‘I didn’t win her in the first place and it would be pointless to try again. I told you, it’s finished. Finito. Terminado. How many languages do you need me to say it in?’
The truth was, Ruby didn’t need him. Not the way he needed her, and he wasn’t going to grovel. Nor was he going to talk about it endlessly. ‘How’s the hotel business, D? Bought any new skyscrapers lately?’
‘Forget Dante,’ Tino instructed. ‘We’re not finished with you yet.’
‘Maybe we should talk about me,’ Dante noted. ‘Because I don’t know what the hell has happened to the both of you. You meet a pretty face, she plays hard to get and next thing you’re—’
‘Careful, Dante,’ Tino warned. ‘Your time will come.’
‘If it ever does, promise me you’ll nail me inside a coffin and plant an oak tree over my body.’
‘With pleasure,’ Sam growled. ‘And Ruby’s not like that. She didn’t play hard to get. Well, actually she did.’ He gave a rough laugh. ‘If you knew how hard I had to work to... The trouble is, she’s so damned prickly and defensive and argumentative. She overthinks everything and she’s an absolute control freak.’
‘She sounds like a real peach,’ Dante drawled.
Sam shook his head. ‘You have no idea. The woman is impossible.’
‘Glad you worked it out.’ Dante downed his beer. ‘Women are trouble and we lone bachelors need to stick together.’
‘Right,’ Sam agreed, taking another pull of his beer and thinking that it tasted like dirt. Why couldn’t anyone make a decent beer any more?
‘You are so screwed, Samuel,’ Tino noted.
Sam glared at his brother. ‘Just because you’re married doesn’t mean it works out for everyone. I’ll be fine.’
‘I get it, bro—it’s hard to talk about your feelings. I know. I nearly made the same mistake with Miller.’
‘You’re wrong, Tino. I’m fine with expressing my feelings. I was very expressive when I turned up in her office. I nearly...’ He’d nearly dragged her across her wide desk and kissed her until she told him she wanted no one else but him. Told him that she’d never leave him. ‘Anyway... It’s not me who can’t express myself, it’s Ruby. She’s as closed as a clam and as soon as you get close to her she throws up an unscaleable wall.’
‘So what did she say when you told her how you felt? When you told her that you loved her, and wanted to be with her?’
Sam shook his head. ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t tell her...’ He glanced from one brother to the other, realisation dawning slowly. ‘Hell. I’m an idiot.’
‘The thing is,’ Tino began quietly, ‘our father didn’t leave us with a great legacy. All those times he shut us out he made it pretty hard for any of us to talk about our feelings, let alone embrace them.’ A muscle in Tino’s jaw worked overtime. ‘I remember how hard you worked to get him to notice you, brandishing your athletics trophies and academic awards whenever he came through the door, and then—it was just after your tenth birthday, I think—you stopped. It was like you just gave up. Closed yourself off.’
‘Ninth,’ Sam corrected, his gut knotted as he remembered being left at the track on his birthday. ‘I realised that giving up was easier.’
‘We all gave up. In our own way. But it didn’t make any of us happy.’
‘I don’t know—it felt pretty good to me,’ Dante said.
‘That’s because you’re thickheaded.’
‘Thickheaded?’ Dante spluttered indignantly. ‘No one’s thicker than Samuel here. And anyway, don’t make this about me! I’m not the one foolish enough to fall in love.’
Sam shook his head. He wanted to bop his brothers on the nose but he knew they were only trying to help. It was the way it had always been between them, and Sam had often wondered what he’d have done without them growing up.
‘Tell her how you feel,’ Tino urged quietly. ‘It will probably be the biggest risk you’ll ever take, but it’s worth it.’