Promise Me Forever (Top Shelf Romance)

by Kate Stewart

  “No nudity.” Rhyson frowns. “Like at all. Preferably no love scenes. We need final approval on the script. Aren’t there any great, meaty nun roles out there? Remember Audrey Hepburn in A Nun’s Story? She received an Oscar nomination for that.”

  I chuckle because my brother is notoriously possessive over his little wife. The nun stuff sounds ridiculous, but he isn’t even kidding. I look back, and his face is completely serious. Poor Kai.

  “Uh, got it. Nuns. I’ll see what I can do.” I sit again, hoping he’s lost his previous line of questioning.

  “So, about Marlon.”

  Damn, he’s persistent.

  “I promise you Sarah’s got it. She’s more than capable.”

  “I’m sure she’s capable. You wouldn’t keep her if she weren’t. We’re not known for tolerating incompetence. Guess we got that from our parents.”

  Among other things.

  I leave that on the shelf because Rhyson and I have never gotten far discussing our parents. Come to think of it, there are a lot of things we don’t get far discussing outside of our business dealings.

  “Besides Marlon, you’ve worked harder on this than anyone, Bris.” Rhyson leans forward. “You should be with him today, and you know it. So why are you here?”

  “Drop it. Geesh.” I open my laptop and pull up my checklist for Grip’s listening party and release celebration. “Everything’s covered.”

  The only sound in the office is my fingers flying over the keys. I glance up to find his cool eyes on my face. I pause my typing and lean back in my seat to cross my legs.

  “What?” I lift a brow.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did.” My lips move a degree in a smile.

  “What’s up with you and Marlon?” There’s no trace of a smile on his face, and his eyes hold only questions, no humor.

  “Rhyson, leave it.” I sigh and lean toward my desk, back to my typing.

  “I wasn’t going to bring this up because I didn’t think it would be a problem.” Rhyson frowns and runs a hand over the back of his neck, uncharacteristic discomfort on his face. “But Marlon told me about . . . you know.”

  I stop typing to give him my full attention.

  “Not yet, I don’t know. He told you what?”

  “He told me about you guys hooking up when you were here on spring break that time.” Rhyson pushes the words out like they burn his tongue.

  “Oh, did he?” Irritation blisters beneath my skin. “I should go check the restroom. Maybe he wrote ‘for a good time call Bristol’ on the stalls, too.”

  “Bris, it’s been a long time. He probably wouldn’t have told me now if it hadn’t been for the song. I had no idea ‘Top of the World’ was about you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I fix my eyes on the screen. “Water under the bridge. Water that never went anywhere anyway.”

  “That’s what I thought, but things have been weird lately,” Rhyson says. “And it’s none of my business.”

  “Right.” I don’t look away from the sales report in one of my open browsers. “It’s not.”

  “Until it affects my business,” Rhyson finishes, his tone stiff. “If things weren’t tense between the two of you, you’d be with Marlon today. We can’t have whatever is going on with you personally affecting business.”

  “So what?” My eyes jerk to his face. “Are you here to write me up? Put a warning in my file? Give me a demerit? Whatever you came here to do, do it, say it so I can get back to work.”

  “There’s no need to get defensive.”

  “There is when you tell me you think I’m not doing my job because of some shit with Grip.”

  I open yet another browser. Anything to avoid the curiosity in my brother’s eyes.

  “Do you have feelings for him, Bristol?” Rhyson asks softly.

  In all these years, he’s never asked me. Not once has Rhyson ever asked if I returned Grip’s feelings. He’s always assumed that when I brushed aside Grip’s advances, his flirtations, there was nothing to it on my end. Any hope I have that I’ll get out of this conversation without telling him something fades when he doesn’t drop it.

  “Bris, look at me,” my brother demands.

  I finally abandon my laptop, meeting his eyes.

  “Do you have feelings for Marlon?”

  I still can’t make myself admit it aloud. Even though he isn’t in the room, it’s like as soon as I say the words, they’ll land on my sleeve for Grip to read. But my silence says it all. I’ve never had to deny my feelings to Rhyson, and I find it harder than when I lie to Grip.

  “What the hell,?” Rhyson leans back in his seat, resting his head on the back of the chair and staring up at the ceiling. “All these years and you never . . . why?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I feel.”

  He sits back up, spearing me with the frustration in his eyes.

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because I’m not doing a damn thing about it. That’s why.”

  “But if you . . .” He pauses, obviously taking great care with the next word that comes out of his mouth, as he should. “Care about Marlon, and he’s made no secret of how he feels about you, then why not?”

  “Weren’t you the main one afraid I would destroy him?” I pinch my brows together. “Seems you’d be the last person encouraging a relationship between poor, vulnerable Grip and your sister the man-eater.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, please, Rhyson.” I steady my voice for the next words. “Just a few weeks ago, I overheard you warning him away from me. Telling him that he should pursue Qwest instead. So, don’t act as if Grip and me would be some match made in heaven. You know we wouldn’t be good together.”

  Rhyson is quiet for a few moments, studying the clasped hands in his lap.

  “I admit there are risks involved.” Rhyson looks up at me from beneath his dark brows. “I have been concerned that you might hurt him.”

  “It never once occurred to you that he might hurt me?” A bitter laugh darkens the air around me. “That maybe he had already hurt me and I wasn’t willing to risk my heart being broken?”

  “You mean the stuff with Tessa? It wasn’t his baby, Bris.”

  “It could have been.” I shake my head and twirl my chair away from him to face the view through my window. “That wasn’t even the point. He lied to me. He never once mentioned he was in a relationship that whole week we were . . .”

  Together. To even think of us as “together” pains me.

  “Whatever we were doing that week,” I finish lamely. “If he would cheat on Tessa, he’d cheat on me.”

  Rhyson comes to stand in front of me, propping himself against the windowsill.

  “You think Marlon would cheat on you?” Rhyson looks at me disbelievingly. “He was a kid!”

  “He hasn’t exactly been chaste since.”

  “Neither have you,” Rhyson tosses back. “You can’t hold anyone he’s been with against him when you weren’t together, Bris. That’s ridiculous.”

  “You say that so easily because you’d never cheat on Kai.”

  “Of course I would never cheat on Kai.” He looks offended that I even brought it up. “I couldn’t.”

  “Well you’re the exception to the rule. Most men have no trouble cheating.” A laugh sours in my mouth. “Our father certainly doesn’t.”

  “What did you say?” Rhyson peers at my face like he’s never seen me before. “Dad cheats on Mom?”

  “Oh, God, Rhyson.” I lean back in my seat, part horrified, part relieved that he knows. “Yes. Dad cheats.”

  “When?”

  “When not?” I meet the confusion in his eyes. “Almost since the beginning.”

  “I mean, I figured they didn’t have what you would call a typical marriage.” A frown settles on Rhyson’s face. “But I hadn’t thought about . . .”

  He shrugs, his expression clearing.

  “She probably cheats, too,”
he says. “It isn’t like they have some grand passion.”

  “She loves him,” I say softly. “She’s never cheated on him.”

  “How do you know all of this and I don’t?”

  “Because I’ve been there, Rhyson.” Pent up emotion pushes my voice out louder than I intend. “You left and never looked back. I’m the one who stayed. I saw what happened."

  “What did you see?” His eyes never leave my face. Maybe he’s really seeing me for the first time since we were kids.

  I hear my father screwing that girl as if I’m standing down in the foyer again.

  “I heard him.” I draw a deep breath, releasing it on a shaky exhale. “I went home after spring break but didn’t tell them I was coming. As soon as I walked in the house, I heard them upstairs. Someone having sex. Like loud, so I knew they didn’t think anyone else was in the house.”

  I lean forward, propping my elbows on my knees and scooping my hair away from my face before going on.

  “There was this part of me that was happy.” I shake my head, remembering the goofy grin I wore thinking I’d caught my parents making love. “I never thought they loved each other. I knew they were . . . partners, but I didn’t think of them as having sex. Of enjoying each other.”

  “Yeah, neither did I.” Rhyson clears his throat. “And then what happened?”

  “Then Mom walked through the front door.” I meet Rhyson’s horrified eyes. “Yeah. She walked in and heard him fucking someone upstairs. And I was standing right there, thinking the whole time it was her.”

  I pop up, on my feet and pace around my office, because even the memory agitates me.

  “She wasn’t shocked.” A staccato laugh chokes me. “Devastated, but not shocked. She was used to it. She accepted it.”

  “Why doesn’t she just leave him?” Rhyson asks. “If it hurts so badly, why not just leave? Is it the business?”

  “No, that’s what I thought.” I walk over to join him at the window, setting one hip on the window sill and leaning my shoulder against the pane. “She brushed it off like it meant nothing, but later that night, I found her drunk and crying. Just . . . this pathetic person, nothing like our mother at all.”

  I bite my lip, as if I can physically hold back the last of a dirty secret, but it’s about to spill out of me.

  “She loves him. She doesn’t leave because she can’t. She loves him desperately.”

  I tip my head back, preferring the ceiling to the perplexed look on my brother’s face.

  “She has vodka for breakfast to get through the day,” I say. “Did you know that? Bloody Marys if she’s in public, but at home, she just drinks vodka first thing in the morning.”

  “Are you saying our mother is an alcoholic?” Disbelief, horror, smudge the clear gray of Rhyson’s eyes. “How could I not know all of this?”

  “Like I said, you weren’t around.” A wry grin tilts my mouth. “And you were already running from us. As if you needed more reason to stay away. I didn’t want to tell you now that you’re finally trying with our parents. I didn’t think any of this would endear us to you.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” Rhyson pushes his fingers through his unruly hair. “What to think. It’s like there was this whole world going on that I knew nothing about. Our parents. The cheating. Mom’s drinking.”

  He gives me a direct look that probes for anything else I might be hiding.

  “You and Grip. What does all of this have to do with the two of you?”

  I lean my temple against the cool glass and don’t respond. I don’t want to talk about this with him. We go years without talking about anything but music and business and shit that doesn’t matter, and he wants to go excavating my brain while our first release rockets up the charts.

  “Grip isn’t our father.” Rhyson turns my chin with his finger until I have to meet his eyes. “And you’re definitely not our mother.”

  “Aren’t I?” I shake my head, lowering my eyes to hide anything else from him. “You don’t believe that. You know how alike we are.”

  “Not in the ways that count,” Rhyson says. “I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t trust you when you first came back into my life. I thought she could manipulate you. You know that.”

  “So did she. That’s why she didn’t completely lose her mind when I left New York to come here. She thought she could get to you through me.”

  Rhyson’s jaw becomes granite.

  “I know that.” He looks at me, his eyes losing some of their stoniness. “But she couldn’t. She didn’t. You’re not her.”

  “She’s a foolish woman who feels too much for a man who doesn’t feel enough for her, and she can’t make herself walk away.” A hollow laugh grates in my throat. “And I’d be just like her.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re not.”

  “I am,” I fire back, holding his eyes by sheer will. “You have me pegged so wrong, Rhyson. You always have.”

  “What? I . . .” He dips his head to get a better look at my face. “What do you mean?”

  “You think I’m this hard ass who doesn’t care.”

  My voice wobbles, dammit. I swallow as much of the years-old weakness as I can before continuing.

  “That isn’t me.” The words barely make it out, singed by the hot tears in my throat. “I’m the girl who cares too much. When you and our parents walked away from each other, who fought for our family? Who actually cared that we weren’t a family?”

  “Well—”

  “Me, Rhyson.” I dig my finger into my chest, pressing my point. “And when we didn’t see each other, literally for years, who took the first step? Reached out? Called? Came here to see you?”

  “Bristol, I—”

  “That’s right. Me.” I can’t hold back the tears that leak over my cheeks. “Who was the idiot who hadn’t had a real conversation with you in years, but chose her college major based on your dreams? Bet the whole farm that you’d let me back into your life if I could help your career?”

  “You did,” he says softly.

  “Don’t you see? Can none of you see how much I care?” A sob breaks into my words. “How damn starved I am? For anything from you, from Mom, Dad.”

  “From Grip?”

  His question slices into the quiet like a knife through butter. Softly. Smoothly, but it still cuts.

  “It didn’t even take a week with him,” I whisper, sniffing and letting the tears roll over my chin, down my neck, and into my collar unchecked. “I knew I was in trouble after three days.”

  A chuckle at my own expense vibrates in my chest.

  “Maybe less. Two days.” I shrug. “We talked about everything that first night. There was nothing off limits. We were so different, but I’d never felt so . . . connected to anyone.”

  “I guess I was working on that project, huh?” Guilt floods Rhyson’s eyes.

  “That was the excuse you gave, yeah.” I give him a knowing look. “We both know you were avoiding me. You had no idea if I was legit. You didn’t know what to make of me after all those years apart. You always thought, and rightly so, that I was too much like Mother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No it’s true. I am.” I smile, reminiscing about that week. “But Grip didn’t know that. He just got to know . . . me. For me. He was smart. So smart. And such a good writer. Sensitive. He wrote poetry, for God’s sake. What grown man who looks like him writes poetry? That’s just not fair.”

  Rhyson and I share a smile, tinged with sadness.

  “And he was so comfortable with himself,” I say. “So confident, and it didn’t come from having money or fame or anything else. Just confident in himself. It came from somewhere I couldn’t even relate to, but it was completely authentic and magnetic.”

  “And?” Rhyson prompts when I stop myself.

  “And I didn’t stop it.” I blow out a breath laden with my own incredulity. “For once, I decided I was going to free-fall. I was going to kiss at the top of
a Ferris wheel, swim naked in the ocean—”

  “Naked in the ocean?” Rhyson does a double take. “I wasn’t gone that much. I missed all that?”

  “We didn’t let anyone know. It was just . . . us. I knew Grip was falling for me, and I knew for sure I was falling for him, and it felt so good. Just to let it go. To just fall felt good.”

  “If you and Grip were together, he’d be faithful.”

  “You think so. He thinks so.” I laugh harshly. “But I’m not so sure. What makes me so special?”

  “What makes you so special?” Rhyson leans over and gently pushes the hair out of my eyes. “How much time do you have, little sister?”

  “We’re twins, idiot,” I hiccup through the last of my tears. “Once and for all, I’m not your little sister.”

  “Well, I came out first.”

  He pulls me into a hug. My throat swells with heat, emotion closing the passageway and making it hard to swallow, to breathe. I’ve longed to talk like this with my brother for years. And no matter how much business we did, it never became this personal. This vulnerable. I fight it back. I pull away.

  “I’m sure at some point Mother thought she was special, too, but I flew back to New York and caught our father fucking one of his clients upstairs while our mother listened in the foyer,” I say in a rush. “She didn’t feel special that night when I was mopping her up off the floor, drunk and miserable. She feels things so deeply she has to make you think she feels nothing to protect herself.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing?” Rhyson’s question comes softly but harshly. “Denying to Marlon that you feel anything when you feel everything? Is that why you’re dating Parker?”

  “God, you really don’t know me if you think I’m actually dating Parker,” I say, my response flat.

  “You’re not dating Parker?” A baffled frown settles between Rhyson’s brows. “I knew it! What the hell, Bris?”

  “If I won’t be with Grip, he should be with someone like Qwest.” I swallow the hurt even linking their names in the same sentence does to me. “And he wouldn’t even try as long as he thought I was . . . possible. So, I let him, along with the entire known world, think that I was dating Parker when the media reported it.”