“Just think about it, Mo,” she said as I finally got her out of the house.
“Nope. Bye, Shell.” I closed the door and whirled around to talk to Brooke, except she wasn’t there. “Shit. Fuck.”
A door slammed down the hall, and with it, my heart sank. And while it was a jerk thing to think, I had to worry that she was packing to leave, and all of a sudden, not only would I be without Brooke in my life, but I’d also be in debt up to my neck, having to repay the trust.
But then I remembered where she’d been tonight. She’d been with her boyfriend. The man Frank was so certain she’d marry someday. Who the hell was she to get hurt by Shelley making a move when she was on a date with her future husband while married to me?
No, no, no. I wasn’t going to be made to feel like the heel for this. I considered ignoring the situation. In some ways, it would be better if she realized I wasn’t the man for her. It would be easier for all these crazy feelings I had for her to go away if she hated me and was interested in her friend. I still had the issue of the trust, but if we could live like roommates for the next year, she could then get her divorce and be with Tucker, and I could live in peace and not worry about Frank shooting my dick off.
But it wasn’t in me to let her be in pain.
“Goddammit,” I said as I strode down to her room and prayed we could come up with a solution to make this fake marriage work.
24
Brooke
Loving Mo was like a roller coaster ride. Sometimes it was thrilling, but the peaks were few, and most times it was low valleys. I don’t know why I was surprised to see him and Shelley kissing. They were married once, so they’d loved each other. My dad often said he didn’t think Mo ever really got over her leaving. They looked chummy in the restaurant today. So, maybe this was inevitable. I supposed if I really loved him, I’d get out of their way. I loved Mo, so I should put his happiness first, and if that was with Shelley, it would be a waste of my time to try and keep him. Especially since he had so many hang-ups about me. I’d always be Frank’s daughter and nearly twenty years younger, so the issues he’d identified as being problems for him wouldn’t ever be resolved.
Still, it hurt that, just today, he’d made love—no, had sex—with me in my office, and now he was kissing his ex-wife. What was going on? Mo wasn’t the cheating type. Sure, our marriage was fake, but still. We agreed to no other people during our marriage. Did he think he’d get his rocks off with her to avoid me?
Was he done with me? We got my dad the money he needed, and now I could move on. Was he so revolted by me that he was willing to forgo the additional money he’d get if we stayed married for a year?
I flopped on the bed and cried into my pillow. He was right. I was only a silly girl to have fallen for him. Perhaps I was still trying to live a fairy tale. I’d heard that love took work, but surely it wasn’t this hard. My mother and father loved each other, and life seemed so happy and easy between them. I just wanted to love Mo, and if he loved me back, life would be smooth sailing, wouldn’t it?
I ignored the knock on my door. I didn’t want to talk to him. It would just be much of the same. Me trying to convince him my feelings were real and him telling me I was just a kid. And I was starting to think maybe I was because I didn’t understand why this was so hard.
The knock became more insistent. “Open the door, Brooke.”
“Go away, Mo. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Too bad. Open the door, or I’ll break it down.”
Yeah, right, I thought. He knocked and called to me again, but I just lay on the bed, feeling so tire
d and lost.
A loud bang and then a crack startled me to sit up. The door slid sideways along the wall and onto the floor as Mo stepped into my room after breaking it down.
“Are you crazy?” I asked him.
“You have no right to be angry with me,” he growled. His breath was heavy, his eyes blazing. I’d never seen the usually calm and collected Mo like this. At one time, it might have scared me. Now, it just annoyed me.
“Of course not. I’m not your real wife. I have no reason to be upset that I’ve come home to see you having sex with your ex-wife. I should have known with the way you were pawing each other at lunch. Let me ask you, when you fucked me in my office, were you thinking of her?”
“Goddammit, Brooke,” he roared. He looked up and away, taking a deep breath. When he looked back, his breath was calmer, but his eyes were still heated. “I wasn’t having sex with Shelley, and we weren’t pawing. She kissed me.”
“As far as I could see, you didn’t stop her. You kissed her back.” I shrugged. “I get it. You never got over her.”
“You’re wrong.” He glared at me. “Besides, you have some nerve busting my balls over Shelley. You were out to dinner with your boyfriend.”
“What?” I jerked back, surprised by his comment.
“You want to be treated like an adult, then be one. Don’t pretend that Tucker is just your friend. Your father is, right now, saving some of the money I gave him to plan your wedding. My money!” He bellowed.
I glared at him. “Well, maybe if he thought this was a real marriage, he wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t you fucking put this on me. He wouldn’t think Tucker was your future husband if there wasn’t something to it.”