Chapter Eight: Revenge and Revelations
Brooke rolled her eyes in impatience as two of her friends began to gossip animatedly at the nose job that someone had gotten. It irritated her that she spent so much time with these women, but irritated her far more than she was one of them.
She heard snippets of their conversations:
"Did you hear… she said that? Dana Peterson… Lucy Wheeler… slut… no, I don't believe that."
Holding back a groan of frustration, she got up. Brooke walked quickly into the beach house. Nathan had bought it for them two years after their marriage, just as they had begun to make money. They'd been so happy there.
Surprising herself, Brooke picked up the phone to call her own home. It rang through to the message machine. She tried again.
Suddenly Brooke Scott was struck with the terrifying, rational thought that he was with her. She didn't have a name to Brooke, she didn't even have a face, but she existed. In her mind she was large breasted, blonde and had young, beautiful skin. She was everything Brooke was not, and she flaunted it.
Her patience, which had been wearing thin for years, suddenly snapped. Suddenly she was tired of the guilt she felt for her own adultery, and the anger she felt at her husband's. Suddenly she knew that sitting back and watching it happen wouldn't work anymore, and that she had to do something about it.
After changing into a sultry sundress, she got into her car and drove five miles down the beach to another beach house. Lucas Scott's.
"Brooke? What's wrong?" he asked in concern when he answered the door. Losing some resolve, she fell forward into his arms and sobbed.
"Nathan's sleeping with someone who isn't me. We're not in love. I don't know what to do," she said.
"Nathan wouldn't…" began Lucas, in defense of his big brother.
"Nathan did. He said someone elses name when we were… and he's not answering. He's with her now," said Brooke.
"Look, do you want to keep him?" asked Lucas sternly.
"No," she whispered. Gathering her courage, she leaned forward to kiss him lightly. After a moment of shock, of bewilderment, his repressed feeling came fourth: he kissed her back. His arms were suddenly around her, holding her protectively.
"Oh, no. God Brooke, what the hell are we doing?" asked Lucas, when suddenly he realized what he was really doing.
"Indulging ourselves. Luke, can you really deny what you feel for me? What you've always felt for me?" she asked. Lucas' mind took him back in time: to when Nathan had introduced the then Brooke Davis to him and his parents, and he'd prayed, secretly, they'd break up so he could have a chance. When they'd married and he'd had to stand in the church, be the best man, while they were bound together in marriage, glowing with happiness. When he'd had to watch them for ten years, growing steadily unhappier.
"You know how I feel about you, Brooke. I think you've always known. But this… you're my brother's wife, despite how he treats you," said Lucas firmly.
"I don't want you to protect me, Luke. I want you to love me. Like you always have," she whispered. She leaned forward and kissed him again. Somehow he found himself going along with it. It was impossible not to. Brooke was a year or two older than him but she was beautiful. And perfect for him, she always had been.
She hadn't been with many men besides Nathan, so it was his experience that guided them. She tugged off his shirt while he pulled the small sundress she was wearing over her head. Eventually he disappeared between the covers and began to pleasure her before he entered her completely and she pleasured him.
"That was the dumbest thing I've ever done," said Lucas eventually.
"And the best," said Brooke.
"And the best. Are you going to stay with Nathan?" he asked, anxiety tinged in his voice.
"No," she whispered.
"He's your husband, Brooke. This would kill him," said Lucas.
"He doesn't have to know! And we'll wait a while. Until after he marries his mistress. Then we won't seem like such the bad guys," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Wait for what?" asked Lucas.
"What do you want to wait for, Tiger?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. In a mad moment of desire, he lunged for her and they tumbled off the bed, kissing wildly.
Brooke hoped her friends would get drunk on margaritas and fall asleep on the sofas, because otherwise they'd possibly notice that she'd disappeared five hours earlier. And being the bored urban housewives that they were, they'd gossip. And bring their gossip back with them. All of them knew who was staying down the beach, and everyone that 'mattered' in the Manhattan society knew about Lucas Scott's feelings for his sister-in-law, who was perhaps the only woman on the entire island he couldn't get.
Lucas flicked on the television to the news. Brooke gasped when a piece came on about a fire that had occurred at the airport her plane was scheduled to land in the next day. A fire that would mean that no planes could arrive for at least two weeks. Meaning that Brooke Scott was stranded. With her brother-in-law.
"Well, looks like we're going to have to get used to this," she said, winking at him.