by Nikki Logan
She stared, her feet only now returning to steadiness. ‘So, now what?’
He glanced at his family, who were moving towards them. ‘Now you put that smile back on your face and pretend this isn’t the worst moment of your life.’
She wiped her palms down her dress, eyes flickering at the unfamiliar feeling of a ring where one hadn’t been. ‘Flynn—’
Bill and Denise swept up to them, aglow with congratulations. Arthur and Alice weren’t far behind.
Later, Flynn mouthed and turned with a big, fat, fake smile into the open arms of his family.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATER turned out to be much later. The celebratory dinner went on for hours and hours and Bel saw the Bradley clan in full raucous flight. Flynn winced every time a champagne cork hit the ceiling or Denise and Bill danced noisily in the kitchen or Arthur grabbed a pregnant Bel and twirled her across the room. It was all so … country.
His wife laughed and clapped and appeared to genuinely enjoy being the centre of the universe tonight, although always with the hint of shadow that perpetually clung to her.
His wife.
Freaky.
He’d felt very connected to her standing in that cave listening to the celebrant’s words. He’d certainly felt for her and done his best to still her trembling. This whole thing had been a whirlwind for both of them but at least he was at home, in his element, surrounded by people who loved him.
Bel had no one.
But then she’d murmured his brother’s name, almost under her breath. He’d swear she didn’t even know she’d done it. And in truth he had no right to expect any different, given Drew was the reason they were all here, but it really wasn’t the first word he’d hoped to hear from her after you may kiss the bride.
And what a kiss it had been.
She spun past in Pop’s embrace, her gauzy dress floating in a cloud around her and wafting upwards to reveal even more of those endless porcelain legs. Long enough to wrap around him twice. As she came to a stop, the dress clung to her curves in a way that accentuated rather than disguised the body beneath it. His eyes raked over her. She claimed her midsection was thickening with the babies but he couldn’t really see much evidence of it anywhere else on her body.
‘Dance with your wife, Flynn,’ his nan called from her seat across the room, a knowing smile on her face. ‘Don’t just stare at her.’
He held his drink up in salute and she matched it and then turned her eyes happily back to the celebrating family. Flynn’s followed.
She moved like a dancer, not like a pregnant woman. Bending, flowing, twisting …
His whole body tightened and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Before long, the music slowed and Arthur released Bel and turned to search out someone a few decades closer to his own age to slow dance with.
Without even meaning to, Flynn pushed to his feet and crossed to stand before her.
She lifted wide eyes to him. ‘Is it time to go?’
She hoped not—it was written all over her face. Was that the cause of the shadows under her eyes? Was she anxious about moving back to his house with him? There was no real reason—it wasn’t as if it was a real wedding night. Doubly so with the spectre of his dead brother hovering all of a sudden.
He held out a single hand.
The wide eyes creased with confusion. ‘Really?’
‘I believe it’s customary for the bride and groom to dance at some point.’ Though not usually under sufferance. ‘I won’t bite.’
She stood and joined him in the heart of the living room where all the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and let him draw her into his hold. The music was quiet enough to talk over, but loud enough that they could do so unheard by the others. His parents had moved into their own slow dance in the country kitchen and his grandparents spread out on the sofa.
Bel stood stiff and awkward in his arms and kept her eyes low.
He leaned closer, lower, and whispered, ‘Relax. You look like I’m walking you to the guillotine.’
She was like a furnace in his arms and heat leached into him wherever they touched. She straightened her spine and pressed herself closer to him, lifting her eyes to his.
‘About earlier—’
No. They were not going to talk about that now. Here. He shook her a warning look. ‘How are you feeling?’
Her answer was immediate. ‘Overwhelmed.’
‘It’s done now. You can relax’
‘No. I won’t be able to relax until this is all truly over.’
His lips tightened. ‘When you’re back in London?’
‘When I’m back in the real world.’
‘This is the real world.’
‘Yours, maybe. For me, this is like living someone else’s life. A fantasy life. Like I just warped in here one night and no one has noticed yet that I don’t belong.’
He’d worried for the first few weeks that she wore her heart too clearly on her sleeve, that she wasn’t as proficient in pretence as her socially skilled sister. But as time wore on he’d convinced himself she was coping. Carving a niche for herself. Perhaps she was a better performer than he thought if she was still actually feeling so disconnected. You wouldn’t know it to look at her. She looked as if she’d been living here her whole life, surrounded by his family and connecting with their land.
The idea immediately resonated in its rightness. He frowned and pushed the thought away. ‘You’re doing fine.’
‘Fine.’ She sighed, exhaustion manifesting as dampness in her blue eyes. ‘Such a beige word. I had hoped you’d recognise how hard I’m working. At least give me that much credit.’
He slowed to almost a standstill. It wasn’t her fault he’d crossed a line at the ceremony today. Forgotten why they were really there. The swell of her abdomen low against his was the reminder he needed. He tucked her closer into him and murmured, ‘I know.’
‘I’m performing from sunrise until sunset. The only time I can be me is when I’m alone.’ The moisture threatened to spill over.
His hands tightened on hers. ‘Or with me.’
She looked at him strangely then. ‘Not even then. Not with how you feel about my family.’
He glanced around to make sure their conversation was still private. ‘Okay, look. I’m willing to accept that you aren’t cut from the same cloth as your sister—’
‘Gwen,’ Bel spat, managing somehow to keep her face fairly neutral. But her eyes blazed. ‘Her name was Gwen and though you didn’t like her I loved her with everything I had. She deserves to be remembered by her name.’
Flynn studied her pale face and finally saw what he suspected he’d been missing all this time. It hurt her when he bagged her sister. And he did that a lot.
He picked his path carefully, still hurting from her slip-up earlier today. ‘You’re different to Gwen. I can see that.’
The music changed and the next song was fast and loud, giving them more cover to have this long overdue conversation. The older Bradleys all retreated to the comfort of the kitchen for a drink.
‘Your family likes Belinda Cluney from London. Why wouldn’t they like Belinda Rochester? Just because of her surname? Are they truly incapable of drawing a distinction?’
He frowned. ‘No, they’re not. But I don’t think they would have given you a chance if they’d known upfront who you were.’
‘Like they didn’t give Gwen a chance?’
He stared at her. A feeling that wasn’t quite guilt and wasn’t quite shame nipped at his conscience. Could they have come to like Gwendoline Rochester if they’d met her under different circumstances? Difficult to imagine.
He tried again. ‘Your world and mine are very different …’
‘The difference is I don’t judge you for yours.’
That uncomfortable nip again. Her eyes flicked around the room, looking for anything other than him to settle on. Suddenly he was overcome with a burning need to get her alone.
To have
a long overdue discussion.
He spun her back towards him and brought them both to a halt in the centre of the room, reaching around her from behind and folding her into the care of his arms. ‘I think it’s time we got going,’ he announced over the music. Firmly. His family wanted to protest but they saw his expression and relented.
Bel stumbled behind him through a round of goodnights and then towards the back door of the house. The air outside was frigid and she was still wearing nothing but the light dress she’d worn to the ceremony that afternoon.
He stripped off his coat and helped her into it. It hung loose and ridiculous on her slim frame but it didn’t make her any less beautiful. So much of her flaming hair had come down with all the dancing she looked flushed and in disarray—as if she’d been thoroughly tumbled in a barn somewhere. The image hit him straight in the groin.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, tucking the coat firmly around her. ‘My bags …’
‘Dad took your luggage down earlier today. It’s in your room.’
She looked so intensely relieved he had to wonder what was amongst her belongings that she valued so much. Or was it because he’d said your room …? Did she think he was going to force her in with him?
‘Listen, about the arrangements …’
She lifted her eyes to his; how was it possible that she looked so suspicious and so trusting at the same time?
‘Even though we have separate rooms, we’re going to be spending a fair bit of time together,’ he said. ‘We’ll be like … roommates. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.’
‘It’s not a big house; that could be tricky.’
‘In spirit, then, if not in person.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You won’t even know I’m there.’
Bel frowned. ‘I don’t think I want that. I don’t want you to stay out of my way.’
Surprise stilled his feet. He turned her to look at him in the darkness halfway between the houses.
‘I lived like that for most of my childhood,’ she went on. ‘Like a ghost in my family. I’m not in a hurry to be invisible again.’
Empathy washed through him. He knew something about feeling invisible. Although it was impossible to imagine how she could have been in a room and not been at the centre of it. ‘That’s how you felt?’
‘Always. Except for Gwen. She saw me.’ Her eyes softened. ‘And then Drew.’
And they were back to his brother. Saint Freaking Andrew. Wasn’t it enough that he’d played second fiddle to his brother his whole life? Did he have to do it on his wedding night, albeit a fake one? It was starting to be impossible to ignore the obvious. ‘You really cared for him, didn’t you?’
Her eyes rounded up to him. ‘Your brother was the best man I ever knew. Despite what you thought of him.’
Ever. Present tense included.
Right.
The unspoken criticism rankled. ‘Drew was no prince, Bel. He had a sour streak and could hold a grudge for eternity.’ Literally, as it turned out. ‘Not sure he deserved such a lofty position in your estimation.’
‘You weren’t there. He saved me when I was seventeen and going off the rails. He grounded me.’
He did? Then he’d made an exception because that sure wasn’t his own experience when he’d been in need. ‘How?’
‘By being constant and welcoming me and letting me into his love for Gwen. He could so easily have sidelined me like my parents did, kept her to himself.’
‘The Drew I knew would have.’ His brother had made an art of self-absorption. Second only to his competitive streak. Probably what made him so successful in his field. ‘Maybe he just liked having a leggy young sycophant feeding his ego?’
Maybe he missed the unconditional adoration of a younger sibling.
Bel squeezed and released her fists. ‘Or maybe he grew in his years away from you. Changed.’
Unexplainable hurt ravaged him. That Drew had needed to leave the family to turn into a good man, that once again little brother failed to measure up.
‘Your unflinching loyalty is a credit to you, Bel. Misguided as it may be.’
‘That’s your opinion. It’s always been your opinion and I give up trying to change it. You will just have to accept that your brother and my sister were different people in England.’
‘Or you’ll have to accept that you were so blinkered by your fascination with Drew that you couldn’t see the truth.’
Frustration almost exploded from her tight chest. Her voice lifted. ‘I was not fascinated by him,’ she gritted though she felt the heat rise in her cheeks again.
‘Come on.’ And it was almost a sneer. ‘You clearly had an obsessive thing going on.’
‘I loved him, of course. But not …’ She swished her skirt angrily as she kept pace with his long strides. ‘He was like my brother.’
He spun around to face her. ‘He was my brother, not yours.’ The vehemence with which those words spat from his lips seemed to surprise even Flynn. But it was so telling. The only sound other than their strained breathing was the crunch of their feet on the dry paddock as he started off again.
‘I think it’s you that’s obsessed by him,’ she called out to him when he failed to notice he’d left her behind. ‘You’ve held onto all that resentment and hurt for years. You see echoes of Drew in everything. And now you’re dragging me into it. Looking for reasons to be mad at me.’
He stalled and turned back towards her, his jaw pure granite. Frowning. And not denying it.
‘Why didn’t you ever try to see him, Flynn—to bring him back? To heal things?’
She thought he wasn’t going to answer but then words fought their way out of his strangled throat. ‘Anything I said, he did the complete opposite of. So I stopped trying.’
She smiled sadly. ‘He always was determined.’
‘Belligerent,’ Flynn snorted.
‘Single-minded.’
‘Stubborn.’
‘Tomato/tomahto.’ She smiled softly
He glanced at her from under low lashes and took two deep breaths. ‘The point is, there was a brief window where I might have been able to bring him home but that slammed shut the day he met your sister.’
Again with the Gwen-bashing. But this unhappy dynamic between them wasn’t going to change if neither of them did. Maybe she’d just have to be the bigger man. ‘I was there that day, Flynn. It was the closest thing to love at first sight I’ve ever seen. They were utterly captivated with each other. Both so … enraptured.’
His dark eyes simmered. It looked like anger.
‘Why would you wish that not so?’ she asked. ‘Do you truly resent them both that much? They found that rare thing we all seek.’
He stared at her, eyes creased.
‘Their other …’ she went on. ‘The one person that is out there for each of us.’
‘You truly believe that?’
‘I suppose you’d say true love doesn’t exist? Despite the two thriving examples living on this property.’
He indulged her and the look made her feel all of seventeen again. ‘My grandparents married because Nan got pregnant. Love was a long time coming for them but they toughed it out for my father’s sake.’ His lips pressed together. ‘My parents … They’ve just always been so solid and steady. They met in school and just never parted. There’s no great romance there.’
Bel stared. How sad for him that he couldn’t see the truth. ‘Well, your brother found it. He found it.’
Flynn snorted. ‘Just one more jewel in the crown of Drew’s brilliance.’
‘He’s dead, Flynn. How can you think of him like that?’
‘I know he’s dead, Belinda,’ he blazed down on her. ‘He died in a fetid river trying to save your sister.’
The scorn burned. ‘Because he loved her. Gwen was the air he breathed. They had the sort of love I can only dream of.’
Flynn stared at her, thinking. ‘Yet you’re willing to give up your ch
ance at that to raise their unborn children.’
Pain lanced through her. His words so closely matched her deepest fears it stole her breath. ‘You assume the two are mutually exclusive.’
‘It’s a big sacrifice.’
‘These babies had a family once and it was ripped away from them. They deserve their chance to be loved. And to love.’
‘They do? Or you do?’
She winced. ‘Is that so terrible? Am I not entitled to some happiness, too? Someone to love me?’ Two little someones, in fact.
As she stared at him his own face cleared and understanding widened his eyes. ‘You don’t think it’s there for you.’
What?
He stepped closer, looked down on her, close and warm, and her body thrilled. ‘That’s why you’re willing to fill your body with someone else’s babies. That’s why you were willing to travel halfway around the world with a total stranger. Marry that stranger. A beautiful twenty-three-year-old woman.’ His head tilted as he studied her. ‘You don’t think that kind of love is out there for you anywhere.’
Panic bubbled through her at how close he was to the truth and that her face might give her away. Or her hammering heartbeat. She faked a shrug. ‘What are the odds of it happening twice in one family?’
Let alone in two families.
‘I don’t think it even happens once,’ Flynn said flatly. ‘What you saw was just the product of a child’s lens—’
That brought her up cold. ‘Child? I was seventeen.’
‘Physically, perhaps.’
‘You think I didn’t know what I saw in front of my face? They were in love.’
‘Would you even know what it looks like?’
She frowned at him. It looks just like this. It feels just like this. Good and horribly fatal at the same time. ‘Of course I’d know …’
‘Bel. You came from a home where affection was in short supply. You’ve built these two people you lost up into saints. Martyrs, practically. And you cling to these perceptions about love because they help you to justify everything you are. Everything you’ve done.’
Like having the babies.
‘What you were seeing was attraction,’ he ended. ‘Pure and simple.’
