He swirled the liquid in his glass. “This would pair well with quinoa, quail egg salad, and herbed roast chicken. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to make any of that.”
She chuckled. “I’ve never had quail egg salad.”
“It’s delicious. We’ll have it tomorrow night.”
“I take it, that means we’re going out.”
He smirked. “Yes, definitely.”
“Then it’s a date.”
He grinned as she smiled.
They drank a few glasses of wine and talked for nearly an hour. They talked about everything and Marj felt Brandon was really opening up to her. Nothing felt better to break down those walls he had always put up. But she never pried. She knew he’d eventually want to talk, so she stayed patient and never pushed.
“I’m so sorry for the way I treated you when we first got married,” he said.
“Honey, it’s okay. I was a stranger that you were suddenly committed to.”
“But I almost lost the best thing in my life.”
She squeezed his hand. “But we made it. And that’s the important thing. We’ve gotten to know each other so much better since that first day we met.”
“We’ve never talked candidly about the subject. But I don’t want us to have walls. I want us to talk about everything.”
“No stone left unturned? No secrets.”
“I don’t want any secrets in our marriage.”
He took a sip of wine. “When we first got married, I still wanted to play the field. Of course, not until after we divorced. But what I mean is, back then, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with one woman.”
“So you planned to have a wonderful year with me, then let me go.”
“Yes. I thought once I committed to anyone, I would lose the chance to date other women. I wanted to try and stay single for as long as I could, especially when I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. And there were other things that demanded more attention than my love life, like my job. I wanted to be able to zoom out of the country to take care of business without having to explain to a girlfriend why I had to leave for two weeks. Some women were so jealous and thought I was going to meet another lover.”
“Little did they know your secret lover is your job,” Marj joked.
Brandon laughed. “Exactly. I didn’t want to deal with that. In the past, I was with women who were insecure and jealous of every move I made. If I left to get a beer with the guys, I was cheating. No thank you. I need a woman who trusts me.”
“So you never took the time to invest energy into a relationship?”
“Not until now. But the old me was too selfish. I wanted to do only what I wanted to do. Or maybe it was because I was scared of losing myself. I was scared of losing my neat, well controlled little world.”
“I understand all that, but I think there was more. Were you scared to take the plunge? Or were you scared of getting hurt?”
“Committing involves risk. And I didn’t want to fail like my father did. I didn’t want to be a horrible husband and dad. So I was scared to give it a try.”
“But then you were forced to give it a try.”
“Yes. My dad knew I would never get married. He didn’t want me to follow in his playboy, lady killer ways. You see, I guess Lena was the woman to finally settle him down. He hated all the women I dated. So I know this was his attempt to force me to get married. Oh, I wasn’t going to let my father win. I tried to figure out all kinds of ways around the will. I was not going to let my father rope me into something I didn’t want. Then I almost ran out the clock. And my dad got his wish when I married you. And I kind of resented it at first. I hated being backed into a corner like that. I can’t tell you how mad I was at my dad.”
“I think he wanted to show you how wonderful marriage could be.”
“I think so too. Right before he died, I was dating this girl he really liked. She had long black hair and bright green eyes. She was elegant, smart, and very sociable. Everyone loved her. She grew up in the lap of luxury and my father thought she was perfect. He wanted me to marry her and begged me to have a wedding before he passed away. But I didn’t love her. He was so confident and cocky that after the will was read, I would run straight into her arms and get on one knee with a diamond ring and ask her to marry me. But all I really did was run as far away from her as I possibly could. His plan backfired.”
“Why didn’t you ask her?”
“She wasn’t what I was looking for.”
“How come?”
“Well…she wasn’t you.”
“Oh, Brandon.”