by Heidi Rice
‘I don’t … I still don’t understand.’
‘Matty found my mom and Falcone in bed together,’ he said flatly. ‘It was the night she got pregnant with me.’
Oh, no, Matty.
What a blow that must have been. He could only have been nineteen the year that film was made. What a devastating betrayal. Was that why he had never spoken of his relationship with Falcone – because it had simply been too painful? Was that why he had stopped speaking to his sister? It must have been.
Ruby placed her hand on her stomach, which was starting to hurt. She rubbed the ache, feeling responsible in some weird way for Matty’s pain. How hurt he must have been. How devastated. And what kind of friend to him had she really been, if he couldn’t even confide in her the truth about his passionate affair with a man they’d both idolised? But then the significance of Luke’s inheritance occurred to her.
‘He must have forgiven her,’ she whispered. ‘And your father.’
‘What?’ Luke said.
‘Matty, he must have forgiven them both.’ It all made a strange, sweet, symbolic kind of sense, she thought as the knots in her stomach eased. ‘That must be why he left half of The Royale to you,’ she continued, when Luke just stared at her. ‘It’s the only explanation, for the bequest. Did you tell your mother Matty left you half of The Royale? She seemed so sad last week when I spoke to her. So devastated by his death. I’m sure it would help her immensely to know Matty forgave …’
‘Ruby, she knows.’
‘Okay, well that’s good,’ she said, glad that he’d told Helena.
‘Is it?’ She heard it again, the edge to his voice.
‘Yes, I think it is, why don’t you?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m not sure she deserves to be forgiven for what they did.’
‘Why not?’ she asked. He seemed so angry.
‘She slept with the guy her own brother was in love with. And if that isn’t crummy enough. She kept it a secret from me all these years, that my old man was gay. Or possibly bi.’
She stiffened. She could not have been more shocked with the bitterness in his tone if he had reached across the table and slapped her. This wasn’t just anger, it was much more than that. ‘Luke, why are you so furious?’
She refused to believe Luke was homophobic, he was far too intelligent for that. But something was going on here she wasn’t getting. Why was he so upset about something that had happened before he was even born? He was right, what Helena and Falcone had done to Matty was not cool, and it must have hurt Matty terribly. But people did stupid things all the time. Helena had been so young at the time too, much younger than either of them were now. She could well imagine that if Falcone was anything like his son it would have been far too easy to become infatuated with him. And it was very clear from the way Luke had talked to his mother on the phone a week ago – and the way he was talking about her now – that he had issues with her, but he seemed to be completely missing the most important point. That without that secret affair, he would never have been born.
‘Are you angry because your father loved another man?’ she asked, scared to hear the answer. ‘You’re not … you’re not ashamed of him because of his sexuality, are you?’
***
Luke stared at Ruby. The distress in her face giving him pause.
Was he? Ashamed of his father, because he had a love affair with a man? He examined the question, because it hadn’t even occurred to him until this moment. He’d never considered himself to be homophobic. But then people who definitely were homophobic probably thought they weren’t, either. He’d been shocked when his mother had told him the truth. Shocked and angry. And a lot of that anger stemmed from the fact his father had been living a lie all those years.
He’d never been honest, never admitted to the world who he really was. And after watching that damn cowboy film with Ruby a week ago, he knew exactly how destructive a secret like that could be. But was it really his old man’s fault that he had been forced to keep that secret to save his career?
Falcone had been the voice of sex, famous for being able to seduce women at fifty paces. And it was a reputation he’d gone out of his way to uphold. Luke couldn’t even remember all the times he’d been dropped off to see his dad as scheduled, and had bumped into some stunning young woman in the kitchen of his father’s house in Montecito, usually in their underwear or less. Actresses and models, hat-check girls and barmaids who his father had picked up the night before and then hadn’t bothered to get out of the house before he arrived.
How he’d resented those women at first, for taking all of his dad’s attention, but when he’d hit puberty, he’d been mortified, realising some of them were not much older than he was.
To discover now they had all been a lie, too …
His dad must have been bisexual, but why had he never had a long-term relationship with any woman, including his mom? His old man had hidden his true self behind a string of casual, careless, indiscriminate booty calls. But it wasn’t his father’s sexuality that Luke was ashamed of.
‘No, it’s not the fact he fell in love with another man that bothers me, it’s all the lies,’ he said at last, in answer to Ruby’s question. Because all he felt now was sad and disappointed that Falcone had never been honest about anything.
‘I’m glad.’ The relief on Ruby’s face was palpable. ‘It’s so important to know that the quality of your relationship with your father doesn’t have anything to do with him being bisexual,’ she said, sounding so earnest he had the weird urge to hug her. If only it were as simple as that. ‘My father was heterosexual,’ she added. ‘Or at least I assume he was, because I never met him. He disappeared faster than Harry Potter in his invisibility cloak when my mum told him she was pregnant with me.’
‘That’s tough. He sounds like a dick,’ Luke said, and felt the pointless anger scouring his throat again. This time on Ruby’s behalf instead of his own.
‘Yes, I suppose he was,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t need him in the end. Matty was the dad of my heart, and he made a much better dad than that guy could ever have made, so I consider myself lucky,’ she said.
So, Ruby had lost her father a month ago. No wonder she was still struggling with her grief.
‘But I don’t want to talk about my deadbeat dad right now,’ she said. ‘We were talking about yours,’ she added, neatly changing the subject again. ‘Why did you think he was a selfish arsehole?’
He jerked his shoulder. Shit, he really didn’t want to have this conversation. He hated talking about his father at the best of times, complaining about him now though – in the light of Ruby’s crap dad story – made that even tougher. But as she stared at him, somehow he felt he owed her this conversation.
‘My mom wanted me to form a relationship with him. But I don’t think he was ever that interested,’ he said. ‘I lost count of the times as a kid when he’d be due to take me out for the day, and he didn’t show. Or I’d get dropped off to spend the day with him in Montecito and he was too hung-over to do much of anything. Eventually I started to resent it and him. But maybe if I had known why he didn’t want to see me. Because I was a reminder of what he’d lost. A symbol of the night he’d fucked up what sounds like the one genuine relationship in his life …’ He sighed, and the weight in his stomach from the day before dropped back into his guts. ‘I guess I never thought of my father as someone who could be hurt, who deserved my sympathy. He was always so arrogant, so careless. Or so I thought. But to have that secret inside him that he could never acknowledge. It’s like Heath Ledger in that movie we watched. It must have destroyed him. I’ve disliked my father for a large part of my life, because I always thought he was a fraud. Pretending to be cool when he wasn’t, but now to discover he was kind of forced to be a fraud … and he must have been suffering.’
Ruby pressed a hand over his on the table, and the weight in his stomach rose up his torso. He blinked. Jesus, he was not going to cry. But the only wa
y to stop the sting from becoming a flood seemed to be to keep talking.
‘When I found him that morning, I always figured the overdose was a mistake,’ he said, the words tumbling out. ‘I figured he didn’t really mean to commit suicide, he was just monumentally careless. Or maybe he was looking for attention. A headline. His career was on the skids by then thanks to his addictions. I was sure he had forgotten I’d agreed to come by, because he always forgot details. But now I’m not so sure. What if he meant it? What if he meant for me to find him? What if it was a cry for help? I’ve been angry with him for so long about the consequences of that day.’ The panic attacks, the nightmares that had plagued him for years, and the anxiety which he’d never quite been able to tame completely a result of the emotional fallout from that day. ‘But I’m not angry with him anymore,’ he continued. ‘Because I realise he was never to blame. I guess there’s not much point being angry with my mom, either, for taking so long to tell me the truth.’
He sunk into the kitchen chair. Drained. Exhausted. He hadn’t meant to say any of that, hadn’t even known it was inside him.
But when Ruby knelt down in front of him, put trembling hands on his bare knees he was forced to meet her gaze and saw the emerald green, misty with compassion.
He shifted, supremely uncomfortable at how much he wanted to bask in it. Even knowing he didn’t deserve it.
‘Luke.’ She pressed her cheek to his knees, the sheen in her eyes crucifying him. She looked as if she were on the verge of tears. Who was she crying for? ‘I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know it was you who found him.’
Shit! why had he let that slip out? He was seriously losing the plot and it wasn’t even noon.
***
Ruby felt Luke pull away and forced herself to hold in the tears that were making her eyes burn and get off her knees.
Displays of emotion were not the way to go here. He looked uncomfortable, wary, because he had shared much more than she suspected he had meant to share. She mustn’t read too much into it.
Just as she had suspected, last night hadn’t ever been about her, about them.
She lifted their used plates from the table. ‘Do you want to take a shower?’
His eyebrows lifted a fraction. Then he rubbed his hand over his jaw. ‘I should probably head back to my place, before anyone arrives. I don’t want you to be accused of sleeping with the enemy’
No one would think that – not anymore – not even Jacie. But she could see how keen he was to leave, so she nodded and forced a smile to her lips.
‘Good thinking, Batman. Do you want to head down the fire escape once you’re dressed, just in case?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You sure you don’t want me to help out with the dishes?’
She shook her head.
As much as she would have loved to take him up on his offer, and have him pressed against her hip while they washed the breakfast dishes together in her tiny kitchen, she would just be prolonging the inevitable. And she needed to get her own shaky emotions under control.
‘Maybe next time,’ she said, then winced.
There won’t be a next time.
He nodded, but instead of heading down the corridor to get dressed, he stared at her for the longest moment then said. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby.’
‘What for?’ she asked, hoping he wasn’t going to apologise for giving her the best sex of her life again.
‘For not being able to save the theatre,’ he said, surprising her, especially as she could see he meant it. ‘You and Matty deserved better.’
She could see the regret and the guilt shadowing his eyes and she realized that if she pressed, she could easily guilt him into investing in The Royale. Because he felt responsible now, in a way he hadn’t before.
But the fleeting thought passed almost as quickly as it came …
Saving Matty’s dream, saving her dream, keeping The Royale open had never been Luke’s responsibility, any more than being born made him responsible for the break-up of Matty and Falcone’s love affair. And she felt even more ashamed now she’d tried to make it his responsibility.
Tears clogged her throat as she touched her palm to the stubble on his jaw, felt the muscle bunch and flex. ‘Don’t be sorry, Luke.’
She would just have to come up with another plan … one which didn’t involve Luke.
He dropped his forehead to hers and grasped the back of her neck. His thumb drew tantalizing circles on her nape, making sensation ricochet down to her core. She could hear his breathing, syncing with hers. Even though the hunger twisted and burned in her belly, the yearning all but consuming her, she drew away first.
‘You better get going, before Jacie turns up,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’
He nodded, then left her standing in the living room.
She made herself busy, gathering up their empty plates. She could hear him getting dressed in the bedroom, then the soft pad of his footsteps as he walked down the corridor and climbed on to the fire escape. Once the sound had faded away, she stopped rinsing.
Last night had been her and Luke’s Brokeback moment, and it had been exciting and wonderful and devastating all at the same time.
She still had at least a month of him working in the theatre and she just hoped their Brokeback moment wasn’t going to ruin the time they had left together.
Because she was definitely Jack Twist in this scenario. And he was Ennis. Trying to make this more had the potential to hurt her a lot more than Luke – because she suspected he was a man used to denying his emotional needs. And she was a woman who had always yearned to indulge them, with the right guy.
She had to get it through her head that Luke wasn’t that guy.
She went back to washing their breakfast dishes.
‘So what’s occurring between you and the man of steel buns?’
Ruby jumped and spun round so fast she dropped one of the plates back into the dirty dishwater, splashing her robe. ‘Jacie! Give me a clue before you do that,’ she said, placing her hand over her racing heart and hoping to change the subject.
‘I would have needed a foghorn to wake you up from day-dreaming about you know who.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Forget it. I just saw him walk out the back alley, wearing the same clothes he had on when he left yesterday morning to go who knows where. And you have beard burn on your chin.’
Ruby cupped her palm over the sore spot and her cheeks warmed.
Bollocks. Jacie missed nothing. ‘Umm.’
Jacie’s grin split her face. ‘Oh. My. God. You shagged him, didn’t you? This is perfect.’
‘I did not shag him,’ she remarked, trying to sound indignant.
‘Ruby, you are the worst liar that ever lived. You do know that, right?’ Jacie shot straight back.
Ruby swallowed, trying to dislodge the thickness in her throat. ‘It was just a one night type of thing.’
‘How do you know it’s just a one night thing?’ Jacie asked. ‘Did he say that? Already? That’s so not classy.’
And there it was again, the anti-Luke sentiment Ruby thought had been tamed. ‘Jace, could you do me a big favour?’
‘Sure, what?’
‘Could you forget about me and Luke and please don’t tell the others. I couldn’t bear for this to become a massive issue. For him or for me. It was fun and casual and not a big deal.’
Jacie’s brow furrowed. Ruby knew she was effectively asking her friend to swallow a circus elephant by asking her to remain silent about the best bit of gossip since Kim Kardashian released her sex tape. But when it came to something this serious, she knew Jacie would choke down the elephant if she had to.
‘Why are you so determined to make this not a thing when it could be a thing?’ Jacie said. ‘I don’t get it? Don’t you want it to be a thing?’
‘I’m not sure it can be a thing, even if I wanted it to be,’ Ruby said. ‘And I’m not sure I do.’
‘Why not?’<
br />
‘Because I’m grieving, Jace,’ Ruby stressed, knowing what could have been a convenient excuse to end the conversation was actually the truth.
As much as she had enjoyed last night, and been moved by Luke’s revelations this morning, was she really strong enough emotionally to embark on a relationship? A relationship which was full to bursting with complications before she and Luke had even touched each other for the first time. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Luke Matty had been the father of her heart. She was still processing the fact he hadn’t told her about his love affair with Falcone, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Would a man talk to his daughter about his failed love affair? Matty’s silence didn’t detract from the closeness of their relationship, if anything, it enhanced it. Matty had been protecting her, and her dreams, telling her the truth about Falcone would have been too much information.
But she was a grown woman now, and the truth about Luke was he was a complicated, conflicted guy trying to navigate the mistakes both his parents had made. Something she suspected was a lot tougher than he had let on after finding his father’s body. And while Luke didn’t blame his father anymore for that, she did. A little bit. Suicide was often a result of depression – which was beyond any person’s ability to control even with therapy and medication. She knew that, intellectually.
But the thought of Luke as a fourteen-year-old boy going to his father’s house to visit with a man who had failed him and finding something so horrific made her want to blame someone. And the only person she could think of to blame was Luke’s father. The man who should have loved him and protected him but had been too consumed by his own demons to do either. And that was without even factoring in how Falcone had failed Matty, too.
She let out a breath to release the tightness in her chest.
Anger was pointless and unproductive. Especially anger against a man who had died sixteen years ago.
People were fallible, parents made mistakes, love didn’t always conquer all, she of all people knew that. After all, she’d hardly spoken to her own mother since she’d left home at eighteen. There was no law that said you had to understand your parents, or the choices they made, and no law that said you needed to atone for them either.
