Her Best Worst Mistake

by Sarah Mayberry

  She watched as comprehension dawned on Martin’s face. His gaze dropped to the sheet, effectively shutting her off from his thoughts. She squeezed his hand.

  “Brace yourself—we’re aiming for June,” Elizabeth said. “I know that sounds absolutely insane, but my grandparents have decided they want to come down here. They want to meet Nathan and see where I’m going to live. They’ve booked tickets for June and we decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to kill a few birds with one stone.”

  “Right.”

  “It won’t be big or fancy, just our closest friends and family. I know you’re grounded with your ankle right now, but it will be all good in eight weeks time, won’t it?” Elizabeth’s tone was coaxing.

  Martin was still staring at the sheet.

  “I’m sure it will be fine. And if it isn’t, I’ll come anyway.”

  What else was there for her to say, after all? Despite having decided barely five minutes ago that she needed to confess all, no matter what, there was no way she was going to be the wet blanket that ruined her best friend’s excitement and happiness.

  And Elizabeth was happy. It radiated from every word she said. Under any other circumstances, Violet would be beside herself with joy for her friend, but with Martin sitting pensively beside her and the ever-present guilt making her stomach heavy, her own reaction was far more compromised and complicated.

  “Be happy for me, Vi,” Elizabeth said quietly, obviously picking up on some of Violet’s turmoil despite the distance between them. “Nathan makes me so happy. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “I’m thrilled for you, E. You have no idea how much. I’m just trying to get my head around it all, that’s all.”

  “I know it’s fast. But it’s right. I know it in my bones. Have you ever had that feeling, Vi? Absolute, instinctive certainty?”

  Violet’s gaze fell to where her hand still gripped Martin’s.

  “Yes. I’ve had that feeling.”

  “I love you so much, you know that, right? I can’t wait to see you and for you to meet Nathan and to show you around Melbourne. You’ll love it here.”

  “Email me through the dates and I’ll book my ticket tonight.”

  “Great. Listen, I have to keep moving, I need to make a few more calls. Have a glass of champagne in my name, okay?”

  “I will.”

  The line went dead and Violet set her phone on the bedside table.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Martin lifted his gaze to hers. “I’m fine.”

  “Still, it must have been a shock for you.”

  “You want the truth? The only time I’ve thought about Elizabeth in the past few months is in relation to you.”

  “Oh. Well...good.”

  It was good. But for some reason she still felt uneasy. As though he wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

  He got out of bed, reaching for his boxers. She watched as he pulled them on. Was it just her, or were his shoulders tight? As though he was holding himself in check in some way?

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Because I don’t mind if you need to talk about it...”

  “Violet. I’m not upset about Elizabeth.”

  She pulled the sheet a little higher, tucking it under her armpits. “But you are upset about something, right?”

  He was a lawyer, always very precise with words, and there was no other explanation for the way he’d phrased his response.

  “Not upset, per se. Frustrated is a better word.” There was more than a hint of challenge in his posture as he faced her. “When are you going to tell her, Violet?”

  She blinked at him. “You think I should have told her today? Even though she’s over the moon about being engaged?”

  Because it simply hadn’t occurred to her to confess once she’d heard Elizabeth’s news, and she’d felt sure Martin would be on the same page. After all, this was a big day for E. A huge day.

  “Yes, I do. I think that we’ve deferred to Elizabeth’s feelings more than enough. Don’t you?”

  He was angry with her. Disappointed. She could hear it in his voice. Her stomach dipped with dismay.

  “I don’t want to ruin anything for her.”

  “So, what? We just continue to skulk around town, worrying we’ll run into someone we know? And you keep driving yourself crazy, second guessing how Elizabeth is going to react, making yourself sick over it?”

  She stared at him. He’d never raised it again, but that night outside the Thai restaurant had obviously left a bad taste in his mouth. She hadn’t liked lying about being with him, either, but it had been a necessary evil. Elizabeth had to hear about them from Violet, not through someone else. She’d thought he understood that.

  “You know how much she means to me.” They’d just had a whole conversation about it. How could he go from being so understanding and empathetic ten minutes ago to this?

  “I do. I know you love her. But I love you, Violet, and I don’t want to feel as though our future is on hold while we wait for it to be the perfect moment for Elizabeth to hear about us.”

  “So, what? I call her back right now and just dump this on her? While she’s drinking champagne with her new fiancé?” Her voice was high and shaky with emotion.

  “Sure. Why not? You think there’s ever going to be a perfect time, Violet? Because I can tell you right now, there won’t be. Next time she’ll be pregnant, or starting a new job, or her grandmother will be poorly, or something will happen with Nate. If you keep looking for it, there will always be an excuse not to tell her.”

  “I’m not ruining my best friend’s wedding. Not with a phone call from the other side of the fucking planet.”

  “Yes. I got that. Message received and well and truly understood, thank you.”

  He pulled on a T-shirt and strode from the room.

  Violet stared at the spot he’d been standing. Bile burned in her throat. She pressed both palms to her chest.

  She’d been waiting for the bubble to burst, hadn’t she? She knew what came next. The anger. The blame. All the ways that she was wrong. All the ways that she’d disappointed him.

  She’d been here before.

  Her heart was racing, hammering inside her chest. Panic threatened to swamp her. She took a ragged breath. She needed to protect herself. She needed to stay calm and keep a clear head.

  And she needed to get dressed.

  Right now.

  Throwing back the covers, she reached for her crutches.

  Martin swore to himself as he strode into the kitchen. Bloody Elizabeth. Why the woman couldn’t have held off on making her big announcement for thirty minutes longer... Violet had been on the verge of ringing and purging herself of her guilt once and for all, and now they were back to square one.

  Or maybe he was kidding himself on that score. After all, she’d managed to find four months worth of excuses so far. Maybe she would have found another excuse even if Elizabeth hadn’t announced her engagement.

  He grabbed the frypan and banged it onto the stove, then raided the pantry for onions and garlic. He was slicing the top off the second onion when Violet appeared in the doorway. She’d dressed and pulled her hair into a tight pony tail. Because he was still pissed with her, he didn’t say anything immediately, simply kept chopping away at the onion.

  “The taxi will be here in ten minutes. I need you to get my suitcase off the top shelf of the closet so I can pack.”

  Her voice was so quiet that for a moment he thought he’d misheard her.

  He lay the knife down on the board. “What?”

  “I need you to get my suitcase down so I can pack.”

  He stared at her. She wanted to pack her things? Because they’d had a fight? Because he’d pushed her to tell Elizabeth, no matter what the circumstances?

  For a moment he was reeling, completely off balance. Then he registered that she was trembling and pale, her whole body vibrating with the intensity of her emotions an
d he was hit with a blinding, painful flash of insight.

  If it was any other woman, he’d interpret Violet’s announcement as a gambit to get her own way. An extreme and childish gambit, but a gambit nonetheless. Agree with me or I walk.

  But this was Violet, who’d been treated as a shameful miscreant when she’d been exploited as a child and ultimately ejected from her home for being too much trouble, too hard, too disruptive.

  In Violet’s experience, fights with loved ones weren’t avenues to compromise—they were fast tracks to estrangement. They meant recriminations and judgement and, ultimately, being sent out into the world on her own.

  Or, in this case, back to her apartment, hobbling on crutches.

  Faced with what she believed was imminent rejection, Violet had opted to make a pre-emptive strike.

  If his heart wasn’t breaking for her, he could almost find it in himself to applaud her chutzpah.

  “Violet...” He went to her without hesitation, wrapping his arms around her, drawing her body against his, crutches and all. “I don’t want you to go anywhere, okay? Just because we disagree on something doesn’t mean that I don’t still love you. I will always love you, no matter what.”

  She was very still and unresponsive in his arms, but he knew in his gut and his heart that he was on the right track. He knew, because he knew her.

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sweetheart...You think I’m going to let you go now that I have you in my clutches? You think I want to go back to living in black and white now that I know what Technicolor looks like?”

  She shuddered, then she pressed her face into his neck and flung her arms around him. Her grip was fierce, almost painful in its intensity.

  “I’m sorry I’m so messed up. I’m sorry I don’t know how to do this. Please believe that I love you, Martin, please believe that this thing with E has nothing to do with how much you mean to me...”

  He cupped the back of her head and held her as she sobbed, his chest aching.

  He should have broken Howard Sutcliffe’s nose that night at the Savage Club. He should have knocked the other man clear into the middle of next week for the damage he’d done to a vulnerable young girl who’d needed love and protection and comfort and instead received nothing but condemnation. To her everlasting credit, Violet had sucked up the treatment she’d been dealt and held her head high and survived, but there’d been a price for that survival, and she was paying it now.

  They both were.

  “I believe you, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’re okay, Violet.”

  She drew back from his embrace so she could look into his eyes, her own swimming with tears. The uncertainty in her face nearly killed him.

  She had no idea how lovable she was. How precious and brave and special.

  She must have seen something in his eyes to reassure her, though, because some of the tension left her body. He dragged out a chair and sat, pulling her onto his lap.

  “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you,” he said quietly.

  The remaining tension leached out of her body. She lay her head on his shoulder, as simple and trusting as a child.

  He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of her perfume and made a decision.

  He would let Violet find her own way and time to tell Elizabeth. In the interim, he would listen and hold her hand and offer his counsel, but he would not push. He understood now how deep her wounds ran, how hard it was for her to trust that she could make mistakes and still deserve love.

  One day, she would know it in her bones, because it would be his lifetime mission to make it so. But for now...

  He would wait, and he would trust that Violet would work it out for herself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Violet woke the next day feeling as though someone had snuck in while she was asleep and beaten her with a cricket bat. Her eyes were sore and gritty, her body heavy. As she lay in bed listening to the sound of Martin in the shower, it struck her that she was suffering from the emotional equivalent of a hangover.

  She’d hit a wall with Martin last night. She’d braced herself for the impact, sure that the happiest months of her life were about to implode... But they’d survived.

  Martin was already calling it their first fight. On one hand it terrified her to think that she might ever feel so dangerously at odds with him again, but there was also something strangely reassuring in the notion that Martin wasn’t daunted by the prospect. That he expected them to have fights number two and three and four and survive them and many more.

  It was going to take some time for her to get her head around the concept, but she was willing to work on it. Funny, when she considered how often she and Martin had been at odds in the past. But while he’d had the power to hurt her even back then, now he held her heart—and her happiness—in the palm of his hand.

  The shower fell silent. She pushed her hair out of her face and sat up, adjusting the covers over her cast. Thirty seconds later, Martin exited the ensuite, a towel slung low on his hips. As usual, water droplets still clung to his shoulders. She’d chided him more than once for his sloppy drying technique, but he claimed he preferred to “air dry”.

  He smiled when he saw she was awake. “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “Give me five minutes and I’ll bring your breakfast in.”

  “Martin, before you go...I want to talk about Elizabeth.”

  He hesitated a moment, then came to sit on the side of the bed. “Fire away.”

  She plucked at the edge of the sheet. “I know I’ve made a mess of this whole thing. I should have told Elizabeth right from the start. I should have, but I didn’t, because I’m a big old chicken.”

  He reached out and wove his fingers with hers. “You’re not a chicken.”

  “I am. A cowardly, cowardly custard. But I want to make a promise to you. I will go to Australia for the wedding. I will do whatever Elizabeth needs me to do to make her day beautiful and perfect, because she deserves that. But then I will tell her. Face to face. I know you would prefer for it to be sooner—”

  “It’s okay, Violet. It’s your decision. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  “You have to be comfortable with it, too.”

  “I’m comfortable if you’re comfortable.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “This is because I turned into a complete psycho last night, isn’t it? You’ve decided that I’m clearly not capable of being rational on this subject and you’re opting out.”

  “I’m not opting out of anything. Like I said, it’s your decision. But if you want my opinion, after the wedding is as good a time as any.”

  “But you’d prefer before the wedding.”

  He smiled slightly and leaned forward to kiss her. “Repeat after me: it’s your decision.”

  He stood and disappeared back into the bathroom. She chewed on her lip, pondering his words, then decided to simply take him at face value. He’d said he was comfortable if she was comfortable. She chose to believe him. After all, he hadn’t lied to her yet.

  So. In eight weeks time, give or take, it would all be over. Elizabeth would know. Finally.

  A sickening kick of adrenaline tightened her belly. This time, there would be no going back. No excuses. No wimping out. She’d made a promise to Martin, and she would keep it.

  No matter what.

  No matter what manifested itself sooner rather than later. She was scheduled to have her cast off at the beginning of May, but an X-ray showed that the bone hadn’t repaired itself anywhere near as much as her doctor would have liked. She was sentenced to another two weeks in the cast.

  Two weeks turned into three before she was able to trade her cast for the increased mobility of a medical boot. Or what she’d hoped would be increased mobility, anyway. Her expectations were brutally downgraded after she spent the first half hour hobbling around. Her still-healing bones hurt as they knitted together and she was sweaty and shaky and more than a little tearful by the time
she was back behind the counter in her store.

  “This is a disaster,” she told Martin when he rang to see how her appointment had gone. “How am I going to get onto the plane? I won’t be able to go to the bathroom. I’ll have to wear a bloody astronaut diaper or something to survive the trip.”

  “We’ll work it out,” he said calmly.

  At the time it was enough to calm her, but it wasn’t until she was two days out from her departure date that she learned what Martin’s version of them “working it out” entailed.

  “I can’t ask you do this, Martin,” she said as she stared at the plane ticket he’d just slid onto the table between them.

  A ticket for him to accompany her to Australia, playing the role of her own personal nurse/aide/valet.

  “You didn’t ask, I’m offering.” He was fresh home from work and wearing one of the three piece suits she’d once found stuffy and boring. Now she thought they were the sexiest, most provocative item of clothing in the history of the world. “I’ll get you on the plane and through customs, then I’ll disappear. I’ll stay at a nice hotel, take in a few galleries, check out some kangaroos and koalas, and when the wedding is over I’ll meet you somewhere and we’ll have our own private holiday.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she processed the extraordinary, selfless generosity behind his offer.

  “I love you for offering, but I can’t let you do it. It’s too much.”

  “It isn’t, Violet. It’s the bare minimum as far as I’m concerned. I want you to be happy. I need you to be safe.”

  She couldn’t speak then because the stupid tears that had been pressing at the back of her eyes were sliding down her face.

  “Those are happy tears, right?” he asked as he pulled her into his arms. “I’m-glad-we’ll-be-flying-to-Australia-together tears?”

  She pressed her face into his shoulder and finally found the courage to voice the certainty in her heart.

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  His arms tightened around her, a fierce, indomitable band of muscle and sinew. “You do, Violet. And I deserve you. We’ve both more than earned our chance at happiness. And I will not feel guilty about grabbing it with both hands, and I won’t let you feel guilty, either.”