"You don't know anything." Sapphire yanked her hand away, her accusatory gaze slicing through the rest of the platitudes Ruby had planned on delivering. "You're crazy if you think for one minute I believe any of this crap.”
"It's true." Ruby spoke softly, hoping her calm would translate.
By the angry flush staining Sapphire's cheeks, it hadn't.
"I may have pushed myself too hard over this last year and ended up with chronic fatigue, but I'm not a moron." Sapphire jabbed a finger in her direction. "You, on the other hand, would have to be the biggest moron on the planet to marry Jax Maroney."
Suitably chastised, Ruby tried the same half-pleading, half-innocent look she'd pulled on her sister many times in the past: when she'd cut her doll’s hair, when she'd borrowed her favourite knee-high boots and broken a heel, when she'd deliberately dated a long-haired, heavy-metal guitarist because her sister decreed him not good enough.
Now, like then, it didn't work.
"Wipe that fake sorry expression off your face and tell me what the hell you were thinking."
It would be much easier if Ruby could lie to her sister and profess some great, undying love for her husband. But they'dalways been close, and with their mum gone, they only had each other and she couldn't start lying now.
Understanding dawned in her sister's expressive eyes. “Hell no.You did this forSeaborn.”
"Uh… well… he's actually not too bad once you get to know him and I think—“
"Bullshit.” Sapphire snapped her fingers. "We're going under, so you attack the source of the problem, exactly how you've attacked every problem head on since you were a kid."
Sapphire shook her head. "Rubes, this isn't some game you can pack up and shelve if it goes wrong."
This time, Sapphire took her hand and Ruby let her. "You'vemarriedthe guy, for goodness sake. Do you have any idea what this means?"
Yeah, considering Ruby would be shackled to the enemy for the foreseeable future, she had some idea.
"You've givenSeaborna lifeline, but at what cost?"
Thankfully, Ruby hadn't confirmed or denied Sapphire's assumptions, but she should've known her sister couldn’t be fooled.
"I could kill you," Sapphire muttered, before hugging her so tight she could barely breathe.
"But you won’t, because I'm the best creative geniusSeabornhas ever seen, and I wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if you were going to kill me anyway."
Sapphire punched her on the arm. "I knew it. You're insane."
"But you love me."
"Yeah." Sapphire teared up. "You're amazing, Sis, doing this for the company, for us."
Blinking back tears, she squeezed Sapphire's hands. "You promised Mum you’d saveSeaborn. I would've done the same."
Given the opportunity.
It hung unsaid between them, the one thing they hadn't spoken about when Sapphire finally confessed the truth to her. Ruby had threatened to take her to hospital if she didn't take a few months off and the promise Sapphire had made to their mum spilled out, driving an invisible wedge between them.
It had seemed petty to blame her dead mother she missed every day at the time, so she'd inwardly blamed Sapphire instead. Her sister should've trusted her enough to tell her, to allow her to shoulder some of the load, and the fact Saph hadn't thought her responsible enough… it hurt as much as not being trusted by their mother in the first place.
She hadn't said anything at the time. Saph had been too fragile, too sick. But now she'd put it out there. If her sister picked up on the nuance, she'd say something. Much healthier than bottling it up as Saph had done the last year.
"You resent me for that." Sapphire sagged against the bench and Ruby almost backtracked, until she remembered how awful she'd felt, stewing over this the last month, and she nodded.
"Yeah, a little." She touched Saph's arm. "We're more like best friends than sisters. I can't believe you didn't tell me."
"I wanted to…" Sapphire shook her head, her hair bouncing around her shoulders as it once had, before it turned lank and lifeless with stress. "But that promise…"
Ruby knew how obsessive her sister could be with a promise. Sapphire had promised to find their neighbour's runaway pet mouse when they'd been kids: she'd spent four hours searching the garden, only to use her precious pocket money at the local pet store to replace it.
