Naughty or Nice

‘What good would that have done?’

‘I could’ve spoken to Dad, defended you, made Nate come clean—anything.’

I shake my head at her. It doesn’t change anything. The past is done and dusted. There can be no going back.

‘I was better off out of it. I wasn’t about to plough any more time and money into that company. I couldn’t trust Nate any more—not in business and not personally either. He betrayed me, Eva. He was like my brother, and then he did something as huge as that behind my back and lied about it.’

‘But what about me?’

‘What about you?’

She chews her lip, eyes wide. ‘Didn’t I deserve to know?’

‘You expected me to turn up and say, Hey, Eva, not seen you since you were at your folks with your fiancé, all happy and whatnot, but get this: your brother just screwed me over and bankrupted the company, so I’m off. Sayonara?’

The words come out rapidly and then it hits me. It wasn’t just Nate and her father I ran from. It was her too. Her and her soon-to-be marriage.

Christ. I rake a shaky hand through my hair and evade her eyes.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’

I barely hear her. I’m reeling from the realisation that I am screwed. That coming back to her has opened me up, made me defenceless again. Vulnerable.

Her phone starts to ring, her watch vibrates. She flicks her wrist and cuts the call.

‘Who was it?’

‘Nate.’

The pain of the past, the potential future, has me snapping, ‘Tell you what—why don’t you leave so you can call him back?’

Her eyes widen. I can see I’ve hurt her but I can’t hold back. I need to bury this crazed emotion boiling inside me.

‘Don’t push me away.’

‘Your family did that a long time ago.’

‘And I want to fix this.’

‘You want the impossible.’

‘No, I don’t. Nate’s not been the same since you left. It makes so much sense now why he doesn’t trust himself—why he comes to me before Dad, why he’s always looking for a sounding board. He needs you in his life again.’

Screw Nate. All I care about right now is her, and the dawning realisation that I ran from her all those years ago and I don’t want to run any more.

‘And you, Evangeline? Do you need me?’

‘I—’

She breaks off as her phone rings again, and this time she pushes to her feet and strides away, grabbing up her coat from the bar stool and taking her phone out of its pocket.

She lifts it to her ear. ‘Just give me half an hour.’

Her eyes flick to mine as she listens to the person on the other end.

‘I’m busy right now... Just busy... Out... Dinner... No, no one you know...’

‘No one you know...’