Stepbrother Untouchable(54)
“Brynn, did you messenger those envelopes like I asked?” Pierce says, turning to me.
“Hm?” I ask, startled by his question.
“The envelopes. I wanted to double check because you've seemed so distracted lately, and they're quite important.”
I frown at him. What the hell? “You didn’t ask me to messenger anything today, Pierce.”
“Brynn,” he sighs in a patronizing way, setting down his champagne glass.
“You didn't!” I reply, a little more defensively than I mean to. I glance at Nate and see him raising his eyebrows at me.
“You know that I did. And it's not like this is the first time this has happened,” Pierce counters.
“Maybe we should—” my mom breaks in.
“Wait, no,” I say to her, holding up my hand. “I honestly don't know what you're talking about Pierce.”
“Well, this clearly isn't the time to discuss it, but since you're pressing me, I've heard from some of your immediate superiors that you haven't been very responsible.”
“What? Like who? When?”
“Obviously I can't give you exact dates, and I need to protect their anonymity—”
“Wow. Wow,” I snap, tossing down my napkin. “You are just making all this up, aren't you?”
“Brynn, calm down,” Nate murmurs from across the table.
“Calm down? Seriously? He's lying!”
“He has no reason to—” Nate argues.
“He damn well does. He called me into his office today and unzipped my dress, and I told him to back off, and now he's pissed.”
“You know that's because I was worried about those bruises on your neck, Brynn. Don't get hysterical.”
“You're a liar,” I whisper.
He slams his hand down on the table, causing me to jump. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own house!”
I glance back and forth at my mom and Nate, speechless. Are they really just going to sit there staring at me? I stand up so abruptly that my chair almost falls over backward. I can't take being surrounded by this bullshit anymore. I walk quickly around the table and then out the front door, clenching my fists to try to contain my anger until I'm outside.
As I close the door behind me, I pick up my pace, walking straight down the driveway and out of the gates. The woods rise up quiet and dark around me as tears of frustration and humiliation begin to stream down my face. I don't know where I'm going—I just need to get away from that house.
“Hey! Wait!” I hear a woman's voice call out behind me, but I keep walking. “You're Brynn, right?”
I freeze and take a deep breath before turning around. “Look, if you're a reporter or something, I'm really not in the mood.” I can just see her blonde hair reflect the moonlight as she takes a couple steps closer.
“I'm not a reporter. I'm Nate's mom, Eileen.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Are…are you alright?” she asks, taking another step toward me.
“I'm, I'm just—” I break off as a sob escapes my lips. “I'm sorry.”
“It's alright. I've got some tissues in my car—why don’t you come sit down for a moment.”
I nod. In a saner moment, I might have questioned the safety of getting into a strange woman's car, but this is not a sane moment. She wraps her arm around my shoulders and leads me to the passenger side of her blue sedan, parked just down the street from the gates of the house. She sits me down then hurries around to the driver's side and gets in.
“Here you go,” she says, pulling a box of tissues from the floor of the back seat.
“Thanks,” I murmur rather incoherently. She flips on the car's overhead light. “Oh!” I exclaim. “You're the woman from the boathouse parking lot.”
She smiles wryly. “I thought you saw me that day. I'm not a stalker or anything. It's just, sometimes I like to get a glimpse of him, that's all. See what he looks like, how he's doing.”
“I understand.”
“But what's happened to you? Is there anything I can do?”
“It's Pierce,” I murmur as more tears fall from my eyes at the mention of his name.
“What'd he do now?”
“He…he made a pass at me at work. I mean, I actually wasn't sure that's what it was right after, but then tonight he got on my case about something I didn't even do, and that's when I knew for sure.”
“Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry,” she says, rubbing my shoulder. “Pierce has a serious case of entitlement. He thinks that anything with a vagina is fair game, even his stepdaughter, it seems.”
“I mean, I already knew he was an asshole from the way he treats Nate, but I just hadn't felt it directed at me yet.”