I ignored him and went to my room. I was going to pack, but then I remembered that I hadn’t packed to come home, so there was nothing I needed to pack to go back to Mo’s. I sank on my bed, wondering if he’d even want me back. He must think I abandoned him. God, if he thought like Sinclair did, that this whole thing was a plot to simply get his money and ruin him…
“You’re not going back,” my father said from the doorway.
“I’m going to talk to him, and if he’ll have me, I will go back.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “No, you won’t.”
“Chances are, he won’t forgive me, but I’ll fulfill the year so that he doesn’t have to pay back the trust.”
“He knew what he was doing, Brooke.”
I shot up. “He trusted you.”
“And I trusted him,” my father bellowed back.
I shook my head. “Why won’t you listen to me when I say I love him? I wanted him.”
“You’re only twenty-two years old. You don’t know what you want.”
God, I was so tired of all this. “I’m the same age mom was when you married her.”
“Yes, and I was her age, not old enough to be her father.”
I shook my head. “If you cared anything about me, you’d—”
“I’m protecting you, Brooke. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I am.”
There was no reason to be in my room since I wasn’t packing, so I started out. “You’re not protecting me. I’m a grown woman who can make my own decisions.”
“Don’t you walk out on me. I promise you, I’ll ruin him if you do.”
“Then you’ll ruin me, too. And don’t underestimate Sinclair. She will make you look just as bad, and I won’t stop her.” I stopped for a minute and studied the man who raised me with good morals. He taught me about love and loyalty. Where was that now? “Mo saved us. At the very least, I have to make sure he doesn’t lose everything because he loved you enough to risk everything. If you do that, Dad, I won’t ever respect you again.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“A man with honor and integrity wouldn’t do to Mo what you’re threatening. Not under these circumstances.” I turned and headed back up the hall to the front door.
“If you walk out of here, don’t expect to come back when it turns out he was just using you.”
I stopped at the door but didn’t turn. “Mo might not want me anymore, but he’d never abandon me. Not like you.” Tears were streaming down my face. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drive, but I was going to leave, even if I had to walk along the highway back to Mo’s.
I was by my car when the front door slammed shut. So that was it. My father was so pigheaded that he’d let me go? I could understand how he’d feel betrayed, and even that it was weird, maybe even creepy, that Mo and I had been together. But if he loved us, wouldn’t he try to see things our way? As I’d learned, the answer was no.
I drove over to Mo’s house and waited for him to come home. And waited. And waited. I checked my watch at seven and wondered what had happened to him. Was he okay? Had he left town? I looked in my purse for my phone before remembering my father had taken it, and I didn’t get it back before I left.
With no sign of Mo, and nowhere else to go, I drove to town. I parked at the inn and hoped that Tucker would take me in. God, he was going to regret having moved here after all the drama I was putting him through.
He grinned when he saw me, and then his smile fell. “What’s wrong?”
I burst out crying again.
“Come here,” he said, pulling me into his arms and then into his room.
It took me over an hour and a full box of tissues before I’d been able to get the whole story out of how I’d ruined a good man’s life and alienated my father.
31
Maurice
There was no reason to leave the office, so I stayed. I stayed until my stomach revolted and decided it was time to eat. I checked my watch. Seven. No wonder the building was so quiet. I checked my phone for a message from Brooke, but I knew there wouldn’t be one. So, I stood, put on my coat, and exited my office. I left the building and headed to my car.
I promised Sinclair I’d wait until next week to resign, but I felt like I was on borrowed time. I’d rather have it over with than spend the next few days of my life in limbo. I started home, trying to decide if I wanted to stop for food or figure out something to make at home.
As I passed the inn, I saw Brooke’s car in the parking lot. Immediately, I slowed down. Had she left her father’s house? Why hadn’t she called me if she had? I pulled over and scanned the lot and building to find her. She was at a doorway that opened. Her friend Tucker stood there. A moment later, he wrapped her up in his arms.
I felt the mix of crushing pain in my chest and boiling rage. But then it all settled into resignation. Well, not
the pain. That was still there. But the truth was, she was better off with him for a multitude of reasons. Maybe the most important of which was that they were closer in age and would grow together, or apart, but they’d be in a similar place.
Me. I was settled in my ways. I had no goals except to run my ranch. Brooke was still young. Still finding herself. The woman she’d be in five years would be different from the woman she was now. In five years, I’d be her father’s age, and she’d still not even be thirty.
I knew from my marriage to Shelley the reality of how people change as they get older. She and I had been on the same road when we married, but as we got older, our dreams and goals changed. Brooke might think she wanted me now, but in a few years, as I turned gray or didn’t want to travel or whatever her dream might be, I’d only be holding her back. Like a Band-Aid, it was better to rip us apart now than to do it slowly over time. So, as much as it hurt to let her go, it had to be done.
I pulled back out into traffic and headed back to my place. As I neared the turn to my home, I nearly drove on. I could go to Lincoln, or even just drive east until I hit the Atlantic. There was nothing to go home to. But I had work to do in figuring out how I was going to repay the trust. I’d pack up Brooke’s things and see if maybe Sinclair would return them to her. But first, I’d pull out the old bottle of whiskey to see if I could drink enough to fill the hole in my chest. Or at the very least, numb the pain.
I sat in the driveway for a moment, wondering if there was anything else I could do. Or if there was something that I could have done differently. I suppose, if I’d been a better man four years ago and never allowed myself to touch Brooke, this whole mess could have been avoided. Although I couldn’t be sure that was true. If we still had done this fake marriage, I probably would have still desired her. It was difficult to be around Brooke and not be taken by her intellect, beauty, and kind heart.
Either I was stupid or unlucky, but either way, I was where I was, and I couldn’t change things in the past, and I was at a loss as to how to fix them moving forward.
Fake Marriage (Contemporary Romance Box Set) Page 58
