Fuck. She really despises me.
“I’m going to land the blame squarely at that fucker sperm donor’s door,” I say through gritted teeth. “It will help to deflect the attention. Let them make it about the revered Studio 27 boss who loved his wife so much he banished the child he believed caused her death during childbirth and lied to his other son about being a twin. The world’s media will lap that shit up.”
Audrey looks at me with a glimmer of sympathy I fucking hate. I know in doing this I will be opening myself up to more of it, but I’ll cope if it means they will focus on me and not Vivien and Easton.
“Are you comfortable with that?” Ash asks Viv. “We might attract some heat from Studio 27 if we paint Simon as the villain.”
“Simon is the villain,” Viv replies as Nancy appears carrying a tray with drinks. “I have no issue in tarnishing his reputation.”
Nancy sets the tray down, and I distribute drinks, handing Viv a pink gin cocktail. “We don’t have 7UP, but Sprite tastes almost the same.” Her chin tilts up as she stares at me, and I wish I could see her beautiful hazel eyes. She audibly gulps, and I wonder if her mind has thrown her back to nostalgia lane like mine has. After a few beats of awkward silence, I set the drink down in front of her. “I can get iced tea or lemonade or a coffee if you prefer?” I offer as Nancy appears in my peripheral vision.
“This is fine,” she croaks, wrapping her fingers around the stem of the glass. “I haven’t drank one of these since Ireland.”
I walk to meet Nancy, taking the second tray from her. “Thanks a mil.”
“Will your guests be staying for lunch?” she inquires, tipping her head in Audrey’s and Vivien’s direction.
“Probably not, but make extra just in case.”
“No problem, Dillon.” When Nancy first came to work for me, she tried to call me Mr. O’Donoghue, which made me sound like an old fart. I told her Mr. O’Donoghue was my father and if she wanted to keep her job to call me Dillon. She hasn’t messed up once since that day.
I carry the tray with crisps, biscuits, and fruit over to the table, depositing it in the middle before reclaiming my seat.
“What about your hair and your eyes,” Viv says. “She is going to ask about that. How will you explain it?”
Kicking my sneakers off, I stretch my legs out under the table. “I’ll tell her I experimented with my looks a lot when I was a teen. That I went through a rebellious phase and wanted to alter my appearance as a fuck you to the parents I never knew who had abandoned me. I’ll say when I found out the truth and reconnected with my twin, I chose to change my look. I wanted to see how close the resemblance was and what our individual differences were.” I’m sure the reporter will think it was a sweet gesture. A way of feeling closer to my long-lost twin, the brother she believes I hadn’t known about my entire life.
There is no way she will know it was a premeditated attempt to mess with my twin’s wife. Another way of driving the knife home to the love of my life, reminding Viv she picked the wrong brother.
No one needs to be privy to those disgusting truths.
Truths that make me want to lobotomize myself so I can never think of them again.
Awkward silence descends as the reality of my unspoken words resides in the space between us. We all know why I changed my look and why I changed it back. I’m only fooling myself if I think otherwise. There is no getting away from the full horror of my sins, and that is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.
20
Dillon
Grabbing a beer, I guzzle it back as the usual blanket of guilt and remorse washes over me. So many times, I have wished I could go back to that last night together and do everything differently. If I had, everything might have turned out differently. Viv might be sitting here as my wife, and I might have been the only father Easton has ever known. Reeve would most likely be alive.
Or maybe nothing would’ve changed even if I had thrown myself at her feet a second time and begged her to stay. Offered to drop out of the band just to be with her. To this day, no one knows those were the thoughts floating through my mind back then. Even if I had told her what I was willing to sacrifice, it most likely wouldn’t have been enough. The only way it would have worked is if I’d come clean and told her everything. I’m pretty sure she would still have walked.
I try not to look back at the what-ifs, but it’s hard not to when I have so many regrets. If I had known at seventeen what I know now—how every action and reaction had a consequence with the most tragic fallout—I would have chosen differently. If my punishment is to have permanently lost the love of the only woman I will ever give my heart to, then so be it. I will have to accept that fate and try to find some way to make peace with it. But I refuse to lose my son in some form of twisted penance.
One thing I know for sure is I am going to fight for them to the bitter end. I won’t stop trying to make amends for all the ways I have wronged Vivien, even if I haven’t the foggiest notion where to start.
Viv drinks her cocktail like it’s water, and I’m shocked to see it’s almost half empty. She was never a big drinker. Even on special occasions, where everyone was knocking back drinks like they were going out of fashion, she always paced herself.
She stiffens, sitting up straighter and putting her drink down. “Wait. We’re forgetting something.” Air whooshes out of her mouth. “There are people in Ireland who knew about us. People like Cat and Aoife.” Her mouth pulls into a hard line as she basically spits out Aoife’s name. “That bitch won’t hesitate to sell her story.” She rubs at her temples. “Fuck. I can’t have that coming out. They’ll twist it and say I was cheating on Reeve with his twin brother and make it this whole sordid thing. It will all start up again. I’ll be hated, and how can I protect Easton from that? It’s already bad enough.” The words tumble from her lush mouth in streams of liquid panic.
“Deep breaths, Viv.” Audrey says, smoothing a hand up and down her back. Viv’s chest heaves painfully as she draws exaggerated breaths, white-knuckling the table as she rides out her panic attack.
Ash and I trade concerned looks as we watch Audrey talk Viv off a ledge.
“You don’t need to worry about anyone back in Ireland,” I tell Viv when she’s okay. “They won’t say a word.”
She barks out a harsh laugh. “I’m pretty sure your whore will have plenty to say on the subject. She’s vindictive enough to cause trouble. Her gloating face that last day is something I’ve never forgotten.” Hurt glides across her face, and I feel like a worthless piece of shit.
It’s time to fess up.
“I’m sorry about that. What I did that night was shitty, but you should know I wasn’t with her. Not that night and never again. It’s like Ash said. I used her to hurt you because I was hurting so badly and I wanted you to feel what I felt.”
Viv yanks her glasses off, almost crushing them in her hand as she leans forward, glaring at me. “You think I wasn’t hurting?” she shouts. “I was hurting a whole lot before you did that and a whole lot more after. I cried nonstop the entire plane ride home. And don’t make out like you cared. Everyone here knows it was a setup, and I was the gullible fool who fell for it.”