So Now You're Back

by Heidi Rice

  He walked to the door, picked up the holdall he’d dropped as soon as they’d come in.

  ‘When you speak to Aldo and the au pair, tell them both I’m sorry.’ He turned the door handle, exhaustion overwhelming him. ‘I’ll contact Lizzie in a couple of days, once she’s calmed down, and grovel my arse off with her.’

  He stared at her, not bitter or resentful any more, just desperately sad that it had always been too late to repair the damage he’d done. And their time in Tennessee had done nothing but create an illusion of false hope that had always been bound to shatter.

  Chapter 22

  Suck it up, your children come first, and if he can’t see that, then he really doesn’t want you—not who you are now anyway.

  Halle repeated the words to herself, over and over again, but even so the two flights it took to get to Aldo’s bedroom felt like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

  Lizzie and Aldo sat huddled on the bed together with their arms around each other. It was a sight Halle had never expected to see again, and it helped to calm her racing heartbeat, and fill a little of the huge pit of despair opening up in her stomach.

  Luke had blindsided her, but why hadn’t he said anything sooner? Why had he waited until the worst possible moment to reveal his feelings? The simple answer was because they weren’t real.

  Tennessee had been an illusion, brought on by a year-long dry spell, being in such close proximity to Luke’s magnificent cock and the euphoria of being able to unpack the last of the baggage from her past.

  She had to go forward now and forget about what they might have been. That her children seemed to have found each other again while she’d been gone was one huge upside.

  One she could use now to help clean up the mess Luke had caused downstairs.

  ‘Has Dad gone?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was he even doing here?’ She sounded more astonished than accusing, but still Halle felt the shaft of guilt. She had known it wasn’t a good idea to spring this on Lizzie.

  Why hadn’t she used her head, instead of listening to her foolish heart?

  ‘Why did Lizzie’s dad hit Trey?’ Aldo asked.

  Halle held up her hands. ‘OK, guys, listen, I’ve got a lot of explaining to do. But first things first. Lizzie, why don’t you go and have a shower, then try calling Trey on his mobile? So we can make sure he’s not badly hurt.’

  As shocking as Luke’s punch had seemed, Trey hadn’t looked badly hurt to her, but she needed to get Lizzie out of the room while she talked to Aldo. And vice versa. She had a lot of talking to do, not just about this morning, but about a host of other things.

  She’d never been entirely honest with either of her children. Had peppered her parenting with a parade of small and sometimes huge lies, which had always felt justified, but now felt like the worse kind of cop-out. If she had learned one thing from her time with Luke, it was that keeping secrets—for whatever reason—never worked, and could often cause more hurt than they healed.

  She needed to come clean with them both. To answer whatever questions they had for her now honestly. But she couldn’t do it to them both at the same time because … well, it was going to be hard enough without being outnumbered. After all, she wasn’t Super Mum.

  Lizzie got off the bed, looking unsure again. ‘I don’t know if Trey’ll want to speak to me now. Not after what Dad did.’

  ‘What your father did wasn’t your fault, sweetheart.’

  ‘Actually, it probably was, a little bit.’

  Halle sat next to Aldo, let him cling to her. ‘How so?’ she asked, surprised again by her daughter’s new-found maturity. It wasn’t like Lizzie to take the blame for anything.

  ‘Dad doesn’t know about Liam. I never told him. I think he still thinks I’m—’ she shrugged, the movement stiff and uncomfortable ‘—like, thirteen when it comes to boys. That’s probably why he freaked out when he saw Trey and me kissing.’

  The explanation was so practical and forthright, it stunned Halle. Had Lizzie already forgiven her father for that punch?

  ‘You were kissing Trey?’ Aldo’s face screwed up as if he’d just been force-fed a can of lugworms. ‘Yuck!’

  Both she and Lizzie laughed, Aldo’s horrified reaction breaking the tension.

  ‘That’s so gross,’ he added to reiterate the point.

  ‘No, it’s not. Trey’s a really good kisser, actually,’ Lizzie said, obviously enjoying her brother’s discomfort.

  Aldo placed his hands over his ears. ‘Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!’

  Lizzie began making kissy noises, inciting a louder and more vociferous chorus of yucks.

  ‘All right, both of you, stop it,’ Halle cut in, assuming her role as peacemaker, oddly moved by the exchange. Neither of her children could be that badly traumatised by this morning’s events if they could still start a sibling spat over nothing.

  ‘Fine, I’m leaving,’ Lizzie announced, but the look she sent Halle was one of uncertainty. ‘If I can’t get in touch with Trey, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out,’ Halle said, surprised but also gratified to have her daughter look to her for reassurance. What exactly she was going to say to Trey, and Lizzie, about that clinch on the couch when they did locate Trey would have to be another problem for Future Halle to solve.

  Lizzie nodded and left the room, apparently satisfied with Halle’s answer.

  ‘Does Lizzie’s dad hate me now, too?’ Aldo’s question threw Halle’s emotions straight back into turmoil as soon as the door had closed behind her daughter.

  She slung her arm round her son’s shoulders, wishing—as she had so often before—that she could simply take all his insecurities away. ‘Of course not, honey. He doesn’t even know you.’ The surge of anger at Luke for his insane behaviour went some way to quelling the ever-present guilt.

  ‘But I kicked him.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but he punched Trey and you were just defending your friend. Now, I’m not saying violence is ever the answer, but …’

  Aldo slanted her his get-real-Mum look, forcing her to abandon her standard ‘non-violence’ message.

  ‘But, in this case, Luke knows he shouldn’t have hit Trey.’ Sometimes, honesty was more important than platitudes when it came to peace and reconciliation. ‘And he asked me to tell you how sorry he is for doing that.’

  ‘He did?’ Aldo’s eyes popped wide, but beneath his surprise she could see genuine pleasure. ‘Then he doesn’t hate me?’

  ‘No, he definitely doesn’t hate you.’

  Aldo smiled, the same boyish, untroubled smile she’d seen on his face only recently when he was hanging out with Trey.

  OK, now I’m confused. Has Aldo forgiven Luke already, too?

  ‘I think Luke’s more worried that you might hate him,’ she added. And he had good reason to be as far as she could see.

  ‘Why would I hate him?’

  ‘Um, because he punched Trey.’

  ‘Trey’s tough. I bet he could take Lizzie’s dad in a fight if he wanted to.’

  ‘Well … I’m not sure that’s …’ She paused, totally nonplussed now. Where was her non-violence speech when she needed it the most? And how could Aldo be so blasé now, after being so distressed downstairs?

  ‘But Trey didn’t punch Lizzie’s dad back,’ Aldo continued, sounding disappointed. ‘So it probably didn’t even hurt Trey that much.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, still struggling to follow Aldo’s ten-year-old logic while coping with the growing realisation that it probably wasn’t that far removed from Luke’s logic. Or Trey’s logic, either. Because when she had waylaid her fleeing au pair at the door, his bloody lip already puffing up like bread dough in the proving drawer, and apologised for Luke’s punch, all he’d said was ‘I’m so sorry, Ms Best’, as if he were the guilty party.

  Bloody men! Are they born emotionally obtuse, or is it just the inevitable result of having too much testosterone poisoning
their bloodstream?

  Because it was beginning to look as if she had been much more traumatised by Luke’s punch than either her son or the young man Luke had attacked.

  ‘OK, well …’ She hesitated, remembering Aldo’s original question. ‘The thing is, nobody hates you, Aldo. Even Lizzie when you and she argue.’

  ‘I know,’ he said with complete conviction. ‘Me and her are friends now,’ he continued, confirming what she’d noticed when she’d walked into the room. Something had definitely changed in their relationship. Something for the better. ‘She took me to the movies while Trey’s mum was sick. And she didn’t moan once.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said as more of the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Lizzie must have stepped in to take care of Aldo while Trey’s mum had been dying.

  Why hadn’t she ever considered putting them together more instead of trying to keep them apart? It chimed with what Luke had said, about trusting their daughter more. Maybe if she had trusted Lizzie and started treating her like a young woman instead of a snotty teenager, given her more responsibility instead of less, she and Aldo’s relationship wouldn’t have been so fractious these past few years.

  ‘Lizzie doesn’t hate me, but I know someone who does.’ Aldo’s matter-of-fact comment cut neatly into Halle’s guilt trip.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My dad.’ His whisky-coloured eyes, so like her own, suddenly seemed much older than ten years. ‘That’s why he never wanted to see me, isn’t it?’

  Blood slammed into her heart.

  Unable to bear the blank acceptance in Aldo’s gaze, the answer came to her. Why not tell him Claudio was dead? Then he’d never have to know the truth. Claudio didn’t hate him. It was worse than that. Claudio didn’t even care he existed. How could you tell a ten-year-old that and not expect them to be devastated? Especially a ten-year-old like Aldo, whose confidence had taken so many knocks in recent years.

  The urge to tell her son anything that would make the pain of rejection go away was as strong as it had ever been. He was just a child—the wadded-up piles of dirty socks stuck at the end of his bed, the comics strewn all over the floor, the hamster rattling its cage as it sprinted to nowhere on its wheel, the piles of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards neatly stacked on his desk, probably in order of greatest hit points or something, the smell of bubblegum that lingered in the room were all testament to that.

  But as she opened her mouth, swearing to herself this would be her final white lie, Aldo said, ‘Is it because I did all that bad stuff at school? Is that why he doesn’t like me? Could you tell him I’m much better now? And I don’t do that stuff much any more?’

  And the lie died on her tongue.

  ‘Oh, Aldo.’ She dragged him into her arms and hugged him hard. The guilt all but destroying her at the eagerness, the hope in his tone.

  How could she have gotten things so wrong? By not telling him the truth, by almost lying to him again, she’d made him believe her mistakes and Claudio’s character flaws were somehow his fault.

  He struggled out of her arms, his expression earnest and confused. ‘It’s all right, Mum, don’t cry. What are you sad about?’

  She scrubbed the errant tears away. ‘I’m not sad. I’m emotional. Because I’ve just realised how amazing my son is.’

  ‘Really?’ He wrinkled his nose in astonishment, making her realise that while she may have told him that a hundred times, she’d never made him believe it.

  ‘Yes, really. Do you want me to tell you about your dad?’

  He nodded, the eagerness still there. She hated that she would have to crush his hope, but there were much worse things than not having a relationship with your father. And one of them was having a father as selfish and self-absorbed as Claudio in your life, or one who was a violent alcoholic, like Brian Best.

  The thought brought with it thoughts of Luke, a man who had been terrified of becoming a father and yet had risen to the challenge despite his fear. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind.

  Don’t start getting overemotional about Luke again, or you’ll start blubbing like your namesake, Halle Berry, on Oscar night and never get this done.

  ‘Your dad, your biological father,’ she corrected, because Claudio had never deserved to be anyone’s dad, ‘is called Claudio Benedetti. He’s Italian. And we weren’t going out for very long when I discovered I was going to have you.’

  ‘Did he know about me?’

  She gulped past the huge lump blocking her throat. ‘Yes, he knew I was pregnant. And he did meet you once, when you were a tiny baby.’

  She sucked in another breath and soldiered on. She’d had ten years to get ready for this. Why the hell wasn’t she much better prepared? Winging it had become her forte on the show, but never in her private life.

  Then she remembered what Luke had said. The nerves didn’t show on screen.

  Come on, Halle, you can do this.

  ‘But he decided he didn’t want to be a father. Even though he was one. That was his decision, because he’s a selfish immature man, and it’s his loss, because you are such a terrific kid. And he’ll never know how terrific.’

  She braced for more questions, ones that might be impossible to answer. But Aldo sat for a moment without speaking, clearly contemplating everything she’d said, then he shrugged. ‘OK.’

  ‘OK?’ She’d been terrified of having this conversation for ten years. Could it really be that painless? ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, my dad sounds like a dickhead. But Trey said he never met his dad and he was glad, because he thinks his dad was probably a dickhead.’

  Perfectly put, Trey. Why didn’t I think of that?

  ‘Trey’s right,’ she agreed. Apparently, she had even more to thank Aldo’s au pair for than she’d realised. Whatever had been going on between Lizzie and him on the couch, she hoped Lizzie had managed to contact him. ‘“Dickhead” sums up Claudio perfectly,’ she added.

  ‘You said “dickhead”.’ Aldo sniggered, both scandalised and excited.

  ‘I know, but sometimes you just have to call a dickhead, a dickhead.’

  He giggled some more, clearly delighted with his mother’s newly acquired Tourette’s. The uninhibited chuckle reminded Halle of when he was a baby and Lizzie would blow on his tummy to hear that distinctive belly laugh.

  Maybe her children hadn’t changed nearly as much as she’d thought.

  ‘I love you to bits.’ She tousled his hair and planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. ‘You do know that, right?’

  ‘Yuck.’ He backhanded his face, wiping away her kiss as if he’d just been slimed by a ten-foot slug. Then rolled his eyes dramatically, a picture of ten-year-old mortification.

  ‘Duh, Mum. Of course I know that.’

  Chapter 23

  ‘Any luck contacting Trey?’ Halle asked as she closed Lizzie’s bedroom door behind her.

  Her daughter shook her head, her expression hopeless, as she threw her phone down on the bed. ‘No, his mobile keeps going to voicemail.’

  Halle sat down on the bed beside her daughter and patted her knee. ‘How about you, Aldo and I go round to see him?’

  Lizzie’s eyes lit with gratitude and she hugged Halle round the waist. ‘Can we? Really?’ She paused, then peered up at Halle. ‘So you’re not mad at us?’

  ‘Why would I be mad?’

  ‘Because we were snogging on the couch.’

  Hmm, well, there is that.

  ‘I’m not mad, but …’ She pushed Lizzie’s hair behind her ear, waited for her daughter to sit up. ‘I’d like to know exactly what is going on between you two. Have you been sleeping together?’

  The blush fired up Lizzie’s neck and she scowled. ‘God, Mum!’ she whined, sounding more like the teenager Halle remembered.

  ‘Honey, I’m entitled to ask. I just wanted to know if we have to take another trip down to the family planning clinic.’ And if she had to have some serious words with them both.

  Lizzie jumped o
ff the bed, looking horrified now. ‘Mum, stop it. You’re embarrassing me.’

  ‘Then you really shouldn’t neck on the kitchen couch.’ She smiled at her daughter’s mortification, deciding to take the blazing red cheeks as a no. ‘First thing on a Thursday morning. Where your father and I can find you. Frankly, I was a little embarrassed, too. What you were doing looked rather—’ she hesitated, deciding to spare Lizzie’s blushes, despite her amusement ‘—involved.’

  ‘It was involved. But that’s as far as we’ve gone.’ Lizzie flopped back down on the bed, sounding distinctly disappointed. So clearly the not-sleeping-together hadn’t been Lizzie’s idea. ‘I think I probably just caught Trey at a really weak moment, though. His mother just died yesterday and he was cut up about it. Plus, he was still half asleep and I practically jumped him.’

  ‘He didn’t look like he was objecting much to me.’

  Lizzie’s blush flared anew, but she looked more pleased than mortified at the observation.

  ‘But more to the point,’ Halle said, ‘when did all this happen? Because, as I recall, you were rather antagonistic towards Trey before I left.’

  ‘That’s only because I had a massive crush on him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He’s such a wonderful guy, Mum. He’s so much more mature and responsible than any of the other guys I know. He really cares about people, and he doesn’t try to be cool, he just is cool. And …’ She grinned at Halle, her flushed cheeks warming to the subject. ‘He is super hot.’

  The dreamy tone reminded Halle of her own infatuation with Luke at Lizzie’s age. She pushed aside yet more thoughts of Luke. At least Trey was older and clearly not as screwed up as Luke had been. But even so …

  ‘I thought he told me his mother was dead,’ she said, still struggling to get the events of the past twelve days straight in her head.

  Lizzie looked at her feet. ‘He was worried you wouldn’t hire him if you knew. She’s been in a hospice for months, and she’s been sick for years.’