Page 117 of Unapologetic Love Story

Tom’s voice was strained as he said the words. Ten years of frustration coming apart inside of him.

‘Let’s all remain calm,’ the man Raina had called Dexter said, appearing from Tom’s right side. ‘Pepper needs you guys gone, so let’s wrap this up or finish it outside.’

He said their hostess’s name very reverently. Tom looked about at the watching faces and the mess. ‘Let me help clean some of this up.’

‘It’s fine, mate,’ Dexter said firmly. ‘Let’s just move this along. Her birthday’s been ruined, so . . .’

The words were a polite warning. Tom regarded his ex-friends with a look he hoped would translate to an order to follow him outside. He turned to go and puffed out a breath when he heard them follow, Seb murmuring excuses to people as a desperate attempt to save face as he went.

There was no saving any of this.

When the three of them were stood on the stone courtyard, Tom finally turned to look at them.

‘Mate, I know it was bad,’ Seb said, with a tint of laughter. It told on him. He’d found the whole thing entertaining.

‘Be really careful what you say to me,’ Tom murmured. ‘Both of you. This party was a pit of vipers, and I am done. Raina was my antivenom and this is it. It’s over. I won’t do this shit, not any more.’

Seb looked surprised by the strength of Tom’s Scottish accent. Thicker, due to emotion. Fiercer.

‘You can get as superior as you like, but you weren’t complaining about parties like this when it helped with your little articles. When we all moved to London and I let you pal around Soho House and Annabel’s and Groucho, you didn’t seem to mind.’

Tom exhaled wearily and looked up at the titanic mansion. ‘You know what, Seb, you’re right. That’s true. I sold my soul to get close to people who are vapid and shallow because I thought the world just needed to see the truth. And the world didn’t even care. I somehow let myself become this . . . this . . . I don’t even know. There’s not even a name for what I’ve let myself become. So, thank you. Thank you for all of the open doors, but I won’t be needing your help any more. I’m not walking through any of them. I can’t think of anything worse. I’ve got somewhere more important to be.’

He turned and began to jog down the stone steps towards the driveway. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get back to London, but he would walk if he had to.

‘Wait a minute!’ yelled Seb, dashing after him. ‘You still owe me a ton of favours, Branimir.’

‘I owe you nothing, Seb,’ Tom said casually, without looking back. ‘Don’t owe you jack shit. Go back to cheating on your future wife and good luck with the wedding. I won’t be attending.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Seb floundered for a retort. ‘No Jocks invited anyway.’

An anti-Scottish jibe. He couldn’t even be surprised.

Tom stopped. He turned slowly. He felt so close to the edge he almost wanted Seb to provoke him. ‘Easy, Seb. I’m feeling pretty happy about going to jail right now. I’ve already lost everything important to me. Don’t start using words like that. Words you don’t even fucking understand. Or maybe you do. Maybe that’s the whole problem.’

Seb flinched, looking genuinely unnerved. Tom had let his whole accent slip out now, and the quiet intensity in it made the other man visibly jumpy. ‘Tommy . . . I . . .’

Tom stared at the man he’d been palling around with for over a decade. He could see genuine confusion mixing with the affront Seb was feeling, as he tried to piece together why Tom was acting like this.

‘You can’t help being what you are, Seb,’ Tom said quietly. ‘But I can. I can do better.’

‘Mate, she’s just some grifter.’

That was enough. Tom didn’t even feel his fist move, but he felt Seb’s nose break as his knuckles smacked into the other man’s face. Seb shrieked in a way that would have made any Scot roll their eyes, and Tom inspected his fingers casually before speaking.

‘That was just a wee tap, chief. Say anything else about her and I’ll hit you properly. She’s no grifter. We’re the grifters. You, me and Ottie. We’re the fakes. We’re the liars. Not her.’

A car suddenly pulled up the path and the driver’s window rolled down to reveal Dexter.

‘Hey,’ the gruff-sounding man said to Tom. ‘Pep said you might need a ride back to the city.’

Tom was inwardly touched by the suggestion, hoping against hope that it implied Pepper might not be as furious as she’d appeared and therefore wouldn’t convince Raina to hate him for ever. Not that he blamed her. She’d been entirely within her rights to treat him the way she had. Her loyalty to Raina was admirable.

‘Thank you,’ he told Dexter. ‘That’s very good of you.’

He turned to Seb, knowing it might very well be the last time he saw him. He felt a tumult of negative emotions. Regret, despair and frustration. The waste of it all. The waste of investing in a person in the hopes that they would one day turn out good. As much as he wanted to claim he was better than the two of them, he’d been the one pretending for the past ten years.

‘Seb, I grew up in poverty,’ he said freely. ‘Foodbanks. Free school meals. My father has been on the dole. Our house got broken into twice, and both times, they didn’t take anything because there was nothing to steal. Council house. I got a scholarship to senior school. Our whole street pulled together to pay for my train to interview at Cambridge.’