Million Dollar Christmas Proposal. Lucy Monroe

Чтение книги онлайн.

      PROLOGUE

      EYES DRY, HEART shattered, Audrey Miller sat in the chair beside her baby brother’s hospital bed and prayed for him to wake up.

      He’d been in a coma since the ambulance brought him in three days ago and she wasn’t leaving him. She wasn’t letting go of him. Not like their parents had done.

      Not like their two older siblings had.

      How could family act like strangers? Worse than strangers? The rest of the Miller clan had cruelly rejected the incredibly sweet, scary-smart twelve-year-old boy. All because he’d told their parents he was gay.

      He was twelve, for heaven’s sake. What difference did it make?

      But when he’d refused to recant his words, had insisted it wasn’t some kind of phase or confusion despite his tender years, their parents had kicked him out.

      Audrey couldn’t even imagine it. She wouldn’t have known what do at that age, alone and homeless. Toby had, though.

      With nothing more than his saved-up allowance, his laptop, and a backpack full of clothes, he’d made his way south the two hundred miles from Boston to New York.

      He hadn’t called ahead, hadn’t questioned. He’d just come to Audrey. He’d trusted her to be there for him when the rest of the family wasn’t and she would never betray that trust.

      Audrey hadn’t thought it could get any worse than her parents kicking Toby out, had been sure that given time to consider their actions they would change their minds and let him move back home. They lived in one of the most progressive cities in the country, for goodness’ sake.

      But Carol and Randall Miller were not progressive people. She just hadn’t realized how very steeped in narrow-minded conservatism they were.

      Not until they gave her an ultimatum: remain a member in good standing with the rest of the family or stick by Toby. They’d made it clear that if she stuck by her little brother and supported him in any way they would withdraw all financial support and cut off all contact with Audrey.

      Their plan to scare both of their youngest children into compliance with their strict viewpoint of the world had backfired.

      Audrey had refused and when Toby had learned what that cost her, he’d tried to kill himself. Toby had used the Swiss Army knife their father had given him for his twelfth birthday to cut his wrists.

      It hadn’t been a cry for help; it had been a testament to his utter wretchedness at their parents’ total rejection. He did it when the house she shared with three other Barnard students was supposed to be empty for several hours.

      If Audrey’s roommate hadn’t forgotten a paper she had to turn in and gone back to the house, if Liz hadn’t investigated the running shower when Toby hadn’t answered her call, he would have died there, his blood washing down the drain of their old-fashioned porcelain tub.

      “I love you, Toby. You have to come back to me. You’re a good person.” And she would tell him that as many times as it took. “Come back. Please, Toby. I love you.”

      Toby’s eyelids fluttered and then a dazed brown gaze met hers. “Audrey?”

      “Yes. Sweetheart. I’m here.”

      “I...” He looked confused.

      She leaned over the bed and kissed his forehead. “You listen to me, Tobias Daniel Miller. You are my family. The only one that counts. Don’t you ever try to leave me again.”

      “If I wasn’t here you’d be okay with Mom and Dad.”

      “I’d rather have you,” she promised.

      “No, I—”

      “Stop. I mean it, Tobe. You’re my brother and I love you. You know how much it hurts that Mom and Dad don’t love us because we aren’t exactly what they want us to be?”

      His mouth twisted with pain, his dark eyes haunted. “Yes.”

      “Times that by a million and then you’ll know how much I’d hurt if I lost you. Okay?”

      Then she saw something in her little brother’s eyes that she would do anything to keep there. A spark of hope amidst the desolation.

      “Okay.”

      It was a promise. Toby wouldn’t give up on himself again and neither would Audrey. Not ever.