Stanton Bliss(15)

“I’m going to leave in a few days, dear,” Mum tells me. “I haven’t been to Australia for weeks and Nicholas is leaving on Wednesday when the plane arrives back. That’s ok, isn’t it? I will come back to L.A. in six weeks or so.”

Adrian’s face falls. “Is that what Nick said? He’s leaving Wednesday?”

“Yes,” Mum replies as she, too, bites into her banana bread. “How do you not know this? You are staying with him.”

“What’s going on with you two?” I frown into my coffee.

Adrian gets up and closes the heavy glass door so that nobody else can hear us. He shrugs sadly. “Nothing.” He sighs as he flops back onto his stool.

“God, you’re an idiot. Go out there, get butt naked and seduce him in the pool, for f*ck’s sake!” Abbie snaps.

Bridget and Mum nod carelessly as they shovel their cake into their mouths.

“Maybe not in the pool. I want to swim in that pool,” Bridget mumbles with her mouth full. I nod as I pull a disgusted face, and Adrian blows out a deep breath deep in thought.

Margaret knocks on the door. “Ready?” She smiles at mum.

“Give me a second.” Mum rushes to her bedroom to get her handbag. They are going shopping.

The girls both stand and go to the door to talk to her as she waits for Mum.

I fake a smile and turn back to my coffee. I don’t know what to even think of her, of this. It’s another f*cking nightmare that I don’t need. When she told me back then, when I found her in that hotel, that she was abused by James, I believed her. I would never not believe someone who told me they had been raped… but it never did sit right. I always had this gut feeling that something was off with her story, but I guess I put it down to shock. That was the absolute last thing I thought she was going to tell me, and it shocked the hell out of both me and out of Adrian. She was genuinely scared of him in the hotel the night, and yet, here we are, just two months later and she is calling him in the middle of the night. Maybe she was just trying to talk him into paying Joshua the money back. But the text from him said: I’ve told her everything.

The only connection I can make to that comment is that he has told his wife everything. But why would he tell his wife everything when he was black mailing Margaret for so many years with the sole purpose of keeping her quiet?

I was going to say something, but now that I know that her and Robert are not together, I’m not so sure that I should. Is it even relevant to anything anymore? The boys know who their biological father is. Robert is no longer being deceived. Am I just going to drag up another ugly can of worms? Nobody knows I know. Ha, that’s the thing. I don’t even know what I know. I’m just jumping to conclusions here. It’s probably completely innocent.

Suddenly, a vision of Amelie lying wet and dead on the ground in the pouring rain comes to me, and I can feel the weight of the heavy gun in my hands.

My face drops as the horrific memory poisons me.

“What is it?” Adrian asks, putting his hand on my thigh in a reassuring gesture.

I jump as I am pulled from my thoughts and shake my head. “I’m sorry. Miles away.” I fake a smile.

Adrian’s knowing eyes hold mine. “Are you ok, baby?”

My heart rate has risen through the roof and I suddenly feel sickly hot. The sting of perspiration burns my underarms. My eyes tear up and I nod. Please stop, I need these feelings to stop. As if reading my mind, he leans over and grabs my head, pulling it to his. “It’s going to be ok,” he whispers.

I nod as our foreheads rest together. “I know.” Fuck, I hate feeling like this. I hate seeing this shit in my head.

“Do you want me to get Josh?” he asks.

I shake my head as the lump in my throat forms. “N-no,” I stammer. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I croak as I pull myself together He smiles sympathetically and holds my hand in his, resting it on his lap as his worried eyes linger on my face.

I shake off my dark thoughts. “Are you going to get me some more banana bread or what?”

He smiles in my deployment tactics. “Do you want butter?”

“Totally.”

Joshua

I sit in my office and send my fifteenth email of the morning. After not thinking about work for so long, it’s now time for me to step up. We are going through some serious damage control and I’m scrambling to please the board. My mind keeps wandering to my father and the conversation I had with him yesterday about James Brennan. Dad aborted the hit while I was in prison, not wanting to put anyone through any more pain. A cop out if you ask me. He also bought James’ share of the company from him. They have severed ties completely and he has left it up to my mother if she wants to have him charged by the police or not. Regret fills me. I know this means for certain that he has given up on their relationship, that he just wants to be done with it and walk away.

A knock on the door brings me back from my thoughts. It’s Brock.

“Hey,” he calls out. “You wanted to see me.”

“Hi. Take a seat.” I gesture to the chair at my desk and he frowns as he sits. “What’s up?”

I inhale deeply. This conversation is going to go one of two ways. He will either lose his shit or he will be with me one hundred percent.

I hesitate.

“Spit it out,” he sighs, annoyed at my procrastination.