Page 26 of Becoming Brandy

He frowned, folding down dark eyebrows. “What was your life like?”

Brandy shrugged, feeling the uncomfortable well of emotions bubble up. “My life on Earth was complicated.”

“What does that mean? Complicated?” His eyes bore into her like he really did want to know.

She took another sip of her wine. The first glass was buzzing through her veins nicely, but she needed more if she was going to tell Drake about her childhood. “I grew up as an only child. My mother tried hard to take care of me, but she had her own problems. When I was eighteen, I moved out on my own and started working.”

“It must’ve been a shock when you woke up in Han’s transport ship.”

“You’re not kidding,” she said with a laugh. “One minute I was waiting for a ride behind the Venetian, and then next I was waking up in a room with Bram staring down at me. It took him half an hour to get me to calm down enough to listen to what he had to say.”

“And what did he say to make you want to stay?” Drake leaned in, his expensive suit stretching over his muscles.

Her eyes rested on his hands, the ones she knew were very different in his true form. It would be like wearing a Halloween costume twenty-four-seven. What kind of toll did it take on these men? She stared into Drake’s eyes, thinking that, of all the things that changed, the person deep inside didn’t.

“Bram didn’t say anything to make me stay.” She glanced at her nearly empty plate. “They gave me something more important than what I had waiting for me on Earth.”

“And what was that?”

She tilted her chin. “A family.”

“You need a family?”

She smiled wryly. “Yes, a family that trusts and doesn’t lie—that listens and takes the feelings of the others into consideration.”

Drake’s eyes darted away. “You make it sound so easy. It’s not. Families are complicated. They do things to piss you off. Families mess up.”

“Right. And then you forgive them because they’re family.”

He returned his gaze to her face, seeming to consider what she said. But then, Drake stood, dropping his napkin on the table and showing her his back. “This is a waste of time.”

“Drake.”

But he didn’t turn. He strode out of the room without a backward glance.

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