Mum straightened, pulling out of my embrace. “Very well.” Her tone was brittle. “Before your father and I married, we split up for a time. I found letters between him and Gemma, his ex-girlfriend.”
“Are we talking about Gemma Hartwright?” Juno gaped.
Mum nodded.
My sister and I exchanged a look. Suddenly, everything was a bit clearer. Gemma Hartwright was married to a wealthy London financier. She ran in our parents’ circle, but Mum had been very vocal about how much she didn’t like her. Dad always seemed weirdly unfriendly around her too. I remember being at a party when I was fifteen and Mrs. Hartwright telling me I was handsome and Mum pulling me away like the woman had tried to solicit me for sex.
“The letters between your father and Gemma were love letters. Then I caught him in a lie. He’d told me he couldn’t see me one evening because he was working. So, I went out in the city with friends, and he was there with Gemma. We split up. But then he told me that Gemma had manipulated him. That she’d informed him her mother died and she needed someone to talk to. It turned out to be a lie, a manipulation to try to get him to talk to her so she could win him back. I was young and in love, so I believed him.
“Then last spring, I was in London and bumped into Gemma. She let it slip that they did have an affair. That your father was confused about whether he was ready to move on from her. He chose me, she said.”
Juno’s cheeks tinged with red, and her eyes blazed with anger. “And you believed that lying, pretentious hag? Everything about that woman is fake, Mother!”
“You don’t understand.” Mum sobbed. I reached for her again and she clung to me as she explained through her tears. “You don’t understand what it’s like to have these doubts living in the back of your mind for years. To love someone as much as I love your father and wonder if the person you trust most is capable of deceiving you so badly. And why would she lie after all these years? No one would do that!”
“Yes, they would. And you’re a faithless idiot for believing her!” Juno yelled, almost a shriek, that shuddered through us both. Then she stormed out, her footsteps stomping through the house until the front door slammed hard behind her.
Mum collapsed against me, her hiccupping cries like a vise around my chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SEBASTIAN
It seemed utterly selfish to call Lily on Christmas evening, especially after how we left things between us.
Yet, as I walked through the fields on our estate that evening, the moon the only thing lighting my path, I kept reaching for the phone in my pocket.
Thirty years ago. That’s how long ago the incident my mother spoke of happened.
It boggled my mind to think that something that happened so long ago, something seemingly long buried, could unearth itself abruptly and cause so much damage.
Juno had returned only to lock herself in her bedroom.
Dad was locked in the primary suite.
And Mum was staring at the flickering TV, not processing anything but the emotional muddle in her head.
I’d taken myself for a walk.
Happy fucking Christmas.
The only person I wanted to see right now was Lily. She made all this shittiness disappear.
Bugger it.
I’d never pretended not to be a selfish arsehole. Swiping the lock screen off my phone, I found Lily’s name right at the top of my video call list. An ache scored through me as I hesitated.
What if she didn’t pick up?
I tapped her name.
I shivered against the freezing cold air as a particularly bitter breeze nipped at my cheeks. The app rang out and I was just about to end the attempted call when the screen changed.
There was Lily’s beautiful face.
“One second,” she told me breathlessly, and I watched as she shrugged into her coat, moving the phone from one hand to the other, and stepped out of the back patio door of her parents’ house. I could just make out her family gathered around the living area in the kitchen before she ventured farther into the garden. “Happy Christmas,” she said, giving me a small, strained smile.
Things were definitely still weird between us.
