Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

  I sighed and hugged my blanket closer. It was obvious why he wouldn’t just go to court with it. Aside from the fact that it would drag both their names through the mud, there was always the risk that Miranda would withdraw her alibi. Though the statute of limitations had run out on the charges of assault, the damage it would do to Brandon’s reputation—not to mention any hope of taking Sterling Ventures public—was likely insurmountable. Plus, there was also the probability that he would be charged with giving a false statement or even perjury.

  And just when things were about to be finished, she walked in on us. Talk about shit luck. I looked at the divorce papers, creased and now rippling as the edges dried out.

  “The deal that Kieran was working on…” I murmured, a light suddenly dawning on me. I looked up. “She was really pissed!”

  Brandon nodded ruefully, following my logic. “Yeah. She’s mad because I haven’t been playing nice lately.”

  “Because of me?”

  My voice was small. I didn’t want to be the reason he was getting into trouble again. And combined with my family’s issues…

  “Because of us,” Brandon said just as softly. “You make me believe I can have what Ray and Susan have. You make me believe I can have love, Skylar, real love. And for the first time in my life, I want to fight for it.”

  A thick silence fell over the room. We watched each other carefully, blue eyes to green, each of us trying to make sense of where the other stood. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I sighed, stood up, and shook out my blanket before folding it back up and laying it neatly on the chair. When I turned around, Brandon was a statue, still watching nervously, as if he wasn’t sure what I was going to do next. It was clearly my turn to talk, and he knew my response to his revelations probably wouldn’t be good.

  But when I opened my mouth to say what we both knew I should—that it was too much, that we couldn’t see each other anymore—only two words came out:

  “I’m sorry.”

  39

  “You’re sorry?” Brandon ran both hands through his hair, which was starting to look like a tumbleweed. He did it two more times, enhancing the effect. “Jesus, Skylar, why?”

  His voice cracked on the last word, and suddenly, I couldn’t be close to him fast enough. I tackled him back onto the couch, and his surprised arms encircled me automatically as I straddled his waist and burrowed into his chest. I closed my eyes, relishing the warmth of his skin, the familiarity of his scent, the steady thump of his heart through his wet shirt. I was mad still—so mad that he would keep all of this from me–but I also loved him. And I didn’t want him to go through this alone.

  “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through,” I mumbled. “For what you are going through. I’m sorry for leaving before you could explain and for never really giving you a chance to tell me these things.”

  Brandon shook his head, but gripped me tighter against him when I tried to pull away.

  “No,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair. He moved so his chin was hooked over my shoulder, freeing his mouth. “No. You have nothing to be sorry for. I should have been straight with you. I really, really fucked that up. But the thing is, Red…”

  He then pressed me gently away from him so he could look at me in the face.

  “Can I call you Red again?” he asked with a hopeful smile.

  I could almost smile back, but not quite. I wasn’t quite ready to forgive him completely. “I…Maybe.”

  Brandon toyed with a strand of my hair, curling it around one finger before letting it fall next to my face. “The thing is...Skylar…I’m so fucking in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since, Christ, probably since the first moment I saw you, and definitely since you walked out of my office. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than when you told me to fuck off.” He chuckled at the memory, but then grew serious. “The shitty reality is, I probably would have done a lot worse than hide a few things to keep you in my life.”

  The look on my face must have shown my dismay, which had Brandon shaking his head at me as he clasped my cheeks with both hands.

  “No more secrets, baby,” he said, pulling me down so our foreheads touched. “That’s a promise. I can’t live a lie anymore, and I definitely can’t live without you. Do you believe me?”

  We breathed in each other’s spaces for what seemed like forever before I finally nodded infinitesimally.

  Brandon exhaled deeply. “Thank Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathed before pulling me to him.

  I hadn’t realized until our lips touched how badly I wanted to erase the morning from memory, how much I wanted to sink into him and forget everything else. I returned his kiss with all the pent-up emotions dying for release, unable to get close enough as I clawed at his neck and ground against him. Brandon groaned at the movement, slid his hands under my ass, and stood in one graceful motion, as if I weighed little more than one of the throw pillows.

  “Need you,” he grunted against my lips in between long, deep kisses. “Right. Now.”

  He hiked me up his waist, while I kept our mouths firmly attached, and started toward the bedrooms. My door flew open with a bang.

  We couldn’t get our clothes off fast enough, but couldn’t stop kissing each other either. Keeping our mouths fused, Brandon tore off my sweater and my pants while I yanked his belt away and wrenched his t-shirt over his head. We tripped over our limbs, our shoes, our clothes, laughing in between furious lunges back to one another after even a sliver of separation. When we were finally naked, he tackled me onto the bed, covering my small body with his big, warm one, and entered me with one, full thrust.

  “Skylar!” he cried hoarsely. “Christ, you feel good.”

  But this wasn’t a time for dirty talk, or any talk at all. Brandon’s mouth anxiously found mine again as he started to move within me. He lifted my leg around his hip, using the leverage to go deeper, closer. The combination of his unforgiving rhythm with the tortuous stimulation was automatic—I cried out into his mouth as I lost control, quickly, chaotically.

  “Brandon,” I moaned, gripping his thick curls and grinding my hips against his. “I…I…”

  What I wanted to say, I didn’t know. All I felt was him, all I wanted was him, body, mind, soul. I gripped his shoulders, his neck, his back, unable to get as close as I wanted. It was all too much, too much to handle or comprehend. More than any other time we had been together, I was genuinely losing my ability to think straight.

  “Tell me, baby,” Brandon demanded in my ear, continuing with his fervent pace as he pulled the lobe between his teeth. He groaned as both of my legs clenching around his waist, urging him forward as I hurtled even closer to the edge. “Tell me what you feel. Not what you think. What you feel.”

  “I…” My orgasm came, fast and hard. “Oh, holy mother of God, Brandon, I LOVE YOU!”

  I shouted it over and over again, my body convulsing under him as he continued to move relentlessly.

  “SKYYyyylar!”

  Brandon buried his face in my neck, his hand clutching my hip hard enough to leave a bruise. Gasping for breath, we gripped each other until the waves finally faded. Slowly, my body began to sink into the mattress, and it was only when his hands released their death grip on my legs that I briefly thought I’d probably have a few decent bruises the next day.

  Eventually, full consciousness returned. I barely registered the mess of clothes tossed about the room, the sweat rolling down our bodies from our efforts, the way my skin stuck to Brandon’s as I was trapped beneath his chest. The way his heartbeat raced against mine. The air surrounding us had become cloyingly humid in the heat of our passion. I couldn’t move; I didn’t want to.

  Finally, Brandon was able to push onto his forearms and look down at me, his faced flushed from exertion. His eyes, however, had lost that petrified look he’d walked in with. All I saw was love.

  Like a bear moving lazily toward hibernation, he clambered up to the head
of the bed and settled us under my comforter. I was tucked securely into the crook of his arm, my head on his broad, firm chest while his hand rubbed absent circles over my back. We lay like that for several minutes, slowly coming down from the high of the quick, fierce joining. Just as I was about to doze off, he murmured into my hair.

  “Tell me,” he said, his voice gentle but still cut through with longing. “Tell me again. Please.”

  I blinked slowly, unable to keep my eyes open for long. I knew exactly what he wanted me to say, just as I knew I couldn’t keep it back, no matter what it might cost me in the end.

  “I do,” I murmured. “I love you, Brandon.”

  The sun was already low through the blinds when I woke up again, which meant that it was nearly five o’clock. We had slept most of the afternoon away. I felt like I could sleep the rest of the night too. Brandon snored indelicately, and I took that to mean I could slide out from his death grip to get a glass of water. I snagged my robe from the back of the door and padded down the hall to where I found Jane reading on the couch.

  “Hey there, Missy,” she said, looking up from her book. “Sleeping late today?”

  I shrugged. “We…fell asleep. After. You know.”

  Jane grinned at me. “We, huh? Is there a wee tycoon napping in your bed, my dear? I didn’t know His Majesty was up for sleepovers on the bad side of town.”

  As if on cue, a very loud snore erupted from my bedroom, causing Jane and me to burst into a fit of hushed giggles. I stumbled over to the sink and poured myself a glass of water, which I downed in a single go.

  “Worked yourself up a thirst, I see,” Jane remarked, watching me. “Good for you.”

  “Oh, Jane.” I washed the glass before turning around. “It’s so screwed up. He’s…shit, he’s married.”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  I threw up both hands. “No, I didn’t know that. I didn’t want to cyberstalk the guy, okay?”

  “Well, it’s hardly cyberstalking when he’s a public figure. Besides, everyone runs at least a Google search on new dates. Bosses too, come to think of it.”

  I glared at her. “Well, I don’t. Or didn’t. You didn’t think to mention it?”

  Jane bared her teeth in mild shame. “I thought, you know, it was one of those topics. Like, you knew, and you made the choice to be with him anyway. Really, who am I to judge who you want to pork?”

  I shook my head and leaned back against the counter. “Whatever. It doesn’t change anything between us.” I sounded more certain than I felt.

  Jane tapped her pen absently on the edge of her book. “Well, he is separated. He filed, what, three years ago now?”

  “How do you know that?” I demanded.

  She shrugged again. “Page Six, I think. His wife is a socialite in New York.”

  I grimaced. I had seen her; it made perfect sense that Miranda would make the gossip pages.

  “Plus,” Jane continued, “he left his divorce papers sitting here, and I was nosy.” She gestured toward the wrinkled mass Brandon had left on the coffee table. “Considering how loaded he is, I’m not surprised it’s taking him forever to reach a settlement. Especially since there was no prenup.”

  Checking again for the sound of Brandon’s snores, I joined Jane on the couch with a defeated grunt.

  “It’s just so fucking messy,” I said as I rubbed my temples. “She walked in on us at his house. We were…getting busy in the kitchen. And…I think she watched. We didn’t know she was there until it was over. She started clapping.”

  “Oh, Jesus!” Jane erupted into another bout of giggles.

  “It’s not funny!” I protested. “I feel kind of violated by it, if you want to know the truth. I ran out, but Brandon followed and made me listen to the whole sordid story. And by the end…he tells me he loves me and then he makes love to me—or fucks me, I’m not really sure which—and I say I love you back…but I don’t really know if I can handle this, Jane. It’s just…so much, you know?”

  Jane had stopped giggling and scooted closer so she could pull my head onto her shoulder.

  “Oh, hon,” she said. “Yeah, it definitely sucks. I’m so sorry, really. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I do love him. And I forgive him, for the most part. I mean, I sort of get why he didn’t tell me about everything.” I sighed. “I don’t know if it’s enough though.”

  Jane patted my leg sympathetically before sitting back with her books. Like any good friend, she knew when to interfere and when to give me the space to sort things out.

  “I will say one thing, Sky,” she said as she picked up a textbook. “I like him. Or maybe I should say, I like who you are with him. You’re…warmer, I guess. And in the last few months, you’ve seemed happier than I’ve seen you in three years. Don’t take that lightly. You’ve had a hard day. Give it a little time to figure out how to deal with it together.”

  I mulled over her words along with the other thoughts cycling through my mind. Finally, I nodded and stood back up.

  “Okay. I’m going to jump in the shower and then wake up the ‘wee tycoon’ for some dinner. Maybe talking about the weather over a plate of pasta will make the fact that my boyfriend is married to someone else more palatable.”

  “I’ll head back to the library, give you kids some space,” Jane said as she started to gather her books together. I almost told her not to bother, but I realized just how much I didn’t want to go back to the house on Beacon Street. The thought was sad. Less than twelve hours ago, I never thought I could be happier than I’d been there; now I never wanted to see the place again.

  I stood under the shower for what might have only been minutes, but what felt like an hour. Mentally, I felt like I had been run over by a bus.

  What a goddamn clusterfuck of a situation. It had occurred to me while Brandon was telling his story that perhaps Miranda’s alibi was covering for more than just assault. He never said who actually killed Ricky O’Neill, just that one of his friends was doing time for it. Had he lied to me about that too? There was no statute of limitations for murder in Massachusetts. If Miranda recanted her alibi, would the state reopen the case?

  I shook my head under the stream. No, there would have to be evidence of his presence and involvement with the crime. Either an actual witness, fingerprints on the weapon, or something equally condemning. But if that were the case, there was no way the state’s attorney would have declined to prosecute just because of Miranda’s alibi.

  Besides, I told myself, Brandon Sterling wasn’t a killer. A poor sheep in rich clothing, okay. A reformed hustler, sure. But he wasn’t the type who could shoot someone in cold blood. Was he?

  I closed my eyes and imagined his gentle, yet strong features, blue eyes full of the yearning I knew came from a lifetime without true affection. Parents who had clearly never treated him with the love and attention any child deserved. Foster parents who treated him with disinterest despite good intentions. Even when he got married, it obviously wasn’t because of love, but because the boss’s daughter was infatuated, and her daddy wanted to keep Brandon’s money-making talents on a leash.

  My heart ached at the thought of a young Brandon roaming the streets with his gang of troublemaking compatriots because they were the closest thing to family he could find. Their friendly fist bumps and encouraging slaps on the back might have been the kindest physical contact he’d received. No wonder he couldn’t forgive himself for letting them go to prison while he took the out.

  Could I handle the aftermath of whatever was going to happen next? Jane had told me to sleep on it, but the truth was, I already had. Things already seemed different, even just five hours later.

  I was interrupted from my brooding by a pair of large hands sliding around my waist. I twisted around with a start and found Brandon completely naked with a hungry, searching look in his eyes. He took up most of the room in the small space and pushed me against the wall, so that the water st
reaming from the rain nozzle poured over his face, coating his long lashes and face with water.

  I had been so lost in thought, I hadn’t even heard the bathroom door open and close, hadn’t registered the slide of the shower curtain when he’d stepped in. But now he had my attention—one hundred percent.

  He said nothing at first, just let his gaze rove over my body, followed by his hands. His finger trailed from my hips up the sides of my ribs, cupping my breasts briefly while he drifted his thumbs over my nipples.

  “So beautiful,” he murmured.

  My breath caught in my throat as he bent down reverentially to kiss one nipple, then the other, which he sucked between his teeth before releasing it with a small pop. His lips slid up my chest, tracing my collarbone and up my neck, where his tongue twirled around my pulse with maddening circles.

  “Brandon…” I groaned, slipping as my legs started to lose their ability to bear my weight.

  His hands immediately cupped my ass, holding me up.

  “I got you, baby,” he rumbled before taking my mouth in a gentle, thorough kiss that seared more than the hot water.

  All of my previous reservations melted completely away under his touch; the only thing I could think of was how badly I wanted him yet again.

  “Do you feel it?” Brandon asked against my neck. “Do you feel how perfectly we fit? Your body was made for me, Skylar, just like mine was made for you.”

  He pressed the entire length of his muscular torso up against me as if to illustrate the point, eliciting a further groan from the back of my throat as I pawed desperately at his shoulders for him to come even closer.

  “Please,” I panted into his slick skin. It was the only thing I could say.

  But instead of pounding into me with the ferocity I craved, Brandon gripped me tighter and entered at an agonizingly slow pace, forcing me to feel every bit of his length, inch by terrible, wonderful inch. Still holding me up, his flexed biceps the only sign of effort, he watched as he moved in and out with the same unbearably slow cadence.