Brook, not us. The three of them, the perfect family, marred only by their weak, pathetic, despised youngest member.
Even now, that was Blake’s takeaway from all of this.
“I’m the only one of us who hasn’t built his life on a lie.” The words came out of my mouth before I even knew they’d formed in my mind. Because they were true. Yes, everything I’d endured at my family’s hands had been because of a lie, but my education, my skills, my dedication—all of those were real. Mine, and no one could take them away from me. My voice didn’t shake. It felt like someone else, someone braver and more sure, had taken over my body. Maybe I was the pod person. “He lied. She enabled it. And you—you never gave any of it a single thought beyond how it made your life easier.”
Prescott spoke up at last, practically howling, “This wasn’t my idea! He made me—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dimitri said, and Prescott went pale and shut the fuck up. “All of you shut the fuck up. Blake, get some water for your father and help your mom. Brook. Come here.”
He didn’t wait to see if Blake obeyed him, simply took me by the arm and towed me over to the far corner of the room. I let him lead me, half-blinded by shock, my feet simply stumbling along as directed. Dimitri put my back to the wall, and I slumped against it gratefully, desperate for the respite of something to lean on.
And for the heat and strength of my mate surrounding me, sheltering me from the scene across the room. For a moment, I let my eyes close, flashes of memory from my childhood flickering through my mind, every moment of it newly painful now that it’d been reframed by the truth.
When I opened my eyes again, Dimitri had leaned down, eyes glowing and expression set. I didn’t want to see anything else, and I fixed my gaze on him hungrily, using his face and his scent and his looming, protective body to shield me from the rest of the world. Beyond him, my family was melting down completely, arguing and crying.
Dimitri’s powerful presence blocked them out.
“What do you want, Brook?” he asked softly. “You could walk away from all of this. Leave it behind and never have to see any of them again. Or you could take over, be the CEO. You need to tell me what you want.”
A shaky laugh wavered out of my tight throat. “So you can get it for me?”
A smile teased at the corners of his mouth, even though his eyes were so bleak. “Yeah. So I can get it for you. That’s what you hired me for, remember?”
Yeah. That’s what I’d hired him for. I went cold all over, eyes prickling.
I’d hired him, and he’d quit his job soon enough, since that’s what I was to him: a job.
But he wouldn’t leave until he’d helped me get what I’d worked for. And I still wanted it, that was the thing. I really, truly did. I’d poured my heart and soul into Castelli Industries, as stupid as it sounded. Some of my colleagues, my employees, had worked just as hard to get where they were, and had supported me every step of the way despite the way my more senior colleagues treated me. Maybe I didn’t care about the family name, but I did care about the reality it represented, all of the people who were so passionate about their work, and who depended on the company for their livelihoods.
I’d do better than my father. And I’d love every minute of it, because workaholic or not…I loved my job. Without him knocking me down every time I tried to stand on my own, I’d love it even more.
Almost as much as I loved Dimi—and I throttled that thought, forced it down so fast and hard it hurt.
That didn’t matter. My feelings didn’t matter, even though my chest ached, hollow and empty and cold.
“I want it,” I said at last. Dimitri hadn’t shown any signs of impatience, simply waiting for me to make my own decision. Not pushing, not trying to persuade me.
It was so fucking ironic that the only real alpha in the room—because apparently my father wasn’t, and Blake certainly couldn’t stand up to Dimitri—was the only one who didn’t want to control my every thought and action.
“I want to be the CEO,” I repeated, more strongly this time. “I know you think I’d be better off walking away. You probably think it’s kind of a, a shallow aspiration, or maybe that it wasn’t my own idea to begin with. But it’s what I’m good at, and it’s what I want.”
Dimitri shook his head. “I don’t think it’s shallow. I’ve seen how hard you work. And I don’t have an opinion about what would make you happy, Brook.” His low voice had a tinge of real unhappiness of his own, and that made it hard to believe him. But he added, “No one gets to tell you what’s best for you. I respect you enough to know you can make up your own mind.”
That I believed, because he’d shown me over and over again that he did respect me. That he saw me as an equal. And maybe that unhappiness I’d heard in his tone, felt faintly through the bond, was simply because he knew what a shock I’d had. Maybe he was afraid I’d have another seizure after all.
But I knew I wouldn’t. The seizures crept up on me when I felt powerless, when everything around me spiraled out of my control no matter how hard I tried or how diligently I worked.
This time, I knew what I needed to do.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s deal with this and get the fuck out of here.”
Dimitri nodded, and when he stood aside to let me out of the corner, I went ahead of him. He fell in behind me as if that had been his plan all along.
I faced the shambles of my family: my father still slumped in his chair and breathing hard; my mother hovering over him, looking like she’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes; Prescott, apparently trying to make himself invisible; and Blake, practically a different person without the veneer of his alpha posturing.
“Okay,” I said, looking at each one of them in turn and then focusing on my father. “This is how it’s going to be…”
Chapter 18
