by Elle Pierson
The Minister was clearing his throat, thumbing through pages in his Bible. The bride and groom had gone with the traditional vows, which seemed a wise move. Marcus had delivered some spectacularly bad speeches in his time, when given free rein to improvise. There were good reasons why their father had pushed him into finance rather than the law. It was easier to spout nonsense in a boardroom than in a courtroom.
Mick sighed and moved his neck, trying to ease the muscle tension in his shoulders. He’d slept badly the night before; he usually did after dealing with his family en masse. On an individual basis, they could occasionally be tolerable. They all tended to be influenced by pack mentality and fed off one another when they were together. It was less amusing to be an ass without an audience. Although he and Marcus rarely had a civil word for one another regardless, and his mother stringently avoided him. She seemed determined to believe that he had a loose fist and a hair-trigger fuse on his temper.
Christ, if he hadn’t snapped after thirty-four years of arguments, misunderstandings and petty digs, he wasn’t likely to start throwing punches at this point.
None of which made the whole situation any less bloody embarrassing when it was exposed to an outsider.
Neither he nor Sophy had spoken much when they’d left his parents’ house the previous evening. She had sat in the car, gazing thoughtfully out the dark window at the city lights, until they’d reached her hotel. She’d paused in opening the door to ask him if he had a mini-bar in his own room. She’d then sympathetically advised him to make use of it and cheekily promised to hold back his hair the next morning if he over-indulged.
Smiling faintly now, he rubbed a hand over his closely-shaved head.
He was grateful that she seemed to appreciate when silence was more healing than confession. She was one of the most sensitive, introverted people in his life; in many ways, her personality was radically different to his own, but nobody could better understand his need to sometimes be alone with his thoughts, to wrangle things through by himself.
The officiant had pronounced the happy couple husband and wife. Mick rose to his feet with the other three hundred guests, many of whom would be peripherally associated with his parents’ social interests and were unlikely to have even met Marcus and Emily.
He found it difficult to believe that any of the people wiping at sentimental tears were intimately acquainted with the couple.
He did, however, genuinely hope that things worked out for his brother this time. He would be perfectly content to think of Marcus having a happy marriage. At a far distance. Preferably in a different time zone.
As her veil brushed past him, he saw the new bride snatch her fingers from his brother’s grip.
He wasn’t overly optimistic.
“How can anyone have this many friends?” Sophy whispered to him as they filed out of the church into the flower-bedecked courtyard.
Her eyes were darting about, taking in the scene, widening when she recognised faces that had been reproduced in women’s magazines, but she kept her head and body quite still, as if trying not to attract notice. She made a startling contrast to the majority of the people around them. Most of them would all but cease to exist if they were locked in a room by themselves for any length of time. The creed of society: attention was everything. It was not an environment Mick had ever admired. Crowds tended to make him edgy, too, albeit for an entirely different reason. He doubted that Sophy’s wandering eye was scanning for concealed weapons.
“Especially when they’re such a dick,” he heard her add under her breath, and a slight huff of laughter escaped his chest.
“They don’t,” he replied, putting a hand on her waist to steer her through the throng, resisting the urge to let it stroke down to her hip. “There’s no way that Marcus knows who even a tenth of these people are. Both sets of parents would have wielded an iron fist over the guest list. There’s no better opportunity to socially network.”
“Oh,” said Sophy, dodging back against him as a woman in violently purple silk barrelled past her like she was running for a penalty shot. “How romantic.”
The reception was kicking off straight away in the ballroom of a central city hotel. He figured a duty appearance for an hour or so would do it. He doubted Sophy would push to stay longer. She already looked as if she was slinking off to a public hanging. Her own, to judge by her face.
She was enthralled by the decorations in the reception hall, though, where somebody had gone overboard with candles, Christmas tree lights, and spiky flowers that probably cost almost as much as the diamonds hanging around the bride’s neck. Sophy immediately pulled out her digital camera and started taking close-up shots of wine glasses draped in crystal beads. He had no idea what women did with that sort of photo. Did they seriously ever look at them again?
“Oh, crap,” Sophy muttered, setting the camera aside to dig through her bag. A pack of tissues, a lipstick, her keys, and various other items appeared on the table at his elbow. The bag was large enough and messy enough that she could have smuggled a small child in it. If she’d lost something, he anticipated her finding it approximately next Thursday. “I forgot to bring my phone. Damn it.”
“Do you need to make a call?” he asked, already reaching into his pocket for his own.
“No,” she said, looking stressed. “But I never come to things like this without my phone. That way, if I find myself standing around with nobody to talk to, I can always fake text.”
He turned a laugh into a cough when he realised she was serious. “Would you like to hold on to mine?” he asked, keeping his face deliberately bland. He held it out between two fingers, and she took it at once.
“Yes. Thanks.”
She was holding it to her chest like a kid clutching a teddy bear.
Mick was still grinning when he headed across to the bar to pick up a couple of glasses of champagne.
“The black sheep returns,” drawled a voice, and he turned to look at Marcus, who was draped across the mahogany counter. He also had a glass in each hand, but didn’t look inclined to share. A passing observer would be forgiven for writing him off as the token family soak rather than the man of the hour. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“And you might want to slow down,” Mick returned coolly, propping an elbow against the bar as he studied his brother’s flushed face. Not the image of connubial bliss, by any means. Had their relationship been even a fraction less ugly, he might have been concerned. Sophy, for one, would probably bleed her heart out over the most obnoxious sister. His nature was obviously less forgiving. He found it hard to do better than indifference. “Or your wedding night might be even more disappointing for your bride than the ceremony.”
Marcus released a breath through his nose and eyed the champagne in his glass thoughtfully. “I do so enjoy when we’re away from the parents,” he drawled.
He glanced over at the table where Sophy still sat, the phone in her hands. Mick followed the flicker of lasciviousness in his brother’s look, feeling his body tense. Sophy, oblivious to their regard, had the furrowed brow and engrossed look that usually accompanied her immersion in a book. From zero to reading in sixty seconds.
“And the little woman, of course. It’s so much more interesting when the gloves come off, don’t you think?” He tipped his glass to Mick in a mocking salute. “Feel free to take a swing, won’t you? It can’t be healthy, I’m sure, to constantly repress any violent instincts.”
Mick shook his head. He felt a combination of pity and disgust as he met Marcus’s glinting gaze. “I’m not sure what fucks with your head the most. That I’m nothing like our father,” he said, “or that you’re everything he is.”
And he turned his back and walked away.
The arrival of the first course finally diverted the attention of her chatty neighbour. Sophy let out a silent sigh of relief. She’d been nodding and smiling along to a lecture on the infant vaccination scheme for twenty minutes. She was fairly sure she ap
proved of the scheme in theory, but in logistical, halfway-drunk detail, she hadn’t the faintest idea what the woman was talking about.
Mick had disappeared to get them drinks half an hour ago. The last she’d seen of him, he’d been waylaid by a crowd of cheek-kissers.
Steeling herself, she abandoned the dull safety of the table and ventured into the chattering hoards to look for him. The combined pitch of voices and laughter had become a sort of unified hum, like having an agitated bee inside her ear. Clinking glass and the thumping beat of music completed the universal sounds of a party.
She stood for a moment, looking around and feeling more than usually awkward. A man came up to her, leaned close, and tried to make himself heard over the commotion. He asked a question about the guest rooms upstairs, of which she only caught the tail end. She had no idea whether he was genuinely seeking information or making an uninspired pass at her, so she gave an awkward shrug in return and slipped quickly away.
She finally found Mick near the entrance to the ballroom, deep in conversation with a tall, attractive woman in her sixties. He was relaxed and smiling, which had been such a rarity this week that she blinked and hung back uncertainly. He caught sight of her and immediately held out a hand, his face creasing in a spontaneous grin. Her stomach did a little pleased flip. Putting her fingers in his, she allowed him to pull her into his side and wrap a friendly arm around her.
“Aunt Caroline,” he said, “this is Sophy James. Sophy, this my aunt, Caroline Hollister.”
Sophy extended her hand, and was taken aback to be pulled into a hard, impulsive hug. The affectionate genes were obviously passed down the Hollister family tree in sparing but highly concentrated quantities.
“Sophy,” said Caroline warmly, clutching her upper arms to look searchingly into her face. She seemed to be satisfied with whatever she saw there, as her eyes disappeared into a web of happy creases. “Wonderful to meet you. I’ve just been hearing that you braved the lion’s den last night.”
This was so close to Sophy’s own analogy that she blushed slightly.
“Don’t let my brother put you off,” Caroline went on. “Our father was a gem of a man, and despite Michael’s failings, look at the son he produced.” She smiled at Mick. “We don’t spring from entirely rotten roots.”
“Um…” There didn’t seem any polite way to express her wholehearted agreement.
Caroline merely laughed, and touched them both again with a gentle hand before she excused herself to get another glass of wine. Sophy watched her elegant frame weave through the crowd. She was very lean in build, still fit and muscular in middle age, and her shoes were fabulous, last season’s Louboutins.
At least Mick had someone in his family, was all she could think.
“She seems nice,” she said, close to his ear, and he nodded, his face still softer than she had yet seen.
“She’s a lifesaver.” His arm was still warm around her waist and his breath smelled faintly and not unpleasantly of pinot noir. “Finished your book?” he asked teasingly, and she held up his phone.
“We need to talk about your tastes in literature at some point,” she said loudly, as the bass beat from the band increased in volume. “But no, I was interrupted in my perusal of the Vintners’ Yearbook by an under-secretary from the Ministry of Health. A very tipsy under-secretary. Know anything about infant welfare? Because I still don’t.”
“Do you want to go back to the table and continue the conversation over the meal?” Mick asked.
She really did not.
“Or we could walk the long way back to your hotel, via the waterfront. I may be able to run to an ice cream cone.”
“Sold.”
Sophy was half-afraid they would be accosted by one or another of his unpleasant relatives on the way out of the building, but they managed a clear escape. Outside, they each took and released a long breath. Tension visibly eased from Mick’s shoulders.
His eyes met hers, and she scrunched up her nose, carefully weighing her words. “I really liked the table linens,” she said at last, hopefully. “And the cheese selection was pretty decent.”
Mick’s lips twitched. “Hmm,” he said as they started to walk. It was still light out, the sun just starting to set, the low rays casting shimmers across the harbour. “The wine wasn’t bad either.”
The spindly point of her heel wobbled down a crack in the sidewalk, and he reached to tuck her arm through his without looking at her. They wandered quietly along the Viaduct, blending in with the Saturday night crowds moving between bars and restaurants.
Mick stopped at the old-fashioned ice cream truck by the waterfront and bought two cups of vanilla bean. They managed to find a deserted bench on one of the piers, and sat looking out at the water, thoughtfully eating their ice cream dinner. Sophy kicked off her shoes and tucked one foot beneath her, leaning her chin against the other upraised knee. It was so peaceful and beautiful and…untainted that she was almost sorry when Mick returned to the subject of his family, although it was rare enough for him to make voluntary confidences that she didn’t protest.
“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, and she pulled her plastic spoon from her mouth, frowning at it.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” she told the spoon. All she could give him at the moment was privacy. “It’s not your fault that your family is… Well. That they are what they are.”
She could have elaborated on exactly what they were, in short and pithy detail. However, she was a firm believer that a person could take pot shots at their own flesh and blood without necessarily appreciating it when well-meaning friends agreed with them. “Has it always been like that?” she asked carefully.
A blinding ray of the retiring sun struck the harbour and skipped across its surface into the horizon, fragmenting the water into shards of rippling light, like a heavenly hand had skimmed a huge stone.
Mick got up to throw his empty cup in the nearby rubbish bin. He took up a position at her side, his hands deep in his pockets, one hip propped against a heavy support beam.
“You mean was there a great traumatic event that led to such obvious affection?” he asked ironically. “No. This weekend was a continuing blip in a long history of open warfare and fucking awful dinner parties.”
“I don’t understand how you can be so calm about it,” said Sophy bluntly. If she had fielded a battery of sly digs and brutal insults her entire life, particularly from those who ought to stand most staunchly at her back, she would have the vitality of a deflated balloon by now. At the very least, she would have boxes full of nasty caricatures.
Mick rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t think “calm” is quite the right word,” he said. “Resigned, maybe. Angry, if I dwell on it. The older I get, the less power they have to affect me.” It was more of a lip twist than a smile. “Which only annoys my father and Marcus more. Vicious cycle.”
He shrugged. “My father has always had very set ideas of what he wants for his life. He expected his children to fit the blueprint of those goals. He managed a carbon copy in Marcus, and a socially acceptable daughter in Hayley. I was a bit of a changeling child. More backstreet boxer than bourbon and politics at the club. I got in the occasional fight at school, which reinforced my family’s belief that I think purely with my fists. Marcus was a little more subtle when he misbehaved.”
Translation: Marcus was a slimy bastard who had probably toyed with blackmail and extortion from the cradle, Sophy thought grimly. She could imagine Mick wading in without hesitation to defend himself or someone else.
She could also see, with no difficulty at all, that Michael Hollister would have reacted badly when faced with a young son whom he was physically unable to dominate. He would undoubtedly have lashed out and attempted to subdue Mick emotionally.
“I was an embarrassment to them,” Mick continued coolly. “Walking evidence of a failure on my father’s part.” His eyes flickered. “A fifty percent success rate was unacceptable.”
“Your sister,” she said slowly. “Hayley? No…”
“No, not Hayley.” He stared out at the water. “My older sister, Samantha.”
She waited, anticipating his next words with a sense of profound sadness and sympathy.
“She died when I was eighteen.” Mick shook his head. “She was only twenty-three. Her…boyfriend,” he paused, and his voice was thick with disgust, “was absolutely wasted on coke. Threw a scene at her work. Insisted on driving her home. Sped right through the barriers at a railway crossing, and collided with a freight train at half past five in the afternoon. He was fine.”
He took a deep breath that shuddered through his large frame. “She was almost decapitated.”
Sophy brought up her other leg, wrapped both arms around her knees. She felt a bit sick.
“My parents,” he said, stopped, went on: “My parents were outraged that it ended up in the papers. Cokehead races train; kills girlfriend. How very sordid.”
Jesus.
“Samantha was… She made some…questionable choices where men were concerned.” Mick snorted harshly. “Obviously. She was a little too fond of a drink. Stuck her finger up at my father whenever possible.” His knuckles were white around the railing of the dock fence. “She had this dog. This ridiculous black poodle that she treated like it was a kid. And she had this laugh. She would tell these fucking awful jokes, and just laugh and laugh.”
Tears stung Sophy’s eyes.
“I was away,” Mick said. “I’d just finished high school and bunked off to Oz for a month with Sean.” He swallowed. “They didn’t tell me. By the time I got home, she was safely buried, and the scandal was dying down.”
Sophy got up on slightly unsteady legs, went to him and reached for his hand. Halfway through the motion, she changed her mind and wrapped both arms around him, leaning her full weight against his side. He didn’t return the embrace, but accepted it, relaxing just a fraction.
