Page 66 of Brooke
“She’d never been a very caring person, although you don’t know how to assess that as a child. But I figured it out. Other kids in my school talked about their moms in a certain way, how they’d do little things for them. Feed them soup when they were sick or take them to the park to play. When I snuck into her closet to try on her heels or haute couture, she screamed at me and locked me in my room until my dad came home. I never really thought she liked me. She’d tell me I was just like my father. Too bold. Too bossy. Too showy.”
“Clearly, she was angry with your father and taking it out on you.” A thunderous frown darkened his face. “Humans can be so petty and cruel. I am sorry for you, Brooke, but tell me the rest, and then we will set it aside for the moment.”
The raw pain clogging her throat began to shift away. Yes, they would set it aside. She liked that he hadn’t said they’dput it behind them. He was a man who understood pain and the power of old memories—how they sometimes demanded to take center stage. She could work with that. She didn’t have to be some perfect, completely adjusted person.
She could simply be herself.
“The worst moment of my life—until I heard of my father’s and Nanine’s heart attacks—was in Nanine’s restaurant.”
She told him of that fateful dinner. Her mother arriving with her new family and ignoring her as she and her father began their meal. How Nanine had found her crying behind the restaurant and then stalked into the main dining area like an outraged archangel and told her mother and her party that a mistake had been made with their reservation and they needed to leave. When they’d protested, she had ordered them out, her large brown eyes shooting fire.
“She became my champion that day,” she finished, the love she had for Nanine rushing over her like a warm tide. “I’d always liked her when we saw her at the restaurant, but from that day on, she became my hero. She sent out a bowl of lemon sorbet to soothe my heart, even though it wasn’t the time for it in the meal. I’ll never forget that.”
Axel tugged her gently up and out of her chair and onto his lap. Wrapping his arms around her, he buried his face in her neck as he held her. “Your hurt is so very understandable, Brooke, and my heart aches for you and the little girl who thought she wasn’t good enough. Humiliated. You are a tribute to your own inner resources. Because when I see you, all I find is a woman who is exceptionally loveable. Loyal. Funny. Kind. Smart. And honest.”
She raised her head, rocking on the wild sea that was her adventure with Axel. If she could see her younger self, she’d know she was smiling. As she was. “You forgot sexy,” she said playfully, pulling a Dean to lighten the mood.
“No, I didn’t.” His blue eyes turned hot. “I was savingthat for later. We are speaking of the things that hurt us. What else do you need to tell me?”
She realized they were laying it all out there. She’d never done that before in a relationship. There was wisdom in it, though, one she could now appreciate. Perhaps she was more well-adjusted than she’d thought. “My ex, Adam, who broke up with me six months ago, cheated on me with a nineteen-year-old model. I caught them. In our shower.”
Her blood pressure was rising as anger pulsed hot in her side. “I felt humiliated and angry. And foolish! I’d thought he was being secretive because he was planning to propose. I imagined him sneaking off to Tiffany’s to buy the perfect ring. I’d planned our whole life together, and in the next second, all my plans were ruined.”
“You thought you weren’t enough again,” Axel said, his golden brows slamming together. “Despite my outrage at his treatment of you, I wish to point out that he was not worthy of you. It is one thing to decide you do not love your partner anymore. That happens, and while it hurts, it is not the same as carrying on with another secretly while you are professing fidelity and love. He is reprehensible, Brooke, and I am glad he showed his true colors. He would have at some point, and I would have hated not to have met you. You would have been married?—”
“With a place in the city and a weekend retreat in Westchester.” She shook her head wryly at her own hubris. “Yes, I know. I had a short list of cities and real estate properties ready.”
“As someone who designs plans for a living, I find it one of life’s great ironies that I can design a space to conform to my desires, but I cannot fully shape my life. That is why I continue to call it an adventure.”
“Axel, I haven’t told anyone about catching Adam cheating. Not even my roommates.”
“May I point out with a little humor that his first namewas your last name but singular, which might have doomed you from the start.”
She sputtered a laugh. “My dad said something like that when he first heard his name. You can bet Dean teased me about it.”
“Your roommates are good supporters.” He studied her, the pause audible in the room. “Will you tell me why you didn’t share the full story with them?”
“I was so upset that I…” Why hadn’t she? “I didn’t want to manage their anger. I mean they were pissed about me being dumped, but the cheating would have pushed it over the edge. You haven’t seen Kyle when he gets protective. Plus, I didn’t want anyone’s pity, thatpoor Brookeand pat on the shoulder. I wanted to erase it from my life. So I told everyone Adam had dumped me—which he had, in a very up-front way—and that he’d shacked up with Plumonia.”
“I have met her at a fashion event. She is half the woman you are, to my mind. But we are straying off track. Brooke, not telling your roommates is a big deal. They are your best friends.”
“I know.” She linked her hands behind her head before lowering them. “I could probably swing it now. I’m not as angry. Okay, that’s not totally true. I’m still angry, but I’ve stopped hoping that I’ll find out a New York taxi ran him over.”
“The violence we imagine befalling others after being hurt often unsettles me, but again, our primal nature asserts itself. I am grateful I have not had such thoughts in a long while.”
She perked up on his lap. “Youhad them? I’d feel so much better if you told me about it.”
He grimaced. “My father cut down my favorite pine tree as a boy when I was eight because he said I was spending too much time in it and my mother was worried I would fall to my death. For six months I imagined another pine tree fallingon him in revenge for cutting down my friend. Dark, heavy thoughts, Brooke, especially for a boy.”
“I had ones about my mother’s hair falling out after she visited the hair salon.” She lifted her shoulder. “The thought of her bald made me… Not happy. But it felt right for other people to see on the outside how ugly she truly was on the inside.”
He tucked her against his body, and she sank into his large protective embrace. “Is there anything else? Any other monsters you can think of?”
She searched her mind. “That’s it for now, but I retain the right to mention something if I remember it.”
“As I wish we both would.” His arms caressed her back. “We have shared the rawness of the past. Now…”
Her belly tightened with immediate longing.
