Page 40 of Bordeaux Bombshell
“Sydney, don’t—”
“Don’t what?”
“This isn’t what you think it is. Just let it go.”
How dare he think he can shush me. Anger floods through my body, igniting my desire to make him hurt. Make him pay. So I drop the little bomb I discovered yesterday to blow up his life the way he blew up mine.
“And what if I don’t? What if I want to know everything? You don’t think I have a right to know? You don’t think your parents have a right to know they have a grandson?”
The silence is so loud you can hear the drip of the faucet in the bathroom sink before Jackie sucks in a huge breath and bursts into tears. Then everyone explodes at once, talking over one another while I sit back and watch the fallout.
“A g-g-grandson?” Jackie sobs.
“What is she talking about, son?” Greg’s words are accompanied by the scrape of his chair against the floor.
“A son? What? Non, non, non.”
But it’s Nate’s growl across the table that echoes loudest of all. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Sydney.”
He pushes to his feet to face Greg. “It’s not what she thinks.” He turns to Jackie and squats beside her chair, trying to get her attention. “Mom? It’s not true. I swear.”
The fire of righteous anger is fizzling in my chest, but I push away the doubt his reaction triggered. He’s the one who left us. He’s the one who should be sorry.
Manon clears her throat, flashing her phone around the table. “Gabriel is my son, that is true. He is small for his age, but he just turned ten last month.”
Ten? A trickle of doubt worms its way into my gut as I work out the math of her ten-year-old son and Nate’s first foray to France nine years ago.
She sighs, her shoulders dropping as she pokes at the food on her plate with a fork. “When Nate first came to Hermouet, Gabriel was just a toddler, and I was a fresh widow.”
“You were a—oh god.” Oh. My. God. I am such a fool. I swallow back the bile rising in my throat. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
I can’t look at anyone as I push to my feet, my chair toppling over with the force. What have I done? I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but I’ve never done them maliciously before.
What was I thinking?
I wasn’t.
I have to get out of here. Jackie’s tears make me want to disappear forever. To shrink to the snake I am and take my chances in the wild, as long as I never have to look any of these people in the eye again.
Nate
“Whatthefuckiswrong with you, Sydney?”
She’s almost to her car, parked on the far side of my mom’s, which explains why I didn’t see it earlier. She doesn’t answer, so I jog the last few feet to catch up.
Snagging her arm, I pull her to a stop. She doesn’t meet my eye, the familiar stubborn set of her jaw framed by the shafts of sunlight breaking through the clouds overhead. “Seriously, what the fuck was that about? Answer me, Syd.”
Despite the patches of sunlight, drops of rain start to fall from the sky, sharp and cold in the breeze. In seconds, it turns into a downpour, soaking us both. Sydney shivers, then tugs her arm, but I don’t release it. “I didn’t mean to upset your mom. But you deserved it. Now let me go.”
She flinches at the same time as I do, the hard rain becoming hail. Little chunks of ice pelt us, stinging my neck and face.
“I deserved it? Seriously? Where the hell do you get off thinking that?” Still gripping her arm, I pull her away from the car, heading up the hill to my place. God, I want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her like the child she’s being, but there’s a good chance she’d claw my kidneys out with her bare hands.
She fights me, but not enough to mean it, letting me steer her under the overhang at my front door. “You came back, and everyone pretended like it was fine, like you didn’t abandon us all.”
I push open the front door and pull her inside, both of us dripping as her purse hits the floor. My anger at her audacity grows with each word out of her fucking mouth.
“Theymay have forgiven you, but I haven’t. I won’t. You ruined everything.”
