Chapter 20: Tub of Ice Cream

“What? Like what?” Alexandra shot back, genuinely baffled by his words, her brows knitting as she turned toward him.

“This.” Brandon’s hand cut through the air, gesturing at the scene before him: his wife sitting on the sofa by the window, Roxanne curled up next to her, the girl’s legs draped across her lap, and Alexandra spoon-feeding her ice cream as though the two had always been inseparable.

“What’s wrong with me taking care of her? She cried her heart out,” Alexandra snapped, her voice sharper now. She didn’t pause, didn’t look away from Roxanne as she guided another spoonful of melting chocolate-mint toward the girl’s mouth.

Brandon’s jaw tightened. He knew his wife. He had been married to Alexandra for ten years, and in all that time, he had never once known her to be the nurturing type.

Her wife, Alexandra Romanov, isn’t the kind of woman who offers comfort when someone is hurting. She isn’t the type to sit up all night worrying about someone else’s pain. If anything, she had always been distant, quick to step away whenever problems became too heavy, preferring to keep herself untangled and untouched.

When the two of them had discussed children years ago, Alexandra’s face had been a mask, calm, expressionless, as though the subject barely mattered to her. She had never pressed for it, never looked wistful, and never shown even the faintest longing for a child. If anything, Brandon had thought she might be relieved when they settled on adoption, her detachment as steady as ever.

And now here she is, taking care of their stepdaughter like she's something precious, holding her close as if she's her own flesh and blood, whispering comfort, and feeding her with a tenderness Brandon had never seen from her before.

"It didn’t make sense." He thought to himself.

And the more he watched, the more the unease coiled in his chest, not just confusion, but something sharper, something he couldn’t name. “The correct reply should be,” Alexandra barked suddenly, her eyes flashing, “why she cried her heart out.”

Brandon flinched at her tone. “What? Why?”

“Because your sister-in-law has been filling her head with lies,” Alexandra snapped, her patience fraying. “She told this girl that we bought her with money. She’s been living in this house thinking we treated her like a piece of property.”

Brandon’s face drained of color. His gaze shifted slowly to Roxanne, as if afraid of the answer he might find there. “Amelia said that?” His voice shook with barely contained rage.

“Yes,” Roxanne cut in, her voice raw with anger and grief. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “That’s why I hated you the moment you showed up at my house.”

“That’s why?” Brandon’s voice cracked as he shouted, his temper finally snapping. “Not because I was a stranger?”

“That too!” Roxanne shot back, her whole body trembling now. “Imagine it! Imagine being told you were sold to some stranger, an uncle who never existed in your life until suddenly he does? How the hell was I supposed to face you? To smile? To accept you? To love you? No!” Her voice broke into a scream, high and desperate. “I hated you! I hated you to my guts!”

The words ripped out of her throat as she hurled the spoon from Alexandra’s hand onto the floor. It clattered sharply against the wood, the sound splitting the silence that followed her outburst, leaving the room heavy with the weight of her truth.

“Ugh,” Brandon groaned, dragging a hand down his face before bending to pick up the spoon from the floor. For a moment he just stood there, lips pressed tight, as if trying to gather himself. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and stepped out of the room.

Alexandra and Roxanne sat in tense silence, broken only by the muffled sound of footsteps retreating down the hall. A minute later, the door creaked open again, and Brandon returned, this time with another tub of ice cream in one hand and three fresh spoons in the other. He pulled a chair closer to the sofa, sat down heavily, and set everything on the low table in front of them.

“Here,” he said simply, passing a spoon to Alexandra, then pressing another into Roxanne’s reluctant hand. Without waiting for their response, he dug into the ice cream himself, shoveling a generous bite into his mouth.

Brandon chewed around the cold sweetness, then spoke with his mouth still half full. “Look—I never bought you, okay? That’s not what happened. A year ago, after five years of my brother hounding me for money, I finally asked him straight out. I said, "Are you having a hard time raising three kids? Do you want me to adopt one?" I need an heir anyway. That’s what I told him.”

Roxanne blinked at him, caught off guard by the gesture. Alexandra only arched a brow and shot her a pointed "See? I told you so," look.

Some of the sharpness bled from his voice as he scooped another spoonful, the usual calculating aura he carried nowhere to be found. He just looked tired. And oddly human.

“And?” Roxanne finally muttered, her tone still filled with suspicion, but she followed his lead and took a small bite of ice cream.

Brandon swallowed, then leaned back in his chair, staring at the tub as if replaying the memory. “And your mother called me. She said—her exact words—‘Look, Brandon, we need money to pay off some debts. We can give you Roxanne, our eldest. She’s the smartest and the most dependable. But we need your help.” Beside Roxanne, Alexandra nodded once, confirming every word.

Brandon rubbed at the back of his neck. “I even asked her, why not the youngest? Or the middle one? And she told me no. She said she needed a male heir for the farm. And Madelyn couldn’t be too far from her. So… she offered you.” His voice dropped low, rougher now. “And the envelope of money I gave her? That wasn’t payment for you. That was a pity—for your siblings. I didn’t want them to go without.”

Roxanne’s spoon hovered halfway to her mouth. She stared at him, eyes wide and wounded. “You should’ve brought food. Or clothes. Anything but cash. You know she was never going to spend it on us. That money was gone the second it touched her hands.”

Brandon’s face twisted, and for the first time that night, he looked like he might actually break. He let out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “Damn,” he muttered, the word rough and bitter, as though he was just now realizing the truth too late.