Donkey Doubled: A Twin Stepbrother Menage Romance Page 58

  “Are you ok, Sash?”

  Sash struggles to find the words to respond. Instead, all she seems like she can do at the moment is cry, communicate in little nods or shakes of the head and try to control her breathing. Abbey sweeps her hand through Sash’s hair, tucking the waviness behind one ear. She’s seen her friend hurt a number of times before, but nothing on this scale.

  “I’m going to take you home, ok?”

  Sash nods and looks away. She’s ashamed that her best friend is seeing her like this again. She’s embarrassed that Abbey knows about her and Dante, and that what she knows is what the papers have decided to publish and not the truth.

  If she had enough energy to tell her the real story she would, and she’s angry with herself that she can’t even bring herself to begin to think about how to start. Abbey is the first person she wanted to know, but definitely not in this way. Like this, it feels like the worst kind of deception.

  She’s staring at it for a long while, not even knowing what it is until it angrily dawns on her. Fifteen minutes from the city and there it still is like a thorn in her side, Dante’s long black tower piercing the sky above like a poisonous needle from earth.

  “He’s a fucking liar”, she says finally. “A fucking worthless, piece of shit liar.”

  Chapter 42

  There are journalists as close to the house as they can get.

  “Fucking animals”, Abbey comments.

  When they get close enough, she leans out of the window to berate them within ear shot. “Go and get a real job. Go on, fuck off and find another story, there isn’t one here.”

  Henry’s on the doorstep drinking a cup of coffee, and as Abbey pulls the car alongside the house, he waves at Sash. If Sash was looking at his waving hand and not the comforting familiarity of his face, she’d notice the lightly tarnished rope bind marks on his wrists.

  Just to have him look at her, his sweet smile, his caring eyes, she feels a hollow in her stomach like someone’s carved out her soul. She doesn’t know why, but she feels like she’s done something wrong, like she’s just confessed to a heinous crime or admitted a catalog of wrongdoing, even though neither Abbey on the car journey over, nor the look her dad is still giving her would make her feel that way.

  If anything, what she should feel is acceptance, and the horrible thing is that because they are giving it to her, it almost makes her feel worse. They know about her and Dante, everyone does.

  That news has negatively affected their lives and now she needs to explain both what happened in the first instance, and why now she’s on her own and not by his side. More than the sense of feeling like she’s just confessed to a heinous crime, she feels like she is about to, and everyone else is happy because they already know what’s coming, ready to point the accusatory finger and say, ‘I told you so’.

  “Moving back home?” Henry says, when Sash is up alongside him.

  “Thinking about it”, she says back, her eyes jammed up with tears.

  “Hello, Sash.”

  “Hello, Dad.”

  There is nothing like the feeling of coming back home. Her bedroom may be an office, the other one may remind her so much of her stepbrother it hurts just to think about it, but her dad is here, Tracy is here, Ghost is here and so are all of her memories.

  There is a tense silence while Henry observes his daughter, while he rubs the tears away from her cheek with a tobacco stained thumb, while Tracy stands in shadow by the sink unsure how to begin, and Abbey wonders whether now she’s brought their daughter home, that she should be here at all.

  “I didn’t know you were in California?” Tracy says, when too much time has passed and she can’t cope with the discomfort.

  “I wanted to call-“, Sash begins, welling up again in the process and unable to finish her sentence.

  Henry puts his hand on her shoulder.

  “Hey. There’s no need for that. You’re home now. Listen, you don’t need to explain anything to us, seriously. If you want to talk about what’s going on, that’s absolutely fine, but if you don’t, that’s fine with us too. This is your house as much as it is ours and there are no judgments here. You’re our daughter and we love you, whatever you do.”

  Sash feels completely useless. She feels like she’s spent the last hour doing nothing but crying.

  “If you need us, any of us, we are here to listen. Ghost too.”

  Ghost’s ears prick up.

  “He may not look it, but he’s the best listener of all.”

  Now Henry leans in to whisper into Sash’s ear. “Just don’t tell my wife.”

  Sash can’t help but laugh a little at that. Her dad always had the capacity to make her feel better.

  “How long have they been out there?”

  “All day so far”, Tracy says. “I’ve called the police but they said they can’t do anything if they’re not on our property.”

  “Fucking animals”, Abbey says again.

  “Thank you, Abigail”, Tracy comments.

  Abbey shrugs.

  “It’s what they are. You should have seen them at Dante’s office tower.”

  Sash turns to her.

  “Thank you, by the way. I didn’t say it before, you know, for being there.”

  “Sure.”

  Abbey smiles. “You looked like you needed rescuing.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “Didn’t I tell you I’ve always got your back? That and I’ve been glued to the TV since the story broke. This is better than Game of Thrones. Where else was I going to be?!”

  “Abbey”, Henry warns her, unsure how sensitive his daughter will be to the mention of her stepbrother.

  Abbey continues undeterred. “I had no idea you’d come flying out of those doors, but when I saw you in the middle of all that chaos, you know, swamped by those people with placards and banners and, by the way, did you see some of the sizes of those lenses, I mean talk about compensating, well I had to rescue you. Super Abbey to the rescue! So, it was like that, I guess.”

  “Thank you.”

  Sash takes Abbey’s hand, thankful for her friendship.

  “No problem.”

  Sash knows the look that Abbey gives her means “you better tell me more though, otherwise I’m disowning you.”

  Sash has her father’s hand in hers. Against her soft skin his fingers feel rough, and shredded. She doesn’t remember them being this coarse, but then it may have been a while since she’s held them.

  “Are you hungry?” Tracy asks.

  “No, thank you. I think I’m going to rest for a while. It’s been quite a busy day already.”

  There is another awkward silence while the four of them stand about like marionettes who have just become self aware.

  “Well I guess that’s it”, Henry says after a while. “Welcome back home, sweetie, you know, again. Come down when you are ready to eat.”

  “Thanks Dad”, Sash says, and this time, when he lifts the coffee cup to his mouth, she sees the red lines that mark the skin by his wrist.

  ***

  Upstairs, back in Dante’s room, simply because there is nowhere else she can go, she flops on the bed like a complete and utter failure, while Abbey lies down alongside her. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this together, and Sash is more appreciative than she is able to demonstrate that it is clear that despite what has happened they are likely to do it again.

  Abbey has always been there for her, and in the light of this recent revelation, a declaration that has already lost her a handful of her less open minded friends, it is an incredible feeling not only to have her support, but to feel like she doesn’t owe her anything.

  Her father and Tracy are the same. They could easily have freaked out about it, but neither one have given her any impression that what her and Dante have done is wrong.

  Not only that, it seems as though neither of them are all that surprised by the news. Even though she’s not asking, Sash feels like she o
wes Abbey. She owes her parents too, but talking to them is much more difficult, and she knows it will come only when it needs to, at another time in the future. Abbey is her best friend and she deserves to know the truth. The secrets, the lies and everything else in between.

  While Sash does just that, the words flowing out of her as easily as the tears as soon as she gets going, and Abbey sits alongside her or opposite, or cross legged or reenacts the dance and the very first kiss until Sash pulls her back to the bed and the two girls giggle conspiratorially, Sash finally able to feel the weight lifting of carrying around a secret with her for so long, Tracy looks at her husband sat down at the long pine table he’s had for longer than either of their children have been alive, a chaos of intricate metal pieces spread out on an old newspaper in front of him, of a mechanical jigsaw that refuses to come together, and can’t keep it in any longer.

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  It is the first time she’s had a chance to ask in the chaos of the day, wet hands from the sink wrapped briefly in a tea towel to the side, mostly just to do something with them.

  Henry sighs. “I’m fine. You can see I’m fine. That’s the main thing.”

  “That’s not the point. She should know. She has to know.”

  Henry turns in his chair to face his wife. “We don’t even know-.”

  He hangs his head, cutting the sentence short. “It’s none of our business.”

  “Don’t let me see you regret it. I mean it Henry, that boy is dangerous.”

  Abbey can’t believe what she’s hearing. Six years and she had no idea. How could she be Sash’s best friend and not know such a huge secret. Dante was the douche that ran away, which kind of figures really, with the very latest twist to the story.

  The billionaire that wants to put the business before everything else. Her very own stepbrother.

  “You could have told me, you know?”

  Abbey’s not angry, she’s just gutted to have missed out on something for so long, like being the last person to find out about a TV series everyone else has been watching.

  “I wanted to tell you.”

  Sash holds Abbey’s hand now. Finally the tears have stopped. Finally she’s cried herself numb. “I just couldn’t. I didn’t know how you would react, and then it came and went and we were over. This. Dante and I, it’s just so recent, and now it’s over again. I can’t believe it.”

  “I can’t believe it either. You know, doing all of that for you, and then doing what he did to you, and now this. It fucking sucks. I mean what a douche. He’s as hot as hell, and I’m so jealous right now over what you two lovebirds have done together, right here in this fricking bed, but seriously, what a douche ball.”

  “He just wanted to take my virginity, that was all”,

  The words sound so ridiculous she almost has to laugh. “It was all about that. Giving me my virginity so he could take it back. Nothing else mattered to him.”

  “That’s fucked up. I mean, I knew Dante was weird, but that’s fucked up.”

  “That’s Dante for you. That’s the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with. That’s the father of my unborn child, the man I can’t stop thinking about, even now.”

  “And Jason Walker?”

  Sash looks away from Abbey for a moment. When she looks back, Abbey is still wearing the same face of mock horror.

  “Dante had nothing to do with that. Jason Walker drowned. I saw it on the news this morning. He was drunk, went skinny dipping and got swept out with the tide. It was an accident.”

  “It’s a hell of a coincidence.”

  “It’s a coincidence, Abbey. Dante may be a class A jerk-hole, but he’s not a murderer.”

  “I can’t work him out. He tells you he loves you, and then he does all of this shit that clearly means that he doesn’t.”

  “I know. I can’t work him out either. I guess I never will. I mean I’ve been trying for so long. I thought it was me.”

  “It isn’t you. Your stepbrother is a freak.”

  Sash can feel herself welling up again.

  “I love him, Abbey. He may be a freak and he may treat me like shit, but I love him. I can’t stop loving him. I’m broken.”

  “Oh, Sash. You’re not broken, don’t say that.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s not fair for him to do this to me. This fucking bullshit.”

  “I know.”

  “What am I going to do? I don’t even know if I’ve done the right thing. I mean, he has a point. We can’t go outside because of this, you’ve seen them hanging around out there like a pack of wolves. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even made it here.”

  “He’s putting his business before you. That should tell you all you need to know about his priorities. Look, Sash, I know you love him, but he needs to demonstrate to you that he loves you too, and that means showing you that you are the most important thing in the world to him.”

  “Dante will never do anything that will destroy his reputation and jeopardize his career.”

  “Then maybe you need to do it on his behalf. If you talk to the press and give them your side of the story, then Dante won’t have a choice.”

  “It’ll ruin him.”

  “So what? If he truly loves you, it won’t matter.”

  “And what if he doesn’t?”

  “Then at least you’ll know, you’ll be able to move on and you’ll have given him what he deserves for what he’s done to you. You can’t help the way you feel about him Sash, but if he doesn’t truly feel the same way, then you need to cut him loose as quickly as possible no matter how much it hurts you to do it. If he doesn’t love you, and he refuses to be there for you and your baby, then all he amounts to is dead weight.”

  Abbey puts her hand on Sash’s belly while she lets the weight of her comments sink in. After a while and to shift the subject to something more positive she says, “I knew there was something different about you, even before you went to L.A.”

  Sash closes her hand around her best friend’s, happy too that the subject has been changed. Could she go to the press, do an interview and hope to win him back like that? Or would it only serve to push him away further?

  If Dante denies what they have together, where does that leave the three of them? What good is a relationship if it has to be so secret they have to virtually lock themselves inside for fear of the repercussions? That would be like living in a prison. Living in denial.

  Does she really want that? And anyway, now that they know, the press will be stuck to both of them like glue.

  As far as she can see it, it’s either a complete and total declaration of acceptance of their relationship, regardless of the consequences, or nothing at all. And nothing at all means no Dante and Sash together, no happy families and a world full of tears and broken dreams that will never be able to be put back together again.

  It’s a fucking shit choice.

  Either she speaks up and risks losing Dante, or she doesn’t and she risks never being able to see him again. That’s if he wants to anyway, of course. For all she knows, Dante has completely used her. Now that he’s got what he wants, he’s decided to get rid of her. It was Abbey’s arm under hers at the tower block to rescue her, not Dante, and if she means so much to him, where is he now?

  She doesn’t want to think about it anymore. Once again, her stepbrother has made her feel like running away and the earth swallowing her up are the only two viable options.

  “You won’t be able to feel it kick you know. They don’t do that for another few months at least.”

  Abbey takes her hand away. Really, Sash doesn’t even look pregnant. If she hadn’t been told, she wouldn’t know. Sure she has a glow, but people have glows for a number of different reasons. It could be that she’s just in love.

  “You know, I can’t believe you are pregnant. I mean, I totally wasn’t expecting that. Ok, so I suppose I wasn’t expecting the hymen reconstruction, nor the fact that Dante already has another
kid as well, but this is, like, way out there. I mean, you’ve got a little thing growing inside you!”

  “I know.”

  Suddenly Sash feels immensely proud, a tiny little bit embarrassed and very scared all at the same time. “Nobody knows that either”, she adds. “Only me, you and Dante.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Abbey performs the corresponding action to indicate that fact. “Your dad is going to freak when he finds out though. I mean, I’m still freaking out. About everything.”

  Sash lowers her eyes.

  “I know, me too.”

  Chapter 43

  Dante stands by the window in a brand new suit, the last swallow of a limited edition Skye island whiskey in his hand, looking at the enormous crowd that has gathered below. When Alex comes into his office to cough nervously and tell him what he already knows, he takes a deep breath, sinks the golden liquid and turns towards her.

  “Lets go”, he says, the corner of his lips turned up into a smile and a storm already brewing in eyes that a thousand women have fought to lose themselves in.

  This is a God about to greet his people. This is a movie star about to come face to face with a million adoring fans. This is Dante Hix, the billionaire owner of Hix Industries, who will do anything to keep things that way.

  The elevator journey to the lower floor is taken in silence. This press conference could have been conducted anywhere, but Dante didn’t see the reason for having it anywhere else but the ground on which he has built his empire.

  If Alex had her way, she would have insisted on a script, several pre-agreed questions and a time limit. Dante being Dante, cocky and confident, what they are actually about to involve themselves in is nothing like that. He’s refused a scriptwriter, has indicated that he will answer any question that are put to him, by journalists or civilians, and will not leave until he is satisfied that his message has been communicated and understood. They are both of the agreement that Sash not being by his side is a perfect way to demonstrate what he is about to say.