Page 68 of Filthy Rich Temptation
‘Yes, yes, but I don’t see why you can’t do that in Pembrokeshire. Your beach house is stunning, and you’ve hardly used it. We had so much fun there when you were little. All those summers on the beach, eating ice cream, playing in the rock pools. Lottie would love it.’
The memories choke me up, but I can’t say why. Grief for Dad, grief for a future I refuse to imagine, grief for the wistful look on Mum’s face.
I swallow it all down with some water, and choose my words carefully. ‘Lottie isn’t my kid. Sadie’s not my girlfriend. This is me helping out a friend, Mum. Nothing more.’
Though she’s not listening. I can tell she’s already picking out a hat – a new one, not the one she chose for Katie’s big day. I wince as I take another sip of water, wishing it was something stronger. But it’s a good thing – for Katie as much as me – that I saw sense before we hit the aisle. I only wish I’d seen that sense sooner. Much,muchsooner.
‘Sure, sure, darling. But now she’shere…’
‘Mum!’
‘Don’tMumme. That girl saved you from yourself after your father died. Don’t think I didn’t notice.’
I stare back at her – youwhat?
‘Don’t look so surprised. I have eyes, you know.’
Eyes that seemed forever distant back then, consumed by her grief.
‘I saw you together at your father’s funeral. When everyone else was at the bar, sharing stories, commiserating, I looked out the window and I saw you there in the rain. All alone. Then she came and ushered you under the trees. I saw how she spoke to you. I saw how you…’
Her throat bobs as her eyes tighten, emotion welling in her depths that I’m wholly unprepared for, while the memory floods my mind with vivid, painful clarity.
‘…you broke down. With everyone else, you were strong, stoic, barely a flicker… I was so worried about you. But I didn’t know how to be there for you when I was struggling to keep it together myself. But with her, you let go. I saw how she held you, how she gave you the comfort I couldn’t. She was who you needed, who you trusted…’
‘She was only eighteen when Dad died,’ I say quietly, like it absolves me of this entire conversation.
‘She was young, yes, but still an adult. She always had an older head on her shoulders. I don’t know if it was her upbringing. Heaven knows it can’t have been easy growing up with no mother, and a father who’d sooner look the other way than offer her any affection. But she was older than her years. Wiser. More than that, she got you to open up. To grieve. She was there for you in ways I couldn’t be. In ways Taylor and Axel weren’t. And I did wonder…’
‘She was simply a good friend to me, and now I’m trying to be a good friend back.’
‘Of course you are, darling, and your father would approve too.’
I give a tight nod, forcing the words to land somewhere I can manage them. But the grief presses in. The guilt too. All the time I missed with Dad because I was working. All those family dinners they invited me to – skipped. Because the more money I made, the less they’d have to. They could retire. Travel. Finally work to live, not live to work.
There would always be another family dinner – right?
Wrong.
And Sadie was the only one I ever poured that out to. The only one who truly understood what I’d lost – not just the future, but the past too.
And then I lost her as well.
‘But forgive me for hoping that now sheisback,’ my mother says, ‘things might?—’
‘Things might nothing, Mum. There’s nothing going on between us. She’s here to get back on her feet, and then she’ll be gone again.’
Whatever she hears in my voice makes her brow twitch, but I don’t care to find out what. I move around her, back into the living area, eyes on anything but her beady ones.
Maybe I should’ve shown her the door rather than the wine bottle.
She tuts softly. ‘Do you honestly think I can’t see that light back in your face?’
Light?What light? Unless she means the glare from the spotlight she’s set on me.
‘After watching you with her daughter,’ she goes on, ‘the way you play with her, read to her, take care of her – I’m supposed to believe thatyoureally believe there’s nothing more between you both?’
Of course I believe it. I have to. I’m a workaholic, just like Dad.
