More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

“I didn’t. This was all her. Olivia’s already let me hold her and change her nappy. And yesterday . . .” Greyson’s lips tilted in a reminiscent smile. “She allowed me to rock her to sleep.”

“Why?” Harris asked, genuinely puzzled by the concessions Libby was making. She had moved hundreds of kilometers just to get away from Greyson; Harris couldn’t imagine her relenting to his demands so easily.

Greyson looked troubled. “She says she wants me to have a fair shot at a relationship with Clara. But maybe she wants me to know exactly what I’m missing out on before she yanks the rug out from beneath my feet.”

“And what happens if, or when, she yanks that rug out from under you?”

“I fall down and I lose. Everything.”

“You won’t fight her?”

Greyson pushed the pasta listlessly around his plate and shook his head in reply to Harris’s question.

“What’s going on with you and Martine?” Greyson asked unexpectedly, deliberately changing the subject while nailing Harris with his piercing stare. The forthright question was so unexpected that Harris wasn’t sure how to respond to it.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he prevaricated.

“Bullshit. You picked the house right next to hers for a reason.”

“There were no other places available,” Harris said uncomfortably.

“More bullshit. I know for a fact that the vet’s family is leasing out that little house on the edge of town.”

“I didn’t know about that one. Besides, I don’t see what relevance this has to anything.”

“It’s all right to be up in my business, but you don’t like having the tables turned, do you?” Greyson sneered, and Harris tossed down his napkin, feeling hunted and more than a little exposed.

“There are no tables to turn.”

“I know you slept with Martine ten years ago, Harris. I heard about that fucking bet. You’re lucky those assholes weren’t dumb enough to say anything to Smith, or I doubt you’d still have your balls.”

Harris felt sick to his stomach at the revelation that his brother knew his most shameful secret. Although, in retrospect, he didn’t know why it had never before occurred to him that Greyson might be aware of what had happened.

“That is . . . it was—”

“Despicable,” Greyson spat, and Harris’s hands curled into fists on top of the table.

“No more despicable than, say, renouncing my own child.”

“Fuck you, Harris!” Greyson growled through clenched teeth. His second f-bomb in less than five minutes. He was definitely pissed off. He rarely used any profanity stronger than shit.

“No, fuck you, Greyson!” Harris retorted. “Don’t you dare compare what you did to Libby with something that happened ten years ago. Something that I’ve regretted and tried to remedy every day since.”

“Do you think you’re the only one with regrets, Harris? The only one allowed to fix his fucking reprehensible mistakes? Don’t ruin this for me! She’s my daughter. I want . . . I need to do this. Don’t talk Olivia out of letting me babysit.” Greyson’s voice was frantic, his eyes—ice cold and distant just moments before—burning like coals and lit with desperation.

“The thing . . . ,” Harris said after a long, tense moment, “with Tina. I hate myself for that.”

“I can relate,” Greyson said with a grim smile.

“But for the first time in years, she’s actually talking with me again. Laughing with me. Smiling at me. I came here because I wanted to be sure you wouldn’t hurt Libby again . . . but I also came because I knew Tina would be here.”

Greyson nodded. “You may think I’m a self-centered, unobservant asshole, Harrison. But I’m not entirely oblivious. I see the way you look at her. The way you’ve always looked at her.”

“I’m pretty sure some part of her will always despise me. She overheard some stuff that night. About the bet. That’s why she hates me.”

Greyson winced sympathetically.

“Why the hell did you make that bet?” Greyson asked, and Harris laughed, the sound filled with bitter self-recrimination.

“That’s just it . . . I didn’t. I don’t recall making the bet. I remember dancing with her and kissing her. After that, everything’s hazy. I know Jonah and his buddies said some fucked-up shit that I later discovered Tina had overheard. I think Jonah handed me a spiked drink just before my dance with Tina. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I never liked Jonah Spade,” Greyson said distastefully. “Always an asshole.”

“Yeah. I saw him at a restaurant the other day,” Harris said, then grinned. “He has a comb-over.”

“No shit?” Greyson said, his own smile surfacing. “Remember he always carried that comb around with him?”

“The gold-plated thing? Yeah. He was so proud of that retro pompadour. Kept running that tacky comb through it.”

“Wonder if he still has that comb?” Greyson mused drily.

“He would be getting some real use out of it now,” Harris said, his voice quavering.