by Nicole Lane
“Great party, Issie,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek as he took her hands in greeting.
“I’m so glad you came. I really am. I know I didn’t say it earlier.”
“Well, Mum wouldn’t have missed it, and I can’t be a spoilsport, can I?”
She bit her lips together and squeezed his hands. “It won’t always be awkward, will it? At some point we’ll just be Isabelle and Patrick, the friends, not Isabelle and Patrick, the ex-couple, won’t we?”
“We’re already the friends. I think we should just rewrite history altogether. When people say something to us about having dated, we’ll say, ‘What? That never happened.’”
“Go on!” Isabelle bumped his shoulder with hers. “How well do you think that would work?”
“Works for politicians and historians everywhere!”
“You’re too much. But just the right kind of too much. Shall we sit?”
“Let’s. I could get you a drink?”
“Please.”
Isabelle took a seat and watched him walk away. It wasn’t so long ago that she and her family would have been planning this party for the two of them. It couldn’t have been easy for him to show up. Still, if they were to be friends, it wouldn’t do to keep thinking on the past. They had to find new inroads to the future.
When he returned with two glasses of champagne, she toasted him. “To the doctor,” she said, raising her glass.
“And the teacher.”
“And friendship.”
“Above all else.”
“So, my friend, I want to know more about what happened between the monastery and the university.”
Patrick seemed to consider, then fixed on a starting point and began to fill her in. He’d gotten up to his decision to leave the rosary for a stethoscope when Isabelle realized Dominic was watching her from across the room. He didn’t look very happy, or particularly sober.
He strode over and laid a firm hand on Isabelle’s shoulder, shooting Patrick a dark expression. “Hello, Father Pat. Wanna hear my confession?”
“Dominic,” Isabelle started, but Patrick just shrugged.
“What’ve you got?”
“I’m gonna take the little wife here, and I’m gonna shag her rotten in the back room. How many Hail Marys for that one?” Winking, he tugged at Isabelle. “Quick! While he’s running it through the Catholic calculator, let’s make a dash for it!”
“Dominic!” she said, letting him pull her up but not drag her very far. “What are you doing?”
“I just told you the plan,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
She shook her head. “I think we should just go home.” She turned back to Patrick. “I’m sorry about this. Thanks so much for coming.”
“What are you apologizing to him for?” Dominic asked indignantly.
“You were rude.”
“I was?” His eyebrows shot up. “Because I interrupted him chatting you up?”
“He was not chatting me up. We were talking,” she insisted. “That’s all.”
“Didn’t look that way to me, with your hair twirling and his shoulder nudging.”
She sighed. “I’m going to tell Mum and Dad that we’re leaving.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you getting lost.”
She looked back to Patrick apologetically as Dominic led her away, and he gave her a slight nod before she disappeared between two groups of people gathered nearby. They found her parents, who were sitting with Alora, Doyle, and the kids, who were in various states of sleepiness.
“Mum, Dad, thanks so much for the wonderful reception. We’re going to go,” she said, forcing a happy expression on her face.
“Yes, we’re going to continue our celebrations at home.” Dominic nodded. “Thanks for the do. It was brilliant.”
Outside, once they were back in the hired car, Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “So, I was rude, huh? Rude for coming over to collect you and interrupting your conversation?”
“Rude for the way you did it! Like a jealous lover!”
“I am a jealous lover.” His tone was measured. “And I didn’t like the way you looked together.”
“It’s completely innocent! I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“I didn’t say you had.” He crossed his arms at her defensiveness. “I don’t want him around.”
“What?”
“I don’t want him around, and I don’t want you going round him. It’s pretty obvious he’s just waiting for his chance.”
“He is not. He knows I’m happily married. He would never behave inappropriately,” she insisted. “He was practically a priest.”
“But he isn’t,” Dominic countered. “And I saw the way he was looking at you, so don’t tell me that he wouldn’t give it a go.”
She gaped at him. “Don’t you trust me?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“And you don’t trust me with him?”
“I don’t trust him!” Dominic raised his voice. “And I don’t want you around him.”
“What if I said the same thing to you about Eve?”
“I don’t fucking see Eve, now, do I? And anyway, I’ve told you a thousand times that she was just a shag. You were in love with that guy, and he left you high and dry.”
“And you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust him, Isabelle. Period.”
She huffed. “You know, it’s really rich coming from you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’re the one that flirts with all the groupies and who knows what else.”
He gave a dark laugh. “Then who better to tell you which men are trustworthy?”
“You’re not even going to deny it?”
“Sounds to me like you’ve made up your mind, baby. If I deny it, will you believe me? I’m not getting into that dead-end argument.”
“I wasn’t accusing you. I was pointing out that you’re out there more than I am, and I still trust you,” she said darkly. “Or I did.”
“Well, that’s rich,” he mimicked. “Coming from you, and don’t tell me you haven’t been sniffing around your priest behind my back, because that was no first-time-in-a-long-time conversation you were having, was it?”
“I met him at the hospital when I took Olive in,” she said pointedly. “And he and I’ve met up for lunch, all of which I told you about. Of course, you probably weren’t listening to me since you went temporarily deaf after we came back from Paris.”
“Whatever that means.” Dominic shrugged at her.
“Well—” She took a breath, then spat, “You’ve had Eve’s number in your contact list all this time. How do I know you haven’t been seeing her behind my back?”
His mouth was flat and mean when he answered, and she felt herself shiver, remembering the dark side Eve had mentioned. “Baby, if I’d been seeing Eve behind your back, you’d have been able to tell by the claw marks on mine.”
Isabelle felt her face color, and she had trouble catching her breath, though she was determined not to cry. She turned away from him and didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive home. Once there, she got out first and hurried into the house, up the stairs to the bedroom. Before he had reached the landing halfway up, she had thrown his pillow, a sheet, and one of the blankets out of the room, letting the door slam behind her. She hesitated, then locked it.
Let him stew it out on the sofa, she thought. He’d ruined her night. She wasn’t going to let him ruin her sleep.
Chapter 14
EVE AND TAD SAT ON THE SOFA, watching television. They had talked again about whether or not she should tell her sister about the baby, and now Eve was coming down harder on the side of doing so. She wanted to wait until after their party, though, because it might be the last time she saw her family for a very, very long time, if ever again. There was a real possibility that she was going to lose them entirely when the truth came out. “And I’ve always somehow been responsible for whe
ther or not the family stuck together. Even way back then.” Eve shuddered.
“I don’t get it.” Tad shook his head, hitting pause on the DVD player. “I don’t. If your mother knew…why’d she send you away instead of dealing with it?”
Eve sighed. Only Tad knew the whole truth behind the events that had landed her at that militaristic boarding school. Marcus knew a lot of it, but for a thousand reasons, she’d never been able to tell anyone the horrible details. Before Tad, she had only trusted her mother with the story, and that had not turned out well for her.
“My parents were having problems then. They didn’t have a smooth marriage, you know? Too young, too many babies, too much time apart, too many people in the house, what with Uncle Bobby staying with us while he tried to work things out with Aunt Marie. Mum had been drinking a lot, and Dad couldn’t abide that. There were arguments about the drinking, the lazy brother taking up the sofa, the drinking. Did I mention the drinking?
“She’d been drunk that first night and said she didn’t care what happened to me. Later, when she was sober…I guess she was terrified Dad would leave if he found out. So, she convinced me that I was being a good daughter not to tell—I was helping her and Dad. And I was helping Alora and Isabelle. I was being a good sister, making sure our family was okay, and they were protected. She promised me it would stop, but it didn’t. So, eventually, I just came around to the idea that it was how my life had to be. We all had our parts, and that was mine.
“She couldn’t stand herself, though, and our relationship changed. Like, when she looked at me, she remembered. Then, she started blaming me for everything that went wrong. If a pound turned up missing, I must have taken it. If a tea cup was chipped, I was the one who had broken it. When I turned up pregnant, she confronted me about it in front of all of them, saying I’d gotten myself done up by a boy at school. It was crazy. I remember thinking I’d gone crazy—I mean, there was just no reason to it. She screamed over me when I tried to protest, and Dad couldn’t even look at me. She had to choose a relationship, and she chose the marriage. That was the end of us.”
“Is it because he didn’t believe he was really your father?”
“I think that’s part of it. Yes. They never had a day’s trouble with Alora or Isabelle, and it’s clear they are his.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think it matters. Mother won’t ever say I’m not his, and he made the choice to raise me as his, so that’s that.”
“So, he doesn’t know? Or your sisters?”
“No! Absolutely not. I was so ashamed—I couldn’t have said anything when it happened. After everything, after I miscarried and all the dust from that settled, there was no point to saying anything. Then, I was just angry. Anyway, Alora developed her own version of the story, and that’s the one she pulls out to do real damage when she can’t think of any other defense. Mother’s never bothered to correct her or put an end to that. It still ended up hurting us all and doing harm to the family. It just did it in different ways.” She sighed.
“So, you’re the bad seed.”
“Yes.”
“And still protecting your father and sisters from the truth.”
Eve gave a soft snort. “I’ve thought about telling Dad the truth, but I don’t think he’d believe me after all this time.”
“Why not?”
“Easier not to believe me. And God, I’ve given them enough reason to hate me since then. I was just so angry. I’ve been terrible to all of them. I know all the buttons, and I’ve stood there jamming my thumbs into every single one like a brat in an elevator. I’ve done especially wrong by Alora.”
“And now?”
“Now?” She smiled with half her mouth. “I think I finally dashed myself against enough rocks that I did beat it out of me. And this one—” she patted the bump again “—took up all the room and squeezed out what was left. I don’t have the emotional space left for it. Between her and you.” She grinned at him, shaking her head. “I’ve never loved anything like I love you. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to put the past where it belongs and focus on the rest. It’s over. I can’t change it. I can only change me—and make sure no one ever does the same to her. So says the therapist.”
He hugged her closer for a moment. “You mean the world to me, Evie. You and the baby. I want you to be happy and content. And never stop seeing that therapist, because she’s brilliant.”
“I am happy, you goof. I really am. This is blissful, our own little world. I could ignore everything else.”
“Maybe not entirely,” he said quietly. “I know you’re worried about your sister and how the party is going to go.”
“Well, more about Isabelle than the party. I know the party will be great. I’ll have plenty of buffer with you and Marcus and our friends there.”
“Have you heard from Isabelle since she was here?”
“She called yesterday, told me that Dominic had picked another fight with her on the way home from the reception, practically accused her of cheating with Patrick. They’ve been fighting off and on the past two weeks.”
“He’s a bastard, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Eve laughed. “He is.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“Not since his surprise visit to congratulate us on our marriage—the bugger. I think he was expecting you to be intimidated.”
“Fat chance.” Tad snorted. “Literally.”
Eve giggled. “He did look terrible, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. Pretty bad for a newlywed who’s only been off the market a month or so.”
“Like I told Issie, he’s won the race now. He’s got the prize. He’s bored. No need to keep trying.”
“You told her that?”
“Mm-hmm. Told her he’d be a complete bastard so she’d make him chase her, and he’s been proving me right. Trouble is, she isn’t the kind of girl who gets a thrill out of that sort of thing.”
“And you are?”
“Was. Yeah. But you pull enough hair that I don’t miss it.” She winked, making him laugh.
“Did you like that Patrick bloke?”
“Patrick’s a doll. I adore Patrick. He’s exactly right for her and always has been.”
“What happened there? Why did they split up?”
She told him the story of her sister’s heartbreak. “Isabelle was a wreck. I really should have been around more for her, but my advice was to get over him by getting under someone else. Look where that got us? That got us to Dominic. From a priest to Dominic—who might actually require a priest to perform an exorcism. Apparently my sister only deals in extremes.”
“But he’s a doctor now?”
“Yep. He changed his mind and took up medicine instead. Pediatrics, from what Isabelle tells me. Fits. She’s going for her degree in elementary education. They both love kids.”
In bed later, she said, “After this one, how long do you want to wait for another?”
“Two years,” Tad answered, as though he’d already thought about it. “I think that’s good.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Give us time to enjoy being parents and prepare for a new infant. If it happens sooner, that’s fine too.” He smiled and kissed her. “How many kids do you fancy having?”
“Two,” Eve said. “That’s plenty, don’t you think? Then, no one ever gets left out.”
He nodded. “Makes sense, though no matter how many we decide to have, no one will ever get left out. We’ll see to that.”
Dominic and Isabelle hardly spoke over the next two days. Neither was willing to back down from their positions. So, when Patrick sent Isabelle a text invitation to lunch on Wednesday, she couldn’t move fast enough to meet him. In the month and a half since she had been married, she had gone from being a woman on top of the world to a woman pinned under a bus, and she wasn’t sure what had happened. She was sure that it was all to do with Dominic, though, and she wasn’t happy.
&nb
sp; When she arrived at the restaurant Patrick had named, the maître d’ took her to a quiet table in the back, where Patrick was already waiting. He stood, greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, and held her chair for her before resuming his own.
“It’s good to see you,” he said with a relieved smile. “I thought maybe, after the party…” He shrugged.
“What?”
“Well, your husband didn’t seem to like me very much.”
“I’m not sure he likes me much, either.” She sighed and then shook her head. “I’m sorry. Forget I said that.”
Patrick asked, and she answered, spilling out the story as they ordered and ate.
She laughed. “Look at me. I’m so numb to it; I’m eating around it. Usually I can’t eat when I’m upset, but here I am.”
“I think it’s a good sign. You’re not taking the hurt to heart.”
“Or I’m comfortable enough with you that the rest goes away.”
Patrick looked down, then back up. “I do have to tell you…if I thought there was a chance with you, I’d jump at it. So, he’s right not to trust me. I’ve been fighting this within myself. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s sin. I’m not sure I even believe in sin anymore, though. All I know is that I’d give anything—anything, Isabelle—I’d give anything for the chance to change the past. I’d give my soul.”
She felt the blush rise in her cheeks, and she met his eyes, her stomach doing small flips at the heated longing she saw there. “Patrick, I—” she began, but he shook his head.
“I know. You’re married, and you’d never break those vows. I shouldn’t even think about what I’d do if you would, but I can’t help it. I think about you all the time.”
“I…think about you a lot too,” she admitted. “More than I should.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there a chance, then?” His expression was so hopeful.
Isabelle fretted a moment and then rose, tossing her napkin aside. “I have to go.”
He rose with her. “Please don’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
The second the two of them were on equal footing, they were in each other’s arms, locked in a deep kiss. Isabelle’s mind had shut down entirely. All she wanted was to feel Patrick’s body against hers and have things the way they used to be. The way they should be.