Chapter20
Rosie
She’d made a total fool of herself. She could feel everyone looking at her and speculating.
Rosie leaned against the locked door of the downstairs cloakroom, trying to calm herself.
Through the door she could hear the muffled sounds of music, conversation and laughter—people enjoying the party. She should be out there too, celebrating her brother and Hayley’s exciting news, but she felt too embarrassed.
Why was she always so emotional? Why couldn’t she be calm and contained like her sister? She should have hit a pause button instead of blurting out her thoughts.
But she’d never mastered pausing, and now, thanks to her big mouth and lack of filter, her marriage to Declan was under a spotlight. Everyone was watching them and speculating. And she knew Declan would hate that. Like Becky, he didn’t love being the focus of attention. And they were definitely the focus of everyone’s attention.
The moment she’d walked down the stairs to join everyone her mother had pulled her aside to check everything was okay,and she’d wriggled her way out of that encounter only to have to go through the same thing again with her grandmother. She’d braced herself to have the same conversation with Becky, but there had been no sign of her—presumably because she was with Will somewhere. She was still getting her head around the fact that Becky was now with Will, and also that her twin hadn’t shared something so monumental with her. There had never been a time when she’d been surprised by something that had happened in her sister’s life, because she always knew. But not this time. Was that why Becky had kept her distance? Because she’d been pursuing her own romantic relationship?
She stared at herself in the mirror and removed a smudge of mascara with the tip of her finger. She couldn’t spend the evening hiding in the cloakroom. Eventually people would come looking for her. But she wasn’t in the mood to smile and be sociable. The one person she really did need to talk to, preferably without interruptions, was Declan.
She couldn’t forget the stunned expression on his face when he’d confronted her in the privacy of their bedroom. He evidently wasn’t in love with Becky. She hadn’t inadvertently disrupted a romance. Which was a relief, although she wished she’d ascertained that fact in a less public and humiliating way. Also it didn’t soothe her anxiety that maybe she was the wrong person for him.
The door handle rattled as someone tried the door and she tensed.
“Rosie?” It was Jamie. “Are you in there?”
“Give me a minute.” If her brother hadn’t knocked on the bedroom door when he did, would she and Declan have fixed things? “Can’t you go and use one of the upstairs bathrooms?”
“No, I want to talk to you.”
Oh for—
“If you could just go away, that would be great.”
“I’m not going away until you come out. And given that I’mmissing my own party, it would be good if that could happen sooner rather than later. Also, I know how to open this door from the outside so if you don’t open it I will.”
Brothers! Who needed them?
She yanked open the door and glared at him. “What? Can’t a girl use the bathroom without interruption?”
“Yes, but you weren’t using the bathroom. You were hiding.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You hate yourself. That’s why I’m here.” He pulled her behind the large Christmas tree that their mother had put in the hallway. “Stop chewing over what happened.”
“Chewing? I’m not chewing.”
“Yes, you are. You were standing in there promising yourself you are never going to open your mouth and speak again. And don’t bother denying it, because I’ve been your brother long enough to know what goes on in your head.”
“If you’re going to tell me that people barely noticed and I didn’t humiliate myself—”
“I’m not going to tell you that. Peopledidnotice and you definitely humiliated yourself.” He grinned. “The moment will probably be talked about for at least the next forty years.”
“Thanks.”
“But it doesn’t matter.” He moved a decoration that was hanging perilously close to the end of a branch. “You gave me some good advice about Hayley, so now I’m going to do the same for you.”
“I hate advice.”
“Well, tough.” But this time his voice was gentle. “We all say and do things we regret from time to time. But move on. You’re using up energy reliving that moment when your emotions got the better of you, when what you should be doing is using that energy to solve whatever problem you and Declan have. Nothing else matters. No one else matters.”
