Page 155 of This Woman Forever
“Just for you, baby.” I pull her up and kiss her hard, feeling blood dripping into places I don’t want it to go right now. Not now. Now, I have to talk. “Let me bathe you.” I steal one more kiss of her neck and start moving her away from me before we both deviate from the plan. “Turn around for me.” Moving off my knees, I rest back against the tub and pull Ava to between my legs, getting us comfortable. She folds her body over and sighs, staring down into the water as I soak the sponge, squeezing it across her nape and watching the water run down her olive skin, over the kinks in her spine. Her silence is making me smile. I had expected a barrage of questions or impatience within a few seconds flat of declaring I was a twin. “Are you fine?” I ask.
“I’m okay.”
I smile and shift in closer. “I’m a little worried about my defiant little temptress,” I say into her ear, feeling her body light up.
“Why?”
“Because she’s too quiet when there’s information to be had.” I lower back, taking Ava with me.
“If you want to tell me, you will.”
How nonchalant she sounds. “I’m not sure I like what pregnancy is doing to my girl.” I rest my palms on her tummy, covering it completely. How I wish I could do that forever. Be big enough to physically shield them from everything. “First of all, she’s developed a phobia of my cock in her mouth.” She gasps subtly as I thrust myself up into her arse. “And secondly, she’s not blessing me with her forceful demands for intelligence.”
“My Lord isn’t blessing me with his wide range of expert fuckings, so we’re even, aren’t we?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “But she’s still blessing me with her filthy mouth.” I give her tickle spot a quick, warning squeeze and she jolts, sending water over the edge of the tub. And yet she still doesn’t hit me with any questions. What the fuck is going on? It’s easier to be questioned than to give a “talk.” Where are the questions? I frown at the back of her head, willing her on. She’s not going to ask—she’s going to make me talk with no prompts. She’s proving a point.
For fuck’s sake. “His name was Jake,” I say, my lips twisting as I wonder where to go next. Ava doesn’t help me out. I scowl at her back. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
Silence.
God damn her.
“He idolized me,” I go on, scratching around in my brain. Have I even started at the right place? Fuck it. “He wanted to be me.” The stupid fucking idiot. “I’ll never understand it.” I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but this hard? I’m getting nothing back, no questions, no encouragement. Jake’s not even piping in to help me along, which I suppose I should be grateful for since my wife is naked in the bath with me. I turn Ava around, needing her eyes. “I can’t do this on my own, baby,” I whisper. “Help me.”
Her expression falls, and she comes closer, nuzzling into me. “Were you not alike?”
I laugh under my breath, relaxing. This is better. “We were the furthest away from alike you could get,” I say. “In looks and personality.”
“He wasn’t a god?”
My smile is wide as I stroke her wet back, my hands gliding up and down. “He was a genius.” And kind, calm, handsome, smart, and considerate.
“How is that far away from you?”
“Jake had his brain to get him by. I had my looks and I used them, as you well know.” I squint at the space above her head, holding her tighter. “Jake didn’t use his brain. If he did, he wouldn’t be dead.” I swallow, blink, trying to chase away the inevitable flashbacks, feeling Ava’s body stiffen against me. I can hear the question coming a mile off.
“How did he die?” she asks quietly, and everything about her tone and volume, along with her tense body, tells me she’s wary of asking. That she’s sensed something is... off.
“He got hit by a car.” I spit the words out fast before I can swallow them back down and choke on them.
“How would that be not using his brain?”
“Because he was pissed when he staggered into the road.”
Jake! Get out of the fucking road!
I wince, squeezing my eyes closed.
“Carmichael isn’t the only reason you don’t talk to your parents, is he?” she asks quietly.
“No.” This is it. “The fact that I’m responsible for my brother’s death is a major contributing factor. Carmichael and The Manor came after and kind of put the nail in the coffin.”
“Jake was their favorite?” she asks.
“Jake was everything they wanted from a son. I wasn’t. I tried to be. I studied, but it didn’t come as naturally to me as it did to Jake.” A bit like charming the knickers off women didn’t come naturally to him. I always think we weren’t alike in looks. It’s not really true, we were identical, but there’s something about how a man portrays themselves that affects their physical appearance. Jake wasn’t confident like me. He wasn’t cocky or rebellious.
He was perfect. Wholesomely handsome. A fucking brainbox.