“We have a long trip ahead of us Brooke.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my place in Telluride.”
A look of shock crossed my face.
“Why are we going so far? That’s like a six hour drive from here in good weather. It’s probably snowing up there.”
“I’m sure it is. It’s the only place I can keep you safe.”
“Ugh. Dylan, I’m tired of this. Who is it that you need to keep me safe from. Stefan and I finished. Over. He’s moved on and I’m trying to but this kind of crap just keeps setting me back.”
“How much do you know about Stefan, Brooke?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Exactly. You don’t know the shady stuff he’s in to. Stefan is a really bad dude, Brooke.”
“How do you know? You don’t know him either.”
“There are things about me that you don’t know Brooke. Like I said, after this weekend you will know everything.”
“Including where you went last night?”
He rolled his eyes and gave an irritated glance.
“Yes. Including where I was last night.”
Looking out the window, I noticed the sky was beginning to change. The air was chilly as a cold front was coming through, it made me nervous thinking about driving through a snow storm in the mountains. He must have sensed my unease because Dylan reached over and took my hand.
“Brooke, tell me about your dad.”
I looked over at him; his eyes warm with care. I knew I’d have to tell him at some point and now was as good a time as any.
“Where do I begin? My parents married out of high school and had my sister Stephanie and me. When my sister was born my father was beside himself. He thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Two years later my mother found out she was pregnant with me. My dad was stoked because he was sure I was a boy. A boy ensured that there would be someone to take over the family business and carry on the Stone name. When the doctor announced that I was a girl, my father cursed and walked out. He left my mother to take care of me. He was a good provider for our family but when it came to me, he was emotionally bankrupt. My mother was my saving grace. She saw to it that I didn’t go without and ensured I had the same opportunity as my sister. My sister and I are close. He wasn’t able to drive a wedge between us even though she is truly a daddy’s girl. I guess maybe that’s because we don’t talk about my dad.”
I stopped and looked over at Dylan.
“Does your father know how corrupt Stefan is?
“I don’t know. I don’t talk to my dad, remember? I would assume that anything is possible judging by how chummy he was with Stefan at the courthouse today.”
“I need to tell you something but I can’t tell you until we’re at the house and safe.”
“You’re starting to scare me Dylan. Why can’t you tell me now?”
“I can’t take the risk. My security team swept all of the vehicles but I can’t be sure that my truck isn’t bugged. The government uses some very high tech devices that can sometimes be missed. I need to know everything you can tell me about your family. I’m trying really hard to understand the connection with your dad and Stefan.”
“I’m not sure you want to hear the rest of the story. I did some bad things when I was younger, Dylan.”
He gave my hand a soft squeeze.
“I want to hear all of it.”
I closed my eyes trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. I hadn’t told anyone about my accident in years. Even when I’d told Stefan about it, I had left out little details. I was afraid of what Dylan was going to think once he heard the truth.
“Back in high school, I was very popular. I was close to my Uncle Tony and my cousin Sarah. Uncle Tony was my dad’s brother and she was his daughter. I loved Sarah. She was like a sister to me. We hung out and did everything together. One of our favorite things to do was shop at the mall every Saturday. We took turns spending the night at each other’s houses and our parents didn’t care because we were cousins.” I smiled remembering those times. “It was homecoming and Sarah and I had conned our dad’s out of three hundred dollars so we could buy a dress and shoes. I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face when I asked him for that much money.” I laughed. “I told him my uncle had given Sarah the same amount and he forked over the cash. Perhaps there was a little bit of sibling rivalry going on there. I didn’t care; I was a seventeen year old girl that wanted a pretty dress and shoes.”
Dylan laughed.
“I was a cheerleader and had been nominated for homecoming queen. I was dating Ryan who just so happened to be the captain of the football team. I know, total cliché and all but that’s how it worked out. He was the hottest guy in school. He had blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes that made my heart melt. We had started dating our sophomore year and he was the first boy I’d ever let touch me. I loved him and we had planned to marry after high school.” My eyes welled up with tears. “It was Friday night and we had just won the biggest football game against our rival. We all took off in our cars and went to the field for a kegger. It was where we always partied so everyone knew the spot. We were all drinking, me, Sarah and Ryan. It was no different than any other party night. We took turns being the designated driver. It just happened that it was my turn to drive that evening. Sarah had begged me to stop drinking earlier in the night, but I was so excited about being nominated for queen that I kept celebrating. We piled in my Toyota just after 1 a.m. I was taking Ryan home first and he lived on a winding road. I was so intoxicated that the lines were blurring as I drove and I was swerving trying to stay in my lane when I lost of control of the car.”
“Oh god”, I heard Dylan whisper under his breath.
“I flipped the car three times before it slammed in to a tree. I was thrown from the car because I wasn’t wearing my seat belt. Ryan was pronounced dead on the scene and Sarah was barely alive. They had to use the jaws of life to pry her out of the car and we were both airlifted to the hospital. I was in a coma for about a month and had broken both of my legs, my arm and crushed my cheek bones. Sarah wasn’t quite as lucky. She was in a coma for almost a year. My uncle refused to pull the plug but when he finally did, she was a vegetable. He had to watch his only daughter suffer for three years before she finally passed.”
“I had five surgeries on my legs and reconstructive surgery on my face. I didn’t look like this Dylan. This is all the doings of a plastic surgeon. It took me two years to learn how to walk again. I have never felt so much guilt as I do over that one stupid decision I made. I didn’t make it to the homecoming dance and I was never crowned queen. My uncle forgave me and stayed by my side. He helped with my recovery even though I had killed his daughter. My father on the other hand, felt that if I had been a boy that this tragedy never would have happened.”
“I wasn’t able to go to college with the rest of my friends. When I was finally able to walk again, I had to go before a judge. He was lenient because none of the other families wished for me to be prosecuted knowing that it was just a group of kids celebrating the win of a big game. He did however, charge me with a DUI and I was put on probation for two years since it was my first offense and ordered to pay each family five hundred thousand dollars in restitution. Seems like I got off pretty easy but the guilt that I live with everyday is punishment enough.”
Dylan remained quiet, taking in everything that I was saying. I knew after my ugly confession that he would probably run for the hills screaming. There was no way that he or his family would tolerate him being in a relationship with a murderer. It had eaten at me for years and it felt good to finally get the truth out in the open. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to open up to him. I’d never been able to tell Stefan the whole story. All he knew was that I had been in a terrible accident when I was young and that two people had died. He knew about my DUI but I never told him that I was the cause of the deaths. After seeing him at cou
rt with my father, I now knew that my father had probably told him the whole story.
“The medical bills were astronomical as you can imagine. My parents had to sell our house and my father lost the family business. Word had gotten around that I was the cause of the accident and people no longer found a need to shop at my dad’s hardware store. My parents lost everything and it was my fault. I vowed to make it up to them. As soon as I was able to walk, I got a job working in a small print shop. I worked and went to school at the same time, while paying off my legal debts. My uncle graciously accepts my money and my mother told me that he has been keeping it in a savings account for me for years. I will be done paying restitution to Ryan’s parents in June. Although they didn’t want me punished by law, I think in some ways the money makes up for the justice they didn’t get for their son. I pay out close to $3,000 a month to Ryan’s family alone. Then there’s my mother. I’ve been supporting her too. My dad gives her nothing since he drinks every little bit of money that he gets.”
Dylan turned and looked at me, squeezing my hand.
“Brooke, I…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that you went through that. I understand why you feel it’s your fault but it’s not. You were young and we all make mistakes when we’re young. When will you forgive yourself and let go of the pain? You’re such a beautiful person, you deserve to be happy. Please stop punishing yourself.”
Tears filled my eyes. It was a question that I had asked myself many times. I had hurt so many people in my life but no one really saw the hurt that I felt. Except Dylan, he could see right through to my soul.
“Can I ask why Stefan gives your dad money? That seems odd to me.”
“I met Stefan in college. At the time I worked for the print shop and I didn’t make very much money. Stefan asked me to move in with him and be a roommate. It made sense at the time. We were just two friends helping one another out. About a year in to our agreement we started dating and things became more serious between us. Stefan’s parents had been killed in a car accident when he was thirteen years old and his grandmother raised him. His parents were wealthy people. They had left him a large sum of money in a trust with the stipulation that he couldn’t touch it until he was twenty-one. If his grandmother passed before he turned twenty-one, then the trust fund was available to him at the age of eighteen. As luck would have it, his grandma died when he was nineteen and he inherited millions. Although, he never spoke much about his parents, I knew enough to figure out that he was close to his father.”
“The year we began dating, my parents invited us for Thanksgiving dinner. He and my dad hit it off right away. They had so much in common. Both of them loved fishing, boating and repairing things. It was the perfect pairing; my father finally had the son he never had and Stefan had a father. Stefan felt sorry for my dad because he had to sell his boat to pay for my hospital bills. He offered to give my dad money to start a business so that he could one day afford to buy another boat. It was their dream to hang out on the lake while drinking beers and fishing. Only my father was so angry with me and riddled with guilt for what I had done, that he began drinking heavily and using the money that Stefan was giving him to support his habit. Stefan knew this but I think he was so desperate to have a father figure in his life that he over looked it.”
We pulled into a convenience station to grab something to drink. Dylan pulled me close to him and kissed my forehead. I loved being in his arms, feeling safe. A sleek black SUV pulled in behind us and I knew it was part of Dylan’s security team.
We took our time in the store grabbing munchies and drinks for the rest of our trip. Dylan had explained that he didn’t want to stop at a restaurant by the off chance that someone was following us. I still had a hard time comprehending that Stefan would do anything to harm us but then again I was learning that I really didn’t know much about the man I had been sharing my life with for the past eleven years. Back on the road, Dylan was anything but quiet.
“Brooke, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I never want to meet your father. I honestly don’t understand why your mother has stayed with him for all of these years knowing the way he treats you.”
That was something I didn’t understand either. I had no answers.
“Furthermore, when we were at the courthouse today, I didn’t know who was with that dirt bag, but the look on your face told me everything. Princess I don’t ever want to see that kind of hurt on you again. I hate it when you cry; it shreds my heart to pieces. I don’t know how to deal with it. Your father’s inability to forgive you is just something I can’t understand. I would never treat my child like that, no matter what they did. The fact that he would choose a man over his daughter, instead of defending her, doesn’t deserve his daughters love. It’s time to forgive yourself Brooke. You have a wonderful life ahead of you, let it go.”
Oh god. When he spoke to me like that I loved him even more. I never wanted to find out what it would be like not to have Dylan in my life. I needed him like I needed my next breath.
CHAPTER 9
We arrived in Telluride after six and a half hours of driving. Small flakes had begun to fall as we made our way up a steep and winding mountain road. The sides of the road were lined with large pine trees and metal guard rails. I’d never been to keen on heights but the view was stunning. The further we drove up the mountain the more it looked like a winter wonderland. Dylan turned left on to another road, steeper than the one we had previously been travelling.
“I can’t wait for you to see this princess. There’s so much I want to show you while we’re here.”
He pulled the truck on to a round driveway in front of the most magnificent house I’d ever seen. My mouth dropped open and I turned and stared at Dylan. He was smiling and his beautiful blue eyes that dazzling sparkle in them.
“This is where we’re staying”, I asked?
Dylan nodded his head. “Princess, I own this house.”
I was shocked. I knew his family had money but this was beyond comprehension.
“No way”, I said.
“Yes Brooke, I own this house and many others. This is my house, not my family’s house. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
It took me a moment to absorb the words he was saying, but it finally registered. All of what Dylan had shown me belonged to him. His family’s money had nothing to do with it. He had worked and purchased his cars and homes on his own. I was convinced that he was working for the drug cartel. No one at his age working as an accountant made this kind of money, not even a CEO.
From the outside it looked like a cabin on steroids nestled right into the mountain. Large snow covered trees lined the sides of the driveway as the lights from inside created a magical glow. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen with the exception of the gorgeous man sitting next to me.
“Are you ready to go in Brooke?”
“Yes”, I said in a soft tone.
The interior mirrored the outside. It was warm and inviting, a cabin theme throughout the house. Brown leather couches and a bear skin rug completed the living room. Above the fireplace a moose head was mounted. I wasn’t in to dead animal heads hanging on walls but it really did add to the warmth and theme of the room. The kitchen reminded me of Dylan’s kitchen back home. There was an island in the center of the room that could easily sit eight. Another table off to the left would comfortably seat sixteen. It was unbelievable. It was too elegant to be a party house but when would anyone ever have that many people in one place? Dylan continued the tour, revealing that the house had ten large bedrooms all fully furnished. Then he took my hand and led me down the stairs to a room with a door. When he opened it, I realized that I was standing in a refrigerated wine cellar that was half the size of the main floor. Any drink you wanted could be found here and he showed me wine bottles that had never been opened that dated back to the 1940’s. I don’t think I’d ever seen wealth quite like this.
Dylan grabbed a bottle of wine and brought it ups
tairs with us. I hadn’t noticed when we arrived but we weren’t the only ones staying in the house. He must have noticed my apprehension because he leaned over and told me; “that’s the housekeeping staff.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a housekeeping staff.”
Dylan pulled me tight to his chest.
“Princess there’s so much you don’t know about me. I’m not sure you’ll want to know me after I tell you, but I have money and lots of it. I don’t flaunt it because I wasn’t raised that way. I was always taught to work hard for what I have regardless of the fact that my parents are billionaires. I have a housekeeping staff at all of my properties and a security team as well. Some you will get to know and others you will probably never see.”
I kissed his lips softly.
“So who was it that was following us up here?”
“That’s Tristan. He’s also my best friend. I’ve known him for about six years. I trust him with my life and now yours.”
“Shit. Speaking of best friends I need to call Mandy and my mother too. They’re probably worried about me.”
“You’ll have to use the house phone, we don’t get cell phone service up here.”
I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and went to the large master bedroom to make my calls. I decided to call Mandy first since she was such a drama queen. She probably envisioned me being tied up and whipped at the hands of the “sex god”. That thought made me giggle just a bit.
“Hey Mandy.”
“Brooke?”
“It’s me. Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I’m out of town for the week.”
“Where are you and are you with D?”
I thought about telling her where I was but then I remembered that we were basically on the run from Stefan. I didn’t think that Mandy would tell him but I couldn’t put it past him to try and find me by using his influence, even with my best friend.
“Yes. I’m with Dylan and were somewhere out east. I don’t know where exactly.”
Fixer of Deceit (Infinity Collection) Page 8