“Why? I don’t understand.”
Something came into her face, some expression I hadn’t seen before. She looked resigned. My Belle, the woman who never gave up. Ever. My survivor, my fighter, had given up on me.
On us?
“I don’t want you to be faithful because you’re afraid of turning into your father, Brant. I want your devotion to be pure, not inspired by fear, but inspired by love. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Is that what this is back to then? Love?” I ran both hands through my hair, squeezing it in fistfuls and letting out a frustrated breath. “Belle, I told you—”
She put her hand up. “I know. You’re not capable. Only, you’re wrong. You’re scared for some reason I can’t understand because you won’t talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
She clenched her eyes shut and then opened them, her expression bleak. “I’m losing myself, Brant. Losing my soul. Every hard-earned piece of it I managed to gain back.” Her voice was weak and, combined with her sorrowful confession, I felt stricken, as if she’d slapped me with her words. “Somehow . . . I don’t know, but I’m not happy here.”
“It’s just temporary, Belle.”
“Yes, but it won’t always be, will it? I won’t be happy with this arrangement indefinitely. And
I doubt you will be either. I don’t fit in your world, Brant, and you need someone who does.” She offered me a small smile, but it was laced with sadness. “I guess I’m old-fashioned after all. If we’re not moving toward . . . more, there isn’t a point.”
I threw up my hands and dropped them. “Jesus, I’m the one who asked you to marry me and you said no.”
“Because I didn’t want a marriage without love. Not again. Tell me about the bourbon.”
Confusion overcame me again, a sense of emotional whiplash. “The bourbon?”
“Caspian Skye. Why didn’t you tell me there were barrels ready to be bottled?”
“What?” I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to clear my brain. “I didn’t know, at least not when we talked about it that night in the distillery. I found out later and . . . fuck, so much was going on. You told me about the money you found . . . I was working on my opening, we started planning this trip—”
“Did you ask me to marry you because it was the only way your father would give you the barrels and everything that comes with the name? Is it why you’re with me now?”
What the fuck? I wondered. Where was this all coming from?
“Edwin Bruce,” she said as if reading my mind. “He thought I knew. And then I overheard Sondra say something similar.”
My father’s words returned to me now, from the day we stood on the front porch after I’d spent the night with Isabelle in the distillery.
. . . if you married Isabelle, you could share Graystone Hill, and the distillery would be yours. Seems like a good deal to me. She gets her horses, and you get the distillery and everything that comes with it.
“No.” I shook my head, but I was suddenly confused, tired . . . fuck. I didn’t feel like I knew up from down anymore. What had happened to us? “I mean my father, he . . .” I blew out a breath, trying to remember what the hell I’d been feeling. “He wanted us to get married. He feels protective of you. I told you that. He threw in Caspian Skye to try to convince me, but—”
Isabelle stood, her arms hanging limply by her sides, her expression full of so much despair it made my heart clench.
“Isabelle, no, it wasn’t like that.” But even I heard the doubt in my own voice. “I wanted to marry you—”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you want to marry me?”
“Because it made sense. It . . . we talked about all of that.”
She stared at me then shut her eyes for a moment as if she were searching for strength. Against me. “We want different things. We’re broken, Brant, and I’m leaving.”
“How can we fix anything if you leave?” I asked, desperate, throwing my hands in the air and letting them drop. “Just stay, Isabelle. We’ll fix this. We can—”