3 Seconds (Time for Love Book 6) (13 page)

“Maxime, what
are you doing here?” I asked dumbly, feeling as if I’d walked into
an alternate universe, one where my ex-husband was standing in my
office, rather in his kitchen in France where he belonged.

He tsked as he
took a couple steps toward me.

“Is that any
way to greet your husband?”

I grimaced at
that, awareness finally dawning.

“
Ex
-husband,” I corrected, dodging to the left before he
could pull me into his embrace.

Maxime waved
his hand, as if the divorce was a formality that he didn’t abide
by.

“No matter the
paperwork,
Mon
Cher
, you will always be my wife.”

Flashbacks
started to hit me, and I was pulled back to the many times he’d
said those very words. Maxime lived by his own rules, in his own
universe, where he was king and got anything and everything he
wanted.

“No, Maxime,
that’s what
divorce
is … the end of our marriage. I thought
we went over all of this before I left France. And, don’t call me
that.”

I suddenly felt
the beginnings of a headache.

“I know what
divorce is, Bronagh, but I’ll
never
believe that we are
over.”

“Why are you
here?” I asked again, rubbing my temples as I tried to mentally go
back to my happy place. In the closet, with Brendan.

“I’m sure you
have heard about the job I’ve offered,” he said, his words tinted
with his French accent. I used to love that sound, but now, it just
reminded me of a time when I was hopelessly foolish. “I decided to
come down and congratulate the winner myself. The department knew,
maybe they wanted it to be a surprise.”

Yay
, I
thought sarcastically, then felt ugly for being bitchy. Having
Maxime offer the job at all was a privilege for the school, but
having him come in person was something they would see as an honor.
I just didn’t understand why I hadn’t heard of his impending
visit.

Maybe I’d
been too caught up in my own misery to pay attention to what was
happening at school
, I thought, chastising myself for not
paying attention. I could of saved myself this uncomfortable
moment.

“Oh,” I
replied, giving him a tense smile. “Well, the students will love
that. It was very generous of you to offer a job to a member of the
graduating class. Whoever wins will be very luck to train under
you.”

The last was
said honestly. Maxime may be a selfish man and a shitty husband,
but he was an excellent chef.

He nodded, much
too confident to do anything but agree with my statement.

Maxime tapped a
finger on the dimple in his chin, a habit that brought back
memories that weren’t terrible.

“There is a
young man, Brendan O’Malley, that I had the pleasure of meeting
when he was traveling last year. I’ve heard that he is a contender
for the job. This pleases me, as he was a very apt pupil.”

I had a crazy
and overwhelming desire to snatch Brendan’s name off his lips. My
stomach curled at the thought of them working together. Although I
knew it would be good for Brendan’s career, the thought of my
ex-husband and semi-current lover creating side-by-side made me
uneasy.

I cleared my
throat and tried to school my features, so as not to give away my
feelings for this particular student.

“Yes, Mr.
O’Malley is currently the top of his class. There is just one other
student who is competing for the position, but if O’Malley wants
it, I’m confident that he’ll get it.”

“Why wouldn’t
he want it?” Maxime asked, his natural arrogance showing through.
“Who would turn down a position in the best restaurant in the
world?”

He sniffed at
the thought.

I didn’t reply.
My heart was pounding, my breathing hard, at the thought of Brendan
taking the job. He’d said he wouldn’t, but now that I’d told him I
didn’t want to see him anymore, what was stopping him.

“Well, Maxime,
it was good to see you,” I lied, gathering my things and hoping he
didn’t realize there was a reason I didn’t answer his question.

I’d made up a
meeting earlier to escape from Brendan, and now I needed to get out
of here. Away from the school, memories of Brendan, and the
actuality of my ex-husband being on my turf.

I needed a
stiff drink, and Ming … and to work out the confusing thoughts and
mixed emotions that were tearing me apart.

“I was hoping
we could have dinner,
Chéri
,” the man I used to love with all of my heart
said with a charming grin. Unfortunately, that grin had ceased to
work on me after the first time I’d caught him in bed with another
woman.

“Sorry to
disappoint you, but I have a date with Ming.”

His lip curled,
as I’d known it would at the mention of my friend. The two had
never been fans of each other, and after she’d found out about his
extracurricular love life, she’d threatened to cut off his balls
with a meat cleaver.

“I guess I’ll
see you later then.”

I nodded, not
wanting to encourage his attempts to see me outside of school, then
without another word, fled the office. Once I made it to my car, I
shot Ming a text to see if she was working late or if she could
meet, then got the hell out of there.

Chapter
Twenty-Three ~ Brendan

I’d just gotten
home, still reeling from the encounter, and subsequent dismissal,
with Bronagh. I was itching for my guitar and heading in that
direction when my phone rang.

“
Shit
,”
I exclaimed, frustrated at the interruption, but picked up
immediately when I saw my brother’s name.

“What’s
up?”

“Hey, Bren,”
Brady said, his voice sounding hurried.

“Yeah?”

“I just left
Jake’s
. They said Natalie’s missed her last three shifts,
and they can’t get ahold of her.”

“Brady,” I
began, knowing where he was going with this, “it’s not your
business, brother.”

“I’m heading
over to her place now,” he replied, confirming my fears.

“Don’t,” I
warned. “If there’s shit going on with her husband, you don’t need
to get in the middle of it. Why isn’t Jake or one of the girls
going over there? Have they called the cops?”

“Don’t know,”
Brady answered. I could hear his car door shutting in the
background.

“Brady, stay
out of it, man.”

“Can’t,” he
replied. “I’m just going to make sure everything’s okay.”

Before I could
try to talk him out of it, he hung up.

“
Fuck
,”
I muttered, picking the keys I’d just laid down back up.

Visions of
Brady getting into a fight with Nat’s jack-ass husband had me
racing back out to my bike. The last thing he needed was to get hit
with a charge. That wouldn’t help his dreams of becoming a cop, and
the last thing I wanted was for him to miss out on his dream
because he was playing hero to a waitress in a bad situation.

Hoping I
remembered how to get to her place after the one time the guys and
I had given her a ride home from the bar, I zoomed south, toward
the trailer park at the edge of town.

Brady’s
restored ’66 Malibu looked out of place parked a few driveways down
from the dingy singlewide trailer, but I breathed a sigh of relief
when I saw that he was still sitting inside.

I swung my leg
over the bike, surveying the area as I walked over to Brady’s car,
and tapped on the window.

“What the fuck
are you doing?” I hissed when he rolled the window down.

Brady pointed
toward Nat’s place and said, “They just went inside, looked like
they were fighting.”

“So you saw her
then?” I asked. “She’s alive?”

When Brady
nodded I added, “Then we can get the hell out of here. That’s what
you needed to know, right?”

Brady shook his
head and I swore under my breath.

“I need to talk
to her.”

He opened the
door, shooting me a look when I made a halfhearted attempt to hold
the door closed.

“Don’t do this
… Think about the academy,” I said, making one last attempt to stop
him, even though I knew Brady was as hardheaded as they come.

“I’m not going
to do anything stupid,” he assured me. “I just want to make sure
she’s good.”

Knowing I was
going to have no success in talking him down, I figured the next
best thing would be to have his back, and followed him to the front
door of the trailer.

When we got
closer, we could hear the shouts coming from inside.

“You stupid,
good-for-nothing bitch. I’m so sick and tired of this place looking
like shit. Quit being so fucking lazy and pick up a broom every
once in a while.”

I could see
Brady flinch at the words coming out of Natalie’s husband’s mouth,
and put a hand on his arm in an effort to keep him from doing
anything rash.

“I’m sorry,
Zeke,” Natalie’s voice was whisper soft, so I had to strain to
understand her response. “I just cleaned this morning, but I’ll do
it again.”

A loud crash
caused me to jump, followed by another, and another.

“Guess you
missed a spot,” Zeke said. “I’m going to take a shit, and when I
get back, this better be cleaned up.”

A door slammed,
and Brady raised his hand to knock, but I stopped him before he
could alert them to our presence.

“He’ll hear,” I
whispered, then placed my hand on the door handle and pushed,
hoping like hell Natalie was dressed, and didn’t scream to high
heaven when she saw us coming inside.

The last thing
either of us needed was to get arrested for breaking and entering,
but after hearing the way Zeke talked to his wife, I was with Brady
in needing to see that Natalie was okay for myself.

Brady peered
around the door, and when I didn’t hear a shout, but rather
Natalie’s soft voice, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Brady?”

My brother
stepped inside and I followed right behind him.

“Brendan? What
are you guys doing?” She came into view and I notice she had a
death grip on the broom handle and was nervously looking over her
shoulder, presumably toward the bathroom.

Brady kept his
voice low and said, “Jake said you haven’t been coming to work, and
no one could get a hold of you. We just wanted to make sure you
were okay.”

“Oh.” Natalie’s
cheeks were tinged with embarrassment when she replied, “I’m fine.
Zeke’s just been needing me around here is all. Tell Jake I
understand if he has to let me go.”

“Are you okay?”
I asked, my eyes darting toward the back.

“Yeah, I’m
fine,” she replied, her voice shaky.

“Does he always
talk to you like that?” Brady asked, his face hard with restrained
anger.

Natalie
shrugged and said, “He’s not so bad.”

“Does he ever …
hit you?” I asked, feeling like I was overstepping my bounds, but
needing to ask the question anyway.

Natalie shook
her head.

“No, he loves
me … He just works so hard, he gets upset when he comes home to a
messy house. I’ve been working so much that I’ve fallen behind on
my duties. “

“You don’t
deserve to be treated that way, Nat; you should leave,” Brady said,
leaning down to look her in the face. “We could help you.”

“I’m fine,” she
said, her back straightening a bit, letting us know that she wasn’t
beaten down yet. “You should go before he come out. He doesn’t like
me talking to other men, and he wouldn’t take kindly to you being
in his house.”

“You know how
to get a hold of us if you need anything,” Brady said, making one
last attempt. “Anytime.”

“C’mon, bro,” I
said, tugging his arm, wanting to get the hell out of there before
the shit really hit the fan.

He left
willingly, and I looked behind to see Natalie closing the door
behind us, her expression sad.

“
Goddammit
.” Brady hit the roof of his car, surprising me
with the level of pissed off he was feeling. That car was his baby,
and I’d never seen him lay a hand on her in anger before.

“Drink?” I
asked, knowing he needed to talk, but wanting to get him the hell
out of this trailer park before he changed his mind and confronted
Zeke.

“Yeah.”

“Follow me,” I
said, jogging to my bike and hopping on, hoping to expedite this
process. I knew a little bar not too far from there with great
Friday night Happy Hour specials, so I got us there as quickly as I
could without breaking any laws, and clapped my brother on the back
as we entered the darkened building.

“It’ll be
alright, bro,” I said cheerfully. “Whatever you need tonight, I’m
here for you … Just you and me.”

Brady was
scanning the room, which was why he saw them before I did. It
wasn’t until he said, “You sure about that?” that I looked up and
saw Bronagh and Ming sitting in a corner booth.

This day just
kept getting better and better…

Chapter
Twenty-Four ~ Bronagh

“Two o’clock,”
Ming said, causing me to look up from the label I’d been peeling in
confusion.

“Huh?”

“Look at your
two o’clock,” she murmured, shifting her eyes to the right.

“Ohhhh…” I
replied with a slight laugh, finally getting it.

My stomach
dipped when I looked over to see Brendan and Brady heading toward
us. I wasn’t quite sure how to feel seeing Brendan so soon after
our escapade in the closet, and the last time I’d seen Brady, he’d
chewed my ass.

“Be cool,” I
said under my breath, talking to myself more than Ming, then pasted
a smile on my face, hoping the longing I was feeling didn’t show,
and said, “Hey, guys.”

Brendan’s face
showed a myriad of emotions. Tenderness, hope, and regret, before
it turned blank and showed nothing.

“Hi,” Brendan
said, his hand going up in an awkward wave before he shoved it in
his pocket. “Um, Brady, you know Bronagh, and this is her friend,
Ming. Ming, this is my brother, Brady.”