by Nicole Lane
They had Marcus to thank, or despise if you were Alora, for Eve’s reappearance at all. Eve later told Isabelle that he’d demanded to see her family, thinking she’d been exaggerating them. Otherwise, she would have stayed out of the picture much longer.
“I adore you, baby sis.” Eve had smiled. “But the rest of the fam gives me hives. Dad’s never forgiven me for being a slut, and Mother’s never forgiven me for being born so close on Alora’s heels. Neither has Alora, for that matter. You’re a darling, though.”
“You tried to sell me online,” Isabelle had reminded her. “You hated me.”
“It’s because you were so sweet and cute.” Eve had laughed. “It’s funny. Alora’s got the domestic goddess thing down pat, and she’s got a good heart—for anyone who isn’t me—and she’s sweet. But she has nothing together outside her personal life. She’s never been school or career-minded. She’s only ever wanted to be a wife. She’s got nothing outside of Doyle; only God knows why. No, no, listen. Hear me out. I’ve got the good head, but no heart. My personal life is usually spiraling out of control, but I’ve got a fantastic career. Look at me: I’m always a mess. You…you’re the one with the whole package. You’re beautiful, and you’re sweet, and you’re smart, and you’ve got a brilliant career ahead of you doing something you love, and you’re going to have a great home life with or without Dom because you have all the pieces to the puzzle. You’ve got a good heart and a good head. Lora and I have our bits and bobs, but we pale in comparison to you. And that’s why I wanted to drown you when we were little. Even then, it was clear you were the superior sibling.”
“You wanted to drown me?” Isabelle remembered how her voice had squeaked and Eve had laughed again.
“It was my great fantasy that you and Alora would die horribly, and then Mother and Dad would have to love me because I was all that was left. Then Marcus pointed out that they probably would have just hated me all the more since I’d lived and you two had died. Still, I was ten. You don’t think that far ahead when you’re ten. Mind you, I’d tear anyone to shreds who tried to hurt you now. And secretly—never breathe this—I’d do the same for Lora. I was a shit sister to her. Still am. But I’m too old to switch it up now.”
Isabelle had left that conversation feeling closer than ever to Eve, but further away, too. There was a gulf between them, so vast they might as well have not been related. She wondered if Eve felt that way too.
At home, she was still pondering when Dominic arrived. As he put down his keys, he asked, “Are we still fighting?”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
He was visibly relieved. “Good. I’ve missed you, love.”
She managed a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”
He took a seat across from her. “Do we need to talk?”
“I don’t know if I want to talk more. I talked to Eve today.”
He seemed to lose his color, but he kept his composure. “Good. Yeah, good.”
“She told me how you met. It made me start thinking of how messed up my family is.”
“I’m sorry.”
Isabelle sighed. “We’re not supposed to know it, but Nonnie told me. My parents had to get married because of Alora. They’ve changed the dates on all their wedding documents, but she was an accident. Then Eve was a huge accident and was apparently the exact opposite of Alora, who was a quiet, sweet baby who slept through the night. And my dad was traveling, you know? He was trying to build his business. He was away a lot…are you getting what I’m saying?”
He sat forward. “Eve’s not your father’s?”
“Nonnie didn’t think so. She looks just like Mum. Lora and I look just like him. Apparently, they nearly split over that in the beginning.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly. But they made it through that, and Dad raised her as though she were his without ever bringing it up again.”
Isabelle went on, listening to her own voice as though outside herself as she talked about her mother, who’d had to give up her acting career before she could make a name for herself. With one baby, she might have been able to continue, but not with two in diapers. She’d been left alone with two small babies, barely out of her teens, scraping to make ends meet until Isabelle’s father had gotten his restaurant business going. Then they were on the move again as demand for his talent grew. Her parents had planned to have Isabelle, and even though she’d been a girl and not the boy he’d wanted, she’d been “his” baby. He had missed out on Alora’s and Eve’s babyhoods entirely, so he did everything for Isabelle, and she was Daddy’s girl.
“I think Alora saw me as an ally and a toy alternately. I think Eve saw me as a black hole?”
Dominic shrugged at the question in her voice. “Eve never talked to me about her family, babe. Ever. As far as I knew, she sprang fully formed out of the head of Zeus. She never said a word.”
“Was she at Stella McCartney when you met?”
“Yes,” he answered warily.
“Did you two have a motorbike accident together?”
Dominic shook his head, confused. “No. Why?”
She related the story she’d heard. “I guess I thought maybe it was you. You and motorbikes and all that.”
He shook his head again, a different expression on his face. “Eve wasn’t ever in a motorbike smashup as far as I know, Issie. One of her boyfriends beat the hell out of her. More than one, but that was the worst, I think. She seemed to attract that then, seemed to court it. It’s nice she’s outgrown that…I hope.”
Isabelle nodded. “I hope so too,” she said, her brow creasing. “She told me how you met, that you got her away from the guy who was treating her badly. I think she learned the difference then.”
Dominic couldn’t hide his surprise. “She actually told you about the guy roughing her up?”
“Yeah. It was a shock, but now the fact that there was no motorbike smashup doesn’t seem so surprising. I’m sorry that she didn’t have anyone to turn to when she was going through all of that. Before you, I mean.”
He seemed to choose his next words carefully, weighing them out in pairs. “She never really turned to me, Isabelle. Just…the nature of our relationship meant she couldn’t hide it from me, either. So, I said my piece when I could. I do think she kept coming round because I was different, though.”
“She kept coming around because you were good to her.”
“Yeah.”
“And she could confide in you without you judging her.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
She looked at him, considering the picture she had painted. It was a better one than him having just been another punk knocking her sister around. For the moment, she decided to go ahead and believe that was how it had all played out. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so difficult about this. It just really took me by surprise.”
“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I was trying to avoid upsetting you over something that was well past before I met you.”
She nodded. “I’m ready to just put it behind us.”
He smiled and opened his arms, welcoming her into them with a warm kiss.
Chapter 11
TAD AND EVE RETURNED from Birmingham, both a little giddy. She had been terrified to meet his parents, and it seemed he had been coping with his own nerves over it, but she was in love with them instantly, and after two days, his mother grudgingly admitted how well she liked his new girlfriend. They’d stayed for four days, and by the end of them, Eve had felt like she was living in a fairy tale. She fully expected animated bluebirds to be singing outside her window in the morning. Tad’s family life was an absolute fantasy of people who actually liked one another, were considerate of each other’s feelings, and had dinners around a table where conversation actually flowed.
Eve knew they were still in something of a honeymoon phase in their own relationship, but the decades-long contentment obvious in his parents gave her a new hope for what
sort of future might lie ahead with Tad. He now had the whole of her history, having listened over the course of the past couple months as she opened up and shared things she hadn’t even told Marcus. He hadn’t run from the ugliest of truths, and she’d grown more and more at ease with speaking them aloud.
He had done the same sort of sharing, though his life was a fairly open book and a much happier one than hers had been. They were comfortable together. Natural and easy. And the last night in Birmingham, Tad had taken her out to the bike racks of his primary school and kissed her.
“I always wanted to kiss a girl out at the bike racks,” he’d explained. “But I was an awful-looking child, and no one would have me. Now, I’m kissing the prettiest girl in the world, and Glenda Barnes would be furious she’d missed the chance.”
Laughing, she’d said, “Well, you get two girls for the price of one with me, so aren’t you the ladies’ man!”
“Nope. Just Eve’s man. And,” he’d said, dropping down on one knee, “I’m going to propose now. This is spur of the moment, so I don’t have a ring, but it feels like the right time. You want to marry me?”
“Oh! Yes! Yes, I do. Very much!” She had felt her cheeks burning with the width of her smile. “When?”
“Next weekend? I’ll get my mum to arrange some things up here, if you don’t mind doing it here. Bring along whoever you like.”
“Just small.” She’d shaken her head. “Like twenty people max, okay?”
And they’d gone on in that manner until they’d decided exactly what they wanted before he had taken her home. Eve was pinching herself as Tad broke the news to his parents, accepting their hugs and cautious optimism with greater joy than she could have imagined. Then she’d taken her turn in calling Marcus to tell her little work family. The blood relatives could wait.
Marcus was in a tizzy that following week, working furiously to hand-bead the jade green gown he’d designed for her on the fly. The whole shop was in a happy uproar. And then it was the big day, with Marcus walking Eve down the short aisle in the Edmunds’ back garden, and the handful of close friends and relatives—none of Eve’s—ducking under the tent through a light rain shower.
“It’s good luck,” Tad’s mother declared as the sun came out again.
When they were home in London again, Tad moving his closet over into Eve’s place until they could decide what they wanted to do, she sat down at the computer and stared at it and her left hand a long time. She wore a simple diamond eternity band—thin and graceful and happy-making.
She had already put in the documents for a name change. She and Tad had added one another to all the important paperwork, and he was the new first-call in case of emergency. All that was left was telling her family, something she was dreading.
There was no way to get around it without it being played as a drama. Now that making a scene was the last thing she wanted to do, she decided it best to send an e-mail. That way, everyone received the same message, at the same time. Inevitably, someone would complain about that, but someone would complain no matter what she did.
“I am making new choices that benefit my future,” she reminded herself as she cracked her knuckles and tapped out her e-mail.
So, you know me, always the cart before the horse. Just in case I get invited to anything ever again, I thought I’d tell you ahead of time—instead of springing it on you like I did the baby, who is growing fancy-well and kicking like mad just now—I got married.
His name is Tad. I actually met him in my complex—he was my neighbor. He’s a graphic artist and is lovely to me, and is beyond gorgeous. If you’re all good, I’ll introduce you sometime.
Hope everyone’s well. Sorry about kicking up dirt at Alora’s baby shower—Lora, I really am.
xxx, Eve
She sent the message before she could change her mind, and then she went to find Tad. She was having another bout with false contractions and wanted to be coddled, and no one did it like he did. No one could make her as happy as her husband. She clapped her hands together at the word.
“Husband,” she said out loud. “Whoever knew I’d have one of those?”
Across the country, Isabelle stood in front of the bathroom mirror and considered her reflection before reaching for the small circular packet of pills that she’d set on the counter beside her. This had become a ritual of its own, this process, this taking a moment to consider very carefully whether or not to take the pill. She’d started up again right after she’d found out about Dominic and Eve’s past, deciding that, although she loved him and wanted to move forward, she wasn’t ready to bring a baby into the relationship yet. After taking a home pregnancy test to verify that she wasn’t already pregnant, she’d taken the pills out of the medicine cabinet and begun the course. She kept the pack in her purse now, not in the bathroom, not wanting Dominic to know that she had made this decision without telling him.
He would be upset and also unsure if things were all right between them, and Isabelle didn’t want to face that so soon after the last row. Besides, she wasn’t entirely sure things were okay. She knew she loved him still and wanted to work on the marriage, but things had changed in those few days of unrest, including the fact that she’d felt her feelings stir physically when she was having lunch with Patrick. There were a lot of ghosts from the past playing havoc on her emotions at the moment.
She pressed the blue pill out of the foil pack and popped it in her mouth, drank a large swallow of water to wash it down, and then rinsed the glass and set it on the sink before palming the packet and carrying it back into the bedroom to slip into her purse. Dominic was downstairs playing video games, which was how he spent quite a bit of his time these days, given that he was no longer racing or preparing for the next event. He had a lot of free time on his hands, and when he wasn’t busy shagging his wife as often as he could, he was playing games, out riding his motorbike, or at the pub with his mates, watching footie and drinking. He hadn’t decided on a new career yet, though the offers kept coming.
Isabelle brushed out her hair and went downstairs, finding him slouched on the couch, running Lara Croft through some tomb or other. She watched him for a few minutes, noting his disheveled appearance. He needed a shave…and a haircut, for that matter. And he needed to move around a bit. He was starting to develop a paunch—the classic silhouette of the lager lout.
She walked to the couch and leaned over to kiss him. “Are you winning?”
“I can’t find the ruddy key to get into the treasure room,” he grumbled, pressing pause and smiling up at her.
She smiled and tousled his hair. “What’s the plan for today, then?”
He shrugged. “Not much to do.”
“We need some things from the shops.”
“Are you going out, then?” he asked, either missing or ignoring the suggestive tone of her voice.
“Well, I was hoping you might go. It’s not a lot, but I really need to finish my entrance exam for that internship I applied for,” she said.
Dominic blinked at her and gave a cough. “I’m not feeling very well, babe. I don’t think I should go out.”
Isabelle did her best not to frown and instead nodded and patted his shoulder. “All right. I’ll go after I’m finished with my paper.”
“Thanks, love,” he said, turning his attention back to the television as she walked away. “Oh, and can you pick up some beer from the off license, as well?”
“Yep,” she answered, continuing into the dining room without looking back. She picked up her laptop, opened it at the table, and logged onto the Internet. She checked her e-mail and found two from Patrick. One was his now-usual relating of the day’s events, and the other an invitation to lunch the next day. She decided she would ring him later and tell him in person that she’d love to have lunch and felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought. It was so strange to have him back in her life at all, and now that they were in pretty regular communication, she found herself feeling almost as gid
dy as she had as a teenager when he’d first shown a romantic interest.
She read through them again, then closed and saved them to the folder she’d set up before going back into her inbox, where she found an e-mail from Eve. She clicked on it and opened it, scanning through it, her eyes growing wider as she did.
“Oh my God,” she said just as Dominic walked in. “Evie got married.”
“Who?” he asked, opening the refrigerator and rooting around.
“Evie. Eve. My sister.”
“What’d she do?” His head was fully in the box now, and Isabelle flashed a fantasy of slamming it with the door.
“Did you not hear a word I said?”
“I heard Eve did something. What did she do?”
“She got married. She got married! To someone named Tad that none of us have ever met! I think she married her neighbor. His name is Tad. She married her neighbor. Oh my God.”
She heard a thud, and Dominic cursed loudly and then straightened up, rubbing his head. “She—what?”
“She got married,” Isabelle said again, reaching for her phone. “I have to call her!”
Dominic just stared as she dialed the phone and pressed it to her ear, waiting for an answer.
There was a faint “hello” from the other end, and Isabelle said, “Evie? I just got your e-mail! Congratulations! Why didn’t you ring me? Tell me everything! Oh my God, Mum is going to die! You’ve killed Mum! That’s two daughters married without her being there.”
“What do you need from the shops?” Dominic interrupted.
“What? Hang on, Evie. What?” Isabelle blinked at him.
“Shops.” His voice was hoarse. “What do you need from the shops? I’ll go.”
She gaped at him for a moment, then said, “The list is on the fridge.”
“Right. Back soon,” he said, grabbing the piece of paper from the magnetic pad and going for his keys. He was out the door before she could say anything else to him.
When he’d gone, she went back to Eve. “Sorry about that. What were you telling me? Because I still can’t believe this!”