Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

She had been his alone, and he had fucking loved that. But it had taken mere months before Harris had ruined that for him. Taken her from him.

He stared at his brother, loving him yet hating and resenting him so much at the same time it was almost physically impossible to bear. He wanted Harris gone.

Now.

“I’m knackered, Harris,” he said. And immediately despised himself for once again defaulting to the simpleton who could never say exactly what he felt.

“You’re an asshole, that’s what you are. You’ve just had a beautiful daughter, so why the hell are you here and not by your wife’s side?”

“Always ready to fight the good fight for your little ‘Bug,’ aren’t you?” The words tumbled from Greyson’s lips, bringing with them months—no, years—of resentment, fury, and envy. “What the fuck were you thinking, Harris? Did you think I’d just accept this, like some weak little patsy? Did you think that I’d never find out? That you could just do whatever the hell you pleased while I’m left to deal with the consequences of your actions? Just like ten years ago, when you left me to clean up your mess.” He paused for a moment, watching his brother flinch as his verbal blow landed. He felt a moment’s sick guilt for bringing it up, but he needed Harris to know that he wasn’t going to stand for this. They would both happily have left Greyson to raise that child as his own. He knew it; it was the only thing that made any kind of sense to him. If they had wanted to change the status quo, they would have done so by now. They hadn’t, and that told Greyson that their plan was for him to play father to their child while they continued their twisted affair without any blowback from either family.

“We’re not discussing that,” Harris said, still ashen with shock after Greyson’s previous statement. “We’re talking about your abandonment of your wife and child.”

“That’s not my child,” Greyson stated matter of factly. He felt a weird, almost perverse triumph at being able to fling that truth down between them. “I had mumps when I was nineteen. I’m sterile.” The doctor had been brutally frank on what he thought Greyson’s chances were of ever conceiving a child. Greyson had made peace with that fact long ago. He didn’t think he was cut out to be a father anyway. At least that’s what he had always told himself to soothe away the pang of masculine inadequacy he had never dared to acknowledge before discovering that his wife had conceived a child with his brother.

His words made Harris pause, a confused frown wrinkling his brow, before he shook his head. “Of course she’s your child,” Harris practically shouted, looking beyond frustrated with Greyson. “She even has your fucking birthmark on her thigh.”

Greyson knew to which birthmark Harris was referring, a port-wine stain neatly shaped into a crescent that resembled a C. His grandmother had often joked that the Chapmans sported their own brand. He hadn’t known that the baby had the same birthmark, but his stomach sank as his brother’s words laid that last, lingering doubt to rest.

“I’m not the only one with that birthmark.” His lips barely moved as he forced the words out.

Harris’s jaw dropped at that statement, and his eyes widened and then narrowed. He moved so swiftly that Greyson barely had time to react—one moment they were eye to eye, and the next Greyson was on the floor, staring up into his brother’s livid face.

“You bastard.” Harris’s voice was quiet. Greyson didn’t recognize this silently seething man as his usually irascible brother. Harris looked furious and hurt and betrayed. And that pissed Greyson off. If anyone should feel betrayed here, it was he.

He leaped to his feet, unfamiliar fury clawing at his throat as he fought the urge to raise his voice. To shout and use his fists as his brother had just done.

“I’m the bastard?” he asked, his voice wobbling a little as he fought to control the wave of absolute rage that crashed through him. “I’m not the one who fucked his brother’s wife.”

Harris drew back his fist again, but Greyson’s well-honed reflexes kicked in, and he easily sidestepped his brother’s punch, shoving the man in the same move. This time Harris was the one who went sprawling to the carpet.

“Greyson.” Harris’s voice was hoarse with emotion as he glared up at Greyson from the floor. “You’re my brother. I love you. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for this. I had mumps too. I got the same fucking doomsday speech from Dr. Crowe. Not that I cared much back then, but I always had it in the back of my mind I’d go for a second opinion eventually. When I was ready to have kids. If you believe you’re infertile, then you have to believe I am too. So where did that baby come from? I know it wasn’t from me. I would never touch Libby. She’s your wife! How the hell could you think I’d do that to you? How could you think she would do that to you? The girl has been crazy about you for years. Why? I don’t know. You’ve never deserved her.”