Xander sets down his glass. “My son’s friends are family.”
“More like another excuse for a photo op,” Neil mutters, taking a bite of beef.
“You see any cameras around here, Neil?” Killian grits out.
“No, but the night is young, boy.”
I swear, Killian is a second away from lunging down the table to strangle him. I’d approve, if it weren’t for the pained flutter of Brenna’s lashes as she stares down at her uneaten dinner.
“Tell me, Sophie,” Isabella says in an overly bright voice, “how is little Felix handling the time difference?”
Sophie’s brown eyes go wide, and I know she’s not exactly pleased to be picked out of the herd. But she is a socializing pro and slides easily into a breezy tale about Felix staying up all night and driving Scottie to plead on his knees for his toddler son to give it a rest.
Sophie’s grin is wide and infectious as she laughs, remembering the moment. “Gabriel ended up reading Felix Go the Fuck to Sleep—”
Patricia’s strangled gasp of horror cuts Sophie off. “You read that? To a child?”
Scottie inclines his head her way. His expression could freeze over hell. “Twice, to be precise.”
Lips twitching, Jax takes a hasty sip of wine, and I know he’s holding on by a thread. We all are.
Patricia’s mouth tightens. “It’s immoral…”
“Mom,” Brenna cuts in, strained. “He’s a baby. He doesn’t understand the words, just the rhythm of the story.”
“That’s no excuse.” Patricia dabs her lips with her linen napkin. “Then again, look at what he’s growing up around.”
It sucks all the air from the room. Every single one of us tensing in a collective breath of anger. For the first time in years, I’m fairly certain Scottie is about to lose his shit.
Brenna leans in, resting her forearms on the table as she gives her mother a bland smile. “Surrounded by people who love and support him? The horror.”
“Mind your sarcasm, young lady.” Patricia sets her napkin down. “Your father and I did our best to guide you in the right direction. And still you end up here, hanging on the fringes of this degenerate rock band, wearing those ridiculous heels, and sleeping around with God knows what.”
What. As though a person whose lifestyle she doesn’t approve of or understand is a thing. As though Brenna is one by association.
All the color leaches out of her beautiful face, but her eyes spark with fire. She doesn’t shout or snap. Her tone is perfectly even when she replies, “If you want to know about my sex life, just ask, Mother.”
“Brenna.” Neil slaps a hand on the table.
“Father,” she replies neutrally.
“Pay her no mind, Neil,” Patricia says. “She’s only being fresh because I’m right. She’s been living off Killian’s charity instead of making her own way—”
“Bullshit.”
Every head turns my way.
Right. I said that. I can feel Brenna’s gaze, shocked and wide on me.
What are you doing? You’re supposed to charm the parents of the woman you want in your life, not antagonize them, you moron.
But fuck this. I cannot sit here listening to them systematically tear her down.
Neil sneers. “Pardon?”
“Your daughter is bold, intelligent, and one of the most respected people in the music industry. She’s the living heart of this band. She doesn’t hang on to us. She holds us up.” You complete and utter dick drizzle. “And if you can’t see how great she is, then you don’t deserve her.”
Scottie raises his glass. “Hear, hear.”
Our friends follow suit, all of them wearing various expressions of fierce protectiveness and simmering rage.
Under the table, a touch, light as butterfly wings, flits along my outer thigh, snagging the whole of my attention. Without looking her way, I let my hand fall beneath the tabletop and find Brenna’s. Hers is cold and clammy. Heart clenching, I rest mine on top of her hand, holding it firmly against my thigh where she’ll be warm.
“And who are you, again?” Neil studies me as if I’ve crawled out from under the floorboards.
“The drummer,” Patricia says in an undertone that implies, What else should you expect from such a low creature?
Whip snickers under his breath, but I know he’s far from amused. We share a quick look of perfect understanding. If they weren’t Brenna’s parents, we’d have marched them out of here an hour ago.
“The bassist, ma’am. I also go by Degenerate Number One.”
Jax coughs into his napkin. And Neil reddens.
All right, it was a cheap shot. I need to reel it in for Brenna’s sake, no matter how good it feels to knock her shit parents down a peg. She doesn’t look my way, but under the table, her fingers spread over my thigh. She rubs me just once, a tiny movement that I feel along the whole of my side.
Patricia flushes a deep berry that’s uncomfortably similar to the way Brenna blushes. “I never implied you weren’t intelligent, Brenna. Or capable. That is the point. You could do so much better.”
Brenna’s hand slips away from me, and she rests her fist on the table. “I honestly cannot conceive of anyone better than these people, Mother.”
“Willfully stubborn,” Neil remarks, taking another bite of his beef. “Blinded by fame and excess. Mark my words, young lady. One day you’ll regret it. You’ll be alone and—”
“Oh, leave off, Neil,” Xander snaps. “Your issue isn’t with Brenna or Rye. If you want to have a go at me, wait for after dinner. I’ll be more than happy to accommodate you. But you’re putting everyone off their roast.”
“So superior, Xander. In your Italian loafers, playing country lord of the manor.”
“Well, one ought to wear the proper footwear when lording,” Xander intones.
I’ve always liked Xander.
Neil turns redder. “And this farce of a birthday celebration. Just one big, happy family, eh?”
Xander’s eyes narrow, and I swear Isabella flinches. Neil sees her discomfort too.
“Tell me,” Neil says, getting his teeth into it. “What are we to raise our glasses to? Your birthday or your divorce?”
And that is when Killian loses his shit.
“What the fuck?”
“Goddamn it, Neil,” Xander shouts.
Everything falls apart then. Neil and Xander start yelling at each other. Killian turns to his mom, who begins to cry. Chairs are pushed back, the room clearing out in a hurry. And all the while, Brenna sits cool as carved ice, her eyes on the plate before her.
I sit by her side, unwilling to leave. When a door slams, she flinches, blinking as though coming out of a trance.
“Hey,” I say softly. “You okay?”
Brenna pulls in an audible breath. Her whisky eyes are overbright, glimmering at the corners. “Yes. Thank you, though, for saying all that. It was unnecessary but kind.”
“Kind? Bren, this is me. You don’t have to pretend. If you’re hurting, tell me. I’m here.”
Her lips purse into a crimson-red line. “Did you see Isabella? She was so upset.”
“Yeah, I saw.” Frankly, Brenna’s dad could do with a good kick in the ass. But I refrain from mentioning that bit.
“I mean, I know their relationship wasn’t perfect.” Brenna snorts delicately, the sound echoing in the vast, empty room. “Obviously not, if she tried to kiss you.”
Wincing, I glance around; it would do no good for that to get out now. But all is quiet, and Brenna keeps talking with methodical woodenness. “But that was years ago, and she always seemed so in love with Uncle Xander.”
“Bren, honey, it’s hard to tell what goes on between a couple behind closed doors.” I shove away thoughts of my own cheating dad as Brenna sighs, a sad, tiny sound.
“I know. And it was naive of me to assume, but I had hoped they worked their issues out. I don’t know…I just wanted to believe they were happy.”
With an
other sigh, she pushes back from the table and rises with the stiffness of old straw. I follow, pulling her chair back for her.
“She was so sad, Rye.”
“I know, Berry.”
“Crazy thing is, she’s been more of a mom to me than my own.”
My heart cracks at the hollow sadness in Brenna’s eyes.
“Bren…” I reach to take her arm, but she shrugs me off.
“No. I can’t right now.”
Stung, my hand drops. “I’m sorry. I only wanted to…” Comfort you. Hold you. “Help.”
“You can’t. Not with this.” Distracted, she glances over her shoulder to where Killian and Isabella have walked off. “I need to be with my family.”
Family. And I’m not hers. This isn’t news. So why does it hurt so much?
“All right. Maybe we can hang out later—” I bite my lip to shut up. What am I doing? She’s stressed and hurting, and I’m making it worse because I selfishly want to be the one to fix things. What had John said before? I can’t fix her problems. I can only be there to support her.
“Do what you have to do,” I say. “If you need me for anything, I’m here.”
There. That was all right, wasn’t it?
She visibly sags with weary relief. “Thank you.”
Good. This is good. I’m not completely fucking it up.
Brenna slowly heads for the door but pauses just before walking out of the room. “Maybe you were right to be leery of relationships. Maybe love isn’t enough to stop people from cheating or breaking apart.”
Shit, that’s what she’s getting out of all this? Now, when I finally understand what it means to truly only want one person, when it’s crystal fucking clear that cheating isn’t about a flaw in the other person but a flaw within the cheater.
An agitated shard of panic spears my gut.
“No, Brenna,” I say with feeling. “No. I was wrong. That’s not what love—”
Another door slams, followed by Killian’s deep voice mixing with Isabella’s contralto as they argue in rapid-fire Spanish.
Brenna’s gaze darts their way. “I have to go.”
“Bren—”
“We’ll talk later, Rye.”
She’s out of the room before I can reply.
And I’m left with the cold fear that I might never be able to convince her that love isn’t what breaks people apart; it’s what holds them together.
Chapter Thirty-One
Brenna
In the scope of things, my aunt and uncle getting a divorce isn’t the worst that can happen. It’s just…that dinner sucked. My parents suck.
Their words, so easily slung, float around within me like sticky bites of sludge, clinging to my heart, worming through my guts. Some people will say words are just air, they aren’t real. As though you don’t need air to breathe, to live. Words can kill parts of your soul with astonishing ease.
And yet my parents’ words, their disdain for me and those in my life, aren’t what bother me now.
I head in the direction where I heard Killian and Isabella arguing and find her in the pink parlor, a relatively small and pretty place done up in shades of pale pink. She’s curled up at the end of a Regency-era settee covered in ice-pink silk.
As soon as I enter, she stiffens, sitting straighter and pushing a lock of inky hair back from her face. Pride. Poise. No one knows this, but I modeled my style after her. When I was eighteen, she was the classiest woman I’d ever seen. She still is.
She’s wearing a vintage Zac Posen sheath in burgundy satin that makes her light-brown skin glow and highlights her flawless figure. Isabella was trained to walk runways, but her effortless grace still manages to make me feel like a clumsy girl in comparison.
When Isabella realizes it’s me, she relaxes. “Dinner is always an event at Varg Hall.”
I laugh shortly as I sit next to her. “Some more so than others.”
“At least we didn’t have to suffer through the cheese course.”
“There’s that.” I settle back into the couch, digging the point of one heel into the carpet thread. “Where’s Killian?”
“Liberty took him up to their room to relax.” She gives me a watery smile. “My son has an explosive temper, followed by a passionate release of feeling.”
“Yes,” I murmur dryly. “I’m aware.”
“He doesn’t like change. Or surprises.”
I’m more like my cousin than I care to admit. “Few people do.”
Isabella shrugs lightly, sending her glossy locks sliding over her slim shoulders. “He blames his father, when it is not that simple.”
“I’m sorry about you and Uncle Xander.”
The light in Isabella’s eyes dims. “It’s not so dire as Neil made it out to be. We’re having problems, but nothing has been decided.” The tiniest of frowns mars the smooth space between her brows. “We would have discussed this with Killian when we were on firmer ground. Unfortunately, Neil overheard something he shouldn’t have.”
Shame coats my skin with hot hands. “You mean he eavesdropped.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so…disgusted, Isa. It was wrong what he did.”
She studies me for a moment, her dark gaze moving over my face. “It was. But Brenna, what your parents said to you. They’re wrong there too. Completely wrong. Tell me you know this.”
Tension rides my shoulders and I roll them, releasing an unfortunate crack. “While everyone was arguing, I started thinking about my parents—coming to a realization, actually. Thing is, I love them, but I don’t like them. I could hunt them down, have a knock-down, drag-out fight about their shitty behavior or why they can’t accept me for who I am, but it won’t change anything.” A humorless laugh escapes. “I suspect only years of family therapy would fully eradicate our issues.”
“Mija…”
I’m not Isabella’s daughter, but the softly uttered term of endearment constricts my chest all the same, and my voice is clogged when I speak. “Frankly, I don’t want to talk to them right now. I can’t find it in myself to care anymore what they think.” I take my aunt’s cool hand in mine. “When it comes down to it, I’d rather be here, making sure you’re okay.”
Her fingers thread through mine and squeeze in acknowledgment. “You are the daughter of my heart. You know that, don’t you?”
My eyes mist, and I blink rapidly, leaning into her. “I always wanted you to be my mother.”
Isabella makes a sound of distress. “I am here for you, mija. Always.”
We’re quiet for a few moments, then she breaks the silence. “For a while, I worried that I might have lost your regard.”
Her words punch through me, and I jerk back.
Dark eyes, the exact bittersweet shade of Killian’s, lock on me. “I hadn’t thought of it in many years but seeing Rye with you tonight brought it all back.”
I swallow thickly, my heart thudding so loud, I swear she can hear it.
Her gaze turns remorseful. “You were there that night I made a fool of myself with Rye. I saw you run off just as I pulled away.”
Shit.
Cheeks flaming, I duck my head, grateful that my new hairstyle allows the wings of my hair to fall over my face. “Isa—”
“No,” she cuts in gently. “Let me say this.”
It’s one thing to discuss it with Rye, but facing Isabella is acutely embarrassing in a way that might be childish, but I can’t shake. But it would be even more childish to refuse to listen. Woodenly, I nod.
Her hand falls to the couch and grips the edge. “I had wanted to apologize before.”
“You don’t have to. It’s none of my business.”
“I do. And it is. You’re my niece, and something I did betrayed your trust in me. That is not a small thing.” Isabella sighs. “At the very least, I want to explain.”
I manage a small, “Okay.”
It takes her a moment to speak, as though she needs to internally gather her thoughts, and when she
does, the words come slowly. “I was favored with physical beauty. I never denied this. In truth, I was always thankful for my looks.” Her lips curl. “In my youth, my beauty helped get me anything I wanted: men, fame, fortune. How could I not be grateful?”
She shakes her head, glossy hair gleaming, and blinks into the distance. “But as I got older, beauty became the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. My whole identity was tied up in how I looked, how others looked at me.
“Ah, Brenna, how the world views women…” Her hand clenches, and she frowns down at the thin skin there as if pained. “It’s as though we have a sell-by date. Anything past that, and we’re suddenly spoiled goods. A model’s life is even worse. One line on the face, one pound gained…Our entire worth wrapped up in this outer package.” She waves a hand over her form, expression twisting.
When she glances at me, I nod. Of course, I know. Even now, I have to deal with a world that expects a flawless outer shell.
“I thought it wouldn’t happen to me,” she confides with a touch of asperity. “It would be different. Then I hit forty, and it was as though I’d become invisible. I was passed over, put out to pasture. Suddenly, I was a ‘ma’am.’ Suddenly Xander didn’t have time for me. I was no longer his golden girl, his beautiful prize.”
“Isa,” I cut in, compelled to say it. “Xander loves you for more than your looks. I know it.”
She sighs. “I know this too. Now. Then?” She bites her bottom lip. “There were things I didn’t understand. About aging. It hits you in ways no one spoke of then. The depression, the struggle to rise out of bed. The weight gain, even though you’re eating the same as ever. The constant exhaustion. You forget things, you start to wonder if this is all your life will be. You have aches where there were none. Add to that, breasts that have started to sag and periods that go missed…” She shrugs. “It does things to your sense of identity.”
Isabella runs her hand through her hair. “This is how I was feeling when I went to that party. Low and sorry for myself. Wanting to experience that excitement of youth once more. I will not claim it as an excuse, but there I was, drunk and lonely, and this gorgeous young man was telling me that I was worth something, that I was beautiful. I forgot who he was, who I was. I took.”
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