Dinner was a brisk but enjoyable affair, the family chef making sure to serve shared favorite dishes of the two brothers. Afterwards, Willem invited Jaak to join him in the library, and Jaak acquiesced with a gracious nod of acknowledgment, knowing that the rare firm tone Willem used meant he didn’t really have a choice at all.
Willem poured them their drinks. “Proost,” he murmured as he raised his glass in the air.
“Proost.” Their glasses clicked before the two brothers downed their whisky in one gulp.
As Willem lowered his glass back to the table, he said quietly, “You should know what I want to talk you about, ja?”
“Ja.”
“Then I shall go ahead and say it straight.” Willem looked at his younger brother. “What thehellare you doing?”
Jaak leaned back against the couch. “You already know what I’ve been doing.”
As he poured himself another shot, he heard Willem bite out, “Your woman’s breaking apart.”
The words killed him, but Jaak didn’t allow himself to react and only downed his second shot.
Seeing that Jaak’s face remained expressionless, Willem snarled under his breath, “Luister je?”Are you listening?“Your woman’s about to lose it—-”
Jaak’s shot glass smashed against the wall, snarling back, “Yes.I know. Ifuckingknow she needs me. Ifuckingknow the moment she started to need me, and guess what? I wasn’t there for her.” He shot to his feet, growling, “I wasn’t fucking there for her, and doesn’t that sound fucking familiar?”
Whitening at the pain on his brother’s face, he sprung to his feet, gritting out, “Stop it, Jaak.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop with theself-sabotage.”
The words hung viciously in the air, both men breathing hard as they stared at each other.
Finally, Jaak muttered, “This is stupid.”
“Is it?” Willem challenged. “How is never letting yourself believe you deserve to be lovednotself-sabotage? How is always thinking the worst – that you would always fail the people around you –notself-sabotage?”
Willem watched a muscle tic in Jaak’s jaw, but when his younger brother still didn’t speak, he cursed under his breath—-
“Goddammit,Jaak.I know how your mind works. You made yourself believe you’ll eventually fail Ilse, so you made it happen so you could tell yourselfI told you so.”
Willem’s words made Jaak swung away, but even so his brother’s biting voice continued to reach him—-
“Vier woorden.”Four words.
And they slashed at him, tearing his heart open, forcing Jaak to see the possibility—-
“Four fucking words.”
The most amazing, the most heartbreaking possibility of how they could be...
“Are they so important that you’re letting it dictate the rest of your life?”
If he had just let himself stay and make it up to her.
The thought had Jaak swinging away clumsily. “You’ll never know how much I want to be with her, but you don’t see it the way I do. She’s better off without me. I’ll just hurt her more if I stay, and I know—-” He struck his chest hard with his own fist. “I knowI can and will hurt her—-”
“I know you can,” Willem snapped. “You can and you will because she loves you.”
The billionaire froze.
“That’s how love works.” And when Jaak didn’t say anything, Willem laughed humorlessly. “Surely, you understand now?Think about it, Jaak.Mother ignored us the entire time, but we loved her anyway. Father may have spoiled you, but only when he remembered that you existed. The rest of us, he didn’t give a fuck about. Neither of them loved us, but they still had the power to hurt us.”
