Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken) (16 page)

My father shoots daggers with his glare, but I ignore it and sip at my water. 

I can do this. 

Brand is still watching me, still waiting to come to my aid.  But he can’t.  Because this is a family affair.  There’s nothing anyone can do. 

“I’d rather discuss it with you,” William says, taking a swig of Scotch.  “You’re more agreeable than your father. But if tomorrow doesn’t work for you, we’ll do it another time.”

I glance into his eyes and his are icy, dangerous.  He’s pretending to be understanding now.  It won’t last.  When I’m alone with him… when I’m alone with him… when I’m alone. 

My breath catches and I can’t take another one.

I’m frozen. 

My mother comes to my aid. 

“Nora, if you’re finished, can you come to my room?  I’m taking a trip to France in a month or so and I’d like for you to look at something.”

Thankfully, I nod. 

Yes. 

Thank you, God.

William stands when I do, and he presses my hand as I leave, his thumb biting into the pad of my palm.  Hard.  A warning. 

Don’t try and run from me. 

Gratefully, I trail after my mother down the hall and I feel William staring at me as I leave.  I don’t look back, instead, I numbly stop in the bathroom and scrub my hand where he touched it before I join my mother in her room. 

Silently, I pray that Brand will be all right with the piranhas back in the dining room.

My mother brings several items from her closet and searches my face. 

“Are you all right?”

I nod.  “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
Because she doesn’t know.  Because I’ll never tell her.  It’s too awful.  Too humiliating.  
No one can ever know.
 

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?  I know something did.”

I paste a smile on.  “Everything is fine.  William is just… William.”

My mother nods, unconvinced. 

“He’s difficult,” she agrees.  “He always has been.  He… er, he was slightly in love with me when I was dating your father, back when I first came from France.”

I stare at her in shock. 

“Slightly in love?  How can someone be
slightly
in love?”

My mother smiles tightly. “He was in love with me.  He made some unwanted advances.  I put him off.   I was still in love with your father, you see.”

Her words are so telling.  She was still in love with my father then, unlike now. 

“If he ever harms you, you must tell me,” she instructs softly.  “Don’t go to your father.  Come to me.”

Her eyes are steely and determined, an expression I’ve never seen in them before.  I stare into them, mesmerized. 

“And what would you do?” I ask softly, before I can help myself. 

“I would do what any mother would,” she says firmly.  “I would take care of it.”

Her words send chills through my heart, because her face tells me she means it.  Which further steels my resolve to never tell her.  I can’t have her doing something crazy and getting into trouble because of me. 

I shake my head, even though I desperately wish I could spill it all to her. 

“No, it’s fine,” I assure her, every word a lie. “He hasn’t hurt me.”

Lies. 

My mother walks to her closet and pulls out several new items of clothing.  “I’ll be going to France in a month or so, darling.  Would you like to go?  You can get away from here.  A break.”

She’s hopeful as she waits.  But the only thing I can think of is Brand.  I’ve only got a couple of months with him.  I can’t waste them by going to France, as much as I’d love to get away from here.  Permanently, actually. 

I shake my head. 

“Any other time and I would, maman,” I tell her.  “But I can’t leave right now.”

She studies my face.  “I see,” she says softly.  “You can’t leave Brand Killien.  I don’t blame you.”

She lays her clothes on the bed and pulls me over to look at them. 

“There’s a lot to be said for strength and honor,” she tells me firmly, turning me around to look into my face.  She pushes back a tendril of hair.   “Money isn’t everything.  In fact, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized… money isn’t anything.”

I shake my head and point to the pink outfit. “That one.   And what are you talking about?”

She smiles, because she knows full well that I’m following her point.

“If you love someone, don’t let money or lack of money, stand in your way.  Being a good person is far more valuable.”

It is.  I know it is.  And that’s the reason that I can’t truly be with Brand.  He’s far too good for me. 

But I smile. “I know, maman.  But why are you telling me these things?  Your life has turned out okay, has it not?”  I decide to go with the pretense that they’ve always kept, and that I’ve pretended to believe for the past decade. 

She looks away, and for the first time, she doesn’t smile and gush about my father.  Instead, she simply says, “Things aren’t always what they seem, my sweet.”

Her voice, so sad, startles me.  “Are you ok?” I ask quickly. She smiles. 

“Of course.  I will be.” She glances at the clothing again.  “So you think the pink over the coral?”  She changes the subject and I let her. 

Because things aren’t always what they seem and she doesn’t want to talk about it. 

That’s ok.  She’s got her secrets and her feelings and her sadness, and so do I.

So I certainly understand the need to pretend. 

I smile.  “The pink.  It complements your eyes.”

And that is how we behave, almost always.  Forget the issues, focus on the mundane.  It’s how we’ve always survived. 

Chapter Sixteen

Brand

Five minutes after Nora leaves with her mother, Maxwell approaches me. 

“Come have a scotch,” he instructs me.  It’s not a request. 

I decide to humor him.  What he has to say might be interesting.

I limp to the sidebar where he pours me a scotch.  I down it in one gulp, thumping the glass onto the bar, and turning back toward my seat. 

“Thanks for the drink.”

He grabs my elbow.  I pause and stare pointedly at his hand and then at his face.

He lets go. 

He’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid.

“Leave my daughter alone,” he says bluntly.  “I know you’re having fun playing house, but you’re not what she needs. Just bow out gracefully.”

I turn back, his words stiffening my spine. 

“I’m not what she needs?”

Maxwell shakes his head.  To my left, I see Nate and William from my periphery.  They’re trying to pretend they aren’t listening, but I know they are. 

“You don’t have the first clue what she needs,” her father tells me icily.  “You can’t possibly.  You’re from another world, Killien.”

I almost laugh.  “I was exactly what she needed last week when I pulled her from the wreckage of that café.  You know, when you were standing outside not doing a thing to help.”

His jaw clenches and I see a vein tick in his forehead.

“She’s twenty-three years old.  She doesn’t know what she needs.  You’re clouding her vision.  If you really cared for her, at all, then you’d leave her alone and let her focus on what’s important.”

Again, I almost laugh. 

“She’s twenty-three years old.  She’s old enough to know what she needs.  Perhaps you’re the one who should leave her alone and let her figure it out.”

I start to walk to my chair again, but his next words stop me cold.

“
I own her
, Killien.  And I’ll never let you be with her.  Know that right now.”

His words are ice and I whirl back around, but Nate jumps from his chair and rushes to defuse the situation.

“I’m sorry, Brand.  My father is overwhelmed with work right now—under a lot of stress.  I’m sorry.  Please… come sit with me and tell me about the Rangers.  It must’ve been damn fascinating.”

I stare into Maxwell Greene’s face, at his emotionless eyes, at his fixed mouth.  He’s a man who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.  I instantly take back my earlier thoughts that taking care of yourself is the smart thing to do.  I never want to be Maxwell Greene. 

I walk past him without another word, following Nate back to the table.  William gets up to join Maxwell at the bar, leaving Nate and I alone.

“What is going on with this family?” I ask bluntly.  “Nothing matters but business?”

Nate smiles an empty smile. “So you’ve caught onto that, huh?”

Like Nora, Nate has his mother’s blue eyes, but instead of red hair, his is blond, cut short.  He’s tall and slim, and unlike Nora, I sense an ambitious hunger in him.  With Nora, it’s like it’s something that makes her tired. She’s used to trying to please her father, but it’s not something she enjoys.

Nate seems to not only accept it, but thrive on it. 

I nod.  “Yeah. It’s pretty apparent.”

Nate chuckles. “Well, it’s been drilled into our heads since we were babies.  Be a Greene.  Do what it takes, and all that.  The business has been passed down from generation to generation for several hundred years.  Our family came over with Columbus, you know.  We’ve got big shoes to fill.”

I glance over at Maxwell and William.  They’re chatting quietly, in intense conversation.  Probably discussing mergers and acquisitions and how to eat their competition for breakfast. 

“What did your dad mean when he says that he owns Nora?” I ask suddenly.  It was such a strange thing to say. Nate instantly looks uncomfortable. 

“He shouldn’t have said that.  He only meant… there’s a contract, we both have one.  When we finished high school, we were given a contract to work at Greene Corp in exchange for our college tuition and trust funds.  No big deal.”

No big deal?

“You had to sign a contract for your birthright?” I can’t even keep the shock out of my voice.  I was right. Maxwell is just as fucked up as my father was, every bit as controlling. 

Nate nods, nonplussed. “It was no big deal, particularly because we’ve known since we were kids that we would work for Greene Corp.  It’s what we were born to do.”

I drop the subject because clearly Nate doesn’t see how fucked up it is. 

Instead, I tackle a new one.  Nate is being forthcoming with information, so I might as well push my luck for more.

“What’s the deal with William?”      

Nate glances at me. 

“What do you mean?”

I nod toward William and Maxwell.  “He seems very…attached to Nora.  And very…. I don’t know.”

Nate chuckles. “Yeah. He’s intense.  He’s always been that way.  And as far back as I remember, Nora’s been his favorite.  He never got married and had kids of his own.”

Yeah.  The way William had been looking at Nora wasn’t fatherly. But I don’t point that out.  Nate seems fairly oblivious to it, although I don’t know how.

“I thought Greene Corp was family own and run?” I ask suddenly.  “How is it that William seems to have such an important job?”

Nate stares at me in surprise, although he doesn’t get annoyed at my blunt prying. 

“William
is
family,” he answers slowly.  “He owns half of the company because he’s my uncle.  My father’s brother.”

The world seems to stop turning as I stare back at him, shocked, repulsed. 

Nora’s
uncle?
 

I feel the sudden urge to lunge from this chair, find Nora, scoop her up and carry her out of this fucked-up madhouse. 

“Your uncle?”

My words are wooden, stilted, as I try to wrap my head around it. 

Nora’s afraid of her uncle. Her uncle is sending her threatening text messages.  And the look I see in Nora’s eyes… it makes me dread knowing what he did to her.

But I know. 

I know.  

Nate nods.  “Yeah.  Our uncle.”

Nora and Camille choose this minute to walk back in, and Nora instantly finds me, searching me out.  I smile at her. 

Everything’s fine, don’t worry. 

She nods, just barely, her shoulders sagging a bit with relief. 

She’s in a house of sharks and she’s worried about me. 

She walks straight past everyone else and puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m exhausted,” she tells me.  “Are you ready to go?”

I instantly push away from the table. 

“Of course.”

I thank Camille, and we walk out. 

The entire time, I can feel the glares of William and Maxwell between my shoulder blades.

The entire time, my head is spinning. 

Her uncle.

Her fucking uncle. 

As we turn the corner, I glance back into the dining room, and see William watching Nora leave.  His gaze is rapt and he’s focused only on her. 

My stomach rolls.

“I forgot something,” I tell Nora.  “Go ahead. I’ll be right out.”

She looks up at me, confused, but I don’t say another word.  Instead, I just walk back into the dining room, trying very very hard not to limp.

I walk straight up to the bar where William is refilling his glass.

He glances at me in surprise, and I lean in to speak in his ear, where only he will hear me. 

“If you put another fucking hand on Nora, I’ll crush all of your fingers, then break them off and feed them to you.  Got it?”

William’s head snaps back and he stares at me, his eyes wide and filled with guilt. 

“I don’t know what she’s said to you,” he snaps quickly.  “But she’s lying.”

I shake my head slowly, and look into his faded eyes. 

“She didn’t tell me anything.  You just did.”

His hand is clutching the edge of the bar, so I make a fist and lean on his hand, crushing it under my weight.  No one else in the room can see it but the two of us. 

“As I said,” I growl softly.  “Touch her again, and you won’t have hands left to touch anyone else.  And that will be the least of your worries.”

I take my fist away from his hand and he glares at me. 

“You don’t have the slightest idea what you’ve just done,” he snaps. “I have the power to be your worst enemy.”

I smile slowly. 

“Bring it.”

I walk out of the dining room, careful not to limp.  The last thing I see before I turn the corner is the satisfied expression in Camille’s eyes.