AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He starts to turn his head away but then his palms close on my ass, and he pulls me tightly to him and presses his mouth against mine, his kiss hard and deep and then rips away from me. “I'm jealous of him, you know that? How ridiculous is that?”
“Jealous of Lee?"
"Yes,Lee." He says the name like it is dirty and grabs the bar of soap, rubbing it roughly across his chest.
"It's a mutual dislike. He's extremely jealous of you."
"He is?" The shock in Brant's voice makes me chuckle.
"Are you kidding? The brilliant billionaire who I’m madly in love with? Of course he's jealous. He knows exactly how much I love you, even if you are blind to it."
He rubs the soap slowly over my cleavage, then gently across and around one nipple. I feel our connection return, a righting of the balance between our souls. “So… this is why you won't marry me? Because of how I am?”
I swallow and move closer till our soapy chests are flush against each other. I lower my mouth to his wet skin and kiss the hard line of his collarbone. "It was why Iwouldn'tmarry you. Because of my lies, the secrets I kept from you because of it. I didn't think you deserved a wife with such a huge secret."
He pulls away and studies my face intently, like I’m an equation he can’t figure out. "And now?"
I hold his gaze. "And now ... there are no more lies. Not from me."
His body stills, his muscles growing rigid, and when he speaks, it's only his lips that move. "Are you saying that now..." He pauses, water dripping off his nose, and his eyes are thick with vulnerability, "that you'll marry me? With me like this?"
I step forward, pressing every piece of me against him, wanting to crawl into and hug his broken, terrified heart. "I'm saying that nothing would make me happier."
He groans and presses his lips against mine so hard, so strong, that it almost hurts, his hands grabbing at my skin and pulling me against him as if he will never have the chance to touch me again. "That's a yes?" he asks abruptly, pulling off my mouth, as if the last-minute verification is needed.
I smile, finding his eyes. "That's a yes, Brant Sharp. I will marry you and be your wife whenever you want to have me."
"Yesterday," he blurts, returning his attention to my mouth. "Now." He presses forward and pulls me tighter, making me aware of the size of his need. "Forever."
Then my future husband makes love to me in the shower of our home. And I make sure, for the next fifteen minutes, that no one else crosses his mind. Literally or figuratively.
Chapter 75
"When will the doctor be here?" Brant pulls on a T-shirt, then reaches for a pair of jeans when I'd rather him be in pajamas, in bed, behaving as my patient.
“Soon.” I looked around for my watch, but I’d forgotten to put it on.
He opens his sock drawer and reaches inside the segmented space, moving aside a pair of silk socks. Tucked behind them was a small black bottle, one he tossed to me. "Ask her what these are, and what they do."
I examine the bottle, twisting open the lid to see it stocked with white tablets. “Label says it’s Aciphex. I thought this was for stomach acid. You think it’s something else?”
“It’s not Aciphex." He gives me a sheepish look. "Jillian gives them to me each month, says they’re to control my blackouts. Given her recent behavior, I’d like to double check.”
“Your—what?" I hold up a hand. "Wait. We have so much to discuss. The majority of it concerning Jillian. Let’s compare notes, before the doctor gets here.”
He winces. “I’ll tell you as much as I know."
I pocket the bottle of pills. “Come on. Let's sit on the deck and talk."
* * *
"When I was eleven, everything in my life started to change. It came with the onset of puberty, hormones affecting more than just my temperament and body. It was as if my brain turned on full force, in a hundred ways at once. I could do dozens of calculations in a minute, but I also was bombarded with colors, images, thoughts ... more than I could handle at one time. I'd want to do three things at once. Or I’d have two different opinions on the same subject, at the same time. For instance, on the topic of God. I'd argue with myself, present both sides of an argument, understand the nuances and opinions of either side and feel strongly on both points." He collected his thoughts, then continued.
"Everything became, in a series of months, maddening. My brain worked in overtime, and I was exhausted over it. That was when the blackouts started. My brain would go sixty miles an hour then ... nothing. There would be hours of time where I would blackout and do things I had no recollection of."
We were on the corner balcony off the bedroom, looking over the shimmering ocean, and the sunny view didn't compute with the dread in his voice. I stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.
"Then, on December twelfth, I woke up from a blackout in a children's ward. Jillian was in the hospital and that was when the doctors and medical tests started. I don't remember a lot of that time, but when I got out, Jillian moved into our house. I never went back to school, didn't see my friends anymore. Everything had changed, everything was focused on keeping me home, on keeping my brain busy. Jillian was the one who directed that attention on computers. We discovered I did better if I had a problem and focused on it. Complex math problems, or unraveling code to debug a virus—anything that involved complex thought quieted the madness. This was in the early days, back when computers were input output computation tools. Data processors. That was about it. I learned to build a computer in fifteen minutes. Then I began the focus of improving the machine, its performance, then—once that was solved—its capabilities." He took a sip of ice water and then placed the glass down and glanced at me.
