Page 134 of Broken Dreams
I lift my gaze to meet hers. “I’m not doing anything. It’s not my decision.”
She scoffs. “Please. If you let her go, that’s you deciding.”
I place my cards face down on the table and stare into my sister’s blue eyes that aren’t filled with mischief, but pity, and that pity is what has me pushing my chair out, throwing on my sweatshirt, and going out the back door.
“Grady!” She calls after me, but I keep going. Right to the barn. “Grady, stop!” My sister runs up behind me, hand touching my back. “I’m sorry. I just...I wish you’d talk to me. Talk to any of us.”
“And say what, Brynn? That again, I’m going to lose someone I care about? That the woman I was absolutely not going to fall in love with somehow managed to get under my skin and I can’t figure out what the hell I should do? She’s got the offer of a lifetime. A chance to take her charity and make real changes in the world. To help more people than she ever imagined, and I’d be the worst asshole that ever lived to ask her to give it up. Is that what you want me to say?” My chest is heaving at the end of my rant.
Brynlee tilts her head and smiles. “That’s a start.”
“And that isn’t even the half of it!”
“What’s the half?”
I stare at my sister who gave up her home, her comfortable life, for me and Jett. So loving, so caring to everyone, and I wish to God I had a sliver of the heart she does.
“All of it was fake, Brynn. The dating, the dinners, the whole damn thing. Addison and I were pretending so I could get the investment and she needed a date for the wedding. The entire fucking relationship was a show,” I confess it and wait for her censure.
Instead of that, she bursts out laughing. “Oh, you’re an idiot.”
“What?”
“You’re so stupid!” She laughs harder, tears starting to come out of the corners of her eyes. “You think...it was fake?”
“It was,” I tell her.
She lets out a huge breath, collecting herself a bit. “Grady, stop it. You weren’t pretend. Or the only thing you were pretending is that it was pretend. You don’t sneak over in the middle of the night to see a woman you’re fake dating. You guys became friends, and whether or not it started that way, it’s sure as hell not that way now.”
“I know.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You do?”
“Yes, and that’s the issue.”
Brynn’s eyes narrow. “What is? That you have feelings for her?”
“Yes, because I didn’t want this. I didn’t want a woman who could break my fucking heart again. I needed to protect myself and Jett.”
“Whoever told you that was possible?”
I look up at the sky and groan. “What is with the women in my life?”
“We love you, that’s what. You can’t protect Jett from love any more than you can ensure you’ll never die. Losing Lisa...well, it was a tragedy. One that you have spent the last three years doing a good job at grieving. You have also lived in the shadow of her death until Addison.”
My head jerks back and I feel as though she punched me. “What?”
“You were trying so hard to make up for the fact that you weren’t able to care for Jett after her death that you basically rebuilt your life with Lisa when you got here. You took her furniture from Oklahoma, put photos everywhere, just like it was at her parents’ house, and you read the book she wanted every day. Then, two weeks ago, you picked a book about planes. I don’t even know if you were aware you did it, but you did.” Brynn takes a step to me. “Your heart still beats, and your eyes have come back to life since you’ve been...fake dating...Addison.” She air quotes the fake dating part.
I shake my head, moving backwards. “And how do I handle her leaving me? How do I let someone like her go? I can’t fucking breathe thinking it’s a possibility. I wasn’t supposed to feel this. I was closed off, and that woman broke through. What kind of a man would I be to take her dreams from her when she’s already lost so much?”
“Look, I can’t answer those questions for you, and the best part is, neither can you.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
She sighs. “It means that the only person who can answer those questions is Addison. And you, big brother, have two choices. You can try to pretend you’re a mind reader and give her exactly what she might not want, or you can go to her, and...you know . . . communicate.”
“That’s what I was doing until you stopped me.”
