Let it go. Just let me stay warm and safe with you in the present and ignore my past.
“How old were you when you started working?”
“Fifteen. I wasn’t pulling fries in a fast-food restaurant. And I didn’t work for fun money to blow on nail polish, trashy magazines and candy.”
Brady shifted and nestled his face in the curve of my neck. “Tell me all of it, Lennox. Even the things you don’t think I’ll understand.”
So I spilled my guts to him—telling him every dark thing I’d left out before.
He was quiet for a long time after I’d finished speaking.
Of course he is. What did you expect? He’s heir to a billion-dollar corporation. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he still eats with it. Your situation is a foreign concept to him. When will you ever learn that honesty isn’t always the best policy?
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until he whispered, “Breathe,” and spread his hand open over my chest to make sure I did.
I didn’t feel as if a great weight had been lifted. I didn’t feel a deeper connection to Brady. I just felt drained.
When he finally spoke, it wasn’t what I’d expected. “We’ll see if you have an affinity for the great outdoors tomorrow.”
“More hiking?”
“No. With the fresh snow it’ll be a perfect time to go cross-country skiing. And don’t worry about equipment. The Lund cabin is fully equipped.”
“Cross-country skiing . . . Is that the thing where we shoot guns too?”
He chuckled into my hair. “No. That’s a biathlon.”
“Sounds like more fun if we’re armed.” I tried to imagine myself on a pair of skis. I pictured myself falling over. A lot.
“You tensed up again. Why?”
“I’m just thinking that maybe you could go cross-country skiing and I could have a cup of hot chocolate waiting for you when you got back. I’m thinking maybe I’m more the ‘hang out at the cabin and tend the fire’ kind of a chick.”
“No. I want you with me.”
“Because I’ll be so loud and clumsy that I’ll scare off any wildlife that might attack us?”
Brady sighed.
I suspected he was trying not to laugh.
“Go to sleep, Lennox. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“You’re sleeping here?”
“Yeah. I’m too comfy to move.”
Such a lie. But it was sweet that he knew I didn’t want to be alone. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
I wasn’t used to sharing a bed with someone. I worried I’d lie there for hours with no sleep in sight. But the rhythmic sound of Brady’s exhales soon sent me floating off into slumber.
Chapter Fourteen
Brady
‡
I woke up alone.
In Lennox’s room.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, letting the sleep clear from my brain, thinking about last night.
Lennox’s story had haunted me.
My childhood had been relatively normal. I fought and played with and defended my siblings and cousins. None of us were raised by nannies, although my mom did have her sister Britta live with us for a year after Jensen was born to help out. What I hadn’t known at the time was that my father had largely been absent that year, due to the dissolution of various divisions of Lund and Sons as it was rebuilt into Lund Industries. After the grain wars, the government had stepped in and forced us, and our largest competitor, to divide our assets so there was no possibility of a merger between our companies so we could create a monopoly.
It’d been a stressful time in my parents’ lives. Four children under the age of six, plus an uncertain financial future. What had been a life-changing time for them hadn’t even been a blip on my radar. Kids are oblivious. Kids of wealthy parents even more so.
As the oldest kid in the family, my parents expected a lot from me. With no nanny, if my mother was busy, I was put in charge of keeping an eye on my siblings. I had to lead by example. I didn’t mind, likely because it’d been such an innate part of me from such a young age that I didn’t think about it and also because I always got to be in charge.
We lived in a gated community—both my uncles and their families had houses and guest quarters on the property—that we jokingly referred to as the Lund Compound in our later years. The year I’d turned ten, I started to notice things that I wasn’t allowed to do, like ride my bike to a friend’s house, or hang out at the community pool, or meet my school buddies at the baseball fields. We lived right on Lake Minnetonka, but I wasn’t allowed to go down to the lake without adult supervision. The only place I could ride my bike was down our long driveway. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t walk to the local convenience story for candy. Why I couldn’t have any of my friends over to my house without an itinerary decided weeks in advance.