Bought by the Billionaire Brothers 6 (2 page)

Penny’s gaze
flicked to Vince to gauge his reaction to Nolan’s telling of the story and when
he refused to look her way, she sensed that either he was ashamed of his part
or there was something else he didn’t want to share or acknowledge. “So it all
started off as a
game
between the
three of you?” she asked, trying not to cry at the callousness. When Nolan
nodded in a subtle motion she looked away. “That’s despicable. You played her
for fun.”

“I told you we
weren’t the heroes in this story,” Nolan said. “Would you like me to stop?”

As horrified as
she was, she knew she had to follow through to the bitter end. “No, please
continue,” she whispered. “But right about now that whiskey is looking pretty
good.” Vince filled a shot with the amber liquid and handed it to her with a
grim quirk of his mouth in understanding. She murmured her thanks and downed
the shot. Nolan gave her a moment for the whiskey to burn a trail down to her
gut before continuing. Penny choked a little as the fine liquor seared her
throat and stole her breath but she needed the liquid courage to continue
listening.

“Isabel was one of
those rare gems who was sweet and loving and wanted to believe the best in
everyone. She was the exact opposite of everything we were accustomed to in our
world. You have to understand money comes with a certain privilege but it also
comes with pitfalls. People are never what they seem and you learn to be a
cynic. Trust is a privilege we’ve never experienced. Everyone always wants
something from you when you have an excess of wealth. You learn very young to
never accept anything at face value. And we were all guilty of being the worst that
money can produce. Over-privileged, over-educated, and completely bored as
fuck. As you can imagine that's never a good combination. When our father had
decided that he'd had enough of our shenanigans, particularly that of Dillon's
he put his foot down, which was something we weren't accustomed to either.
Honestly, our father never paid much attention to us. He was always too busy
with his own life to deal with three rambunctious boys. I don't even know why
he threw down the gauntlet with Dillon. But when it happened, Dillon bucked
against our father's will and a war ensued. Unfortunately, Isabel was in the
middle."

"Did your
father like Isabel?" Penny asked.

"No. Aside
from the fact that she was dirt poor and had no connections our father’s
opinion of Isabel was that she was good for one thing and when she wouldn't
give it up to him he didn't want her around anymore."

"Your father
propositioned Isabel?"

Vince offered a
dark chuckle. "Our father liked to sample all of our girlfriends. Be
thankful he's dead."

Penney shuddered.
"How disgusting."

Vince laughed.
"Yes, well you can’t expect sinners like us to be raised by a paragon of
virtue. Our father wasn't exactly a good man."

"I'm so
sorry." Penny thought of her own Papa and how wonderful he been as a
father and she wondered how the three boys would've been different if they'd
been raised with someone who was kind, compassionate and moral. “What did Dillon
do when he found out about your father propositioning his girlfriend?"

"He went into
a rage. I've never seen him so angry. I think it was the moment he realized
that Isabel meant more to him then just a piece of meat. I think Dillon
would've married her." Nolan shifted, as if the memory was almost too much
to bear. "Isabel changed Dillon and for a time he was a better man. I
don’t know, maybe that threatened our father because it was not long after that
he made his demands. The irony is that Isabel defended our father because she
didn't see the harm in his request for Dillon to work for him. On the surface
it appeared that our father just wanted Dillon to stop screwing around and
become responsible. But we all knew it went deeper than that. Hell, none of us
wanted to work for our father. But Dillon was the only one who had the balls to
stand up to him. Unfortunately, he paid the biggest price. When Dillon refused
— his actual words to our father were to go fuck himself — Dillon
was cast out of the family."

"The old man
was in rare form," Vince recalled. "God, that man was a prick."

"How could a
father do that to his son?" Penny asked. "I can't imagine how hurtful
that must've been for Dillon."

"Yeah, it’d
done a number on him. But he was too proud to admit that he was scared and he
was too pissed off to take it back. Isabel tried to talk some sense into him
but he wouldn't listen." Nolan paused for a refill. "And we were too
selfish and self-absorbed to realize what we had in mind for Isabel was
wrong."

"What
happened?" A part of her already knew but she needed the twins to admit
what they’d done. "What did you do to her?"

Vince downed
another shot and fixed his glazed, whiskey-soaked stare her way. "You want
to know what we did? We played on the delicate sensibilities of a girl who was
brokenhearted and too naïve to realize that we were sharks and she was just a
guppy. We chased her into a corner with pretty words and promises of a future we
had no intentions of providing her and then we convinced her that Dillon didn't
want her anymore but that we would always take care of her. We lied so that we
could fuck her. That's all that mattered. It's all we wanted." Vince's
voice rose to an angry pitch but Penny detected a strain of something else
lying beneath the surface, something that sounded a lot like pain. Vince
continued, grim and final. "And when she realized everything was a sham
and that Dillon was truly gone and not coming back she climbed to the top of
our building and jumped off."

Penny couldn't
help herself, she covered her gasp with her hands as tears filled her eyes for a
woman she'd never known. She could only imagine how scared Isabel had been and
how desperate. "Did you know about the baby?" she asked.

Both Nolan and
Vince shook their head in denial. “We didn't know about the baby until the
autopsy report," Vince admitted. "Her family couldn't believe that
she would do something like that and insisted that we must've drugged her. They
wanted to find proof that there was foul play.”

"Why didn't
you call Dillon when you found out about the baby?" Penny asked.

Nolan looked
ashamed. "What could we say? Besides, when Dillon found out about Isabel
and how she died, Dillon had wanted to kill us. And I'm not sure it was an idle
threat. The one saving grace was that he was on the other side of the world
with limited funds otherwise we might've joined Isabel in the ground. Not that
I blamed him. We figured it was best to just let the information die with
Isabel. We paid the right people and that one small detail was erased from the
report."

Penny looked
aghast. "So her family never knew?"

Vince looked away.
"God no. There would've been an investigation and the newspapers would've
had a field day with the information and that's something our father wouldn't have
tolerated. Trust me, as abhorrent as the idea was, it was the only option."

"Don't you think
they had the right to know?"

"Haven't you
listened to a word we’ve said? Of course they had a right to know. We didn't
care. We were bastards. Nothing we did was right. And we will go to our grave
knowing that and trust me, nothing weighs heavier than the guilt on our
conscience."

Understanding
dawned on Penny as she watched Vince. "You loved her, didn't you?" she
said in sad wonder. Nolan and Vince shared incriminating glances and Penny had
her answer. "If you loved her, why did you treat her like that? Why did
you treat her like garbage?" Penny asked, her voice breaking. "Maybe
things would have been different."

Vince's mouth
tightened but in his eyes there was a wealth of pain and grief that’d never
been allowed to vent. "What does it matter? She's dead. And I'm done with
this conversation." He grabbed his leather jacket and this time Nolan
didn't try to stop him when he left.

Silence filled the
library as Penny digested her newfound revelation. She looked to Nolan.
"Did you know that Vince loved her too?"

"Yes."

"Why did you
do it?" Anguish cracked her voice as she looked to Nolan for answers.
"I don't understand. Both Dillon and Vince loved Isabel. If Dillon
couldn't be with her and Vince wanted to be with her, why did you both use
her?"

Nolan barked a
short laugh that had nothing in common with joy as he answered, "Because I
was jealous. I couldn't understand what they were feeling for her and if I
couldn't experience it…" He shrugged. "I told you there were no
heroes in the story. Now you know the truth. What are you going to do with
it?"

Penny didn't know.
She thought that she was going to feel relieved or liberated or something other
than the crushing sense of loss she was suffering from now but she was
disappointed to feel the opposite of relief. Inside, a well of tears threatened
to erupt out of agony for a twisted, ill-fated love affair. She wiped at her
eyes and told Nolan with certainty, "You need to tell Dillon what you just
told me. He deserves to know."

"You don't
know my brother. He doesn't forgive lightly. And frankly, he has no reason to
forgive us."

"He's your
brother. At one time didn't you love each other?"

"At one time
he was my hero."

"Then you
need to repair your relationship. This fracture has gone on long enough. Your
father is dead and there's no one standing between you guys anymore."

At that Nolan
smiled briefly. "But you're wrong sweet girl. There is someone between us.
You
. Once again Dillon has what Vince
and I both want. And I can guarantee that none of us are going to concede
defeat to the other graciously."

Penny sucked in a
tight breath. She'd be a liar if she said she didn't have feelings for Vince or
Nolan. Inside her heart, a war raged and she didn't know who was going to win
but she knew one thing for sure. "I need more than being someone's
property,” she admitted with a whisper.

Nolan advanced to
caress her cheek. "Tell me what you need and I'll gladly give it to
you."

Penny gazed up at
him and fought the urge to lean into his touch. "I want it all. I want the
fairytale — the one where the girl and the boy live happily ever after
because they're in love."

A sad smile lifted
Nolan’s lips as he brushed a soft kiss across her mouth. "You want the
moon, sweetness."

Penny closed her
eyes and held back her true desire. She wanted Dillon. She wanted her happily
ever after with Dillon. Nolan pulled away and heard what she hadn't said.
"We could promise you a life most people could only dream about. He could
only promise you heartache." Nolan searched her gaze. "Say you’ll
consider staying with us."

Penny nodded.
Nolan was right. When she thought of the life with the twins she knew she would
want for nothing but she would remain the bird in the gilded cage for neither
were offering her love. Yet with Dillon, she sensed the promise of an
unparalleled love if only Dillon would trust his heart with her. The question
was, would he ever trust her with something so precious?

She didn't know.

And she had a
feeling, Dillon didn’t know either.

Vince didn’t plan
to end up at Isabel’s grave but somewhere between heading to his favorite bar
and driving aimlessly, he found himself pulling up to the quiet and stately
grounds of Brookstone, the small but private cemetery where all the Buchanans
have been buried for generations. Nolan and Vince had agreed it was fitting for
Isabel and her unborn child to be buried there. Vince still remembered the epic
fuss their father had put up when they’d buried her within the family plot.

“Have you lost
your fucking mind?” their father had shouted, his face turning a florid red as
spittle sprayed from his mouth in his anger. “What were thinking to bury that
little whore in our plot? Only Buchanans are allowed in that ground, not
unstable little cock teases.”

“Watch it,
Father.” Vince all but growled, unable to hold back his true feelings for
Isabel in that moment. “She was nearly a part of this family and we owe it to
her.” God, they owed her so much more than a piece of dirt and a fancy
headstone. “Besides, her family didn’t have the money to afford Brookstone and
she would’ve ended up buried in some poorly maintained cemetery in
God-only-knows-where.”

“And why is that
our problem?” their father had quipped, not the least bit concerned about the
poor girl who’d taken her life atop a building the Buchanans owned. Vince grit
his teeth and knew that in order to make his father drop it and move on, he’d
have to make him care. The elder Buchanan, a striking man with salt and pepper
hair and a trim physique, wasn’t hard on the eyes, which gave Vince hope that
they’d age similarly as well but his soul was black and after recent events,
Vince worried that his soul was equally as damaged. “I don’t care what you have
to do but I want her corpse out of my plot,” his father said, calming a little
with the help of his scotch. “You never should’ve done this without my
approval. Now you have an embarrassing problem to clean up.”

“If you make us
dig up Isabel’s grave, it will be a publicity nightmare. Right now, we’ve made
a magnanimous gesture to the grieving family and we’ve come out smelling like a
rose. You don’t want people digging into this particular story, Father. Trust
me, no one wearing a Buchanan name will come out the winner.”

“How so?” his
father asked, an irritated but concerned frown pulling at his brows. “What
aren’t you telling me?”

“Isabel was
pregnant with Dillon’s child when she died. So, you see…she does belong in the
family plot.”

His father pinned
Vince with a hard stare. “What are you talking about?” he asked.