I walk over to his huge TV, which sits on a low console. This is not the behavior of an adult. A sane person. But I don’t feel sane. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience when the behemoth TV wobbles as I rattle it a little.
“No! All right, all right.”
I don’t take my hand off the edge of his top-of-the-range, razor-thin screen.
“First off,” he says, his finger held aloft. “I didn’t marry him.”
“Hardly a compelling start.” My eyes feel so dry and like they’re bulging from my head on stalks.
“I didn’t even know you knew him, not until I walked into the kitchen to find you flashing a big old diamond and a glass of champagne.”
“But you knew it was a lie.” I did too, just not the lie Raif and Brin were hiding.
“How could I when you looked so happy? With Mum there and Primrose making a fuss. You wouldn’t have believed me.”
“That’s not the point. It’s also not the truth. You were just covering your own arse.”
“There was no point in upsetting you by telling you. What’s done was done, that’s what I told myself.”
“I was done,” I mutter unhappily. “You should’ve tried to tell me, taken me aside or something.”
“Yeah, because he would’ve gone for that. He was watching you like a hawk does a tiny mouse.”
“And afterward? You could’ve come to me.”
“I thought about it.” His shoulders sag. “I really did. But would you have believed me over him?”
I make a noise full of derision.
“Lavender, you’re my sister. You’re a colossal pain in the arse, but I do love you. I would never go out of my way to hurt you.”
“Or set me right. You love me but not enough to come clean about your part inmymarriage. It’s much easier to blame me when it all fell apart, right? Stupid Lavender screwed up like she always does.”
“But how have you screwed up? You have a husband who loves you. Whether he did or not before he proposed is a moot fucking point.”
“Is that what you think or just what you tell yourself?”
“I know it was wrong. I went back and forth over the decision for weeks. But then I realized the time to say something had passed. I saw the way he looked at you. The way you returned those looks. I wasn’t going to ruin things.”
“Living a lie ruins, Brin. Lies eat away and erode.”
“If I’d known you were seeing him before, I would’ve said something, but I couldn’t afterward. Can’t you see that?”
“I see only that you both made a fool of me.”
Maybe I’m a hypocrite. He thinks I married for love, not for money. Not by blackmail. I won’t tell him. Pride, I suppose.
“Whatever it was at the start, it’s clear that bloke would drag his balls over broken glass for you.”
A noise sounds in the air between us, part incredulity and part plaintive plea. “Is that your way of trying to make me feel better?” Because it does, God help me.
“If nothing else, that is true.‘Don’t call her Lav if you know what’s good for you. What’s the name of the boyfriend who hurt her?’And then he gave you a car worth a quarter of a mill!”
Gavemight be stretching it. I demanded it.
“But at the heart of it,” I say as my eyes turn glassy, “he married me to get back at you. I need to hear you say it—admit it.”
“Lavender, come on. Be reasonable.” A pause. A stare off. Then Brin throws up his arms. “Fine, I’ll say it. I fucked his fiancée, all right?”
