Page 24 of The Biker's Brother

“Of course I know how to do that. Everybody who grows up in my world knows how to do that. I just didn’t have it in mind for me. It had never occurred to me that he’d expect me to give up my job. There are probably a thousand people in the world who would kill for that job. He’d always said how proud he was to be with somebody so cultured. It was just part of his pitch.”

She opened the plastic tab that kept the lid of her coffee closed and took a drink. It was starting to get warm in the car again.

“So you moved to his place?”

“Yeah,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it over the rain. “I did everything he wanted. In the end I gave up my job. Moved to his place, but it never felt like a home. He’d had it ‘done’…” she did air quotes with one hand, “by a New York designer who was brilliant and gay and brilliantly gay.” Brandon sniggered. “So he didn’t want me to make any changes. Moving was just the beginning though. The demands didn’t stop there, but the more I agreed to, the more he wanted.”

When she stopped talking, Brandon said, “Like what?”

“My isolation. He started finding reasons why he didn’t like my friends. He felt like any attention given to them was attention that should have been focused on his needs.

“My clothes. He wanted me to play arm candy and, to him, that meant clothes more revealing than I was comfortable with.

“Everything became a point of contention, a reason to critique and pick at me. Long story short, I never did anything right.

“I never saw my family unless Trey was able to go with me and I knew that there would be hell to pay if they caught on to the fact that I wasn’t happy. One day my doorman rang the intercom and said my father was downstairs. I was panicked. I couldn’t let him come up because, ah, there was evidence of Trey’s displeasure.”

Brandon’s jaw clenched even though he knew this part was coming.

“He hit you.”

“Only when there were no command performances on the calendar for two weeks. Long enough for bruises to fade away.

“I told the doorman to let me speak with my dad. I said it wasn’t a good time. He said he didn’t care whether it was or not. He wanted to see me right then. We argued back and forth about it, but you know, he’s one of those guys. Doesn’t take no for an answer. You find a lot of those at the heads of big companies. He walked away from the doorman and called my cell.

“I told him I’d meet him for lunch, but didn’t plan to actually go. The bruises on my face were new. Fresh from the night before. Trey had thought I drank too much wine at a dinner party. He let me know in graphic terms when we got home.

“Dad said one of my friends had come to see him. Roxanne Radcliffe. She was my roommate at the sorority house my last two years as an undergrad. I ran into her shopping and she could tell something was wrong. I guess if you live with somebody for two years they know you really well. My acting skills weren’t up to the challenge of persuading her that I was okay. Apparently.”

She rifled through the sack of stuff and pulled out the cranberry juice. She took a drink.

Brandon glanced over at her.

“Go easy on that. I’m not seeing Ladies Lounges every few yards out here and, between theventicoffee and juice…”

“Mind your own business.”

He chuckled. She seemed to be growing more confident by the minute. He’d never thought he’d ever find the occasion to think the word ‘spunky’, but that was what popped up in his head.

“Don’t cry to me when you can’t hold it and don’t have any place to go.” He could feel her glare. “I’m just saying.”

They drove without talking while she polished off the banana, each hearing his or her own thoughts and the relentless sound of rain.

“How far to the next town?” she asked.

“You’re the navigator. You tell me.”

“It’s dark,” she said.

He leaned over her and retrieved a palm-sized light from the glove box.

“Here. It’s a miracle called batteries.”

“Funny,” she said drily. She opened the atlas and starting from the cottage, clearly marked with highlighter, estimated their location. “Jensing? About ten miles?”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“That’s because I’m not too sure. It’s a guess.”

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