“This is not the right time, Tess.”
“Clearly. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Why the fuck did you?”
He sits down on the steps to the hotel, desperate to try and think clearly. Tess watches him. “What do you want?”
“Who is that?”
“No-one.”
“She didn’t look like no-one to me.”
“Tess, you and I are over, you need to realize that. I’ve moved on. Get over it.”
Dante takes his cell phone out of his pocket. Scrolling through the images, he can’t work out how they would have been taken. Who the fuck knew?
“Fuck. I need to find her.”
Tess watches him get up, go to the edge of the sidewalk and hail a taxi.
“This is it, Dante.”
When the taxi pulls away, she’s shaking her head and passing their crying child from one shoulder to the next, framed perfectly by the rear window.
***
In the restroom of a department store half a block away, Sash sits on the toilet seat, crying softly. In her hands is a recently purchased pregnancy test, the yes/no indicator patch covered by the tip of her thumb.
Chapter 26
He finally finds her several hours later, sat on a park bench with her knees pulled up to her chest.
When he sits down next to her, she doesn’t scream or try to run away, she just sits there silently, staring ahead at the very same point she’s had her eyes fixed on for the last thirty minutes, trying to work out what the hell has just happened. Although she’s not crying anymore, her eyes are red and puffy, and it’s clear she’s still shocked and very upset. Dante doesn’t speak for a moment either, deciding how best to approach the subject. He should have told her, but there never seemed like the right moment. Eventually, he reaches out to her, hoping in his touch she’ll soften. Sash pulls away as soon as he’s moved, crushing herself into the wooden arm rest of the bench.
Dante regards his stepsister. Still she won’t look at him. Still she’s shaking her head, focusing on the mud by her feet. In its brown edges, she sees much more clarity than she does in the man sat next to her.
“Was that it? My surprise? Is that why you brought me here, to humiliate me? I want an explanation, Dante. When you’ve given me that, we’re finished.”
Dante lets out a long sigh. “Look, Sash. Tess is part of a history that has nothing to do with us.”
Sash shakes her head. She’s absolutely furious with him. More so than at any other point before. This is one lie too many for her.
“Nothing to do with us? If you’re fucking her, that has everything to do with us. Are you fucking her?”
Now she looks at him. In her eyes he sees a catalog of hurt.
“No.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Dante. I’ve had enough.”
“Sash, listen to me, I’m not fucking her.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to see Oliver, not Tess. I should have told you.”
“Oliver?-”
She can’t finish what she’s about to say. “-You asked me to trust you. How can I trust you if you lie to me?”
Dante hangs his head. He’s been rumbled and there’s no way out of it for him but to try and get Sash to forgive him. To try and get her to understand.
“You have a son, Dante. A fucking son.”
Just saying the words brings tears to Sash’s eyes. It makes her feel empty inside. It makes her feel like she’s no longer special for him. That what she believes to be growing inside her isn’t unique anymore, that it’s not enough.
“Please, Sash.”
Dante tries to reach for her again.
“Don’t touch me”, Sash says firmly, and Dante retracts his hand.
“I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you before we went back to New York. I didn’t have a chance before Tess turned up. I want to be with you Sash, I thought that was clear.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s true. Please, Sash, look at me.”
Sash can’t bring herself to turn in her seat. All she can do is stare blindly at the ground and hope it swallows her up.
“I brought you here to give you a present. To give us both a present. Something we could never do the first time around. I need you Sash, no one else makes me feel like you do.”
“Yeah, right.”
Tears cloud Sash’s eyes again.
For the third time, Dante tries to get near her. As he edges a little closer on the bench, this time Sash doesn’t warn him away.
“I promise you I’m not fucking her. Tess and I weren’t even in a proper relationship together. Whatever we had ended almost three years ago. There is only one person I want to be with in this world, and that’s you. It’s only ever been you. Please, Sash, you’ve got to believe me.”
The cruel thing is, Sash knows she’s got no choice. Whether she believes him or not, or he’s lying to her or not, she’s never going to be able to tear herself away from him. Dante is almost alongside her now. Slowly, he reaches out to put an arm around her shoulder.
“Please come back to the hotel.”
Sash shakes her head.
“If you like, I can contact Tess, tell her to explain to you that there is nothing going on between us.”
“You have a child together.”
Sash still can’t process it. “A child, Dante.”
“I know. I was just as shocked as you are now when she told me about it.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Tess was one of the dancers in the club. We had a thing together for a while, and the next thing I know she’s pregnant with my child. After that, when I told her we couldn’t be together, she moved away. I’ve been coming to see Oliver regularly since then.”
Sash shifts a little in her seat. She takes Dante’s arm from around her shoulder and places it back in his lap.
“Why did you tell me you were coming here to work? Why did you lie to me?”
Dante sighs again. This is difficult for him. Tess and Oliver are a secret he’s worked hard to keep. If only she hadn’t turned up at the hotel like that, they’d be in the clinic now getting Sash’s virginity back.
“Honestly?”
The ridiculousness of that word almost makes Sash laugh.
“Don’t lie to me, Dante. I was this close to flying straight back to New York. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to do it or not. As far as I was concerned this morning, we were over. Now you have to prove to me I can trust you again. Don’t fucking lie to me ever again, I mean it.”
“I didn’t think you’d understand if I told you about Oliver. I thought you’d react like this.”
“How did you expect me to react if not like this? Do you think I should be over the moon for you?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t tell you because I was scared of losing you.”
“Scared of losing me? Since when have you been scared of losing me? I was always there for you, Dante, always. I wasn’t the one who disappeared into the ether three years ago.”
Now it’s Dante’s turn to look at the mud on the ground.
“I made a mistake. I’ve thought about it everyday.”
“It’s not the only one either.”
“Sash, please, I’m trying to make it up to you. I’m trying to do the right thing for us both. I’m trying to show you how much you mean to me. I want to make this work.”
“When are you going to stop being such an asshole?”
Sash shakes her head again in disbelief at the idiocy of her stepbrother.
“I’m working on it. The hotel, the credit card, the presents-.”
“It means nothing if I don’t have you.”
“You have me, Sash, when are you going to realize that? You have me.”
“When are you going to show me?”
“I thought I was.”
“Rules, Dante”, Sash says, reaching out for him this t
ime. “No secrets, especially something this big.”
“No secrets, I promise.”
Sash sighs. In his lap she grips his hand, interlocking her fingers with his.
“No running away.”
“No running away.”
“No fucking other girls.”
“Sash, seriously.”
Dante lifts her chin with his index finger. It takes her a while to look at him directly, embarrassed by the floods of tears that don’t seem to want to stop coming.
“When you came back to me, it was something I thought would never happen. I’ve never wanted something so much in my life. The first time I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about you, but when you came back, it was like everything fell into place. I didn’t come to you in that time because I needed to know you had forgiven me. I needed to know that you wanted me. Sash, when I saw you again, I knew we had to be together. I mean that. You are the most incredible person I have ever met and I need you. There is no one else. No one even close. I love you, Sash.”
“Do you mean it?”
Sash can feel butterflies in her belly.
“Of course I mean it. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t mean it. I’m here Sash, I’ve just spent two hundred dollars in taxi fares and walked over the city for the last two hours. I called you like a hundred times.”
“Thirteen”, Sash says, her eyes lighting up just a little.
“The point is, I’m not with Tess, I’m not with any other girls, I’m with you. I love you, Sash. I always have, I just didn’t realize it quick enough the first time around.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“I know I am. I should have told you.”
“About Oliver, or that you love me?”
“Both.”
Sash can’t help but feel a hollow in her stomach when she thinks about his boy. She can’t help but feel some divine right has been taken away from her. That what she believes she’s carrying will pale in comparison to what he already has.
“I wish you’d told me.”
She moves her eyes across Dante’s face. The fullness of his lips, the definition of his cheekbones, the perfect way his hair falls at the side of his head. Even when she’s furious with him, she can’t help but find him attractive.
“I love you too. Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“Will you come back with me?”
Now Sash lets out a sigh.
“Are you going to hurt me again?”
“I hope not.”
“You are the only one who can decide that. If I come back with you, you need to promise me you’ll take responsibility. I’m serious, Dante, if we are going to be together, you need to act like it.”
Sash pauses a while to prepare herself. She takes Dante’s hands and looks him in the eye.
“I don’t want us to be secret anymore.”
“Sash. You know we-.”
“I mean it. You need to prove to me that I’m the most important thing in your life. More than your work, or your reputation.”
“Look, if anyone found out about us, I’d be ruined.”
“I don’t care, and nor should you.”
“Sash, be reasonable, there’s a lot at stake here. We’re stepbrother and stepsister, they hang people like us in Texas.”
“I can’t do this, Dante, not unless I know for sure. I’ve been hurt too much already.”
“I’m telling you, Sash, isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
Sash shakes her head. “Not any more it isn’t.”
Dante sighs. “Lets go back to the hotel and talk about it.”
“Uh-uh. I’m not going anywhere until you promise me.”
“You really want to do this, Sash? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Oliver, but I was going to do it eventually, when our relationship was stable enough for you to understand.
“Don’t punish us both for a mistake I’ve made. If the press know about us, every single aspect of our life will be under scrutiny. They will not leave us alone and we’ll have no privacy. You want us to have a relationship, the kind of relationship you have always dreamed about? We can only do that if we don’t tell anyone we are together.
“This isn’t a question of me not demonstrating how important you are to me by keeping you secret, it’s a question of me keeping our relationship private so I can demonstrate to you exactly how important you are to me. We tell anyone, we are as good as over. They’ll tear us apart. After that, forget about having any freedom. You’ll be lucky if your friends still talk to you, let alone your own family. You want to make a new life somewhere nobody knows us? Fine. I for one don’t want to lose that unnecessarily.”
Dante stands up.
“Where are you going?” Sash asks, suddenly worried he’s going to leave her again.
“I love you, Sash, but nobody else needs to know that apart from you. Don’t ruin what we have. Please.”
Sash doesn’t know what to say. She feels like the balance of power has just titled in Dante’s favor, and she isn’t quite sure how.
“They won’t care”, Sash insists, but even she’s doubting herself now.
“Call Tess. She’ll tell you what I told her last week. Believe me, I don’t want to be with anybody else. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
Dante holds out his hand. “Please come back to the hotel, Sash.”
She looks at him for a moment. What choice does she have? Maybe he’s right, and if they let the world know then they’d shut her out. But then if they shut her out, at least she’d still have him. Is the rest worth the risk, just to be sure?
“Come on. Let me show you how much you mean to me.”
Eventually, without another word, Sash reaches up and takes her stepbrother’s hand.
Chapter 27
Dante’s phone has been ringing all morning, and all morning he’s purposely avoided it. If trying to find his runaway stepsister wasn’t hard enough, he has to deal with the complexities of a ransom demand now too. Finally, in the taxi on the way back to the hotel, his stepsister back in his arms and placated, at least for the moment, he decides to deal with the problem.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Alex barks into the receiver, so loudly Sash can hear it.
Sat in her office, the same room in which Sash waited to see Dante for the first time in three years, his legs crossed and his gaze directed out of the floor-to-ceiling length window, is the man Dante tasked with finding Jason Walker.
“I thought I’d lost something-.”
Dante has his eyes trained on Sash. “-But I’ve found it now.”
Dante moves his hand over Sash’s thigh, the tips of his fingers under her dress. At his touch, her eyes sparkle with the promise of what’s to come.
“Caulder is here. I’ve called him in.”
Caulder turns his mouth up into a smile, but he doesn’t look over to Alex.
“Good. Then there is nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about? Have you seen the photos? If this gets out Dante, we’re ruined.”
There is a slight edge of panic in her voice that Dante picks up on.
“Nothing is going to get out. Caulder will deal with it like he deals with everything else.”
“Right.”
Alex doesn’t sound so convinced.
“Relax, Alex. I’m not worried about this at all, because I know I’m not going to pay a penny of that demand, do you understand me?”
“Yes, of course, I understand you, but-.”
“Good.”
In his eyes, Sash can see another storm brewing. When he looks at her she wants to melt. He reaches up to the line of her dress, running his finger along the edge of the fabric where it meets her skin. Gentle, purposeful strokes. “Don’t bother me for the rest of the day unless it’s urgent.”
Alex sighs. “Urgent? Dante, with all due respect, this is pretty fucking urgent right now. What else do you have that is more important than this? You could lose everyt
hing if this gets out. Absolutely everything. You are aware of that right?”
“Then make sure it doesn’t. Give it to Caulder, he’ll know what to do.”
Dante cuts the call before Alex can respond. In her office, she slams the phone down angrily. Caulder looks over to her finally.
“You better sort this”, she says.
Caulder smiles. “That’s what I do.”
Back in the taxi, Sash snuggles up to her stepbrother. “Problems with work?”
“Someone is trying to blackmail us. It happens quite often. A disgruntled employee, a member of the public trying to get rich quick. It’s nothing. It’ll go to the police, the police will handle it. Alex is just pissed off because I’m here on holiday and she’s there in the thick of it. She hates it when I go away.”
“I know how she feels.”
“Yeah, well, not anymore you won’t.”
“Who is Caulder?”
Dante wears a wry smile. “Caulder is my head of public relations. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
“He sounds pretty important.”
“Oh he is. He’s invaluable.”
They are in a part of the town Sash hasn’t seen yet. For a while she’s had the feeling that they were moving away from the center of the city, but wasn’t sure enough about it to ask. When the taxi pulls up outside what looks like a college, and the driver turns around to tell them that they are here, Sash turns to Dante.
“I thought we were going back to the hotel.”
She’s not angry, just a little confused.
“I didn’t want to ruin the plans I’d already made for you because of what happened earlier. It didn’t seem fair.”
“My surprise? Where are we?”
“You’ll see, come on.”
“But-. I look a mess. I’ve been crying.”
Dante regards her for a moment. “You look beautiful, Sash. I probably haven’t told you that enough times, but you really do look incredible.”
Chapter 28
This is not what Sash expected at all. A shopping spree, followed by a champagne lunch, perhaps. A ride on a helicopter, maybe. This? Not a chance. She didn’t even know this was possible. She looks at Dante as though the whole thing’s a joke. When she realizes that he’s deadly serious, she feels the gut punch of shock almost knock her over. How could he even think this was something romantic?
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