Yours to Savor (52 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Sandra could find no reprieve from the night terrors.

After experiencing a blissful four-week
existence without them, they hit her harder than ever before. Those four weeks no longer seemed real. They were a phantom memory of someone else’s life. She could not sleep. She could barely eat. In addition, each time she closed her eyes, she was reminded both of her guilt for Chloe, and of the betrayal she suffered at Brandon’s hand.

If only she hadn’t been so
blind
. Had she really been so naïve as to think she could find happiness that easily?

She closed herself off, avoiding everyone and everything. She didn’t stop by
Cassie’s Blend
anymore. She turned off her phone and flung it under the bed. When Cassie came to her apartment and banged on the door, Sandra threw the covers over her head and pretended not to be home.

The darkness she had lived with in the years following her sister’s death called to her like an old friend. It tempted her with the promise of that seductive realm devoid of emotion, of the one place in the world with nothing left to
feel
. With nothing left to hurt her anymore.

She opened herself to it. She fed her soul into it, seeking that emptiness, yearning for the inability to feel. She walled off her emotions and buried them deep, determined to never let
love
slip out again.

She dragged herself to work like a zombie. Her mind was numb and empty, but that was what she wanted. She didn’t touch the clothes Brandon had bought her, and returned to wearing her dreary rags. They weren’t pretty, but they were
hers
, and untainted by Brandon’s drug money.

When she collapsed on her bed each night and lay there, staring at the ceiling, she knew that sleep wouldn’t come. At odd times, it sneaked up unbidden. The brief bouts were filled with all types of new nightmares. She saw her sister burning in the fire, her accusing eyes drilling deep into Sandra’s head. She saw Brandon’s mocking smile as he leaned down to kiss her, except when his mouth opened it was full of smoke and ash that suffocated her. She saw Clarisse, laughing in that primp French accent as Brandon’s head bobbed between her legs.

Sandra was miserable. The man she thought she knew, the man she
knew
she loved, had lied to her. She’d
trusted
him, and he’d repaid that trust by deceiving her completely.

Of course he did
, a small voice mocked her.
What else did you expect?

Days went by and blurred together. Sandra let the emptiness consume her. When she spoke to people, she didn’t know what she said. When she came home after work, she couldn’t remember a single thing she’d done. Of one thing, Sandra was certain: She would never let love into her life again.

Brandon had to see Sandra.

He was going crazy without her. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Now that he’d turned over the business to Clarisse, there was nothing
to
do. His mind was singularly focused on the woman he loved.

He’d been unable to reach Sandra for a week. Her had phone stopped ringing a few days ago. Either she’d blocked his number or she’d walled herself off from the world again.

Brandon had to fix things. Something told him if he didn’t, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
Goddammit, this wasn’t supposed to be the way things happened!

The old Brandon would have long ago turned the page on this chapter. The old Brandon would have moved on, went out, gotten laid. Even his libido had died without her near—and it had raged like a wildfire his entire life. However, the
new
Brandon didn’t want any of those things. He didn’t want anyone else. He only wanted Sandra.

His connection to her, even from the first moment he saw her, had always been more than physical lust. They’d shared a common past, even if they weren’t both aware of it until recently. Brandon had always regretted Chloe’s death. If he had a chance to bring happiness to her sister… well, maybe it was fate’s twisted way of restoring a little bit of balance to the world.

It was outrageous how a few weeks could change a man. No woman before Sandra had ever had such a strong effect on him. Somehow, she’d reached past all his barricades and taken hold.
If love makes me vulnerable to her, so be it
. Brandon would rather hang on to the faint hope of fixing things between them than having never known Sandra at all.

He
would
fight for Sandra. No matter how long it took, he would win. He had to talk to her. He had to have the chance. He would tell her everything—
everything
—that she wanted to know. All of it would come out in the open. He would hold no secrets from her, ever. He would tell her everything about her sister. He would even tell her
he
was the one to sell drugs to her that night.

If it took his whole life to make Sandra forgive him, Brandon was ready to spend the rest of it doing just that.

Brandon waited until the end of the workday to drive to Sandra’s office. He wanted to catch her unoccupied. He didn’t want anybody around to hear what he had to say.

When he walked down the street to her office, his shirt felt tight across his chest. His palms were clammy. His heart beat erratically. He was
nervous
, he realized. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been nervous.

There would be no subtlety in what he had to do. He would tell Sandra everything, straight out. She would know more about him than anybody else alive.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves before opening the door. Sandra had her head bent over the desk, and a white haired man with a walker was waiting on her with a file clutched in hand. To his relief, the rest of the office was empty. The man was likely the last patient of the day.

Sandra glanced up when she heard the door chime. When she saw him, darkness clouded her face. She jerked her attention back to the elderly man, ignoring Brandon completely while she dealt with him.

Brandon waited, not knowing whether to sit or stand. His heart was racing, his stomach doing flips. The suit he wore was felt tight, the air in the lobby too stuffy, the furniture too close. He was accustomed to feeling in control, to being the one in charge. All that abandoned him as he waited to speak to the woman he loved.

Finally, the older man turned from the counter, and hobbled with agonizing torpidity toward the door. He didn’t seem to notice as Brandon held the door open for him. It wasn’t something Brandon would have usually done, but he itched for time alone with Sandra.

When the door closed, Brandon turned the lock. He did not want any interruptions.

He found Sandra standing with her back to him, her hands moving over the binders of medical records on the back shelf.

“Sandra—”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Please. Let me explain.”

“No. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Sandra, it’s been a week since I’ve seen you. You haven’t answered my calls. You haven’t responded to my texts. How else am I supposed to know that you’re all right?”

“Oh, is
that
why you came?” She whirled around. Her eyes struck at him like sharp augers. “You think I need a man to look after me? That I’m some helpless, pathetic flop of a woman who can’t take care of herself?”

“No, I didn’t say that—”

“I don’t need your sympathies, Brandon, any more than I need your lies. That’s all you ever gave me, wasn’t it? A tidy bundle of lies, all tied up in a pretty bow in some scheme to win me over!”

“Sandra, that’s not true—”

“You’re a drug dealer. Do you deny that?”

Brandon cringed. Josh must have told her. “I promised I wouldn’t lie.”

“That’s what you are, isn’t it?” The hurt was clear in her voice. “That’s how you make your money. You lied to me. All that shit about real estate development? That was clever.”

“No. I didn’t lie about that.” Brandon paused, took a deep breath. “Real estate is something I’ve been working on for the last two years.”

“Oh, so you just
forgot
to mention that you also dealt drugs on the side?”

“No. I told you the truth. Real estate is part of what I do.”

“That’s a twisted way of looking at things, Brandon. If that’s how you define your honesty, I pity you. For me, for
regular people
, that’s called
deception
.”

“I didn’t tell you about the drugs,” Brandon grated, “because I didn’t want to scare you away. I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m not like the guys you see in the movies. I run a clean operation—or rather,
ran
. I’ll be completely out of it soon.”

“Oh, that’s
precious
.” Sandra rolled her eyes. “Really, Brandon? What perfect timing.”

“It
was
,” he stressed. “Look, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how we stumbled into each other. From the first moment I saw you, I knew I had to know you. Would I be here if I didn’t care about you? Would I have come?”

“You can go now,” Sandra said abruptly.

“No,
dammit.
Let me finish! I didn’t tell you everything about my past because I wanted more time to know how you would react. I wanted to know the best way to break it to you.”

“So you avoided it with half-truths and trickery?” Sandra asked. “What about your family, Brandon? Was that whole story about your mother and father, your unbelievable
seven
siblings, also a lie?”

“No. My mother disowned me when she found out I was dealing drugs. I was fifteen. It was a month after my father had died. I told you I yelled at her. I did. But I also wanted to help. I knew our family needed money. Even with the federal benefit for a line-of-duty death, even with my mother working day and night, I knew we couldn’t get by. I started dealing, because it was the only thing I could think of that would give our family a chance to survive. It was the only thing I had access to.”

“So you became a criminal because your family needed the money?” Sandra mocked. “That’s creative—even for you! Your dad would have been so
proud
.”