“I’m not talking about her,” I repeat, strumming my guitar. “There’s nothing to say.”
“There’s everything to say!” Her voice cracks as she climbs onto the bed beside me with tears in her eyes. “Now I know how you must have felt when I shut you out. I’m sorry I did that, and trust me, it didn’t help locking all my feelings up inside and trying to pretend like I wasn’t dying a thousand different deaths on the inside.” A sob filters into the air, and I set my guitar aside and pull my sister into my arms.
“Don’t cry, Ash. Please.” My voice sounds as choked as I feel. “You know how it kills me.”
“Like it’s killing me to see you like this,” she sniffles, burying her face in my chest.
My arm tightens around her. “It hurts, Ash,” I whisper. “It hurts so fucking much.”
She squeezes me tight. “I know, bro. I know.” Air huffs out of her mouth. “She’s still not answering my calls or texts.”
I hate that Vivien appears determined to cut Ash from her life too. She always promised she wouldn’t do that. Vivien hasn’t just let me down; she’s let my sister down too. “She played us, Ash. My guess is this was always her plan. She was never going to stay here. She was always planning to go back to him, and she knew that would mean the end of your friendship too.”
“No, Dil.” Ash rubs at her red-rimmed eyes before propping up on one elbow. “I refuse to believe that. I know Vivien.” She places her hand on my heart. “You do too. She didn’t plan this. You didn’t see her after that last night in the pub. She was devastated, Dillon. She threw up and everything. Her heartbreak was written all over her face.”
“Her mother is one of the best actresses in the world, Ash. Who’s to say she wasn’t acting too?” I don’t really think she had it in her, but I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about her now.
“To what end, Dil? What the fuck did Viv have to gain by playing us?”
I considered asking Simon outright on the phone that day. But if he put Vivien up to this, he’d never admit it. “I don’t know,” I lie. As far-fetched as it seems, I have considered this was some plan concocted by the three of them. That they sent her here deliberately to seduce and destroy me. To eliminate me as a threat to Reeve Fucking Lancaster.How else would she end up back in his arms the instant her feet hit Californian soil?“But it’s obvious she doesn’t want to explain it to you.”
She nibbles on her lip, staring off into space for a few seconds. “I know those balcony pictures seem damning, but it could’ve been staged that way.” She stares me in the face. “You know the kind of media shite she had to deal with previously. All they seem to do over there is manipulate situations to theiradvantage. I warned you Reeve would make a play for her. That’s what I think this is.”
“You’re too smart to be this naïve.” I sit up against the headboard while Ash sits cross-legged in front of me. “She fucked him, Ash.” Pain scorches a blazing trail up my throat, singeing my words on the way out. “She didn’t give a flying fuck about me if she could do that because I can’t even think about laying a hand on another woman without feeling sick.”
“They have a lot of history, and he was her best friend before he was anything else. I didn’t say anything to you before because I didn’t want to upset you, but Audrey and I butted heads a lot that week we spent with Viv’s parents on holiday. She was purposely mentioning Reeve and dropping all these hints that he was working hard to make things up to her.”
Anger is a red-hot poker stabbing me in the eye. “You should have fucking told me!”
“I was supposed to be Switzerland, remember?”
I snort out a bitter laugh. “You’re more like South Vietnam, Syria, and Afghanistan all rolled into one.”
“She hasn’t abandoned me.”
“Then why isn’t she calling you back?”
“Because she’s embarrassed and heartbroken. She thinks you don’t want her and you’re shacked up with Aoife most likely.”
“All things related to me. She promised your relationship wouldn’t be impacted by ours. She. Lied.” Tension tightens my jaw.
“Gawd, it’s all such a mess.” Ash flips onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “I just know she didn’t come here with an agenda, Dillon. She didn’t come here expecting to find love, but she did.” She locks eyes with mine. “She loves you. Like really fucking loves you. I know it’s true. She wasn’t lying about that.”
“If she loved me, she’d be with me right now. But she’s not. She’s with him.”
“There is nothing on social media to confirm that. Those pics are the only pics of them since she returned to America. I’m telling you all is not as it seems.”
“It doesn’t matter. She chose to return to L.A. which is as good as saying she chose to return to him. She’s gone. I’ve lost her. The end.”
Ash sighs and rolls over onto her stomach. “I wish you’d gotten to speak to her in L.A. If you’d looked her in the eye and asked her, you’d know the truth.”
Pain presses down on my chest, compressing my lungs and making it hard to breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Oh, Dil.” Ash hugs me. “I wish I could take all your pain away. I wish I knew how to fix this.”
I draw air deep into my lungs and push past the pain. “There is nothing to fix, Ash. Viv and I aren’t together anymore. Technically, she hasn’t even done anything wrong. I pushed her back into his arms with the way I behaved that last week. That’s all on me. I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. You shouldn’t be paying any price. That one’s on Viv.” I press a kiss to her brow. “I’m sorry you’ve lost your friend.”
“I haven’t lost her yet,” she quietly says, but we both know the truth. “And you know if it was a choice, I’d choose you. The same way you have always chosen me.”
