“I love you.” Stated so simply, as a straight fact, without emphasis or frills. So perfectly Dominic, and so unexpected just then that she could hardly breathe, let alone speak.
Her hand was resting on his thigh. Her fingers tightened, hard, on the muscle flexing beneath her palm.
“Mr. De Vere?” A nurse with a calm face and compassionate eyes came to join them, and Dominic took Sylvie’s hand as they both stood at once. “We’ve moved your sister to a private room, as requested, and you may see her now.”
“Is she all right?” he asked, his fingers tight around Sylvie’s, and the nurse—Dahlia, according to her badge—nodded.
“The cuts to her arm were deep and required stitches, and it’s possible she’ll have some residual tendon damage that may require physical therapy. But the wounds to her side were superficial. We’re giving her a course of strong antibiotics to ward off any possible infection from the blade, so she’ll be in for a night or two, but she’ll be just fine.”
Dominic exhaled, but the tension remained in his body, and Sylvie didn’t think it would begin to drain away until he’d seen Pet for himself. His mind was at least able to focus enough that, as they followed Dahlia to Pet’s room, he asked with a small frown, “You said Pet has a private room as requested? I didn’t—”
“No.” Dahlia looked back at them with a raised eyebrow. “I believe that request has come, shall we say, from quite high up the chain? We’ve also been warned of an increased security detail tonight. Your sister has one or two VIP visitors requesting entry.”
Rosie and Johnny.
The royal couple had been whisked away with the rest of their relatives in the pandemonium that followed the evacuation and Helena’s arrest, but Rosie had already rung Sylvie’s phone twice to ask for an update on Pet.
Dahlia brought them to the small room with Pet’s name beside the door, and stepped back to let them past.
Sylvie also tried to hang back and let Dominic have some privacy with his sister, but he still had her hand in his and he didn’t let go.
They walked in together and found Pet propped up against the raised head of the narrow bed. Her right arm was heavily bandaged, resting against a pillow, and a few smaller plasters were visible under the neckline of her hospital gown. Without her red lipstick, she looked very young and very pale, but she smiled when she saw them.
With her left hand, she was spooning brown goo into her mouth that Sylvie hoped was chocolate. She spoke around the plastic spoon. “Please tell me nobody cut my dress off. It’s genuine twenties vintage and it cost a fucking arm and leg. I can get blood out, but if someone shredded my baby, I’m livid.”
Dominic shook his head. Both in answer to her question and in admonishment. “An arm full of stitches and that’s your first question.”
Pet shrugged her left shoulder. “Hey, I have morphine and chocolate pudding. I’m good.” The lightness left her face as she looked into his eyes. “Really. I’m okay.”
The clock on the wall tick-tick-ticked in the silence.
Then Dominic walked forward swiftly, bent over the bed, and put his arms around his sister. He was very careful not to bump even the tiniest of her cuts, but his hold was nevertheless firm and encompassing.
Over his shoulder, Sylvie saw the tears rush into Pet’s eyes. Very carefully, she put down her spoon and reached up to put her arm around her brother’s neck.
Their first hug in twenty-five years lasted for a long time.
Sylvie started to back out of the room, keeping her steps light, and both De Veres spoke without looking up. “Don’t even think about it.”
Rolling her eyes, she went and sat in a chair on the other side of Pet’s bed. At least the chairs in here had cushions. Useful to have royals pulling strings.
As Dominic straightened, Pet bit her lip. “Dominic.” Her voice sounded strange. “Lorraine rang me this afternoon.”
He hooked the other chair with his boot and pulled it closer, wincing as the legs made a terrible screech against the linoleum.
“Funny, that’s the noise my soul makes when I see her number in my call log,” Pet cracked.
He couldn’t help a small grin, but he looked at her expectantly, with a certain grimness. “What did she want?”
“To complain about her life, mostly. Sounds like everyone else she knows is wisely avoiding her, including her husband. She also tried to talk me into investing the money you gave me from Mum’s estate into a start-up. I think she’s having an affair with some tech bro who’s conned her out of her share.”
Dominic absorbed that for a microsecond. “You’re too smart to even hear out the pitch.”
“Correct. I have other plans for that money, anyway. But she also talked about you. Bad-mouthing you as usual. Ungrateful cow. She . . . wasn’t happy to hear that we’re back in touch.” Pet hesitated. Then, as she touched the skin above her bandages, lightly rubbing, the words fell out in a rush. “Is it true that when you left home and came here to London, you took me, too? That Gerald tried to have you charged with abduction, when you were just a little kid?”
Even when Dominic’s face revealed nothing at all, Sylvie thought she had some grasp on what was going on behind that studied blankness now.
He was rapidly considering if telling the truth here would further damage Pet’s idea of her family.
There had been too much deception lately.
As she watched, he came to the same decision.
“Yes. It is true.” His words were taut. “I can’t begin to tell you what a fucking light you were to me in that house. This funny, clumsy, loving baby. When I couldn’t take any more, when I had to leave, I took you with me. I brought us both to Sebastian, and with thirteen-year-old logic, I thought he could keep us both. It didn’t work out that way. And when Sebastian took you back there, and came home with the certainty that you would be happy with Lana and Gerald in a way I hadn’t been—that was the only way I could reconcile that outcome.”
Pet was crying silently.
Dominic reached out and took her left hand, squeezing her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he said, very evenly, “that didn’t turn out to be the case. More sorry than I can ever say. But I will say it again: it was never true that I turned my back on you without a second thought. It was never true that I didn’t care about you. I loved you. I still love you.”
Pet took a shuddering breath and took the tissue that Sylvie held out to her.
“And I love you.” Her smile wobbled to life, casting beautiful lights into her wet brown eyes. “Big brother. Which is why I’m asking you one last time if you’ll accept the money Lana left.”
She correctly interpreted Dominic’s expression. A shortsighted person standing five kilometers away without their glasses could have correctly interpreted Dominic’s expression.
“Not as your money,” she added. “As mine. I’d like you to take it and give me shares in De Vere’s in return. It’s always been a family business, and I’d like to be a small part of that.”
“You are part of that, without needing to put money in,” Dominic said, but he was studying her now with both the big brother and the businessman faces. “You’re serious.”