Candy Crush (11 page)

She paused, sorting out the memories in her
head.

“After about a year, I started working for
him. He ran a pretty large empire. Landscaping businesses, property
development, all sorts of different businesses. I was his office
manager. Another thing I realized in retrospect was that he wanted
to have total control over me. I moved into his home, I worked for
him. I was always very close to my family, and by that point I
hardly ever saw them. Miguel didn’t like me to be away from him or
his life. If I went shopping, it was with one of his sisters. Even
when I did get to visit my family, Miguel insisted on going with
me. The first time my brother came into town – he lives in New
Orleans – and met Miguel, Emmett managed to pull me aside and tell
me the guy was bad news.

“But I was so infatuated, with both Miguel
and my new life, that I ignored him and all the signs. Miguel is a
very good looking man – kind of looks like you, but with dark
eyes.”

She half turned and glanced at Brandon. He
forced his face to remain impassive as he continued to
systematically massage her shoulders.

“He also gave me anything I wanted, and I
admit to enjoying shopping more than the average girl. Even though
my life with him sometimes felt oppressive, on the surface, it
seemed perfect, and I felt stupid questioning my good fortune just
because I sometimes felt like a prisoner in my own life.

“Anyway, as his office manager, my
responsibilities were really little more than being a secretary. I
wasn’t supposed to have access to anything financial or, I realize
now, anything incriminating. It was just his way of keeping me
under his thumb. Part of it was just his personality, but probably
part of it was he didn’t trust me, either. He liked to have total
control over everything in his life. But the problem was, I’m a lot
smarter than he gave me credit for, and I started noticing stuff. I
didn’t like what I found out. His empire was a lot more extensive
than it appeared on the surface. There was lots of illegal stuff
buried in there.

“Definitely gun running, definitely
illegally importing immigrants, probably drugs. Stuff that I had no
interest in being involved in. I couldn’t let him know I knew, and
I couldn’t just walk away. I had to convince him that he didn’t
want me anymore, without making him too angry, so that he would
just discard me, basically, instead of take more drastic
measures.”

She shuddered again and Brandon stopped
massaging and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She leaned
back and rested her back against his chest.

“I can’t believe I’m telling you all of
this.”

“It’s okay. I’m a good listener.”

She hesitated for a few moments before she
resumed speaking again.

“I tried all sorts of stupid things to make
him not like me anymore. I started acting kind of bitchy all the
time, like I wasn’t really grateful for everything he’d done for
me. I got sloppy at work. I was in charge of keeping up his house
and yard – I think he liked the idea of pretending to play house
with me – so I did things like cancel the cleaning service, and
then complain about how dirty the house was. I switched the weed
killer and fertilizer so half the flowers in his yard died. Just
annoying little things. I think he really was starting to get
frustrated with me, and I’m pretty sure he was just about ready to
cut me loose.”

She paused again, and her eyes were
unfocused, as she relived that period of her life in her head.
Brandon began stroking her hair.

“About two months ago, Miguel called me into
his office. It was just the two of us, which only really happened
when we were, uh…” She trailed off and a blush crept up her
cheeks.

“I get it, Gabriella,” Brandon said softly,
and there was just a trace of amusement in his voice, as if her
embarrassment over the fact that she had been having sex with her
ex-boyfriend was funny.

She cleared her throat and continued her
story. “I thought this was it. He was finally through with me. I
was so happy, because I couldn’t wait to go home to my parents. I
was planning to move back in with them, until I figured out where
to live and find a new job. I had it all planned out in my head. I
was even toying with the idea of going to New Orleans for a week or
two, just to get away and hang out with Emmett. And then he burst
my bubble,” she said bitterly.

“He always called me
queirda
which
means
darling
in Spanish. He said, ‘Mi queirda, I have some
excellent news. We’re going to be married.’ I was, as you can
imagine, not nearly as excited as he expected me to be. I told him
I wasn’t marrying him and he said, ‘Oh yes you are. You don’t have
a choice in this matter.’ It was the first time Miguel had ever
used what I thought of as his
scary voice
on me. I’d
witnessed him use it before, but he’d never directed it at me, even
when I was trying to annoy him enough to let me go. So I was pretty
scared at that point.

“I suggested we just continue living
together, and I’d try to be a better girlfriend and he said, ‘well,
there’s a slight problem with that. You see, the government has
become aware of the fact that I did not move to this country using
legal means, and I am not in a position to go back to Mexico at
this moment. So you are going to become my wife, so I can stay in
Texas.’ And you know what I was feeling at that time? I was angry
because he wanted to marry me for a stupid Visa, not because he
loved me. Isn’t that the end all, be all? Here this man was telling
me I was about to be trapped, legally, for the rest of my life, and
all I could think was, ‘he doesn’t even love me.’ I’m such a sap.”
She sounded disgusted with herself.

“You’re not a sap,” Brandon said quietly.
“You’re human. Everybody wants to be loved, Gabriella. It’s human
nature.” This coming from a guy who, according to his
sister-in-law, had shown the first signs of emotion toward a woman
the day before, when he’d been furious with Gabriella for flirting
with Jared.

“So you obviously gathered your wits about
you and decided to escape,” Brandon prompted.

Gabriella nodded. “Yes. Maybe that was the
final straw, but I was determined not to marry him. Maybe if he’d
said, ‘I love you, Gabriella, and I want to spend the rest of my
life with you,’ I might have felt differently, even though I didn’t
want to marry him regardless. But it would have been harder to
leave if I knew he loved me. Stupid, but in the end, it didn’t
matter, because he didn’t.

“So Miguel announced the engagement, and set
his sisters to planning the wedding. Probably he suspected I would
drag my feet and not do anything about it. The good thing was, the
wedding planning made planning my escape easier. I managed to get
away from Miguel or any of his family a little easier on a regular
basis, because there was always something to do: dress fittings,
cake tastings, registering, shower planning. Miguel insisted on a
big wedding, even though he didn’t want anything to do with the
wedding details. And his sisters couldn’t watch me
twenty-four-seven, especially when they didn’t realize they were
supposed to be babysitting me.

“I bought a new cell phone with a new,
unlisted number. I kept my laptop and a bag of clothes in my car at
all times, in case I needed to leave quickly. I started hoarding
cash and keeping it in my car, too. God knows, if someone had
stolen my car back then, they would have hit the jackpot. When I
moved in with Miguel, I put most of my stuff in a storage unit. I
began selling it, piece by piece, on eBay, and in the meantime, I
was surfing the Internet, trying to decide what to do with my life.
I knew I couldn’t stay in Dallas. Miguel is a very powerful man
there, and he would have found me. I figure my family is safe as
long as they have no idea where I am. My brother is far enough away
that it would be hard for Miguel to get to him, especially given
his current status with the government. He’s the only person who
knows where I am.

“I managed to sell most of my stuff, and I
was just waiting for an opportunity to get away. I still hadn’t
figured out where I was going yet. And then the stars aligned and I
had the perfect opportunity to escape. Miguel’s grandmother had a
stroke and everyone jumped up and rushed to the hospital. I
couldn’t believe my luck. Miguel was so upset that he completely
forgot about me. I was literally left all alone in his house, which
had never, ever happened before.

“I put all of my personal belongings and
Butter in my car and I drove away. I stopped at my storage unit,
rented a u-haul from them, loaded everything I had left into it –
that was the scariest part, because I was still so close that I
felt like Miguel would drive up at any moment. Then I drove to
Little Rock and checked into a hotel using cash. I holed up for a
few days, playing on the computer, trying to decide where to go.
The ad for the candy store popped up one day, and it seemed
perfect: small town, other end of the country, instant form of
revenue. The perfect place to start over. And here I am.”

***

She relaxed against Brandon and closed her
eyes. She felt waves of relief wash over her. She had never told
anyone else the entire story before, and somehow, she felt better
having shared it with Brandon. It felt good to not have to be vague
with him anymore.

Now, the only problem she had was, deciding
the next step in their relationship. Keeping it platonic seemed
logical, because there was no risk of emotions getting involved.
Now that he knew all about her past, she didn’t particularly want
him to walk out of her life. And with his track record, if they
slept together, he’d certainly walk out of her life at some point
shortly thereafter.

Brandon continued to stroke her hair and
commented, “You’re thinking again.”

Gabriella straightened up and turned to face
him. “Yes, I am. I’m thinking that sleeping with you is a bad
idea.”

Brandon groaned. “How is it that you manage
to constantly come to that same conclusion?”

“Think about it, Brandon” –

“I do. Constantly. I can hardly think of
anything else.”

“I meant, think about the ramifications.
What happens afterward?”

“We do it again?” he suggested
hopefully.

“And then?”

“Again?”

Gabriella made an exasperated sound. “And
then when we’re both sated and we’ve had our fill, then what?”

“Okay, first and foremost, I do not
anticipate we will
have our fill
of each other any time
soon. Second, I see where you’re going with this and I don’t
understand why you have to go there. You said yourself you weren’t
interested in marriage when Miguel proposed, or whatever the hell
you want to call what he did.”

“I wasn’t interested in marrying
Miguel
. I didn’t say I didn’t want to get married
ever.
”

“Oh.”

Gabriella watched as Brandon’s expression
shut down right before her eyes. Well, she thought irritably, if
she ever wanted to push him away, she simply had to utter the word
marriage
. She abruptly stood up.

“I’m going to bed.” When she was at the foot
of the stairs, Brandon called out to her. She turned to look at
him.

“Thank you for telling me, Gabriella. Your
secrets are safe with me.” He said it so softly, she could barely
hear him. When he didn’t say anything else, she turned and walked
up the stairs, Butter on her heels.

Whether for better or worse, she knew
without a doubt that their relationship, whatever it had been, was
now inexplicably changed.

CHAPTER FIVE

Gabriella woke up shortly after seven on
Friday morning and lay in bed, taking in the unnaturally quiet
state of the house. She wondered where Brandon was, and then she
remembered he said he had to go to Detroit today. He hadn’t
mentioned what time he was leaving, but he did say it was about an
hour and a half drive. If his meeting started at eight, he would be
long gone by now.

She climbed out of bed, pulled on a pair of
socks and went to the bathroom. Butter greeted her when she opened
the bedroom door. She assumed Brandon let the dog outside before he
left this morning.

The first thing she noticed when she padded
downstairs was the laundry basket sitting on the couch, filled with
her dry and neatly folded clothes. She mentally slapped herself
because she forgot to throw them into the dryer before she went to
bed last night. And Brandon had remembered. Not only remembered,
but he pulled them out and folded them too.

Damn, he was too nice for her own good. She
touched a pair of black lace panties and decided he wasn’t
necessarily
that
nice. Knowing him, he’d probably folded
them just so he could touch her underwear.

She walked into the kitchen and spotted the
note propped up against the coffee pot:

Sweet Pea – coffee’s ready, just turn the
pot on. I should be back between five and six. I hope you
remembered to cancel with Jared, because we are double dating with
Nicole and Anthony tonight. B.

Gabriella turned on the coffee pot and tried
not to be annoyed. First of all, he was still calling her Sweet
Pea, which she figured was a sign he wasn’t angry with her after
last night. It probably also meant he hadn’t given up hope that
they might still end up sleeping together.

One didn’t call their
friend
a
nickname like Sweet Pea. Nor do they go on double dates with just a
friend
.

The most annoying part of all was that
Gabriella realized she was pleased that he hadn’t given up hope.
Damn it. When the coffee was ready, she poured a cup and went back
upstairs to take a shower, now more annoyed with herself than with
Brandon.