Page 113 of Mark

Mum arches a brow. “Then why did you cry when the twins finished school? I’m pretty sure you said, ‘they don’t need me anymore and I don’t know who I am if I’m not watching over them’. Your words, babe. Your words.”

“I take it back. I take it all back,” he growls, wiping sand off his shorts.

“Dad, you know if you don’t, he’ll act worse than he does when someone is pregnant,” Lily reminds him.

“I’m going. Come on,” he orders Myles.

“Mum, do you have the towels?” I ask.

“I do,” she states, handing me a bag. “There’s also some water in the ice bag.”

“Thank you,”I reply, and reach down to Freya. “Come on. We are going to sit somewhere else.”

She takes my hand and glances over at Lily. “I’ll see you later.”

“Have fun!” Lily calls out.

“Why aren’t we sitting with your family?”

“Because they monopolise your time, and I want to spend some alone time with you,” I admit.

She stops, pulling on my hand to bring me to a stop. “Careful, you don’t want to be catching feelings,” she warns.

“Puh-lease, you will be the one falling head over heels for me.”

She snorts, continuing down the beach. “You wish.”

“It will happen. I mean, I bet you’re even picturing our wedding and the children.”

“Yes, because all women picture those things because that’s all there is to life.”

“Wait; you don’t want to get married or have children?” I ask, spinning to face her.

Why?

How?

She’s a teacher, for Christ’s sake. She’d be a great mum. I’ve not tasted her cooking so I can’t really comment on the wife thing, but she is phenomenal in bed, and to me, that seems like the most important part of marriage.

She arches a brow. “No.”

“No to marriage or children?”

“Both.”

“How can you not want children?” I ask, but then I see the mirth in her eyes before she masks it. That little minx. “What about the children we spoke of? Do you not want them now? How could you do this to us? And why wouldn’t you want to be married to me? I worship the ground you walk on.”

Sunbathers stop to listen to our conversation. She glances around before turning to me, her cheeks reddening, and not from the sun. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m your sister. I don’t want to marry you or have your babies,” she cries.

Gasps echo around us and heat rises in my cheeks. I race to catch up with her, picking her up. “That was mean,” I scold.

She throws her arms around my neck, laughing. “You deserved it. Despite what society says, not all women need children to build a life and a home. It’s the same as a woman can be a mum and still have a career.”

My brows pinch together. “I didn’t say they couldn’t or that women needed children.”

“You literally said and I quote ‘I bet you’re even picturing our wedding and the children’, insinuating that’s all women think of. Believe me, as a teen, I wasn’t picturing my wedding or thinking of what to call the kids. I was thinking of the day I could go to Ibiza, or if I could blag my mum to let me out to a party on the weekend.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It was a joke. You’ve met the females in my family. Do you think they’d let any of us get away with talking like that?”

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