Anyway, even if you're upset that I haven't updated in a while, know that it was because the chapter didn't feel right until now. Please review and tell me how I did getting into my Brooke's head… I have a big plan for her and tell me if I got her down all right, huh?
A Love Story
26)
Brooke parked her car in the front of the Chandler mansion, climbing out immediately and striding towards the front door; Winifred opened the door immediately and Brooke strode in, easily shifting into her role as Adam's foil. It didn't matter how many years passed since her marriage to Adam had gone to Hell.
The Chandler mansion had always felt like hers, like she was meant to be there and call it home. No matter what happened or how many years passed or what was going on in her life or Adam's, it had always felt right into stride into the mansion and confront Adam with whatever the Hell he had done now.
Her life had become nothing, not since Jamie had left with Babe. Babe, who had turned JR and Jamie against each other; Babe, who had stolen Bianca Montgomery's baby and passed her off as JR's; Babe, who had caused all the hell the town was currently struggling to deal with. Babe, who had broken JR too deeply to ever be fixed.
Brooke had never really gotten the chance to call JR 'son' the way Dixie had called Jamie 'son'. And, she knew, some part of that was her fault, was the fault of how she had dealt with JR's conception and the divorce to Adam. There had always been some part of her that had known, in some innate way, that JR should have been hers.
JR should have been her child with Adam, the way they had both so desperately wanted for so long. She had given Tad a son he had never wanted and she'd been unable to give Adam what he so desperately wanted. Nothing about that had been fair and, while she'd never admit it out loud, she had accepted the fact that JR hadn't been hers.
All four of them had been so twisted together and look how it had paid off for them and their sons. Tad had only ever wanted children with Dixie and they all knew it, even when he had tried to hide it, and Jamie had sensed it even when Tad had hid so well. It should have been the other way around, Brooke thought darkly as she searched the halls for her ex-husband or ex-brother-in-law.
Dixie and Tad should have had their children, a whole little herd of blonde, southern-twanged, blue-eyed little darlings with broad grins and Tad's sense of humor and she and Adam should have had their child, should have had their son. She hated it, hated that she could think about her own son in such a way and she hated herself for thinking like this, over and over again.
And she'd never forget what she felt when she heard the news that JR's son, Adam's grandson, had been killed in that flood, the night of the storm. And she'd never forget how much her instincts had been pounding for her to go to JR, even though her own son, her own child, was out there God only knew where.
What kind of mother did that, really? Gave more care to her ex-husband's son who didn't even like her than to her own miracle baby who had run off with the woman who had put that ex-husband's son in such complete agony? It made her feel horrible, made her feel like she was even more of a failure as a mother than she'd been when she'd told Adam that she'd never be able to give him that child.
But the guilt didn't change the fact that she found herself terribly in need of telling JR that it would be okay, that she understood what he was feeling and that it would get better. Tell him that one day he'd be able to leave the nursery and mourn and then move on, have more children.
JR wasn't hers, no matter what her instincts told her, no matter what her heart said should have been and she denied every instinct that urged her to track down JR and comfort him. Besides, he had his mother back so he didn't need her anyway, right? However, Adam did need to be kept in line and what else did she have to do, really?
As if the thought was some magic word, she found herself at the door to Adam's study and, with one half-rap, she flung open the door and strode in and found herself staring at Adam and Stuart whispering. As soon as they spotted her, they stiffened, straightened and she was again reminded that Stuart had never quite perfected his Poker face.
Adam, on the other hand, simply smirked a bit at her, offering a glitter in his eyes as he smoothed his hands down his suit and studied her outfit in an entirely too male way. That was Adam for you; even scheming and planning and setting up little tricks, he still found the time to leer at her.
Simply another thing that always felt right.
She strode in, setting her bag nearby and asking, quietly, "Stuart, could you be a dear and give Adam and I few minutes of peace and quiet? There are some things we need to talk about." Stuart nodded immediately, offering her a half-hearted hug before leaving and clicking the door closed behind her.
Adam finally looked away from her gaze, clearing his throat nervously and kicking at the carpet beneath his foot a moment as he stood there, looking like a shamed little boy. Other women usually fell for the innocent act but Brooke was not some 'other woman' and she proved it by pulling out the papers from her blazer and held them up with a chilly look.
"Tell me how you did this, you egotistical, child-obsessed, silver-haired little gnome."
Brooke always had been one for the direct approach when dealing with Adam Chandler and he shot her a playfully wounded glance but she was no idiot. Even as she watched, he was edging away from her, skillfully putting a couch between himself and his ex-wife but he was no fool. No little couch would keep Brooke English at bay and so he continued his slight movements.
"Adam, I mean it, how could you do this!
"A father has to do what a father has to do," he snapped and she sighed, shaking her head tiredly and rolling her shoulders. "This was a business arrangement between the Slaters and JR, not some way for you to stick your nose where it doesn't belong. How the hell did you do this, anyway? I mean… this can't be legal."
"But it is," he crowed, laughing and then darted away again, chuckling quietly. "Clearly, or else you wouldn't be here, complaining. It's completely legal and they did it to themselves." He grinned, wriggled his eyebrows at her. "It'll work just fine, Broioke, trust me, okay? I know what I'm doing."
"Kincaide isn't happy with you."
A slight look of confusion, a small frown as his brows creased in bafflement. "She knows already?" he muttered, walking past her to lock the door and then move back behind his desk, glancing at her. "I thought she'd be scary when she found out what I did—"
"Oh, Adam," she sighed and took a step towards him, grabbing his lapels and gazing at him with an intense amount of amusement and sadness. "Not the daughter, not the girl, you stupid idiot. Kincaide, Buck Kincaide… I called him and told him what you did and he's on his way to Pine Valley as we speak."
"Damn," he muttered and, with a yelp, Brooke found herself being shooed out of his study and then found herself staring at his door. She stood for a few minutes, cocked her head and finally yelled, "I want my bag, Adam." The door was opened but as soon as she caught a hold of the bag, she caught the door, gripped it and glared at him. "What the hell are you doing?"
A grin, a twinkle in surprisingly youthful eyes and, before she could step back, he planted one on her, making her yelp again before he grinned at her again and whispered, "Getting Plan B set up," and shutting the door in her face, leaving her both amused and exhausted with dealing with her ex.
Ethan Ramsey had fallen head over heels for Simone Torres the first moment he'd bumped into her while meeting up at Fusion with Kendall for breakfast. He'd come to town for one reason, to find his father, and he'd instead found himself one of the finest women he'd ever known. Kendall had giggled for hours when she finally realized why he developed a twitch in his eye whenever Simone was mentioned.
Now, even with Kendall dealing with both Ryan Lavery's sudden change of heart and her own husband's strange isolation from her, she had set up Ethan and Simone for a date and promised to be there if he needed her. And, from where she sat at the restaurant, hidden partway behind a potted plant, peering out at her successful matchmaking.
The new romance between her favorite new Brit in Pine Valley and one of her friends was providing something for her to focus on other than her husband and her ex-lover's current obsession with her. She sat, glancing up every few minutes to check on Ethan and Simone, and considered the plate of Eggs Benedict absently.
"You're usually hungrier this time of the day."
She jerked, snapped her head up to meet Ryan's blue gaze and her stomach knotted painfully, a wrenching movement inside her as she dropped her fork, previously occupied by poking at the food, to the plate with a clatter. Even as she watched blankly, he took a seat across from her, leaning back and observing her.
He looked perfect as he always had, and she sat back, not jumping up but not wanting him to think that she still cared about him, even though she still did, and had the agonizing feeling that she always would care about him. He gave her a smile and she looked down at her mutilated food, clenching her hands in her lap. "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to talk," he stated quietly and she looked up at the slight tone. His eyes were soft, softer than they had been for a long time and she looked away, noting with a touch of amusement that Simone was now feeding Ethan bits of egg. "Kendall, I need to talk to you. We need to talk about things."
"There's nothing to talk about, Ryan. Where's Greenlee? You know, your little, precious wifey? You know, the one you love so much?" she was angry and she was confused and she hated the way he was looking at her, like she was suddenly so goddamn precious to him, like she meant something to him…
"Greenlee doesn't matter, Kendall… I want to talk to you." She dropped her face into her hands, swallowing as he continued and it was clear that he didn't care, not really. "We need to talk about this marriage with Zach and… I don't understand why you're acting like this… you used to be able to tell me anything and now you sneak off to Vegas and tie the knot?"
She wished he'd stop playing with her, stop making her hurt like this, stop making her so confused she didn't know what she wanted, not really. She could hear him talking, saying things that made since and didn't, saying things that made her ache like she hadn't since she'd stood there and watched him marry Greenlee.
"Ryan."
It was the quality there that made him go quiet and go still, and he froze, staring at her and then he looked away when she finally raised her head, and she reached and got a bag, standing and he turned back to her to find her gaze so devastated, so empty. "This must be love," she finally laughed, brokenly, shaking her head and making curls play.
"This must be love because nobody else can make me hurt like this so… that's gotta mean something right?" She shook her head again and, when he tried to grab her hand, she fled, snapping for him to stay away from her as tears streamed down her face and she tore out of the restaurant.
No one ever made her hurt like this so that must mean something, right?
Kendall didn't want him and it was almost more than he could bear.
He had known, very early on, that what she'd had with Ryan Lavery was intense. He wasn't that much of an idiot and he'd understood that, grasped that, once upon a time, they'd had the forever kind of love. Now, though, he had found that he had been stupid enough to let himself care about her.
But he had really thought, for a little while, that there was something, something he'd never really felt before, a kind of flutter inside him where there had once been nothing but an emptiness he had once worked so hard to create in the first place, something that had helped make everything easier to deal with.
Loneliness had been something he had been used to growing up. Even with all of the private tutors and the maids, he'd always found himself completely and totally alone in his childhood and even Michael's presence had never really filled that meaninglessness that he'd never been able to put into words or give anyone other than Edie a glimpse into.
When he'd finally snapped, finally fled, it hadn't been that hard, not really and he'd found that the physical solitude of that new life wasn't nearly as bad as being Alexander Cambias Jr. And then there had been Edie, another runaway who was searching for nothing more than her next meal.
They'd survived together, managed to keep themselves alive not just physically but inside too. He'd gotten her back and connected to her family and, when she'd learned the truth, she'd kept it for him, been the only one, for a long time, to know that he hadn't been born Zach Slater.
He felt more alone now than he had ever felt in his entire life and it was affecting him physically now. His sleeping habits, always under control, had been thrown to hell and his appetite was suffering as well. He had an overwhelming feeling that nothing was going right and that everything was wrong.
And everything that was wrong came down to the fact that Kendall clearly didn't want him.
He'd been incredibly stupid and fallen for her full force, and he had no real idea when it had happened, not really. He knew that he had begun to care about her before he'd taken her to Vegas and he knew that watching her with Miranda in the hospital that day, even if Kendall had spent the whole time glaring at him, had been a thoroughly enjoyable sight.
He knew that he loved the way she smirked and that he loved the way she laughed at him when she decided that he was being idiotic. And he knew that he loved the way she looked when she banged on his door in the middle of the night and snap for him to find a padre. And he knew, clearly, that he loved the way she'd glanced at him sometimes, a nervous edge in her gaze.
She didn't want him though, she wanted Lavery, and he had the painful idea that she would always want Lavery because, hey, who needs respect and real caring when you can have someone who married another woman while you stood there, drenched, watching in agony?
Yeah, why would she have wanted Zach anyway, when she could always be taken back by Lavery? He didn't really understand how she could possibly stomach the idea of going back to him, not really, and he hated the thought of her acting as a poor man's Greenlee when she was so much more than that Shrew could ever be.
Kendall should be appreciated, Kendall should be loved and cared for and treated like she wasn't just convenient for Ryan Lavery.
Zach would have treated her right, he would have appreciated her and loved and cared for her and he knew that he would have. It wasn't a hard thing to do, not with Kendall and he could easily see himself doing it years from now. Ryan Lavery was lying when he said that she was hard to love.
She was easy to love, no matter what her mood. Yeah, sometimes it was difficult to deal with her, to get her to stop attacking long enough to let you care for her but the love itself wasn't hard to muster up, not for Zach and he found it there constantly now, and each time he saw her, it got easier to love her.
Kendall didn't want him and it was more than he could bear. And what about Maxine, Maxie, that daughter of his that was so damn hateful and hurtful, the girl he saw his father in so clearly every time he saw her? He'd wondered, for just a moment, if Kendall might have been able to help.
Yes, he knew clearly how Kendall and Maxie felt towards each other but, he'd also wondered, just once or twice, if she might have been able to help him get it, understand it, perhaps help him deal with the daughter that he couldn't grasp or understand and was too afraid to want to understand.
Kendall didn't want him and it hurt and dealing with Maxie, or even trying to deal with her, was becoming harder and harder every time he managed to once again confront her with his attempts to simply hand over the company. Livia had already set everything in motion for the suit, was preparing but Zach continued to hope for some miracle.
Kendall didn't want him, clearly, but maybe Maxie could put up with him every so often.
The books were kept hidden, and were bearing the marks of her obsessive with their contents. She'd wondered, at first, if this was just some way to get back at her mother, if she was just getting back at her for taking her from her father like she had, dragged her away and lied and said that they would see him again in a while.
Always it was the same lie and it was getting too painful to believe, despite how much she wanted to everyday.
There were two things she had now, two things she had to focus on until she managed to get back home to her family, her real family. One, she had the books with the names and the things she carefully memorized, and it was the piece of crystal quartz that she had hidden around her neck.
And the other were the newspaper clippings she had saved, sheets of thin paper filled with black and white words and photos, the only part she still had of the people she loved, the people she couldn't help. She should be with them, at their side, should be able to be where she was supposed to be.
Her mother had attempted to take the few things she had left and she had learned to hide them, learned to keep them safe where her mother and that blonde bitch couldn't find them. Her bear, a little stuffed plush that Dad had gotten her before she could remember was kept in her bag, hidden in the bottom with the notebook filled with facts and things she had found in the libraries she managed to sneak to.
Now, as the rest of the farmhouse slept, she slunk from her bed, sliding to her hands and knees and tugged the bag out from beneath the bed, climbing back into bed with it and immediately tugging out her bear, holding it for a moment and savoring it before setting it at her hip and dragging the small box out of her bag.
The clippings she had just found were pulled from the pocket of her jeans, carefully examined before being slipped into the box, and she stared down at the top picture for a long moment, swallowing as she read the words she was getting so tired of reading. JR's son was dead, that's what they said in the papers and they slapped the Chandler name on everything now, slapped her father's face and JR's face on every paper to sell it.
They said that JR's baby was dead and that was a lie. She saw him everyday, came down to breakfast to see him shoving food into his mouth. He was the most precious thing she had ever seen and he was the only thing that kept her sane while she found herself being dragged from place to place, shoved around like she was some perfect doll.
And Babe loved him? Oh, yes, she knew how much Babe loved her son… she'd never forget how she had felt, how much she had hated babe when she learned that Babe had been the one who had left that damn iron on, left Little A to pull it down on his little hand. Her mother had taken her away from Dad to keep her from being hateful and hurtful and look what had happened.
She had never truly hated anyone, not really and she suddenly found herself struggling just to keep calm whenever Babe went around her, smiling and laughing and she hated her, truly, deeply hated the woman who had done all those things to her family. To her father and her big brother and her real family.
They called him James, bragged about Jamie's heroism. Yeah, stealing your bother's wife and baby, making him think his baby was dead? Yeah, he was a real heroic guy, clearly. But the thing that hurt her most was that her mother knew… her mother knew what they were doing to Dad and her brother, what they were doing and she didn't care!
All she cared about was keeping her precious daughter away from the evil Chandlers and she hated it, hated sitting in a room and hearing her mother and that 'hero' and that tramp sit and make nasty comments about the Chandlers. Was she that stupid? Was she stupid enough not to remember that her own daughter was a Chandler?
She shoved the box back into her bag when she heard the footsteps outside her door, shoved the bag under her blanket and rolled away from the door just before it opened, gripping the bear against her chest and closing her eyes and wishing she could just call JR and then hand him his baby, wishing she could fix her family and get back to her father and her brother, her real family.
Liza watched her for long moments, watched her before turning and leaving and Colby unhappily put away the bear, swallowing at the flood of emotion that came from putting it away. She stashed the bag, her throat aching and stared up at the ceiling, wishing she was home with the people who love her.