Yours to Savor (53 page)

Brandon closed his eyes. “Look, I had no
choice
. I had to look after my brothers and sisters, and my mom.”

“That kind of backfired on you, didn’t it?” Sandra noted sarcastically.

“Yes.
God knows
, yes. My mother kicked me out of the house. She told me never to speak to her again unless I was clean. You know the rest. I went to live with my grandparents.”

“Did they know you were dealing drugs?”

“They suspected it, but took me in anyway. I went to high school, kept dealing drugs on the side. I never spent the money I earned. I saved all of it to give to my family.”

“While ruining lives in the process!”

“Dammit, that’s not my
fault
!” Brandon roared. Sandra shrunk back, and right away he regretted the outburst. He had to keep a rein on his temper if he was to have any chance of winning Sandra back. “Look, I came here to come clean. To tell you everything you want to know. But, you have to understand that anything I kept from you, I did it
so I wouldn’t hurt you
.”

He saw her draw back again. It was just a miniscule flinch this time, but Brandon noticed. “If that’s what you think,” Sandra said, her voice low and soft, “then you failed miserably at it. You can go now, Brandon.”

“
No
. Not until I tell you what I came to say. Then, if you still want me to leave, I’ll go.”

She looked him up and down. Brandon thought her eyes became more remote. But, finally, she whispered, “Fine.”

It was his chance. “All my life,” he started, “I’ve regretted only one thing most of all. One thing, because it’s the only thing I know I can never fix. It’s not what happened with my family. I can change that in the future. I can go back to them, work on fixing my relationship. It might take time, but it
will
happen. I’m sure of it. There was one thing I did that I can never take back.”

Sandra looked at him, impatience clear on her face. Brandon cleared his throat. “You asked me once if I knew more about the fire. I do. I was there.”

Sandra’s blank look didn’t change. “I know that.”

“But there’s something you don’t know. Something happened that night that haunts me every day. I was young, stupid, and
rash
. I sold drugs to a teenage girl at that party. She had no idea what she was doing.” Brandon took a deep breath. “She overdosed before the explosion, and couldn’t get out of the house in time.”

“
Chloe
.” The word was a gasp. Suddenly, tears appeared in Sandra’s eyes. “My sister?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“For so long, I thought she died because of
me
. Because I couldn’t get to her in time.” She was crying now, the tears flowing freely. “But she didn’t. She died because of
you
! I lost her because of you! Because you
sold drugs to her
!” Sandra shot up, eyes red. “You bastard! How
dare
you come in here, Brandon? How
dare
you think you can fix things? My older sister died because of
you
. That night ruined my life forever!”

Brandon flexed and unflexed his fists helplessly. He knew she was right. But, now that she’d learned the worst, he had to push on. “That night changed me too, Sandra. It changed
everything
about me. Never again were there any lives broken because of what I did.”

“You’re
defending
yourself? You’re a fucking hypocrite, Brandon. Get out!” Sandra screamed. “Get out now!”

Brandon ignored her, and took a step toward the counter. Sandra backed away. “Look. This is what happened. I graduated high school; I did well. When I finished, at eighteen, I left all the money I’d made with my grandparents. I told them to give it to my sisters and brothers. I went to Swarthmore, finished two years there, but got booted for dealing.”

“That’s a great story.”

“It’s the
truth
. I’m being honest with you. That’s where I met Clarisse. She was the arts professor I told you about in Seattle. And I swear, never again has anyone’s life been broken because of me. I was young and stupid at the start—”

“You do the same thing now!” Sandra accused.

“It’s different. I only sell to adults rich enough to afford luxury spending. Athletes, actors, music producers, fortune five hundred execs… the type of people who can control their drug use. Clarisse and I built our network from the ground up. We provide the product, and we’ve worked with the DEA, with police officers, with government officials to make sure everything stays squeaky clean. Everything we do hinges on that. There’s never any violence. We never,
ever
sell to kids. We don’t use drugs ourselves. The people we recruit as our distributors are never younger than twenty-five. And the people we sell to… well, they’re all people who know what they’re doing. They know how to get help when they need it.
We
make sure of that. Ever since I started this whole thing with Clarisse, I’ve been saving as much money as I could so I could retire, get out of the game, and move on to the next chapter of my life.”

Her tears had stopped as he talked, but her eyes were still red. “I want you to leave.”

“Sandra,
you’re
the next chapter of my life. I’ve been waiting for this day for years. The last job is done, and my savings are topped off. I can see my family again. My sisters, my younger brothers. I can see how they’ve grown up, see what they’re doing. I can see my mother again.” He looked straight at her. “I don’t want to do it without you.”

“I said, I want you to leave.” Her tone was icy cold.

“Not without you. Not until you look me in the eye and tell me you want me to go. Until I know that’s what you
really
want.”

Sandra stood even taller. She looked him straight in the eye. There was not a flicker of doubt in her words. “I want to you go. Now.
Never
speak to me again.”

Brandon staggered back, shocked. The words hurt. “Sandra…”

“
Now
!” Sandra ordered, unlocking the door and holding it open for him to leave.

Brandon couldn’t believe his ears. But, he’d told Sandra he would respect her decision. “The lady of the manor has spoken,” he said under his breath. He turned, and left the office.

Sandra waited until Brandon was out of sight. When she was sure he wouldn’t come back, she shut the door firmly and locked it. Then, she picked up a box of Kleenex and walked very calmly to the bathroom.

There, she sank down and cried.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Brandon got into his car and drove.

He didn’t know where he was going, and didn’t care. He needed the feel of freedom, the exhilaration of power. He whipped past other cars on the freeway, not caring how close he came to colliding. With his foot on the gas, it wasn’t long before he was doubling, nearly tripling the speed limit.

There was too much pain in Ocean Shores for him to ever go back. Too much that reminded him of Sandra in that small town. He’d poured his heart out to her—the first time he’d ever done something like that in his life—and still she told him to go.

He’d meant everything he told Sandra. Maybe he was a fool for hoping it would be good enough.
Of course it wasn’t. You betrayed her
.

But, never in a million years did he think she would tell him to leave, and
mean it
. In a single breath, she carved his heart out and cleaved it in two.

Vaguely, he became aware of his phone ringing. Over and over again. He ignored it. His second phone joined in. He ignored them both. Whatever Clarisse wanted could wait. Brandon was out of the business now.

As he drove faster and faster, urging his car for speed, he felt something tug at the back of his mind. Some loose thought trying to break free. But he was too angry with himself to pay attention. All he wanted was to forget himself in the sound of his roaring engine, the thrill of
speed
, the danger of driving at the very edge.

When the sun set hours later, that stray thought came crashing into his consciousness.

Sandra’s eyes had been dark when she told you to go
.

The insight was a beacon in the dark. He didn’t know how he’d missed it before. With that mask over her eyes, there was no way Brandon could believe, not in his heart of hearts, that she actually wanted him to leave.

She was masking her real self again. And he would
not
let her go until he got the truth from her.

He veered off at the next exit, stopped the car, and took out his phone. There were more than a dozen missed calls from Clarisse. They were punctuated by a single text message:

Trouble.

Sandra left the office after all her tears had been cried. She was alone now, sitting in the dark on her bed. She was exhausted, but her mind raced, replaying everything Brandon had said over and over again.

Seeing him today had only brought the pain he’d caused back to the surface. But, as his words danced in her head, she became more uncertain of herself.

In a way, she was proud of how she’d handled things. She hadn’t trusted herself before to talk to him—she was afraid she’d be too weak. But when he’d come to see her today, she’d proven herself strong. She’d stood up to him and told him exactly what she thought. It was only
after
he’d left that she had fallen apart.