Harden My Hart (The Notorious Harts 3)
But Cora... I told her a week and I don’t want to walk away from that. I’m not stupid enough to think we can sleep together longer than that without it getting messy. Not messy for me—I’m an expert at keeping my feelings removed from my day-to-day life, but Cora isn’t, and I don’t want to hurt her just because she makes me feel good.
‘I got his calls.’
Theo’s eyes narrow. ‘You should make an effort. Go see them, and the baby.’
I’m silent. He’s moving towards shaking me, I think. The hug prospect seems like a distant memory.
‘Grace has been asking about you.’
Guilt spears me. Grace is incredible. Even though I’ve spent the last year and a half in a drunken, self-pitying fog, I’m not blind. I see what she’s like, what she’s done for Jagger. Perhaps what she’s even done for Theo, because I don’t think a relationship was on his horizon at all until he saw how happy Jagger was.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, man. I think she’s hurt that you’re here in Sydney and you’ve only been over once.’
I finish the beer, placing the bottle down a little heavier than I’d intended so it makes a cracking noise in the silence of the room. ‘Fine. I’ll go see them. Happy?’
He doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘I’m here for the rest of the week; we can go together. How’s tomorrow?’
Something snags in my throat. I feel like I’m being pressed against a wall by a huge rock. I hate this feeling, I hate it. ‘Fine.’ I shrug with assumed nonchalance, contemplating calling Edward and having the jet fuelled. Maybe Cora could come with me—we could have the next six days somewhere different, somewhere better, without my brothers and this mess. Maybe we could go to the Northern Lights. The idea of making love to her beneath the stars makes Jagger, Theo, Grace, Felicity, Asha, all fade into nothing. But Theo is right here, staring across at me, waiting for an answer.
‘Tomorrow?’
I want to tell him to get lost but instead I nod.
His eyes sweep through the apartment. I don’t know what he expects to find. The place is immaculate, courtesy of the twice-daily maid service.
‘Amanda mentioned you’ve been seeing someone.’
I still, the idea of my casino’s head of security speaking to my brother about my personal life making me furious.
‘Has she? That’s not invasive at all,’ I snap sarcastically.
‘I asked.’ He holds a hand up to silence me. ‘In fact, I pretty much interrogated.’ He grimaces. ‘Come on, man. You’ve shut Jagger and me out. Do you think I want to go to the casino staff to find out what you’re up to? How you’re living?’
More guilt. I want him to go. I want to be alone. No, I want to be with Cora but hell, I don’t know if even Cora would be able to pull me out of this.
‘I’m living fine.’
‘Sure you are. You’re getting wasted every chance you get, travelling non-stop, and fucking anything that moves. You’re completely fine.’
I pace to the fridge, wrenching the door open, pulling out another beer, cracking the top off it before I answer him. I know I should calm down. I know this is coming from a good place. I know he’s worried—that he’s been worried about me since I told them both about Ryan.
‘Listen—’ he sighs, slows his voice down, and I know Theo well enough to know he’s trying to ‘manage’ me ‘—what Dad did—’
‘We’ll never know what Dad did. He let me live with you. But why? For what reason?’
‘Maybe we’ll never know,’ Theo says, and something inside of me snaps but I don’t give in to it. I’ve said it often enough—the not knowing is what’s killing me. I hate it. I hate that I have no anchor to the reality of my being.
‘He raised you as his son. He wanted you.’ After a slight pause, ‘He loved you as much as he loved anyone: as much as he was capable of loving.’
‘Do you remember what he was like with me?’ I pierce Theo with a dark stare and feel the truth of my deepest-held feelings slipping through me, falling inexorably towards the surfa
ce, towards a light I want to ignore.
Theo, at least, has the grace to nod. ‘He was a bastard to you a lot of the time.’
‘You say he loved me? Honestly, half the time it felt like he hated me.’