“When the doctor told me my husband had died in the accident, I wept deeply as one would expect. When that same doctor held my hand comfortingly and told me the severe blow I’d suffered as I was ejected from the car had brought on preterm labor they were unable to stop—making it impossible to prevent the birth of my baby daughter at only twenty-three weeks gestation. Not enough development time to survive outside of my womb, he said. Her little life was over before it ever began. I cried even harder and longer for her loss, but inside I felt the most intense relief. I rejoiced that she had escaped what would have been a hellish nightmare, being born into that evil family. I wouldn’t have been able to protect her, and that would have killed me slowly bit by bit. The fact I’d lost Marcus’s baby was the only reason his family let me go. If I’d managed to stay pregnant, then I would have been bound forever—inescapably owned by a family of criminals to whom blood meant everything. I owed my baby thanks for her gift to me even more so than her father. She made it possible for me to start over.”
She’s been through so much. Too much.
“So I stayed in California for another six months, recovering. Physically I was fine, but I needed some time before I was ready to come back. I didn’t want to face the many expressions of sorrow and the heartfelt condolences for my loss when it had really been my only way of escaping the hell I’d been in for a year. I couldn’t tell them that I’d hated my sociopathic husband who’d impregnated me against my wishes when I was barely twenty-two years old.” She burrowed her face into the crook of my neck and shoulder, and sighed deeply as if she was breathing me in. “That—that’s all I can talk about tonight,” she said. “It takes me back there and I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward now, Caleb.”
So do I. I had been holding my breath listening to her story, and now needed air. For breathing—so I didn’t asphyxiate.
Holy fucking shit was about the extent of my immediate reaction to what she’d just shared. “I am so sorry, Brooke. I hardly know what to say.” And I didn’t. Christ, what a harrowing journey she’d been on in her short life. I could barely process all she’d just told me, let alone imagine how she managed to hold herself together most days. Brooke had certainly been dealt a shit hand of cards in losing her parents at fifteen, and then this—this—ordeal she’d endured, and for which there were no motherfucking words.
“There isn’t much to say, Caleb, and anyway, I feel your sympathy and that’s enough,” she said softly.
“Was your grandmother’s surgery the reason you came back to Boston?” I doubted there was much to have brought her back here otherwise.
“Yes. Actually, I think it was Nan’s terrible worry for me that led to her fall down the cellar steps in the first place. She wasn’t even notified I’d been in a coma. Nan didn’t know anything until after it was over. After the fall she needed me, and so it was time to come home to the island. Having a purpose has helped me so very much. Coming back here five months ago was the very best thing I could have ever done. It is healing me back into my former self. I’m not a sad person, Caleb, I’ve just had some very sad things happen to me. I love my job, and I love my cottage on the island, and I love my . . . friends.”
“Brooke?”
“Yes?”
“I am so fucking glad you came back home.”
“Me too, Caleb.”
We stayed close in the bed for a while. Quiet and just breathing in and out. Peaceful.
“Caleb, I want to ask you something,” she whispered.
“Okay.”
“My story—now that you’ve heard it, do you still want to be with me?”
I held her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. “Yes, Brooke, I want to be with you more than you can imagine.” I want to be the one to make you forget him. I want to be the one who loves you how you should have been loved in the first place. To make you feel safe, adored, cherished. “The harrowing story you’ve just told me changes nothing about what I think or feel. If anything, I am in awe of you. You are brave. Very, very brave, Brooke Casterley.”
“You are a wonderful man with a generous heart, Caleb Blackstone, and don’t let anyone ever make you feel otherwise.” Then she sighed deeply and detached herself from me with a small, sexy moan.
Fuck! She was going to leave my room and go back to her bed now. I didn’t want her to go because I wanted to sleep with her in my arms for the rest of the night. Hell, I needed it after the terrifying tale she’d just told me.
Her second question surprised me. “Would you mind if I used your shower? I just need to clear my head and I think the hot water will help.”
“Please do whatever will make you feel better,” I said, mentally castrating myself in advance for all of the filthy dirty thoughts I was going to have about her once she was wet and naked in my shower. My cock would suffer, but it would survive being denied.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she left my bed and padded toward the bathroom.
The light came on and then a few seconds later, the water. It took a moment for me to realize she’d left the door wide open. I could see everything as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, completely still and staring back out at me using the mirror’s reflection.
Holy. Fucking. Hell. She wanted me to see her. Me. Her. No one had ever so gently and yet confident
ly offered themselves to me. She wasn’t using me. She wanted me. She wanted me to want her. I would never forget this for as long as I lived. It was all for me. For me.
I knew why she did it, too.
Brooke did it to let me know she wanted me the same way I wanted her. Fuck. Me.
If I am so lucky to live a long life, I will always remember how absolutely fucking beautiful she was when she stripped in my doorway—backlit in soft white light—just so I could watch every graceful movement . . . as her clothes fell away to reveal the most perfect vision in the world. Her. Naked. Mine.
Brooke
Caleb could help me forget. Even if just for this one night, it would be a gift I would treasure forever because he was the first to make it possible for me after Marcus. I might never have had sex again in my life if I hadn’t met Caleb.