He burst out onto the street, his lungs blazing with agony. He shouldn’t have let Dex talk him into it. He’d known it would be a complete disaster. Being right hurt like a bitch.
His eyes burned with hot tears, but fuck if he’d stand in the street blubbing like some goddamn loser. He’d lost his brothers seven years ago. Nothing had changed except now they might stop nagging him to come back to New York every five fucking minutes. He’d change his flight and head back to LA in the morning. Dex could either come or stay. Her choice.
Bye-bye, New York. I always fucking hated you anyway.
Chapter 20
Dex stared at the space Nate had occupied not ten seconds since with sorrow and disbelief. Where had it had all gone so wrong? She didn’t think for one moment that Calum had meant his words to cut as deep as they had, but Nate’s over-the-top reaction spoke volumes. She’d seen his face when Cole had tried to stop him—a mixture of rage, disappointment, hurt… and expectation. He’d expected this to go badly, so it had. Almost as if he’d willed it, because believing his brothers would ostracize him as soon as they found out the truth validated his own beliefs in himself.
Nate Brook: outsider, loner, good for nothing.
Pain tore through her chest. She scrambled to her feet but was pulled up short when Calum stopped her.
“I’ll go. It’s my screw-up. Mine to fix.”
He jogged up the stairs but was back a few minutes later. Dex looked up hopefully, but her face fell when Calum returned alone.
“Damn, that fucker moves fast. I couldn’t see him anywhere.”
“Leave him,” Jax said. “He’s hurting and needs to calm down. When he comes back, we’ll sit together as a family and have a proper discussion.” He turned to Dex. “Do you know the full story?”
“I know as much as you do.” Despite not blaming Calum, she couldn’t help flashing an irritated look his way. “I’m the one who persuaded him to tell you. That shit has been eating him up for years, and I hoped by releasing it, he could begin to heal the pain inside.” She gave a despairing snort and swept a hand down her face. “What a mess. Did you have to react like that?” The last comment was aimed at Calum, who grimaced and tugged on his collar as though it was choking him. She’d like to choke him right that second.
“Shoot first, think later,” he said apologetically. “Yep, I pretty much hate myself right now.”
“Does he know who his father was?” Jax asked.
Dex shook her head. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
Cole rose from his chair and paced in front of the couch. “I can’t believe Mom had an affair.” He raked his hands through his hair, his face twisted with pain as he no doubt struggled to come to terms with such devastating news. “And worse than that, I can’t believe Nate thought, for all those years, that it would change one damn thing about the way we feel about him. I couldn’t give a flying fuck who his sperm donor was. He’s my brother, and I love the fucking bones of him.”
Dex caught Cole’s eye. “When he gets back, can you please tell him that? Right away. Let those be the first words out of your mouth, because that’s exactly what he needs to hear.”
Cole nodded while Calum recovered his composure and said, “We’ll all tell him that. It happens to be the truth.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice husky and raw as she fought to contain the emotion swirling inside. “I love him, too, you see.”
Three pairs of emerald eyes turned on her, so very different to Nate’s ice-blue, but despite the differences between him and his brothers, there were also similarities. The strong, firm jaws, the straight, perfectly formed noses. The fact they were all insanely good-looking, which either meant both their fathers had been handsome sons of bitches, or they all got their looks from their mother.
“Thank you.” Jax was the first to speak up. “For persuading him to tell us. It was the right call. I can’t believe he discovered such a devastating secret and kept it to himself all these years.”
“He didn’t want to ruin the memory of your mom, so he decided he’d be the one to suffer.”
Jax rubbed his face, hard, and blew out a heavy breath tinged with exhaustion. “There’s nothing we can do until he returns. I’ll call everyone as soon as he comes home. Dex, you’re welcome to hang out, or leave your number and I’ll call you, too, if you’d rather get some fresh air.”
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving until he’s back.”
Jax nodded. “Fair enough.”
The day passed with no sign of Nate returning. The brothers all gathered back at the hotel in the evening, trying to decide what to do. Cole had asked his buddies in the police to keep a lookout, but as Nate was a grown man with the freedom to come and go as he pleased, there wasn’t a lot they could do.
“Do you think he’d just fly back to LA?” Jax asked after they’d exhausted all other possibilities.
A shot of ice water rushed through Dex’s veins. Surely he wouldn’t be so cruel. To leave her here with virtual strangers as a punishment for the way she’d pushed him into revealing a secret he’d successfully hidden until she’d come along.
“No,” Cole said. “He’s hurting, but he’s not a total fucker.” He squeezed Dex’s hand. “He wouldn’t leave you here, sweetheart.”
“How can you be sure?” she said, her voice betraying the hurt inside.
“I’m sure. I know my brother.”
Jax began to pace. “If he hasn’t gone back to California, where the hell could he be? He doesn’t have any friends here, so it’s not like he’d be hanging out with them.”
As they all tried to second-guess Nate’s whereabouts without any real clue as to where he might be, an idea pricked at Dex. Could that be where he’d gone?
She got to her feet and grabbed her purse. “I think I know where he is.”
“Where?” Calum asked, but Dex didn’t listen. She shot for the door.
“I’m coming with you.” Jax snatched up his phone and wallet. “You guys stay here in case he comes back, and call me the second he does.”
They didn’t wait to see if the twins agreed before they took off upstairs. Jax had a quick word with Indie who, God bless her, was tending bar the day after her wedding. Some start to a marriage, although she didn’t seem to mind one iota. She gave Jax a quick kiss, her face filled with concern. She even managed a friendly wave to Dex and mouthed, “Don’t worry”, then turned her attention back to the paying customers.
The minute they got outside, Dex set off down the street as fast as her too-fucking-short legs would carry her. Jax easily kept up with her at a slow lope whereas she was almost running.
“Where is it you think he’s gone?” Jax asked.
“Your parents’ house,” she panted back. “He took me there the other day.”
Jax’s eyes widened. “He did?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. I wouldn’t have ever thought of it. He’s never once mentioned a hankering to go back there. I know I moved them too fast at the time, but that was sixteen years ago.”
They turned into the tree-lined street with Dex half-expecting Nate to be sitting on the front steps, much as they both had when he’d shown her his family home, but apart from a few kids playing an ill-advised game of baseball in the street, no one else was about.
“Shit,” Dex said, glancing up and down the rows of houses as if Nate would magically appear if she willed it hard enough.
“He’s not here,” Jax said, stating the obvious. “He wouldn’t have knocked, would he? Asked to go inside, take a look around maybe?”
“Only one way to find out.” Dex jogged up the front steps. She rapped on the front door, exquisitely painted in a deep navy blue with polished chrome fittings, so clean she’d bet she could see her face in them.
A few minutes later, an elderly lady answered the door, balancing on a walking stick.
“Can I help you?” she said, her face open and friendly, which spoke volu
mes of what a nice neighborhood Nate had grown up in.
“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am,” Dex said. “But we’re looking for our friend. He used to live here a long time ago and, well, we’re wondering if he came back for a visit.”
“Oh, you mean Nate,” she said with a bright grin which sent a flood of relief rushing through Dex, but it quickly disappeared with her next words. “He was here, but he left about fifteen minutes ago. Lovely young man. He asked if I minded him taking a look around, which, of course, I didn’t at all. And then he stayed for tea and chatted with an old lady for a while. What a lovely boy.” She winked at Dex. “If only I were a few years younger.”
Despite the weight of disappointment, Dex couldn’t help chuckling along with the old lady. “Would you mind if I left my number, in case he comes back?”
“Not at all, my dear.”
Dex scrawled hers and Jax’s numbers on a scrap of paper the old lady found, and then she and Jax trudged back onto the street.
“Where now?” Jax said helplessly.
Dex raised her hands in the air. “I’m all out.”
Jax’s phone rang. He answered it, and after two seconds barked, “Don’t let him leave. We’re on our way back.” He turned to Dex. “He’s at the hotel. And he’s packing.”
“Shit.”
They ran back to the hotel. Jax kept having to stop and wait for her to catch up. By the time they got there, Dex was seriously out of breath, whereas Jax had barely broken a sweat. As they went inside, Dex shook his arm.
“Let me talk to him first, okay?”
She anticipated Jax might argue. Instead, he nodded. With her heart pounding from both the sprint back to the hotel and trepidation for her upcoming conversation with Nate, both of them headed for the basement. Cole was pacing. Calum was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” Dex asked Cole.
“In his room. Calum’s attempting to talk to him.”
Dex went inside without knocking. Calum glanced over his shoulder and shot her a helpless look. Nate, on the other hand, didn’t even acknowledge her presence as he shoved the last of his things into his suitcase.
“Can you leave us, please, Calum?” she said.
“Sure.” He paused by her side and touched her briefly on the arm, whispering, “Go easy. He’s raw.”
She waited for Calum to leave and then sauntered across the room and peered out the window. A flurry of activity came to a halt behind her.
“Aren’t you going to try and stop me?” Nate bit out. “Tell me it’ll all be okay, that they love me and accept me, even though it’s all bullshit.”
Dex turned around slowly. “What’s the point? You’ve already made up your mind.”
“Yes, I have,” he said, hands planted on his hips, legs splayed wide in an act of dominance.
She yawned. “Then why are we even having this conversation?”
She strolled past him and entered the bathroom, grinning to herself at his befuddled expression. During hers and Jax’s mad dash back to the hotel, she’d been thinking of the right way to play the situation. Instinctively she knew if she begged Nate to stay, pleaded with him to listen to his brothers, all he’d do was dig his heels in and do the complete opposite. Whereas if she refused to play that game, let him think he’d gotten his own way, her attitude would confuse him, and he’d want to understand why.
An attempt at reverse psychology. Worth a shot at least.
She washed her hands and splashed her face. When she opened the door to the bedroom, Nate’s suitcase still laid open on the bed with him standing frozen beside it. Ignoring him, she went over to the dresser and took out a fresh T-shirt. She quickly changed as the burn from his angry stare almost took the skin off the back of her neck.
“Pack, Dex,” he ordered. “Flight leaves first thing tomorrow. We can stay at the airport tonight.”
She slowly turned around, leaning against the dresser for support. Her stance was casual, contradicting the inner turmoil churning in her stomach. If this went wrong, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.
“My flight doesn’t leave until Tuesday, and so, until then, I’ll be staying in New York and ticking off the rest of my itinerary. You, on the other hand, can continue to run away from your problems if it makes you happy. Just don’t drag me into it.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and his mouth actually fell open. If the situation wasn’t so serious, she’d have laughed. As it was, she stared him down, refusing to budge a single inch. His expression hardened, and he stared at her so coldly she almost lost her nerve.
“Get. Fucking. Packed.”
She gritted her teeth. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Nerve back in its rightful place, her face flushed with anger as the gloves came off. “Screw. You.”
His nostrils flared, and his stance widened. “Don’t push me, Dex.”
She strode over and poked him in the chest. “Don’t you push me.”
She went to go past him—with every intention of leaving the arrogant prick to stew until he calmed the hell down—despite her earlier pledge to talk to him calmly, to play the long game. As her shoulder leveled with his, he caught her wrist. She yanked it out of his grasp and marched to the door. She didn’t get to open it because his body covered hers. He gripped her hands and held them above her head, holding her in place with his hips, while his tongue traced the nape of her neck.
“You’re so goddamn sexy when you’re angry.”
“Let me go, Nate,”
“Never.”
He spun her around, and his mouth crashed down on hers. As angry as she was with him, her nipples puckered, and the low-lying muscles in her stomach contracted. But she wasn’t about to let him off the hook completely. She bit down hard on his lower lip. He released her with a curse. His lip was bleeding, and he dabbed it with his finger, then pulled his hand away, frowning at the blood on his fingertips.
“You feisty little witch.”
“You’d better believe it, asshole.”
She waited for his next move, but as was often the case with Nate, he surprised the hell out of her by throwing back his head in laughter.
“What am I going to do with you?”
She grinned. “Listen for once in your goddamn life.”
She half expected him to argue, but instead, he took a big breath and sat on the edge of the bed. His eyes turned to his suitcase, and then to her.
“You won’t come back with me?”
She sat beside him. “Sure I will. On Tuesday.”
His lips twitched, and he touched his head to hers. Silence stretched between them, and it wasn’t uncomfortable so much as necessary for them both to take a breath. Dex broke first.
“Why did you run off to your parents’ house?”
He turned to look at her, his fingers entwining with a stray lock of her hair. He fed it through his fingers and then brought it to his nose. The tenderness in the way he did it made her heart clench. “How do you know me so well after such a short period of time?”
She hitched one shoulder.
He sighed softly. “I guess after telling my brothers, I yearned for a different time, when things were simpler. When I was still one of four.”
Dex made a frustrated noise. “You are still one of four. Don’t you see that?”
He stared at the wall opposite, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. “Maybe.”
“Did Cole talk to you before?”
“I didn’t give him chance. Just stormed in here and began packing. Calum tried to talk to me, to apologize for his knee-jerk reaction, but I didn’t want to listen.”
“Are you ready to listen now? Because I think you should hear what they have to say before you run away like a spoiled child who hasn’t gotten their own way.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, but she barreled on regardless. “I understand where Calum was coming from, if not the manner in which he shared. It must be a helluva shock to all of them. But come on, Nate. You’re not the only one affected by this. For Go
d’s sake, don’t let something that happened twenty-eight years ago ruin your relationship with your brothers, or fuck up the memories of your mom. You’re better than that.”
His gaze dropped to his feet. “Am I?”
She crawled onto his lap and nudged a finger under his chin until he looked at her. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
He captured one of her hands and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Okay, Titch. We’ll do this your way. Let’s go face the music.”
Nate’s brothers weren’t alone when they emerged from his bedroom, but as soon as Indie, Millie, and Laurella spotted them, they all got to their feet.
“We’ll leave you to it,” Indie said.
“No, stay,” Nate said. “This affects all of us.” He looked at each one of his brothers in turn. “I’m sorry for running out. Guess I still have some growing up to do, as Dex rather gleefully pointed out.”
“Someone had to,” Dex said, earning a round of laughter from the room and a hard stare from Nate.
“Come sit down,” Jax said, pointing with his chin to the sofa.
Calum got to his feet to make room for Nate and Dex.
“Bro,” Calum said, clapping Nate on the back. “Again, I’m sorry.” Which Dex took to mean it wasn’t Calum’s first apology—and Nate hadn’t listened to the first one. “I didn’t mean you’d found it easy when I said you’d had chance to come to terms with it. I can’t imagine how awful it has been for you to carry that around for so long. I feel like we’ve failed you.”
Nate offered his brother a crooked grin. “You haven’t failed me. I guess I’ve been shitting myself about this moment for so long. I overreacted, so it’s me who should be apologizing.”
He took a seat, tugging Dex down beside him. He laced their fingers together, and he kept brushing over her skin with his thumb, as though he needed the contact.
Cole sat on the coffee table and leaned his forearms on his knees. “Nate, I’m only going to say one thing, on behalf of every one of us here, and then I’ll shut up and let you talk,” he said. “You are our brother, our family. Nothing will ever change that. None of us give a flying fuck about genetics. We all love you so very much. All we need now is for you to let us.”
Web of Lies: A Brook Brothers Novel Page 18