“Great party, as always, hostess with the mostest,” he said, dropping a kiss onto Jodie’s cheek.
“Glad you enjoyed yourself,” Jodie said.
To an outsider, the way her lips curved upward would have looked both welcoming and friendly, but Vivian could see that there was absolutely no sincerity behind either her sister’s smile or her words. In fact, if she had to guess, she’d say Jodie was mightily pissed with Seth. Which was weird, since they had always got on surprisingly well.
“I did, thanks,” Seth said after a small hesitation. “The cake was amazing. I got some good pictures of Sam blowing out the candles. I’ll email them to you when I get home.”
“Thanks, that’d be great.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed at Jodie’s cool tone, but he didn’t push the issue, shifting his focus to Vivian and giving her a quick nod. “Good to see you, Viv. Good luck with the business.”
Behind her, Vivian heard a sound, but when she glanced at her sister, Jodie’s expression was carefully neutral.
“You, too,” Vivian said. “Maybe I’ll drop into this sleazy dive of yours sometime and have a drink on the house.”
“You do that.”
Seth glanced at Jodie one last time before heading for the door. Vivian waited until he was gone before turning to her sister.
“What was all that about?”
Jodie went to the sink and rinsed the sponge. “What do you mean?”
“All that stuff with Seth just now. Are you guys fighting or something?”
“No. Of course not.”
Jodie had always been the world’s worst liar. Her voice got all funny and high, and her gaze started wandering all over the room. Vivian decided to take the fact that her sister was currently addressing the light fixture rather than looking at her as a sign that she was onto something.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine with me,” she said.
Jodie pressed her lips together as though she was trying to contain herself. “He’s such a bloody hypocrite, that’s all. I saw the way he was looking at you when he was talking to you earlier. Like you were a woman-shaped lollypop and he wanted to lick you. If I could get away with it, I’d kick him in the shins.” The words burst out of Jodie as though propelled, and she immediately started wiping the counter as though she would mop up her words in the same way.
“Okay. Is there any reason why Seth flirting with me is a problem? I mean, I know he’s having a baby with someone else, but they’re not together, right? And he and I have always had that little flirty routine going on. It’s our thing. It doesn’t mean anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know it’s your thing. And I’ve never had a problem with it. I thought you guys were friends. But—” Jodie took a deep breath. “You know what? This isn’t even worth getting into. Forget I said anything.”
Vivian weighed her sister’s obvious desire to drop the subject against the rather disturbing snippet Jodie had let slip and decided that she simply wasn’t able to let this one go through to the keeper.
“I was under the impression that Seth and I were friends, too. What makes you think we aren’t?”
“Nothing. It was a slip of the tongue. Ignore me.”
“Jodie.”
Her sister closed her eyes for a beat. “Viv. You don’t want to get into this. It’s between me and Jason, really. Not even that. It’s been Seth and himself. The idiot.”
Vivian watched her sister clean the already pristine granite counter. She wasn’t sure why, but for some reason she found herself thinking about the conversation they’d had earlier in the week when Jodie had asked Vivian to be co-guardian to Max and Sam. She felt a little crazy linking the two things, but her intuition was going nuts and she’d learned to trust it over the years.
“Is this to do with the guardianship?”
Jodie went very still, and Vivian knew she’d hit pay dirt.
“I don’t think we should have this conversation,” Jodie said miserably. “I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. Can we please forget it?”
Jodie looked so unhappy, Vivian swallowed her objection. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
“I do. I want us both to erase the last five minutes.”
“Okay.” Uneasy, Vivian went to collect more plates.
She couldn’t stop herself from mulling over what little Jodie had said while she worked. Did Seth have some sort of problem with sharing guardianship with her? Did he want it all to himself, perhaps? Was he worried she’d fight him for custody...?
She couldn’t get her head around it. She definitely couldn’t imagine Seth agitating for sole guardianship of Sam and Max should anything happen to his brother and her sister. But clearly
something
was going on. Something that involved her and Seth.
“Vivian...”
She turned to find an uncomfortable-looking Jodie watching her from the patio.
“Please tell me you’re not out here imagining a million different horrible scenarios.”
“I’m not. Just one or two. That way I can get the details nice and vivid.”
Jodie groaned. “God, sometimes I have such a big mouth.” She joined Vivian at the buffet table. “Are you going to be able to forget what I said?”
“Of course. Although I’ve got to admit that I’m tempted to ask Seth what the problem is. Straight to the horse and all that.”
Jodie’s eyes went round. “God. I almost want to encourage you to do that.”
Vivian set down the dirty forks she’d collected. “Are you going to spill or what? Because you can’t keep dangling the carrot forever.”
Jodie glanced toward the house. “I promised Jason I wouldn’t say anything to you.”
“Right.”
“But I’ve already kind of ruined that, haven’t I?”
“A little.”
“Promise me that you won’t take this to heart, okay? This is about Seth, not you. About his stupid situation. Which is why he’s such a freaking hypocrite.”
“Jodie, come on. You are literally killing me here.”
“Seth doesn’t think you’re a good fit to be guardian to the boys.” Jodie said it in a rush, almost as though she was afraid that she’d lose her gumption if she went any slower.
“
A good fit.
What does that mean, exactly?” Vivian asked carefully.
“He’s an idiot, Vivian. His head is messed up over this baby stuff with Lola. He’s having problems with her. It’s a classic case of projection.”
“What did he say?”
“He thinks you’re unreliable. A party girl. Flighty.” Jodie curled her hand around Vivian’s. “But he doesn’t really think that, Viv. Or, if he does, it’s only because he doesn’t know you well enough to know the real you.”
Her sister’s words seemed to come from a distance, as though she was shouting them from another room. Suddenly all Vivian could remember was the way Seth’s gaze had slid down her body and lingered on her thighs when he’d asked if he could pick another body part. Meanwhile, he’d been dripping poison in her sister’s and brother-in-law’s ears, trying to convince them not to trust her with their precious children.
How. Freaking. Dare. He.
She inhaled slowly through her nose, trying to order her chaotic thoughts. There were so many directions to go, after all. Outrage, hurt, shame, anger.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“I wasn’t there. Jason spoke to him alone. But he told him that we’d made our decision.”
“Was Jason worried? After what Seth said?”
“No. Not for a second.”
Vivian was hugely grateful for the fact that her sister didn’t hesitate to reassure her.
“In fact, he thought Seth was way out of line. It’s not like Seth’s got a fantastic track record himself. He’s hardly been the poster boy for upstanding citizenship over the years. He’s got a good heart, though, and we both think that is way more important than either of you having nine-to-five jobs. Who cares if it took you a while to find yourself? Who cares if you used to party like it’s 1999? All of those things mean that you’ll be able to offer Sam and Max awesome advice when they need it. If they need it.”
Vivian blinked. “He brought up my career changes? And my lifestyle?”
Jodie slapped a hand to her forehead. “Why do I keep making this worse?”
Vivian gripped her sister’s shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “You need to tell me everything he said. Every word.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You need to.”
Because Jodie might think that Seth was being a jerk, that he was projecting, that this was some kind of manifestation of the stress he must be feeling as a parent-to-be, but she didn’t know the full story. Jodie didn’t know that ten years ago, Vivian and Seth had had wild limo-monkey-sex at her wedding.
And that changed everything. Big-time.
“Start at the beginning, and don’t stop until you reach the end,” she instructed. And then she braced herself, because she knew it wasn’t going to be pretty.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
T
TOOK
V
IVIAN
half an hour to drag a full account of Seth’s assholery from her sister. Then it took another half hour of cajoling, begging and bullying to extract his address.
“It’s okay, Jodie, I’m not going over there with a loaded gun,” she’d assured her sister.
“You could still do plenty of damage without a gun,” Jodie protested.
Vivian planned to. And then some. But she didn’t want her sister worrying in the meantime.
“I’m simply going to let him know that he’s got it wrong. Take the higher ground. Be mature,” Vivian said. “I don’t need to stoop to his level.”
How she managed to stop her voice from trembling when she was sitting on a veritable volcano of fury was a mystery to her. But she did, and Jodie seemed somewhat mollified by her calm words and grounded demeanor.
“Okay. But just...take it easy, okay? I feel horrible telling you any of this. You weren’t ever supposed to find out.”
“I would have found out eventually, Jodie. You really think people can hide that kind contempt from one another?”
Because that was what this was about. Seth was contemptuous of her. He had judged her and found her wanting on almost every level.
The hypocritical jerk.
Never mind that he’d been in that limo, too. Never mind that he’d been the one to produce the joint, and that she was sure that weed wasn’t the only substance he’d abused during his many years of wannabe rock-and-roll stardom. Never mind that the man practically needed a revolving door installed in his bedroom to keep up with all the women he bedded, and that he’d been colossally irresponsible enough to get one of them pregnant. Never mind that he was the one who’d made a second pass at her during one of her visits home five years ago when they’d happened to be staying under the same roof for a night.
Nope, none of those things counted because he was a
man,
and he could do anything he wanted with impunity.
She glared out the windshield as she drove to Seth’s address in the eastern suburb of Ivanhoe, her hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel. Beneath her anger, she was aware that there was a wellspring of hurt, but she refused to acknowledge it. She already felt foolish enough. For years she’d been under the illusion that she and Seth were kindred spirits. She’d believed that they’d both experienced a moment of recognition at the rehearsal dinner, that they’d understood one another intrinsically. Instinctively. Those crazy, hot minutes in the limo and all the interactions they’d had since and everything she knew of his life had only reinforced that notion.
Like her, Seth had had to shelve his dream of living large and instead find another, more realistic niche for himself. Like her, it had taken him a while to discover what that niche would be. They’d both resisted the call of convention, living their lives in ways that worked for them. And they’d both made mistakes—sometimes big ones—but managed to power through them and come out the other side with a semblance of dignity intact.
That
had been
her take on their relationship and on him. Clearly, Seth saw things differently. Apparently, he saw her as a sluttish loser who couldn’t get her act together. An unreliable, insubstantial party girl who shouldn’t be trusted with the well-being of two people who were incredibly precious to her. All of which made him one of the most judgmental, uninformed, narrow-minded ass-hats she’d ever met.
She found his street easily, slowing to a cruise so she could find his house number. The houses were old and large, most of them built from the deep red clinker bricks that had been popular in the twenties and thirties. She made a rude noise in her throat when she found Seth’s place. It had a high gabled front, bow windows and a neatly manicured formal garden.
Mr. Respectable. What a crock.
She slammed the car door shut with a satisfying thud. Chin high, she took a deep breath, eyeing the door of his house. Then she stalked up the driveway, suppressed rage grinding the spiked heels of her boots into the concrete with each step.
She hoped Seth had medical insurance, because he was going to need it after she’d finished with him.
* * *
S
ETH
WAS
IN
the backyard scooping leaves from the swimming pool when he heard the doorbell ring. He leaned the skimmer pole against the pergola and made his way to the front door, his bare feet almost silent on the polished floor. He could see a slim silhouette through the frosted glass, and he frowned as he reached for the handle. He wasn’t expecting anyone, definitely not a female anyone. Whoever it was, he really hoped she wasn’t about to interfere with his plans for the rest of his one free evening of the week—pizza, the footy on TV and then maybe a movie. The perfect antidote to an afternoon of screaming, raucous children and his mother’s endless questions regarding Lola and the baby.
“You are a flaming hypocrite of the highest order, Seth Anderson. In fact, I don’t think I have met a more sanctimonious asshole in my entire life.”
The words flew at him the moment he opened the door, and a heartbeat later something solid thunked him in the chest. He looked down to see Vivian’s hand drawing back before the heel of her hand smacked into his sternum a second time, the power behind the blow enough to force him back a step.
“How dare you bad-mouth me to your brother? How dare you even imagine that you have a clue as to who I am or what I’m capable of, you judgmental, self-righteous prick?”
He blinked rapidly, scrambling to catch up. Vivian was clearly angry about something. Really angry, if the way she was snarling at him meant anything. Then his brain kicked in and he understood that his brother—or more likely Jodie—had shared his concerns regarding Vivian’s suitability for guardianship with her.
Awesome.
“You have no idea how lucky you are that I’m a girl and no one ever taught me to punch properly, Anderson, because your nose would be a pancake right now if I had my way.”
He caught her hand as she took a third shot at his chest, a little surprised at how hard he had to work to keep her at bay. Apparently rage bestowed unnatural powers on a woman. Who knew?
“Listen—”
“No, you listen. You don’t know me. Just because you once had the privilege of being inside my body for a few minutes—something that would never have happened unless I was very drunk and very stoned, by the way—does not mean that you get to pass judgment on me. No freaking way. You have no idea who I am or how I live my life or what my values are. You know nothing about me.
Nothing.
And yet you dared to try to cut me out of my nephews’ lives. Do you have any idea how freaking evil that is?”
Her blue-green eyes were bright with fury, her body rigid as she fought him for control of her arm. Her jaw-length hair swung around her face, the ruler-straight fringe ruffled by her exertions.
“Look, I have no idea what Jodie told you, but I think you might be overreacting,” he said.
“Ow.”
Pain bit into his shin. She’d kicked him. Shock made him loosen his grip on her arm and she wrenched it free, taking a step backward so that she was out of his reach.
“Don’t you
dare
tell me I’m overreacting, you snake in the grass. You told Jason I would make a shitty guardian to Sam and Max. You said I was unreliable and a bad role model.”
“I asked Jason a few questions, that’s all. Appointing guardians is a serious business. I wanted to make sure they understood what they were signing up for.”
Truthfully, he didn’t have great recall of the conversation he’d had with Jason. He’d been so worked up over Lola, so worried about what would happen once the baby came, hearing his brother was relying on Vivian to put Max and Sam first had pushed about a million different buttons for him.
Buttons that maybe had more to do with his situation with Lola than they did with Vivian and his brother’s kids—something that was far clearer to him now than it had been then.
“And did you think to use that same scrupulous microscope to examine your own life, Seth? Did you take the time to consider if a man who knocks up his casual girlfriend and runs a bar is the kind of guy you’d want looking after your kids? A guy who has wasted half his life chasing a juvenile dream, a guy who wouldn’t know commitment if it bit him on the ass? Would
that
guy be the kind of person you’d want guiding your kid through life if you weren’t around anymore, Seth?”
He held up his hands. “Look, I’ll be honest. I was having a very crappy day when Jason came to talk to me. It’s possible I overreacted a little. Said some things I should have maybe kept to myself.”
She swore, and the next thing he knew her bag smacked into his face, something metallic landing a glancing blow on his brow before it fell to the ground.
“Jesus. Could you stop attacking me, please?”
“You have no right to judge me, privately or publicly. You think I didn’t have a moment of doubt when Jodie told me you were going to be the boys’ other guardian? You think I wasn’t worried, given everything I know about you?”
He frowned. She nodded, a grim smile twisting her lips.
“Doesn’t feel so great, does it, Seth, being judged and found wanting? You know why I didn’t say anything, though? Because I figured that Jason and Jodie know you a hell of a lot better than I do, and that even though I think I have a grasp on who you are and the way you live your life, I really only know what I’ve cobbled together based on a handful of conversations over the years, one encounter in the back of a limo a decade ago and whatever gets filtered through to me via the family grapevine. I figured it would be arrogant and ignorant
in the extreme
to think that was enough to judge you by.”
There was a hot, accusing light in her eyes, but beneath the anger he could see there was hurt. It was evident in the quaver in her voice and the way she was holding herself.
He closed his eyes for a beat, unable to deny the truth of her words. Because she was right, he didn’t know her. Not really. When he’d mouthed off the other night, Lola had been at the top of his mind, not Vivian. He’d funneled all his frustration and fear about his own situation onto the whole guardianship issue, and the result was that he’d made a big freaking mess of everything.
And hurt and insulted Vivian on a massive scale.
Damn.
“I’m sorry, Viv, okay? I just—” He lifted his hands helplessly, then let them drop. “My head is up my ass at the moment. I’ve got a lot of stuff going down, and I just... You know what? There’s no excuse for it. You’re right. I don’t know you. Not really. And I should have shut my cakehole and trusted my brother and Jodie. But I didn’t, and I said a bunch of stuff I shouldn’t have. And I’m really sorry about that.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, her eyes never leaving his face. “You’re lucky you still have testicles, you know that?”
He rubbed his chest where she’d hit him. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a bruise if that makes you feel any better.”
She shook her head, then bent to collect her handbag. She slid the strap onto her shoulder. “You know what the worst bit is? At the party today you acted as though you liked me. As though we were friends. Stupid me, I always thought we were, too.” She pressed her lips together, almost as though to stop herself from saying more, then turned for the door.
Damn. He was such an asshole.
“We
are
friends, Viv. And I
have
always liked you. Right from the start, I liked you.”
“No, you wanted to screw me. Big difference, apparently,” she said over her shoulder.
He couldn’t let her leave like this. He wasn’t under the illusion that he could erase his words or make her hurt disappear, but he wouldn’t sleep tonight if he let her walk away without trying to fix things.
Slipping around her, he blocked her access to the porch steps.
“Don’t go yet. Stay and let me grovel some more.”
“No, thank you. I’m not going to hang around so you can feel less guilty about being an ignorant jerk.”
She’d always been good at nailing him to the wall with the unvarnished truth.
He was about to try again when the phone rang.
“Give me two seconds to get that,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows and he knew that the moment he moved out of the way, she was out of here. He snagged the strap of her handbag, slipping it off her arm before she could react.
“Hey!”
“You can have it back in a minute,” he said, heading for the phone.
He heard her follow him, the
tap-tap
of her heels ominous as she stalked him.
“Give me my bag, Seth,” she demanded as he picked up the receiver.
“Anderson speaking,” he said into the phone, ignoring her.
She tried to snatch the bag but he turned, offering her his back.
“Is this Seth Anderson?” an officious female voice asked.
He rolled his eyes. Another telemarketer. He had to remember to add his name to the do-not-call list. “Thanks, but I’ve already got one.”
“Mr. Anderson, I’m calling from Monash Medical Centre. Can you confirm that you are the partner of Dolores Alice Brown, please?”
Seth went very still. “You mean Lola? Has something happened to her?”
“Dolores’s housemate gave me your contact details. Can you confirm that you are her partner, please?”
“Yes. I am. I mean—” This woman didn’t need to know about his complicated relationship with Lola. “Yes. Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”
“I’m afraid Dolores has been involved in a car accident, Mr. Anderson. She’s in surgery at present, and I understand her condition is critical.”
It was like a gut punch. The room was airless. He let Vivian’s bag drop to the floor as he reached for the pad and pen he kept by the phone.
“Where is she? How do I get there?”
He scrawled the details she gave him, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Is the baby okay? What happened? Was she driving?” He’d heard terrible stories about women sustaining injuries from the steering wheel in the late stage of pregnancy.