My eyes shoot open, and he looks down at me.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Someone is here for you.”
I cock an eyebrow.
“For me?”
He nods, sitting me up and sliding me out from underneath him.
“Wren,” he says before walking toward the elevator, “I need you to remember what I told you—no matter how far we get into this, okay?”
I tilt my head to the side.
“You can always say enough,” he says. “At any point, you can say it’s enough.”
I nod slowly, standing up to follow him.
He enters the room with an older woman carrying a massage table. He takes it from her like a gentleman then nods and walks down the hallway with her to a room at the end. I hear him set the table down, then he comes back out.
“That’s Marcella,” he says. “She’s my masseuse, and she’s amazing. She’s here for you today.”
My eyes widen.
“For me?”
“Yes,” he says. “You’ve had a long day.” Then, he crosses the floor between us and cups my face in his hand. He leans down so his lips are at my ear. “Now, go take your clothes off.”
When he pulls away, he has a playful grin on his mouth that makes my whole body warm. It feels good to smile. I shake my head and start walking down the hallway.
“Thank you, Brooks,” I call back to him. “For everything.”
“Wren, there aren’t enough thanks in the world for what my brothers and I will owe you after this is all said and done.”
Then he turns and walks back down the hallway to the living room.
BROOKS
Ishould really win an award for the amount of self-control I am exhibiting while being in her presence. What I wouldn’t have given to send Marcella home and have acted like Wren’s personal masseuse myself.
A few weeks ago, my brothers dropped a bomb of information on me that changed my life. Then they dropped this bombshell on me, and she walked in the door and put me in my place. But now, I’m finding that I want my place to be wherever she is. And the closer she gets to my father, the more I find myself wanting to pull her away from it.
I’m sitting on the couch an hour later, flipping through the channels, when I hear Marcella’s sing-song voice as she says goodbye to me. I stand up and wave, thanking her, and then I turn and walk down the hallway toward the spa room where Wren is wiping oil off of herself with a towel. As badly as I want to kick the door open wider and see her in all her glory again, I turn around.
“Everything go okay?” I ask her through the door.
I hear a small gasp escape her lips.
“Yes, it was absolutely amazing,” she says. “Thank you so much. She really does have magic hands.”
I laugh.
“You’re telling me,” I say as she walks out of the room, still straightening her shirt, her hair in a disheveled bun and her skin still shiny with the massage oil. She has a subtle line across her forehead from the face pillow, and I smile as I run my thumb across it gently.
I stare down at her for a moment, probably too long because I feel her shift under my gaze as she reaches up to hold onto her arm. I reach my hand out and push her flyaways back onto her head, and then I reach my other hand out and put it on her hip gently.
I feel this pull to her that I have never felt in my entire life. When she’s around, I can’t help but be hyper-focused on her. And when she’s not, I spend my time trying to figure out how to be with her again. Wondering where she is. Checking in on her.
And after today, knowing that she’s really in this mess with us—forus—I feel something completely new: protective.
