Playing All the Angles (13 page)

“I’m not a cast-off,” Dominic insisted. “I’m not!”

“That’s not the right thing to say,” Isabelle sobbed.

“Issie…I’m sorry! Please let me in!”

“No,” she cried, the sound ragged. “Just leave me alone!”

It was another hour before she emerged, her face pinched, her eyes red-rimmed. He was propped up in bed with a magazine, which he laid aside as soon as she stepped into the bedroom. Still, she didn’t say a word to him as she went to pull her pajamas out of the dresser drawer.

“Can we talk?” he asked softly.

“How am I supposed to look my sister in the eye now? How am I supposed to be in the same room with the two of you?”

“Nothing has changed but your level of awareness,” Dominic said. “And I’m sorry I said anything, but I can’t take it back.”

“I just can’t believe you’ve both been lying to me for all this time!”

“We haven’t lied. We never said we hadn’t met. We never said we didn’t know each other. We never said anything at all.”

“You lied by omission! You let me believe it was your first experience with my family.”

“It was.” He shook his head. “Eve never even talked about her family. The only thing I knew was that she didn’t go home for the hols and her baby sister sent her a pair of earrings for Christmas that she cherished. That’s all I knew. I didn’t know there was an older sister, or nieces, or parents. You gave me the first experience with your family.”

She snorted. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s all in the past, Isabelle. Completely. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re everything to me.”

“It does matter!”

“Why?”

She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes again. “Because…you’re not just mine now.”

“I am just yours! I was never Eve’s! Not any more than I was ever anyone else’s. You’re it, Isabelle. You’re the only woman who’s ever had my heart.”

“I want to be the only one who’s ever had you at all.” She frowned hard, knowing how silly it sounded as she said it.

“Baby…” Dominic smiled sympathetically, moving to take her into his arms. “That ship sailed long before I met your sister. But listen to me. You’re the only one who has me now, and you’re the only one who’ll ever have me again. You own me, heart and soul.”

She seemed to struggle for a moment, more with herself than with him, then she relented and allowed him to hold her while she cried. When the tears had slowed, she turned her face toward his and murmured, “I hate that she knows how it feels.”

“How what feels?”

“When you kiss me and hold me and make love to me,” she said, sniffing.

Dominic smiled and held her closer. “She has no idea, love. It was never like this with her. Never even close.”

Isabelle bit her tongue before she could ask how it was. She didn’t want to know. She did want to know, she corrected herself, but she knew that was Pandora’s box. She let Dominic comfort her and let him stroke her hair, listening with one ear as he told her how and why he cherished her and promised his love and devotion again and again. But she couldn’t help wonder what he had ever said to Eve.

Had they made pillow talk? Of course they had. What had Eve said to him? What had he said to her? What were their special things that they did?

“How long?” she asked suddenly.

“For as long as we live,” Dominic murmured. He was moving her toward the bed, lips on her forehead.

“No. How long were you together? How long were you and Eve together?”

He twitched slightly. “I thought we’d moved on.”

“You moved on. How long?”

“We were never together,” he replied. “We knew each other for about a year, though, and it’s not like we saw each other every day, or even every other day.”

“When was it?”

“What?”

“When? When did you see her?”

“I…it was about two years before I met you.”

Isabelle nodded, still letting him hold her as she searched her memory. She would have been seventeen or eighteen then, and she struggled to remember anything Eve had ever said about her boyfriends. Trouble was, Eve never really revealed anything. The family hadn’t even ever met one of her dates. Actually, for all they really knew, she was a nun. Discreet was her middle name.

Eve had told stories of her exploits, but never of her partners in crime. Now and then, like she’d done with her neighbor, she would tease Isabelle with some information, but that was all. So, nothing was there. No trace of Dominic in her memory at all. Only the day she met him. She didn’t know if that was better or worse. Eve might have mentioned him if she hadn’t cared about him, but if he had meant something to her, she would have kept him to herself. She never gave the family any access to weaknesses if she could help it, not even Isabelle.

She eased away from him. “I need to wash my face,” she said, not looking up at him as she moved past him into the bathroom.

“Iss, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said sadly. “Me too.”

She closed the door but didn’t lock it this time, standing at the sink, letting the hot water run. She didn’t want this to bother her. She didn’t want to think about it. To know it. She just wanted things to be the way they had been this morning. She’d woken up so happy, so content, so certain that her life was going in the right direction. It shouldn’t have mattered who he was with before her, but it did. Only because it was Eve. The woman whose charms no man seemed immune to.

Chapter 9

E
VE
W
AS
S
TILL
P
ICKING
L
EAVES
out of her hair and growling as Marcus dabbed alcohol on the deep scratches across her shoulders. She’d jumped into the driveline hedge to keep Dominic and Isabelle from spotting her and had torn up her blouse, cut up her arms and back, scratched up her face, and scared the devil out of a nest of squirrels. Rolling her eyes, she said, “I still can’t believe I hid in the bushes. I hid in the bushes.”

“Well, let’s see: humiliation by family; Dominic nearly blows his cover with uncharacteristic chivalry; then you faced the horror of being cooped up in a car with your former lover—your current baby daddy—and his wife, your sister. I’m surprised you didn’t just slit your wrists. Shrubbery seems mild. Now, be still.”

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

“And miss you crawling out of a hedge like a Hollywood star with bipolar disorder? Never! Always ring me first!”

Eve laughed. “Who else would I call?”

“That Tad fellow? You’re chummy.”

“Yeah. We are.” She brightened. “You know, we haven’t spent a night apart since we started spending nights together? And it’s quite comfortable and easy. I genuinely like him.”

“You’re in love.”

“Hard fact is I’m the rebound.” Eve shook her head. “So I’m not getting too excited.”

“Oh, please. You don’t practically shack up with a rebound, especially not one with an interior bunkmate. You have a bit of fun and move on,” he said airily. “If the fact that you’re carrying another man’s child isn’t sending him screaming, then he’s a keeper. Seriously. Or he’s mental. He’s probably mental. I know I wouldn’t want to live with you.”

Very quietly, she said, “I want to keep him.”

“I knew it! I knew it! Okay, let’s get you in a clean shirt and take you to dinner. Crouching in shrubberies for such a length of time has to work up an appetite.”

“Certainly gave me time to think. I’ve been talking to the therapist about feeling like a child and how stuck I am in that groove of demanding attention like I’m a child. I’m not a child anymore, but I’m about to have one, so I need to grow up and move forward. Either I’m going to have a relationship with my family, or I’m not, and that’s entirely up to me and how I choose to act. I can’t make them want me around, and I can’t make them pay me any attention. All I can do is be the kind of person this baby deserves for a parent and let the chips fall where they may. So…I’ve got some decisions to make.”

“Please make one that doesn’t make baby Jesus cry, Evie.” Marcus patted her. “You’re already going to hell.”

“Yeah, well. Shirt and dinner. I’m famished.”

“Come. The closet awaits you.”

“Marcus? I am really thankful for you. I don’t know where I would be in this world without you.”

He flushed pink and twitched at the words. “You’d be in a shrubbery, wearing a torn shirt, and you’re thankful for my closet. But you mean the world to me, too.”

The two of them went to a little place they liked and shared a dessert after dinner, musing on their respective places in the world. It was a good quiet time that ended with Marcus dropping her home, where Tad was waiting in her bed, snoring softly. It would have been a perfect night, save for the text message from Dominic that she received just before crawling between the sheets.

Big problem. Issie knows we used to date. Ring me asap.

Instead of phoning, she texted back.

How the hell? And what else?

She punched the connect button the second her phone vibrated, letting out a string of curses before Dominic could even say hello and did not stop until she had exhausted her vocabulary.

When she had, he said, “I’m the one with something to lose here!”

“You? Not bloody likely. What happened?”

He told her the story and then explained that after her bath, Isabelle had taken the car and gone for a drive. She wasn’t back yet, and he was worried. She wouldn’t answer his calls, either.

“Well, what did you expect, you fool?” Eve growled. She had moved down into the living room. “You think she was going say hooray? God damn it, Dominic! You’re a bloody moron.”

“I was defending you! It just slipped out, and then I had to explain!”

“I don’t need you to defend me, Dominic! I don’t need you to do anything but take care of my sister and forget that there was anything between us. You can’t seem to do that much.”

“It’s a little late now. I’m really worried about her, Eve.”

“Well, I don’t know where she’d go. She wouldn’t come here.”

“Call her. Maybe she’ll answer you.”

She rolled her eyes and hung up on him. Some days, she hated him. Most days, she hated him. The baby kicked, and she let out a breath, mindlessly rubbing her belly. Then she decided what to do and dialed Alora’s number.

Her older sister answered within a ring, her own string of obscenity flowing. At least some things ran in the family.

When she was finished, Eve asked, “Is Isabelle there?”

“Yes, you cur. Isabelle is here. What of it?”

“Lora, listen, I was mean today. I was mean, and I was petty, and I tried to hurt you on purpose. Then I spent almost two hours sitting in the Richardsons’ driveline hedges, waiting for Marcus to come pick me up because I was too embarrassed to stand on your corner and wait for a taxi, and I was trying to avoid being seen by anyone leaving the party. I sat in bushes, Lora, and I thought about life, the universe, and sibling rivalry. I’m never going to like you much, but you are my sister, so at least I can curb the desire to kick in your teeth and show you up at your own party. Now let me talk to Isabelle.”

“You call that an apology?” Alora shouted a whole new lungful of curses, but Eve could hear them moving steadily away from the phone, and she smiled a little. Round one to her.

Alora’s voice came back on the line. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I don’t blame her. I just wanted to be sure she was okay and somewhere safe.”

“Of course she’s safe!” There was a pause and then, “She said she might talk to you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Alora. Have a nice night.”

Alora hung up on her, something else that ran in the family. Eve tapped out a text to Dominic, more so he wouldn’t call her again than out of any sort of wish to calm him down.

She’s at Alora’s.

Then she turned off the ringer and went back upstairs to find Tad sitting up, looking concerned. “There you are. What’s wrong, love?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I got up to use the loo and heard you talking downstairs,” he said, smiling and opening his arms. “Come to bed.”

She did, snuggling into a spoon with him, the events of the day pouring out in a stream, punctuated only by his laughter and amused sympathy. Soon, she was giggling too but felt it peter out into a sigh.

“There goes my relationship with Isabelle. It’s a foregone conclusion now.”

Tad rubbed her bump, making little motions where the baby’s feet were pressing outward, causing her to kick. “No, it won’t end well. But you knew that.”

“I’m just going to keep my distance. I think it’s the kindest thing to do.”

“He doesn’t deserve her,” he said.

“I know that, but they’re married. She loves him.”

“What if she gets pregnant?”

“I hope she does.”