by Jewel, Bella
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine, he slid it out and covered mine with both of his. Always the protective big brother.
“Anyway, you grew out of that, and I think that despite everything, we both ended up pretty decent adults.”
We clinked our glasses together.
“Here’s to us,” he said.
“Here’s to amazing big brothers that let me paint their nails, sleep in their bed, and sing and dance along to NKOTB with me when no one else is around.”
“Yeah, no need to go public with that last one.”
“Why, you made a great Joey McIntyre.”
He shook his head.
“Anyway, all of that is the reason that I wanted to travel. You turned eighteen and were going off to college, so I thought a bit of separation would be good for both of us. I figured if I were ever going to travel, that would be the best time. To be honest, I was already over Mel before I found out she was fucking her boss. When I did find out what she’d been up to, it freed me a little bit more.”
We both sipped on our wine, the house was so quiet that I jumped when the fire crackled and spat.
“I had people keeping an eye on you, so I knew you were doing okay. Nan and Grandad weren’t getting any younger, and I knew that at some stage, we would have to step up and look after them in their old age, so I just made the most of the time I had, and stayed away.”
“Do you think you’ll ever go back? Would you prefer to live there, not here?”
“You know what, I think I would, but I’d just miss you too much.”
“You can’t live your life for me, Luke. I’d make the effort to get out and see you if you did ever go back. We could have one Christmas here, the next over there. Take it in turns.”
He gave me a one-shouldered shrug.
“We’ll see. There might just be some English girl about to sweep me off my feet, then I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else but here.”
I smiled. My brother had never really spoken to me about what he wanted with regard to love, settling down, and marriage. I didn’t even know if he wanted children.
“Is that what you’d like?”
“After watching what you and Del have put each other through this past month, I’m not exactly sure. And once you throw that bitch of an ex of his into the equation, no. I think I’m probably better off single. That woman’s priceless, what she tried to do to Del, you couldn’t make that shit up.”
It was my turn to let out a deep breath. I was a little confused by what he’d said about Liam’s wife. What did he mean by “what she tried to do”? I assumed they would be spending Christmas together, and I’d wondered why they weren’t since Luke told me Liam would be joining us.
I had a moment of panic at the prospect of Liam bringing her along for dinner.
“How come he’s here for Christmas? Why didn’t he go home to his wife?”
“Why the fuck would he go home to his wife? He hopes the new offer he put forward will be enough for her to sign the divorce papers and fuck her off out of it for good.”
My stomach wasn’t sure which way it wanted to go and decided to simply churn inside me.
“They’re still getting a divorce? What about the baby?”
“Not his problem, Sarah.”
I was shocked. After reliving everything we’d gone through during our childhoods spent with a single mum, I thought he’d have a little more empathy for Olivia.
“Wow, that’s a little harsh. Does he feel no responsibility?”
“Why should he? She was lying, the manipulative bitch. After everything she’s put him through, I think Del’s being more than generous, but she reckons she has evidence he’s been seeing someone since he moved over here, so she’s threatening to counterclaim the adultery.”
Something wasn’t adding up. I had a bad feeling in my belly. I chugged my wine and the bad feeling got worse.
“On the Monday after everything kicked off at my house Sunday night, Olivia came to see me.”
Luke leaned back in his chair.
“She came to see you? What the fuck for? How’d she know where you live?”
Now it was my turn to do the head scratching thing.
“She said she still has access to company records, I’m listed as your next of kin.”
“No, she does not. Fuck me that woman’s a liar.”
“But you worked for her in Sydney.”
“No I never. D and R holdings is the company she shares with Del, I never worked for them. I worked for DRR, which is Del’s company alone. Where’s my mobile, I’m gonna call him. There’s no way she should be able to access that information.”
He pushed up from his chair and started looking around for his phone.
“Call it for me, Sunshine, I’ve no fucking clue where I left it.”
I pulled my mobile from the pocket of my hoodie and called his number, a moment later, Tupac’s “Changes” started to play from the kitchen worktop. I ended the call as he reached for it.
“What did she want then, when she came to see you? What else did she say?”
He looked at his screen as he spoke to me, tapped a button, and then held the phone to his ear.
He looked back in my direction and raised his chin as if to tell me to go on, but before I could speak, he held his hand up to silence me. Any other time his telling me to shut it would have pissed me off, but I was feeling a little sick right then, and it had nothing to do with the wine, so I pressed my lips together and stayed quiet.
“I’ll give you limp dick, you cheeky bastard. Listen, how long till you get to my place?”
Then without another word, he hung up and walked out to the hallway. I couldn’t see from where I sat at the table, but I assumed he’d gone to open the front door. I topped up my wine and went and sat on the sofa so I could pull a furry throw over my legs.
The room smelt delicious, the burning wood and coal mixed with the fresh pine scent from the tree was like every happy Christmas all at once, but none of it did anything to settle the unease I felt in my belly.
My heart knew he was in the room before I even laid eyes on him. She always was a traitorous little whore where he was concerned.
He was stopped in the doorway when I turned my head, his arms laden with presents as he stood and stared at me.
“Sarah. You look fucking beautiful sitting there in the firelight. Those flames match the colour of your hair.”
“Get in the fucking door, Shakespeare, before I drop something,” Luke called from behind him. They both placed the armfuls of beautifully wrapped presents they were carrying under the tree.
“You got anything else in the car?” Luke asked.
“Yeah, the turkey you told me to get. My overnight bag and a slab of beer. Oh, there are a couple of bottles of whiskey the Germans had delivered on Friday,” Liam told him, not taking his eyes from me.
“Nice! The good stuff?”
“A Sazerac Rye and an Ardbeg Uigeadail.”
“Excellent. I’ll give you a hand.”
Luke headed back out the door, but Liam continued to stand and stare at me.
My heart felt battered and bruised after my brother’s earlier confessions and beat an erratic staccato in my chest as I watched him watching me.
I knew as soon as his hand twitched that it would reach for the back of his neck. The familiarity both bathed me in contentment and slayed me at the same time. He looked tired standing in the glow of the light from the Christmas tree but still oh so fucking gorgeous.
“I’ve missed you, pretty girl, so fucking much.”
I swear, my heart paused and didn’t beat again until he left the room a few seconds later.
* * *
“She came to your house? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this?” Liam came back through the door a few moments later and strode to where I was still sitting. “What did she want? What the fuck did she say to you? How does she even know where you live?”
Once again
, I opened my mouth to speak, but Luke followed Liam into the room and answered before I could.
“She reckons she accessed company records and got them from my file.”
Liam sat down on the sofa next to me. Luke paced.
“What company records? There are no records she’s got access to that hold your details. She’s talking shit. The woman’s a compulsive liar.”
He turned and looked at me, eyebrows drawn tightly together. I wasn’t sure if his expression was one of confusion or concern.
“You wanna drink?” Luke asked him.
“Yeah, I think I’m gonna need one now,” he replied, still without taking his eyes from me.
“What did she say to you, Sarah? Is this why you wouldn’t have a bar of me when I came round that night? Did she say shit about me?”
Luke passed him a glass of the red wine we’d been drinking. Liam looked at it but didn’t take it from him.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked him.
“Wine.”
“Do I look like I’ve grown a vagina?” He turned to me, adding, “No offence, bub.” And winked.
I hadn’t had sex in four whole weeks. The last sex I’d had was multiple-orgasm, mind-blowing sex. With him. He’d just winked at me. Things may have clenched. Internal things. My knickers may have, for some inexplicable reason, become wet.
“Sarah?”
“That’s a thirty quid bottle of wine. You drink wine, I’ve seen you drink wine.”
“There are two bottles of hundred quid whiskey out there, go and open one of those. I don’t want your poxy wine.”
He glanced at the glass in my hand. “Although, I’m sure the wine is very nice.”
Luke huffed, took my half-empty glass, poured the contents of Liam’s into it, and passed it back to me before turning and walking out of the room. My mouth hung open during all of this. My brain still stuck in multiple orgasms and Liam winking territory.
“What did she say to you, Sarah?”
“You told me that you’d had sex with her the night before you left, right?”
“Yeah, I told you that, and I told you why I didn’t admit to it,” Liam said, retaking a seat next to me on the sofa.
I wasn’t interested in any of that, there was something else that was bothering me. Why would he admit to that but not to the other nights they’d supposedly spent together? Why hadn’t he told me about them?
“When was the last time you’d seen her previous to that?”
“Two years ago when I caught her fucking Sebastian Markham at our apartment.”
His answer was instant.
“You hadn’t been seeing her in the months prior to leaving? Going out on dates, sleeping together? You weren’t trying to work through your problems?”
“Is that what she told you?” His voice rose at the same rate as he stood up from the sofa.
“Answer the question, Liam.”
“I swear to you, the only contact I’ve had with that woman has been via my solicitor for the past two years. Luke can vouch for that. He was there.”
“Where?” Luke asked.
He passed Liam a tumbler half-filled with amber liquid. They tapped their glasses together.
“The whole time you were working and living with me in Sydney, did I at any time have any direct contact with Olivia?”
My brother shook his head slowly. His eyes met mine.
“Did she tell you he did?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, she fed me the same bullshit when she showed up at my house before you two walked in.” Luke tilted his head and looked at me.
“I thought that you knew all of that, knew that it was all bullshit?”
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath through my nose.
“Why did the pair of you split up in the first place?”
I think I actually felt my blood pressure rising as I waited for his answer.
“I caught her in bed with someone, you know this.”
“No, no. What led to that? What was the main issue between you?”
I studied Liam’s face, I had no clue what I was looking for, but it wasn’t the gentle look and almost smile that he was giving me right then.
He looked at Luke. He looked down at his glass of whiskey, and then he looked straight into my eyes and let out a long sigh.
“We didn’t love each other enough to stop sleeping with other people.”
My blood was no longer flowing through my veins, it was stomping, marching, pounding its way around my system as I asked him my next question.
“Were you at any stage trying for a baby?”
He recoiled as if I’d just thrown acid in his face and then laughed.
“Me and Olivia? Fuck no.”
He narrowed his eyes, and I watched him as they darted all over my face. “Why would I want to bring a child into a relationship like ours? Olivia wanted children even less than I did. The only reason she’s pregnant now is because she planned it that way. She thought that by getting pregnant she would stop Markham from leaving her and going back to his wife.”
“You’re still adamant that her baby’s not yours?”
He raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin.
“We really gonna go over all of this again?
That bitch. That devious. Scheming. Spiteful bitch. Anger bubbled and churned inside me. I gulped my wine. The alcohol, the warmth from the fire, and pure, unadulterated rage caused my chest, neck and cheeks to heat and my skin to prickle.
“Did she tell you she was pregnant that night? Is that why you left?”
Liam frowned, and I knew instantly that he had no idea what I was talking about. I watched him work it out. I watched as the realisation of what she’d told me caused his mouth to drop open and his eyes to widen.
“Did she tell you I left because she’d told me she was pregnant? Is that what she told you?”
I nodded.
“She told me that your marriage ended because she couldn’t fall pregnant, but you reconnected, and before you left Sydney, you were trying to work through your problems. Then, when she told you she was pregnant, you panicked.”
“And you believed her?”
I looked down into my wine glass and nodded.
“I thought I was doing you a favour. I thought if I stepped aside, you’d go back to her.”
I looked up directly into his eyes, blue met blue, and I told him the most honest thing I’d probably ever admitted to in my life.
“I love you enough that I stepped aside for the sake of your baby. I didn’t want to be the reason your child didn’t have a father around. I didn’t want to be the other woman. I didn’t want to be like her, my mother, and I didn’t want your baby to be me, to grow up with all of the issues that I have.”
I licked my top lip, not sure if I was tasting the saltiness of snot or tears at that stage, and I didn’t really care.
“I didn’t wanna be the cause of that,” I admitted with a trembling bottom lip.
“Christ, Sarah.”
He placed his tumbler on the floor, took my glass from me, and put it next to his. Then, before I could stop him, he pulled me onto his lap. The familiar smell of his aftershave, deodorant, and shower gel combined to engulf and overwhelm me to the point where I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
“You should’ve spoken to me. Four fucking weeks I’ve been tying myself up in knots over this. I couldn’t understand why you were so adamant.”
The doorbell rang.
Luke left the room without a word. For a few seconds, I’d forgotten that he was even there.
“You should’ve told me,” he repeated.
“I’m sorry. She was so convincing.”
“You’re shaking,” he said into the side of my neck. His nose was in my hair and all over my skin.
“I’m so angry, Liam. I’m angry with her, but I think I’m even angrier with myself for believing her.”
“You had no reason not to believe her. You’re a good perso
n, Sarah. You’ve probably never come across the likes of Olivia in your life.”
“Well, I’ll be better fucking prepared next time. What a bitch. What did she hope to gain? Surely she must realise that the truth would eventually come out? Is she even pregnant?”
“Very much so, about four months apparently. I think after the baby’s father left her, she turned up at my office determined to fuck me so that she could pass it off as mine.”
“That evil fucker. How could she use a child like that? How could she lie to you like that? Get you to raise another man’s child as your own?”
He rained kisses down on my head, neck, and throat as I spoke.
“Because in Olivia’s eyes, it was worth a shot. In her world, there’s nothing wrong with what she attempted to do. That’s the type of person she is.”
He took hold of my chin and tilted my face towards him.
“You’ve said a lot of swear words tonight.”
“Yeah, well she makes me sweary.”
“So me touching your G spot and the mention of Olivia both make you sweary. Goddit.”
I smiled.
“You have got to be kidding me! Dude, I cannot unhear that. Do not, not ever, under any circumstances mention that word and my sister in the same sentence again. Ever.” I looked up to see Luke with his hands over his ears. I stopped smiling when I spotted Will standing behind him.
“She’s my sister. She doesn’t have sex. She won’t ever have sex.” My brother was still going on. He now had his eyes closed as well as his hands over his ears.
I pulled myself up out of Liam’s lap. He stood too.
Shit.
Despite the fact that I’d made no promises to Will, I still felt bad.
“Will, can we talk?”
Liam rubbed his fingertips up and down my spine, his hand finally settling against the small of my back.
“I only asked for a couple of things, Sunshine,” Will spoke very quietly.
“I know, and I’m sorry. This . . .” I looked up at Liam standing next to me. He hadn’t even taken his coat off yet and had just started to unbutton it. He removed it and placed it on the sofa.
