Beauty from Pain (Beauty, #1)(94)

When I’m outside the door, I take my phone from my pocket but it isn’t Daniel I call. I need my brother. “Evan, I need you to come get me.”

“Do you know what time it is?” he grumbles.

“No, and I don’t give a shit. Come pick me up at the Langford.”

–––––

I get into the passenger side of my brother’s kiddie-hauling SUV. He takes one look at me and shakes his head as he begins laughing. “You look like shit.”

Just what I need to hear. “Fuck you.”

He looks me over. “What the hell have you been doing?”

I stare out the window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, then why did you call me to come get you at this time of night if you didn’t want to talk? It’s not like you don’t have Daniel on salary to drive your drunk ass home.”

I’m starting to regret calling him. I don’t know what I was thinking. “Maybe I should have.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Maybe you should have.” He pulls out onto the street in the direction of my condo. “When did you get back into town?”

“Today.”

“Mum’s going nuts trying to get you. She’s dying to know what happened with Laurelyn.” I don’t reply as I continue to look out the window. “That’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? You asked her to stay and she told you no.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Then what happened?”

It hurts to say it. “She left without telling me goodbye.”

“Fuck! That bitch is cold.”

“Don’t call her that!” I warn my brother. “You don’t know anything about what happened.”

“Does it matter if she choofed off without telling you so much as kiss my ass?”

“Yeah, it sort of does matter. It makes all the difference in the world. We had a complicated relationship topped off with a stupid misunderstanding.”

“How complicated could it be? She was here for three months. You hung out, had a good time, and she went home.”

I can’t believe I’m about to tell him the truth. “It was much more than that. We had an agreement. She didn’t know my real name. I didn’t know hers. She was supposed to be my companion for three months until she went home. I insisted, and she agreed, we’d never have contact again once she was gone. But things didn’t go according to plan. I found out her first name. She found out my whole name. She told me she loved me but I was too stubborn to hear her because I’m a f*cking idiot. She couldn’t tell me goodbye and I let her get away without telling her how I felt.”

“So, you find her and tell her.”

He thinks it’s so easy. “That’s sort of hard to do when you don’t know the name of who you’re searching for.”

“Bro, that is messed up. Why would you do that?”

Evan doesn’t get what my life is like. He walked away from the vineyards and chose a simple life with a nine-to-five job so he could have Emma. “Because I’m a multimillionaire and a woman will use your ass when she finds out you have lots of money. I’ve been doing this for years and it’s always worked out fine. Until Laurelyn.”

“So, she didn’t know who you were or that you had a shitload of money?”

“Not until I brought her home with me after Dad got sick.”

“Mum is going to be so pissed off. She was already planning your wedding and naming your kids.”

He didn’t have to remind me. “I know. She fell in love with Laurelyn as much as I did.”

“So did my wife and kids. Celia still talks about her. Mila probably would if she could talk.”

I can’t believe I’m about to ask him this. “How did you know Emma was the one?”

He hesitates and I wonder if he’s going to tell me. I can’t say I’d blame him if he refused. “You can’t use anything I tell you against me. I mean it. No throwing this shit up in my face later because you think it’s funny.”

“No, man. You have my word.”

“We’d dated for several months but had broken up over something stupid and I saw her out with another guy. I don’t know how to describe the way it felt. Hurt. Sick. Pissed off. Desperate. And that’s just the short list. All he had to do was look at her and I wanted to choke the shit out of him with my bare hands.”

I think of how I’d been out of my mind with jealousy the past three months. I wanted to beat the hell out of Ben Donavon, Swinger Chris, and Blake Phillips. “Yeah, that sounds more than a little bit familiar.”

“Jack, you don’t always know the true worth of a woman’s love until it becomes a memory.” That’s pretty deep stuff coming from my little brother. “Nothing speaks louder than your heart. Listen to what it’s telling you. You don’t need me to tell you how you’ll know if she’s the one.”

“My heart’s not telling me anything. It’s screaming in desperation to find Laurelyn and tell her how much I love her.”

“Bro, you’re a rich f*cker. Call out the bloodhounds and go get your girl. She can be found for the right amount of money.”

Evan’s right. Laurelyn can be located for a price, and I know just the guy for the job.