by Mia Sheridan
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lydia
The door clicked behind me and I turned. Brogan. He held a wine bottle against his body with his bicep, the stems of two wine glasses between his fingers. He looked debonair and sexy, and I took a moment to admire him. "Sorry, I just needed a minute. The sun was setting." I inclined my head toward the water where the last vestiges of light were dwindling, causing the surface of the water to look as if a thousand diamonds were dancing upon it. "If I lived here, I'd never watch a sunset from anywhere else."
Brogan's shoulders seemed to tense for a brief moment and then he stepped fully onto the walk, pushing the door closed behind him. He moved toward me, handing me my glass.
I had come upstairs and changed, when all the events of the day had seemed to catch up with me all at once: the emotional trip to my childhood home, kissing Brogan, telling him of the pregnancy, Stuart, that our predicament had become worse. Far worse. And suddenly, I was so tired. Just weary to my soul. I'd spent the last seven years—or so it seemed—drifting from one heartache to another, one challenge to another, and I felt like I'd hit my limit. In that very moment, standing in the middle of Brogan's guest bedroom, a blue sundress gripped to my chest, I'd felt like every muscle was tensed with pent-up negative energy, and I just wanted to scream. I wanted to fall into someone, depend on another person, allow someone else to be strong for a while. And I didn't have anyone to do that—no one at all. I'd made some peace with my parents' deaths today, but returning to our old estate had also been a reminder that I was completely, utterly alone, and the reality of that felt like a sudden, gripping despair, the cracks in my heart splintering, widening.
I'd dressed and stumbled to the widow's walk, wondering at the women who had stood on a structure just like this and felt their own despair, their own desperate loneliness. I'd turned and there he was as if he were the answer to a question, as if he'd somehow known I needed . . . someone. And maybe it wasn't just someone I needed. Maybe I needed him. And maybe that was another reason I was so damned scared.
Because I had a feeling needing Brogan Ramsay again was going to ultimately break my heart.
I turned back to the water. "Do you know why this is called a widow's walk?"
He leaned a hip against the rail and took a sip of wine. "Because they offer an unimpeded view of the sea. Women would walk them as they looked out to the water waiting for a glimpse of their husband's ship. And often, their husband would never return."
I nodded, again picturing the nameless, faceless woman who might have walked one very similar to this long ago, her dress billowing in the wind, a handkerchief balled in her fist, tears streaming down her face as she waited for her beloved. "I studied history in college." I paused, taking a sip of wine. "It's always been the women who have had it the hardest, you know. We're always the ones who have to wait—for your ships to arrive, your wars to end, your pride to be soothed, for your bodies to be returned from some battlefield, some foreign land. We're always the ones stuck while you men fight for the things that are so important to you for reasons we can't understand. We wait, and we wonder, and we hurt."
He tilted his head, his eyes searching mine. "The men have been the ones to fight the battles, to be killed, wounded, scarred, captured."
I shook my head. "Waiting. The waiting, the uncertainty, the not knowing. It's the greater heartache, the greater torture. Can you imagine, coming here night after night, pacing . . . pacing, being so powerless to do anything except wait? Like a slow death . . ."
Brogan was looking at me in that intense way he had, as if he was trying to figure out the things I wasn't saying to him. And truthfully, I didn't know if there was anything I wasn't saying to him, or why I was suddenly so filled with pain for the women who had suffered the fate I was describing. Maybe I was just . . . emotionally distraught, overburdened.
"What did you want to do with a history degree?" he finally asked.
I shrugged, letting out a pent-up breath. "Teach most likely. I hadn't decided when it became clear I was needed at the company. I earned my degree, but I never really used it." I took a sip of my wine.
"It wasn't always your intention to work there."
"No. It was my intention to babysit Stuart." I sighed, the weight of that truth falling off my shoulders. "I've obviously done a piss-poor job."
"No, Lydia. You singlehandedly kept that company running in the black—even if it was always just barely. I've looked into the books."
I looked at him sharply. But of course he had. He was trying to fix things, trying to create a future for the company my brother had almost run into the ground. Of course he needed the details of exactly how that had happened, other than Stuart's penchant for gambling. Speaking of which, "Do you count cards, Brogan?" I asked the question that had crossed my mind several times since I found out Stuart had lost our company to him in a poker game.
He paused, a frown furrowing his brow, but then answered, "Yes."
Surprised, I turned my body toward him. "I didn't think—"
"You didn't think I'd admit to it after winning De Havilland Enterprises from Stuart in a card game? Why not? It's not as if I even work at it. It just comes naturally. I think it'd be more effort not to count cards."
"Is it really fair to gamble then? Isn't that—"
"Cheating? I don't believe so. But maybe we disagree."
Did I disagree? Not exactly, I guessed. He was only using his God-given talents. Still, if Brogan hadn't contributed to Stuart's downfall, would he, could he have eventually turned his life around? Or was I the fool for continuing to hope for that? By continuing to bust my own ass to keep our heads above water so he didn't have to? In truth, maybe Stuart had been headed for ruin with or without Brogan's involvement. Take care of your brother, Lydie.
"Will you show me?"
"Show you?"
"How you count cards."
He frowned, tilting his head, his tongue running over his teeth, just as the landscape lighting flickered on below, casting him in an aura of gold and drawing my attention to the blue of his eyes. Funny, in his office that day, I had described them to myself as icy, but I'd never thought them icy before then, and I didn't tonight. It was said eyes were windows to the soul, and if it was true, that soft, soft blue spoke of things I was almost frightened to acknowledge. And God, he was breathtakingly handsome—his masculine beauty was almost painful to look at because it made me want to possess him, and I didn't think that was wise. It hadn't been then, and it probably was less so now. "We'd have to play a game for me to show you."
"All right."
He nodded his head toward my room. "Let's go inside." I followed him off the widow's walk. The night was closing in, the sky turning a deep, twilight blue as the first stars appeared.
Brogan placed the wine bottle and his glass on the top of the dresser and I followed suit. "I'll go get a deck of cards." He left the room, and I sagged down onto the bed. What I should probably tell him was that I was going to sleep. But I didn't want to sleep. I wanted company. I wanted his company.
He returned a few minutes later, having changed into a pair of jeans that rode low on his lean hips and a black T-shirt that showcased his broad shoulders and muscular chest, and he was wearing his glasses. I sat up on my knees, and he joined me on the bed, sitting on the very edge. He'd grabbed our wine glasses and handed me mine. I took a sip and set it on the bedside table. He placed his on the wooden bench at the end of the bed.
Without a word, he took the cards out of the box and shuffled them effortlessly, his eyes remaining on my face as his hands fanned and folded the cards as if by magic. I couldn’t help laughing softly. He raised a dark brow.
"What are we playing for?"
I gave him a wry smile. "You've already bankrupted my family. Plus, it would be a fool's bet on my part. You just admitted you count cards."
"I wasn't talking about betting money."
"What then?"
He shrugged. "Truth or dare."
<
br /> "You'd end up getting all my truths and dishing up all the dares."
"How about if we play a game completely based on luck then? I'll still count cards, but it won't offer me any rewards. I'll just know what's coming. Winner gets to choose whether he or she wants a truth or a dare from the other."
"I thought in truth or dare the loser got to choose what they were willing to give up."
"I've never thought that was very fair. Why should the loser get to choose their fate?" His smile was lazy.
I thought about it, sucking on my lower lip. My heart was thumping at a quickened pace, and I wasn't sure I wanted to admit that what I felt was . . . excitement. I wasn't sure about the dare part, but I wanted Brogan's truths. This was my chance to get a few. "Okay."
He simply nodded, fanning the cards out once more and folding them back together. He placed them on the bed and nodded to them. "Cut?"
I did and then he picked them up and began dealing. "What are we playing?" I asked.
"War."
I raised a brow. "I thought we'd already played war."
He chuckled. "Oh no. Those were just the battles, Mo Chroí." But he tilted his head and looked up at me in that sweet, teasing way he'd done when we were teens that had always made my stomach do somersaults. It still did.
I watched him as he dealt the cards, noted the very slight scruff already on his jaw despite that he'd been clean-shaven that morning, the way his inky black lashes created shadows on his cheeks, even under the lenses of his glasses, the strong line of his jaw, the slight cleft in his chin, the way he held his mouth in that rigid way. And yet, I knew how soft it could be, the warmth of his lips, exactly how his tongue tasted—that exotic male spiciness that spoke to everything feminine inside of me. I wondered if he tasted the same everywhere, wondered at the flavor of his most intimate skin. I felt wetness pool in my underwear and achy pressure settled between my thighs at my own thoughts.
Brogan suddenly looked up at me, a knowing glint in his eyes as if he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone. He moved more fully onto the bed, grabbing a pillow and lying on his side, propped up on one elbow. My God, the man was sexy.
He turned over his first card—a six—and glanced up at me. I turned over my card—a queen—and gathered both. "My truth or dare?" I asked.
He shrugged. "We can play that way or we can wait for a war."
I bit at my lip. "Let's wait for a war. These truths or dares shouldn't be easily won."
"Nothing good ever is."
I grabbed a pillow as he'd done and stretched out next to him. Our positions felt very intimate, our bodies facing each other, our faces close. Of course, the fact that we were in bed—or rather on bed—together intensified the intimacy. We played for another few minutes before there was a war. I won. He gave me a small smile.
"I want a truth," I said immediately.
"Okay." I noticed his pulse beating steadily at the side of his neck and had the sudden desire to kiss him there. He watched me closely, seeming to still and I wondered what I'd revealed on my face that caused him to study me the way he was.
"How do you do it? The numbers, I mean."
He tilted his head, considering. "I honestly don't really know." He looked behind me, frowning slightly as if he was trying to figure out how to word his answer. "I've always seen the world in measurements. I constantly compute lines, relationships between objects." He looked at the wall to our right where two pictures hung. "Those pictures are a sixteenth of an inch off." I studied them. They looked perfectly aligned to me. "I notice all these things all the time. It doesn't bother me, and I don't think about it necessarily, it's just—"
"Part of you."
He nodded. "Yes. I see the world in numbers. Everything. And with actual numbers, it's like," he rubbed his fingertips together, "I can feel them. I feel their weight, their value." He furrowed his brow. "It's hard to explain. It's just . . . the way my mind works."
I nodded. I found it fascinating. I found him fascinating. Hadn't I always? But he looked slightly uncertain, picking up his cards and moving us away from the topic and back to the game.
We played for a few quiet moments, both of us sipping our wine here and there before there was another war. After I'd turned over a ten, I asked, "Who's going to win this round?"
Brogan's lip tipped up. "Me, most likely with a face card." Sure enough, he turned over a jack.
"Impressive," I murmured.
After another few rounds, we both turned over the same card. My eyes met his. "Another war," I said dramatically, breathing out the word. He laughed and my heart squeezed, suddenly realizing what a rare sound it was.
We turned over our three cards and then at the same time, revealed our final card. Me: three, Brogan: four. "Damn," I sighed. "All right. Do you want a truth or dare?"
He propped himself up a little higher. "Truth." He dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. "You said you haven't been with anyone, since me." He paused and my breath hitched slightly. "But have you dated? Is there anyone . . ." He seemed to still as he waited for my answer, but his expression didn't hold any hint of whether or not he cared overly much about my answer. I sat up and grabbed my glass of wine off the bedside table where I'd placed it and took a drink, returning to the position I'd previously been in on the bed.
"I didn't date much in college—not until the end anyway. I, well, the pregnancy . . . and then like I said, my dad passed away during my first year. After that, I kind of kept to myself. I dated a little bit during my senior year, but no one special. I've dated a little since I've been home, but mostly, the company and all our family problems have kept me occupied. I haven't felt like I had much to give to another person. Does that answer your question?"
He nodded slowly, and our eyes lingered for a few heartbeats, causing a warm flush to move through my body. Brogan picked up his cards and I did the same. My eyes ran down his muscular legs, my gaze resting on the way one foot rubbed unconsciously at the cuff of the opposite leg of his jeans. He was testing textures even with his feet. For some reason, that caused a shiver to run down my spine and my nipples to tighten.
After only two more cards, there was another war. When Brogan won again, I shot him a speculative look. "You sure you're not cheating somehow?"
He smirked. "I give you my word."
"Hmm." I gave him a suspicious glance and he chuckled. "Okay, shoot."
He reached over and grabbed his wine glass off the bench at the end of the bed and took a sip. Turning back to me, his expression was serious. His finger moved down the piece of silk at the edge of the pillowcase and I watched it, back . . . forth.
"The women," he finally said. "How did you know? How did you know that had been difficult for me?" A fleeting look of vulnerability passed over his face and I blinked. Brogan.
"I . . . I remembered you seem to . . ." I looked away, not sure how to phrase what I was trying to say. "You always seemed to have very heightened senses. I watched you." My eyes shifted away. I felt vulnerable myself, as if in answering this question, he'd understand just how much I'd watched him, noticed his every movement, every reaction, how much I'd thought about him. He knew now. "You always got this look on your face when you were dealing with two sensations at the same time—a sort of . . . pain almost, as if it were too much. It intrigued me."
"Yes," he breathed. "Yes, that's what it's like." Our gazes clashed, something powerful leaping between us.
"I know," I said. "I don't know exactly how I know. I just do. I did."
"My mother said I was a terrible baby, crying constantly." He laughed, a small sound containing little humor. His tongue found the imperfect tooth and ran slowly over it.
I tilted my head, watching him, taking my lip into my mouth again. His gaze moved to my mouth and lingered there the way mine had just lingered on his. "It must have been awful not to be able to explain what you were feeling, how everything was too much."
"I've never tried to explain it. And no one's ever noticed. I
just—"
"Deal with it. Stand apart from people, hold your breath sometimes. I know."
His gaze leapt to mine, and he looked almost stricken for a brief moment. He cleared his throat but when he spoke, it was still slightly scratchy. "Yes." He picked up his cards and looked down at his hands holding them, looking as if he was grappling with his own thoughts. He didn't like that I knew that about him. I didn't blame him. I supposed he considered it very personal. Maybe even the most personal thing about him.
"Your eyes aren't bionic, though," I said, attempting to lighten the mood, to set him at ease.
He looked confused for a brief moment and then set his cards down and reached up and adjusted his glasses, his lip curving upward. "Bionic?"
I shrugged. "Yeah, you're sort of like a superhero with your bionic senses."
His eyes met mine, drooping lazily. He lay back fully on his pillow, folding his arms behind his head. "You know what else I can sense, Mo Chroí?" he asked. "You want me. I can smell it." His eyes wandered down to my crotch and then slowly back up to my eyes. He watched me, waiting to see how I'd react to that comment.
I felt color rush to my face. Jesus. "You're trying to shock me and make me uncomfortable because that's how I've just made you feel," I whispered. "But you asked me, Brogan. You asked me, and I gave you the truth. And now you're punishing me for it."