“Hmm, maybe. Hang on.”
She scrolls through her phone.
“I emailed her this morning confirming the appointment, she replied.” She stares at her phone, then me, and then back to her phone.
“Shit,” she whisper hisses.
“What,” I respond with my own whisper hiss.
“Her name’s Milly Cole. Wife?”
“No!” I shout a little too excitedly. “No, no. His sister. I remember now. He had a much younger sister, Amelia. I helped him shop for a Chrissy present for her. Milly’s his sister.”
I slump back against my sofa, exhausted from yet another adrenaline spike coursing through me.
Fuck this man and how he’s messing with me and my life.
“Sister, phew,” Zoe states before taking a gulp of wine.
“But why?” she eventually asks. “What’s the fucker doing all the way down here and not back in bum fuck nowhere Queensland breaking hearts and ruining lives?”
I smile, just a little, at her comment.
“Oh, wait, shit, his brother, the dude from the show, right?” She clicks her fingers while at the same time pointing at me, all while almost bouncing where she sits like an excitable kid. “Turn this fucking music off, it’s depressing,” she orders. Leaning over, she takes my phone and changes the playlist. SAINt JHN’s ‘Roses’ starts to play.
“That’s better,” she declares. The change in tempo does nothing to ease the tension I’m feeling.
“Yeah, his brother’s here, but he moved down for work and stayed. He’s lived here around the same time I have.”
“And you didn’t know this?”
I shrug and shake my head. “I know nothing about his life. I’d heard he’d had a baby boy, and that was the last thing I ever heard about him.”
“I don’t know what to—what did you say? —what did he say? —what the actual fuck, Scar? —how, why?”
A long moment of silence passes as I consider my response. I give a small laugh as I admit, “I pretended I didn’t know him. I was so shook, I pretended I didn’t know him, and then I left. I ran to my car, and he followed me.”
“He followed you? He knew who you were?”
I nod and sip my wine. I’m shaking, my mouth feels dry, and all I’m doing is talking about what happened this morning.
“I feel sick just talking about this,” I tell her.
“Babe, I’m so sorry. I feel terrible for sending you to the job now.”
I shrug again. “Not your fault, you never knew. Why would you? It is what it is. I just have to decide what I’m going to do now.”
A wayward tear tracks down my cheek, and I quickly swipe it away.
“What do youwantto do? We can turn the job down; I don’t expect you to take it, andIdon’t wanna do it. We’ll just decline, tell him we can’t fit it into our schedule. I’ll send him back to Lauren, she’ll know someone.”
“No, no. It’s a pretty high-profile job in an upmarket area. We need to take it. It’s a fantastic space in a great location. I have a million and one ideas already for concepts. I just need to decide how I handle myself around him and what I tell him.”
I watch Zoe rake her fingers through her blonde hair as she now takes her turn to stare into the fire.
“My mind is fucking blown. I honestly have no idea what to say. You’ve gotta do what you’re comfortable doing.”
“I know. I need to tell him. I always said I would if he came back into my life. I just wasn’t expecting it to be under these circumstances.”
