“Why not?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the edge out of my voice. This was not good. It took times for these applications to be approved, and we were on a tight schedule.
“There was a phone call this morning. They talked to Danny, and whoever it was said the debt had been paid off, so Danny said I didn’t have to go to the bank after all.”
The meaning of her statement swept over me like ice as the truth behind it hit home. Someone else had paid off the debt. And only one other person knew about it besides me and Bubbe.
“I—I gotta go, Bubbe,” I said, barely taking the time to say good bye before I disconnected the call and hurriedly dialed Brandon’s cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said. “This is a nice surprise. Wasn’t expecting to hear from you until later.”
“You paid off the rest of my dad’s debt.”
Silence echoed through the speaker. One of my classmates entered the break room, but spun on his heel at the look on my face. I turned to the sink, gripping the counter.
“Skylar,” Brandon started gently. “Yes. I did. But before you freak out—”
“I told you to leave it to me!” I hissed, unable to raise my voice the way I really wanted to, but equally unable to cap the mounting fury. “You said you’d let me handle it!”
“Yeah, well, I thought about it, and that was a stupid idea!”
I held my phone out and glared at it before returning it back to my ear. “Are you serious right now?” I demanded. “I explicitly asked you to do something, you agreed, then went around my back to do the exact opposite. And I’m the bad guy here?”
“You are if you don’t listen to me!”
The line went nearly silent again, although I could hear the sound of his breathing in my ear. Another classmate walked into the break room to grab a cup of water, so I stalked out, past the cubes where all of us worked, through the reception area, and to the street where I didn’t have to be quiet any longer.
“What the fuck, Brandon!” I yelled when the doors to the clinic had closed. “Are we back at square one here? Trips to Paris and throwing money at the situation to make me like you? Completely disregarding any of my basic preferences for our relationship?”
“Goddammit, Skylar, can you just take your head out of your ass and listen?” His voice was rising too, and it only made my blood simmer in response. I yanked at the end of my ponytail in frustration and paced around the corner toward the T stop.
“Stop railroading me, Brandon,” I ordered through clenched teeth. “What the hell were you thinking? Why would you do something like this?”
“Because it was the fucking decent thing to do!” His voice roared through the speaker, forcing me to hold it slightly away from my ear, even on the street. I stopped at a bus stop and sat down, ignoring the man next to me currently digging into a box of very fragrant fried chicken. Several cars drove by blasting bachata music. I barely heard any of them.
“Your dad owed money. I have money,” Brandon was saying. “I could pay it off myself, which is a fucking drop in the bucket for me, as you obviously know. Or I could let a septuagenarian take on a new thirty-year mortgage. Maybe I should have talked to you about this first, but honestly, Skylar, you know that you’re way to proud and stubborn to say yes. And really, what the fuck kind of man would I be if I didn’t do the very easiest, simplest thing I could to protect the family of the woman I love?”
Suddenly I felt every bit of anger flow from my brain like blood from a wound. My heart rose about six inches into my throat. “The woman you…what?”
On the other end of the line, Brandon sighed. “Just come over tonight, all right? We can fight properly and make up then. Mea culpa and all that. I’ve got some things to say, and I’d really rather say them to your face.”
I bit my lip, unable to form words. He loved me? I wanted to say it back more than anything, but all I could do was stare at the gum-lined ceiling of the bus shelter. I stood up and continued walking toward the T stop.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Okay, I’ll be there.”
“Seven,” said Brandon, and hung up before I could reply.
~
Chapter 35
I stood outside of Brandon’s door for close to ten minutes without knocking, just watching the light bounce off the prismed edges of the thick glass windows while I talked my temper down again and again as it had continued to resurface throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening. I felt like an emotional yo-yo, back and forth and back and forth between my love for Brandon and his sweet words and hatred of the situation and his actions.
It wasn’t just as simple as being mad. I was mad, of course, but not just at him. The truth was, when Bubbe had first told me the debt had been resolved, my initial reaction was relief. It was a major weight off to know that a dangerous gangster wasn’t waiting around the corner to beat the shit out of my father again, just as it was good to know my grandmother wouldn’t have to accumulate her own debt at seventy-two. And for that feeling, I couldn’t forgive myself. It was owing people that kind of money to anyone that had gotten us all in this mess to begin with.
Just as I was about to ring the bell, one of the massive double doors swung open. Brandon stood there in bare feet, black suit pants, and a white undershirt that hugged every one of his impressively toned muscles. He was on the phone, but still looked at me with obvious surprise.
“Hey,” he mouthed, stepping aside so I could enter. The voice on the other end of the phone was loud and insistent. He closed the door and then put a hand over the phone’s speakers. “What were you doing out there?” he asked. “I was getting worried.”
I shook my head and stood still next to the console like a statue. He looked over me curiously, then leaned in for a kiss. I leaned away.
He frowned, and then his expression turned to one of caution.
“I have to go, Kieran,” he said into the phone, setting off a flurry of yelling on the other end. He turned away from me, speaking quietly, though I could hear him perfectly. “Just move it to next week. I said can’t make it tomorrow. No, I can’t.”
Kieran’s voice kept yelling, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Brandon frowned, rubbing a hand through his hair.
“I already told you, I’m not coming. Not gonna happen,” he said again, this time more forcefully. “Just deal with it. That’s what I pay you for.”
Before waiting for an answer, he disconnected the phone and set it down on the console next to me. He drew a hand through his hair again, which looked as if it had been getting that treatment a lot today. Then he expelled a long sigh.
“She sounded mad,” I remarked. “Is everything okay?”
He shook his head, but more as if to dispel the conversation rather than to answer my question. “It’s fine, just a deal that’s causing a lot of headaches. She’s overreacting.”
“We don’t have plans tomorrow. You can still go to whatever it is.” I edged a toe nervously around the zig-zag patterns of the wood grain in the flooring. I still hadn’t removed my coat. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be staying.
“We don’t?” Brandon asked. Saturday was normally the day where we stayed at his house, working together.
I swallowed and looked away. Brandon reached out tentatively to touch my hand.
“Am I really in that much trouble for trying to help?” he asked.
The confusion in his voice deflated me. I sighed and set my purse on the console, then took off my coat and hung it on the coatrack.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m frustrated with you, but I’m not going to dump you for helping out my family.”
Still avoiding his careful gaze, I turned my head into the living room, where the fire was lit, as per usual, despite it being a relatively balmy spring day. I frowned suspiciously. The furniture had been rearranged—the large couch had been moved closer to the arched entry and turned perpendicular to the fireplace, its spot replaced
with a matching love seat that now looked toward the fire. Beyond that, the firelight flickered off the edge of something large, shiny, and black. I froze.
Behind me, Brandon tried ineffectively to pull me back to face him. “Maybe we should go out to dinner. Come upstairs. I’ll get dressed.”
“What the hell is that?”
The question was obviously rhetorical. The piano was massive, taking up most of the space in the far corner of the room, surrounded by the windows where Brandon had originally discovered me, yet leaving enough space for people to sit in them while…someone…played. Ignoring Brandon’s continued attempts to grasp at my hand, I strode across the room to examine the instrument closer.
Like everything else in Brandon’s house, it was the best money could buy. A concert grand piano, it was at least nine feet long, with glossy black lines that bore no trace of dust or fingerprints. Everything was closed to protect the interior from dust, but I knew that the inside, if opened, would reveal the massive soundboard and shiny bronze strings.
I turned back to Brandon. “This is a Steinway.”
He nodded, eyes wide with caution. “Yes.”
I looked back at the piano, then back at him. “This is one of the most expensive pianos in the world. It’s the same piano that’s played at Carnegie Hall.”
He didn’t affirm my statement—he didn’t need to.
“Why did you buy this?” I asked, although I knew the answer. My voice was shaky—the rising tide of anxiety was building in my stomach again, a feeling of being overwhelmed that had seemed everywhere when I had first met Brandon was back.
Brandon stepped further into the room, cautiously, as if he were approaching a wild animal. “Why do you think?” he asked softly. “There’s only one pianist who spends time at my home.”
I couldn’t move; my legs felt like tree trunks, completely rooted to the floor. He finally came to stand in front of me, and set a hand casually on the top of the piano, uncaring of the smudges his hand would leave there. He caressed me lightly on the shoulder.
“This isn’t some lame thing to make you think I’m someone I’m not,” he said. “I told you that when I gave you something, I wanted it to be for you. From me. And this is. It’s for you, Red.”
The sound of my nickname shattered the fragile shell protecting the emotions that had been ebbing and flowing for the last several hours—hell, for the last two weeks. I’d just, literally a few moments ago, gotten my head wrapped around him paying off my dad’s embarrassing debt. And now he’d bought me this.
“Why?” I asked in a low, barely controlled whisper. I was afraid of letting loose all of the confusing emotions I felt. I didn’t know what I’d say if I did.
Brandon offered a shy smile, and trailed his fingers up to brush the edge of my chin. “Why? For the same reason that I do anything for you, Skylar. Because I love you.”
The words sailed over my head, as if I hadn’t even heard them. I shook my head. “This isn’t love.”
“No? Then what is it?”
“Bribery,” I spat out.
The hand on my chin dropped immediately.
“Are you serious?” Brandon’s voice broke with the incredulity.
He stepped away, standing just in front of the love seat arrangement that now faced the concert-grade piano. The instrument was a behemoth, made to fill the space of concert halls, not living rooms. Brandon gave and gave and gave, and although he had absolved my father’s debts, I was steadily feeling more and more debts piling on my shoulders. I could never hope to repay any of this level of generosity. I felt trapped.
“I said I wouldn’t give you any more empty gestures, Skylar. I never said I wouldn’t give you anything at all.” He paced nervously around in small circles, pulling his hair with both hands. “Jesus. I can’t do right by you, can I?”
“That’s really not the question,” I said, finding it increasingly difficult to keep my voice level. Could he really not see the power imbalance in this moment? Could he really not see the problem?
“Oh, really? Then what is?” He stopped moving and faced me, his hands clasped behind his neck. His face was flushed—he was clearly trying as hard as I was to calm his own emotions.
“The question is, when are you going to stop thinking you can buy my affections?” All the anger that I’d been trying so hard to dissolve outside his door was back in a second, and now I was spitting mad again. Unfortunately, so was he.
“No, the question is, when are you going to start accepting mine? I love you, Skylar! Do you hear me? I fucking love you, but you can’t see past the goddamn price tags to see the truth.”
“And I have told you a million fucking times, Brandon, I don’t need or want this kind of extravagance from you!” I yelled. I looked down at the piano, and saw my twisted, livid features in reflected in its surface. I smacked my hand down over them as a hot, angry tear slipped down my cheek. “You suffocate me with all of this—you pay for every single date, exorbitant theater and concert tickets. You pay for my dad’s idiotic mistakes and his home care. And now you’re buying me something that costs the same as someone’s house. This is insane! I could never hope to compete with any of this!”
“It’s not a fucking competition!” Brandon shouted back. “God, you’re impossible! I can’t help that I’m rich, Skylar. You want me to stop being successful? You want me to give everything away so all I can do is take you out for pizza and walk in the park, just like every other poor student in Boston?”
“I’ve told you over and over again—I don’t want your money, Brandon, I just want you! But you never seem to fucking accept that!”
“My money is a part of me, Skylar! Why can’t you fucking accept that?”
We bristled at each other, seething across the open space, our chests heaving under the pressure of massive breaths and a war’s worth of effort to calm our tempers. Finally, Brandon was the first to look away.
He collapsed into the couch behind him, his palms lying open across his knees. He stared at them as if looking for something to materialize from their empty spaces.
“I’d give you everything I have if it would convince you I was for real,” he said in a cracked voice. “I’d give you my life if it would protect you and your family. This isn’t some trade, Skylar. I just want to make you happy. You love to play, and I love to hear it. I just want to make your life better the way you make mine better. I love you, don’t you see that?”
The break in his words matched the fissures in my anger, which was receding with every pained word he spoke. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t some stupid gesture of ego. His words echoed through my heart, over and over again, as I finally recalled the words he’d been repeating all evening. Loved. He loved. Me.
A sob choked my throat as I quickly crossed the room and fell to the floor on my knees in front of him. I pulled one of his big hands to cradle against my cheek. The rough, warm edges of his fingers curled naturally into the contours of my face, and I felt his other hand clasp gently, awkwardly to my hair.
“I don’t want your life,” I cried against his leg. The last two weeks had been trying enough—I didn’t want to feel apart from him. He had so quickly become the one place I felt safe in the world, and I didn’t want to lose that. “I just want you.,” I whimpered, over and over again. “That’s all. Just you.”
Brandon sighed and leaned down to pressed his lips into my hairline. “Why does it make you so upset? I’m not asking for anything in return.”
I sighed and looked up, letting his hands come to cup my cheeks gently while he searched my face for a response. His thumbs gently wiped away the last of my tears.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “Even the smallest gifts from people never come without strings. These kinds of things…” I gestured vaguely toward the piano, “They’re too much.”
“Come here.” His hands dropped to my shoulders to pull me toward him. “Get off your knees. It makes me feel like you’re my servant, which is really
inappropriate considering the content of this discussion.”
I grinned ruefully, but pushed off my knees and sat next to him on the sofa.
“No,” he said, tugging my body so that I straddled him, my arms balanced gently over his shoulders. “I said come here.”
His hands rose up my back and pressed me down so he could kiss me, gently, yet thoroughly.
“Let me take care of you, Skylar,” he said. “The way you take care of me.”
“Do I take care of you?” I wondered.
“In a million different ways,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Do you love me?”
I didn’t have to think about that. He’d said it several times tonight, but I had been too caught up to respond.
“Of course,” I said fervently. “I do love you, Brandon. I love you so, so much.”
“Then stop making it a contest between the two of us, Red. You give me so much more than any of this shit. You are irreplaceable to me. You’re it, Skylar.”
His words, though simple, overwhelmed me, overflowed my heart with equal love. And yet, there was still one question lingering in my mind. One question left to answer.
“Why?” I asked softly. He could have anyone—anyone in the world could take one look at him and fall over themselves to have everything Brandon Sterling had to offer. “Why me?”
“Because you’re real. And honest. And kind. And smart. And talented. And, and, and…” he trailed off, waving a hand as if there were too many amazing qualities to list. I giggled, earning a shy smile that only made me laugh more.
“But even more than all of that,” he continued, “I feel like more than anyone else in my life, you really see me. You see who I am in a way no one else does, and you made me feel something again. You are my heart, Skylar.”
He gazed up at me, his large blue eyes twin mirrors in the soft evening light.
“I see you, Brandon Sterling,” I confirmed softly, touching his lips with my finger. He bit it softly, then released it. “I see you, and I love you.”
Legally Yours (Spitfire Book 1) Page 38