“What if you don’t like my interpretation of your vision for your home?”
“This is why I’ve hired you, Brooke. I need your ideas because I don’t really have an opinion on décor or a particular vision for the place other than transforming it into something more family centered than it is now.”
That got me an eyebrow raise. “Are you planning on starting a family soon?”
I went there in my mind. Yes, I fucking did. I could not stop myself from doing it, either. The image just appeared in my head as if its place was predestined, completely natural and what I envisioned for my future—Brooke holding a baby in her arms, and knowing both of them were mine. Holy. Hell. My heart started throbbing again. In march step with my dick. I was falling in too deep with her to pull myself back out again. And I knew it. There was nothing I could do differently with any of this evolving situation with her. The emotions and feelings of attachment to Brooke just kept piling up bit by bit, growing stronger by the day.
“Ah . . . eventually I will.” Not a lie. Truth.
She cracked a grin that only curled up on one side, making her look sassy and sexy. “And you feel you should be prepared in advance for this future family?”
“Yes, Brooke, I am always prepared. Did I forget to mention that I am an Eagle Scout?” I winked and watched her blush for me again.
“YOU said you only came back to Boston five months ago when your grandmother had her accident. Where were you living before?”
I saw her eyes flick down and sensed discomfort. I was willing to drop the topic—anything to make her smile at me again—but she blew me out of the water with her answer.
“I was living in LA with my husband.” What the fuck?
Not what I was expecting her to say. I looked at her left hand. No ring. And I would have known if she’d worn one the first time I laid eyes on her. I always check for wedding rings.
“You were married?” So very young . . .
A flash of pain filled her eyes, and then a sort of resignation before she answered me. “Yes, for a short time. He died in a car accident nearly a year ago, and our baby—I was in the car, too—was born too early to survive after the trauma from the accident put me into labor.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
No wonder I’d recognized such sadness in her. And here I’d just joked about filling my penthouse with a family. I felt like an asshole.
“I am so sorry, Brooke.” I picked up her hand and stroked over the top of it. “Fuck. Devastating. I can’t imagine your pain. Your . . . sadness.”
“Ah, yes my relationship with my friend Sadness is quite solid.” She toyed with her wineglass as she spoke, and then after a long moment she looked up again.
I tilted my head in question, not getting the joke. I was probably in shock at what she’d just told me. She’s been married. Lost her husband and baby in a car accident. I was reminded that when we meet people as we go through our daily lives, we really have zero understanding of what painful shit those poor souls have had to endure. No fucking idea at all. Thoughts of how Aldrich treated her that night made me want to kill the bastard now. I should pay that cocksucker a visit very fucking soon to enlighten the piece of dog shit on the matter of just who he had assaulted at a business reception.
“The movie, Inside Out? It’s a wonderfully insightful animated Disney film about our individual inner emotions and how we need all of them working together in order to function properly. Sadness is my go-to girlfriend.”
“I’ve never heard of that movie.”
“I’m sure it’s not your cup of tea, but perhaps you might watch it one day. You’d get it then.”
“Will you watch it with me?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said shyly.
“You are very brave.” I pulled her hand up to my lips and kissed the back of it. “That is all.”
“I don’t always feel brave, but I do try to be,” she said, looking down at her wine again.
DINNER evolved into a nearly three-hour affair. Dessert, coffee, conversation that was interesting to the point I was really goddamn disappointed when we had to leave so she could make the 8:30 ferry. I actually hated the thought of her riding that ferry at night. Fucking hated it. But I held my tongue because I was certain she would tell me to mind my own goddamn business.
I had nothing to do with the worse-than-usual traffic. Monday Night Football at Gillette Stadium could take credit for that one.
And the steady rain.
And the four-car pileup that closed the main road down to the harbor.
I could sense Brooke getting more and more anxious as Isaac did his best to get her there in time.