The Way You Look Tonight (The Sullivans #9)(61)

"I’ve just told you the truth, Brooke."

"No," she said in a harder voice than he ever thought he’d hear from her, "you’ve just given me your sneaky, twisted, cynical version of what happened." She turned her face away as if she couldn’t stand to look at him. "After our meetings in Seattle were through this week, I asked Cord and his wife to have a quick drink with me. Despite everything going well with our business, I could tell how down he was, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. Their fertility doctor had just told them they had one more round of IVF left before it was time to give up trying to have a baby, but it had to be done right away or the clock would have run down too far for his wife, who is several years older than he is. They’ve already run through their available cash, and the rest is tied up in our business. I told them I wanted to help, but they wouldn’t take my money. But because we’re friends—real friends who talk about our feelings and dreams—I know how badly they want to have a baby and how hard it’s been on them to fail to conceive. I gave his doctor my trust account information for direct billing. That way, the money was already spent, and he and his wife, who is also now a friend of mine, had to take it."

Fuck. He couldn’t believe how badly he’d gotten things wrong. And yet, she had to understand why he’d done it, didn’t she?

"I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that he wasn’t stealing from you, but…"

The rest of his sentence fell away as he looked into her eyes and finally realized what heartbreak—and betrayal—looked like.

"Can’t you see that by checking up on my business partner like this, especially after I’d already told you that I’d done my research, you’ve treated me exactly like my parents always have—as if I’m not capable of making savvy business decisions? How could you, Rafe? Especially when you just told me last night that you see the real me."

"I do see you," he swore to her. "But you don’t know what else I’ve seen. Not just men cheating on their wives. Not just wives cheating on their husbands. But people planning horrible things. Extortion. Blackmail. Kidnappings. And worse. You have no idea what people are capable of, but I know exactly what could have been in that report Ben emailed me. Can’t you understand, Brooke? I needed to be sure. Completely sure."

* * *

Brooke felt everything that wasn’t already breaking inside of her start to shatter at his words.

"I needed to be sure."

"What else did you need to be sure about?" she asked in a soft voice. "Just my business decisions...or me, too?"

He reached for her. "Brooke—"

She took one step away from him, and then another. "I get that you don’t trust people. I even mostly understand your reasons. That’s why I said you could ask me anything. Anything. But instead of asking me what you wanted to know about my past—" She worked to stay strong enough, steady enough, but she had to ask. "Did you do a background check on me?"

Unfortunately, she could read the answer on his face even before he said, "I swear I haven’t read it and I’m not going to."

Suddenly, she could hardly breathe. But it wasn’t the wonderful kind of breathlessness that took her over when he was kissing her. No, this was a horrible, terrible pain that resonated deep in her chest.

"It was one thing for you to investigate Cord, and I can almost forgive you for thinking that being overprotective means you’re taking care of me. But how could you possibly justify running a background check on me? Don’t you know me at all after the past week? Or how about after we practically grew up together?" He’d just told her he loved her for the first time hours ago. But how could he love her if he’d done this? "You told me you would never forgive yourself if we slept together in the heat of the moment and I woke up the next morning and decided it was a mistake. But I knew that would never happen. Because you could never be a mistake." The pain beneath her breastbone intensified as she said, "I can’t believe I was wrong."

"You’re not wrong, Brooke. I’m not a mistake. We’re not a mistake." He started to reach for her again, but when she flinched, he dropped his hand. "I’m sure about loving you. Absolutely, one hundred percent sure. I think I always was, right from the start, but with everything moving so fast it was easier to tell myself that I didn’t know where my head was than to admit that I had fallen in love with you this fast. This hard. This deep." His breath came fast, as if he’d been running a race. "I know I screwed up big time with this report—"

"I want to see it." It would be so easy to let herself listen only to his words of love, of how deeply he claimed to feel it. She forced herself to focus on what he’d done, instead. "I want to see what you found out about me in your background check."

"Brooke—"

"Show it to me, Rafe."

His eyes were wary as he reluctantly handed her his phone. "Ben told me it’s on page ten so that I could skip it."

As she scrolled through the report and quickly read through the list of all of her old addresses, her previous jobs, information about her parents and their jobs, one stupid tear fell onto the screen, and she dashed it away with the back of her hand.

"You missed the candy bar I slipped into my bag at the corner store when I was five because my parents wouldn’t buy it for me."