Page 35 of Legally Ours

Chapter 8

But I didn't last long in my room either. Midnight arrived, then one, then two, with still no sign of Brandon. After taking a shower and changing into a cotton slip, I tossed in my bed for several hours until I finally gave up and hunted down the closet where Ana kept the cleaning supplies. I grabbed a vacuum to clean up the glass and petals that littered the foyer. I didn't know where Brandon was, but he probably wouldn't want to clean up a shattered vase when he got back.

Just as I was curling up on the sofa under a blanket and watching the gas fire burning in the fireplace, the elevator bell rang. I could hear Brandon's voice, loud and unintelligible, before the doors even opened.

I sat up.

"Skyyyylaaahhh," Brandon crooned with a goofy, pained expression. "Where aaaaaahhhh you?"

His left side was draped over the slim frame of Cory, whose face was practically engulfed by Brandon's bicep. Cory steered his boss into the living area, which couldn't have been easy, considering that Brandon was clearly piss-drunk and could barely walk.

My eyes opened wide as I observed them. Brandon was normally a temperate drinker. He had probably left the apartment a bit worse for wear to begin with after all the wine we had earlier, but now, even from clear across the room, he smelled like he had gone swimming in a cask of bourbon. His South Boston accent, with the open-ended r's and flattened a's that usually stayed hidden most of the time, was out in full, like he was straight out of a Ben Affleck movie.

"Come on you gorgeous, stubborn, ridiculously beautiful minx," Brandon called out, pushing Cory's thin arms off him, and stumbling further into the apartment. He circled around like a dog chasing his tail, colliding with a pillar next to the kitchen. "You're the only girl who could break my heart, you know that? The only one!"

Then he spied me sitting on the couch, and made a wavering, feet-thumping beeline for me. After teetering around the couch arm, he collapsed at my feet and buried his face in my waist.

"Gawd, you smell good."

His voice was muffled by the flimsy fabric of my slip. His hands started to fumble their way up my bare legs, and he squeezed my thighs before just laying his head on my lap with a sigh.

"I love you so much, baby. I keep tryin' to stop, but I can't." He looked up with bright blue eyes that were glazed from the alcohol. "Do you know why I can't, Red?"

Was it awful how much I loved hearing him call me that? Even if he was drunk as a skunk?

"Why?" I murmured, running a hand through his hair. He leaned into my caress, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.

"I dunno," he said. "S'was hopin' you could tell me. You put a spell on me, woman."

And before I could reply, he laid his head back in my lap and started crooning the song of the same name: "I put a spell on you...cuz you're miii-eeeennnn."

I added to the mental list of things I was discovering about Brandon Sterling: the man was completely tone-deaf. I looked up at Cory, who was now standing by the fireplace, arms crossed over a wrinkled beige suit while he watched us with disgust.

"What happened?" I asked.

"What happened?" Cory's face screwed up like a wad of tissue. "You mean, besides you?"

"Hey!" Brandon blared from my lap. "You need to talk to her with res-pet!" His words were becoming increasingly slurred. "Otherwise I'ma kick your ass, jus' like I did'a that other guy."

Brandon continued crooning his song into the folds of my skirt.

I glared back at Cory. "What is he talking about?"

Cory pressed his thin lips into a frown. "He got into another fight. I had to tear him out of a bar in Savin Hill. It took me, David, and two security guys to get him into the Mercedes."

"Another fight?"

Of course. The bruises around his eye and on his hands. I looked down at even more scrapes on Brandon's knuckles, some of them clearly days old, others obviously brand new. There was an additional scrape over his nose, but otherwise he wasn't too much the worse for wear. Still, this was a lot more than running into a door, and obviously not a result of his scuffle with Messina's thugs. How could I have missed this?

Because you've barely seen him.

"What's wrong with me?" Brandon muttered into my slip. "I try an' I try. But you always say no. I ask you to move in wi' me––nothin'. Ask you to marry me––big fat no way. I'm only good for one thing, ain't I? Ain'tI, Sky-lah?"

"What is he talking about?" Cory spat with sharpened eyes. "He asked you to marry him? When? What the fuck is going on?"

The little man was sputtering like a kettle about to boil over, and it looked like his small head was about to pop off his body from the pressure.

"Relax," I said sharply. I started to stroke a tentative hand through Brandon's hair again. "It was in France, before...everything. And I did say no, so you don't have to worry."

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