26. Dex

Ithink you're the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on.

Who even says that?

Who speaks those words aloud to someone they don't know, bestows them like a gift, then walks away?

It's not that the sentiment, coming from the mouth of a woman, is remotely new.

But the context was new.

And the woman was new, and unexpected, and enchanting, that's for sure. So hearing that sentiment, those words, from her mouth in particular was really quite something.

I've been mulling over them all night, just like I've been mulling over the way her scent hit me, and the playful way she grabbed my wrist, and how open she was about dancing practically naked for a living.

Unfortunately, every time I allow myself to dip my toe into that deep, warm well of pleasure, my brain reminds me that she bade me goodbye and walked straight into another man's arms.

The man who's had the extraordinary privilege of watching her dance naked for him.

Of sucking her neck.

Fucking her.

Max fucking Hunter, that's who.

‘Easy there, tiger,' my sister says, gently removing the bottle of claret from my grip with one hand and the corkscrew with which I'm stabbing it with the other. ‘What's up with you?'

‘Nothing,' I say. ‘Just tired.' I look over my shoulder towards the archway that separates my parents' kitchen from their vast open-plan living space and lower my voice. ‘And already dreading this.'

‘You and me both,' she says. ‘But you've had eight years off. So suck it up.'

That makes me snort. I love it when Belle gets feisty. ‘You were Mum and Dad's little bitch, so don't complain to me.'

‘I was until Daddy walked in here and found Rafe pretty much exactly where you were standing, naked as the day he was born.'

‘Don't.' I press my lips together to stop myself from losing it, because, the genuine horror of that episode aside, it seems really fucking funny today. ‘The money I'd pay to have been a fly on the wall,' I say, shaking my head.

‘You're so awful. You know it was the worst moment of my life.'

‘I know, love,' I say quietly, nudging her with my elbow. It wasn't good. I do know that much. The day Dad came home early from a three-month-trip with Mum and discovered that his obedient, virginal daughter had hooked up with the upstairs neighbour was the cause of a huge rift between them.

But it was also the start of a new dawn for Belle, a new era where she put her own beliefs first without agonising about placating Dad and aligning with his incredibly fucked-up moral compass.

Fate forced her hand that day, but it was definitely for the best.

‘Where is he, anyway?' I ask her, because Rafe is notably absent. ‘I thought he'd be here?'

She sighs as she systematically winds the corkscrew into the cork. ‘He decided to nip over to Windsor—there's a racehorse he's thinking of buying a stake in.'

‘Which is code for…'

‘He and Daddy get on best when they don't see each other too often.'

‘Amen to that,' I mutter, because I very much get where Rafe is coming from. My relationship with my father was all the easier for eight years due to having an ocean between us.

‘Yeah, well, he's really good about showing up when it's needed, but it's just more tense all around when they're in a room together.'

I get that even more.

Dad and Rafe can be civil to each other, but come on. Dad will never truly forgive Rafe for corrupting his previously compliant daughter by shagging her out of wedlock, and he'll definitely never recognise their marriage as legitimate in the eyes of the Church.

He didn't even come to their fucking wedding, for fuck's sake. He couldn't put his religious beliefs aside to fly to St Tropez and walk his only daughter down the aisle. Mum did it, in a move that was uncharacteristically independent-minded of her. She defied Dad, and she gave Belle away in a pitch-perfect humanist ceremony at a vineyard, and she hosted the wedding breakfast, too.

I'll never stop admiring Mum for standing up to the man who's emotionally bullied everyone in this family for so many years, just like I'll never forgive Dad for choosing his church over his family.

And, given Rafe and Belle are still living in sin in Dad's eyes, I'm not sure which is more surprising: that Rafe is ever willing to cross the threshold of their home, or that Dad lets him.

After Dad's said grace,and we've marked its conclusion with a muttered Amen, we get stuck in. Mum's a bloody amazing cook, and I can count on one hand the number of proper English roasts I've had since I first moved to the US, so it's with genuine appreciation that I stuff an entire roast potato in my mouth.

‘Wow,' I groan. It's orgasmic, that's what it is, though that's a descriptor my parents would not appreciate. ‘So crispy,' I say once I've swallowed it. ‘Did you use an entire jar of goose fat?'

‘It's best you don't answer that, Lauren,' my dad interjects, ‘for the sake of plausible deniability at my next medical.'

We all laugh. After the week I've had, a sit-down with my parents is the last thing I need, though I owe it to my mum to spend some time with her. I don't give a fuck about dad. Much as I've been dreading it, this feels nice, the four of us sitting in my parents' stunning apartment, enjoying Mum's excellent cooking and a spectacular bottle of Pauillac from Dad's cellar.

And I suspect what my sister left unsaid is that it's easier when it's just the four of us because no one is observing us, which means we don't need to suffer the excruciation of hearing Dad's bigotry through someone else's ears or sitting in silent fear that a guest will innocently raise a topic that's kindling to Dad's extremist rants.

Examples of things that spark him are varied. The slightest thing can set him off. Charities that fund or condone contraceptive education in the Third World. Anything on the subject of queerness or God forbid, transgender rights. It's a constant fucking minefield, and, in true Catholic style, our family likes to keep our secret shame under wraps.

It's why Mum and Dad still don't know Rafe owns a sex club, for God's sake. It's why they only know about Cerulean, the small hedge fund he runs with Zach, Cal, and some of their mates. Because, honestly, what is there to be gained by telling them?

Sure, in theory Belle should emancipate herself fully. She should be an open book, and then it's Dad's choice whether or not to accept her and her husband and their lifestyle, or to sacrifice his relationship with his daughter and future grandchildren to his beliefs.

But that's easier said than done, and life is far less black and white than we'd like, and I get it. I really do. There is something to be said for meeting in the middle, for keeping the peace, and for guarding those pieces of yourself others haven't earned the right to see. Those pieces of yourself you don't trust others to see and not to judge.

So my sister walks that tightrope, and Rafe walks it with her because he loves her. Belle has chosen to have a relationship with our father on some level. She's stood up for her rights and her morals and she's made it very clear to him that his reaction to her decisions is not her responsibility. But she hasn't pushed her agenda so far as to alienate him for good.

And rather than despair of that, I admire it. This is real life, and real life is messy, and while I ran off to hide in New York, my sister stayed here and stood up to Dad and built a life for herself in the meantime.

I really fucking admire that.

Because, God knows, there are shadowy aspects of my personality that I refuse to entertain myself.

And never, ever would I expose them to my father.