Page 97 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“That’s a goddamn lie,” I grunted. “I’m perfect for Laura.”

“You couldn’t even tell her who you really were,” said David. “Do you really think she’s going to forgive you after all of this.”

“She can change,” I said, quickly. “And so can I.”

“You had—what? Twelve years of changing to do?” said David. “How much did you change? Did you change enough to face your responsibilities, Lucien?”

“What responsibilities?” I said, glowering at him. I wanted to hit David, I was so mad. But I turned my chest away. I didn’t want him to see my face. “Why does it have to be this way anyway?” I groaned.

“To spare her pain,” said David. “To spare the both of you.”

“You’re family’s done nothing but hurt me,” I spat savagely. “Where were you, David? When I needed you?”

“And where were you,” said David, standing to his feet, “when Laura went to San Francisco to have your child?”

For a moment, I swear the fire was silent. I stayed right where I was, as David put the journal on the chair beside me. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

I got up from my chair and wandered towards the door. I didn’t know what to make of the words David had just barked at me, didn’t know whether it was true, or some joke crueler than I could imagine. I went to the door, and for a moment, I thought that I was going to open it and find myself on a precipice, on the Falls themselves, even though they were miles away. But as I yanked open the door and a cold blast of air flew in my face, I saw Laura, standing in the driveway. And the expression on her face devastated me.

Chapter 33

Laura

“It’s me,” I said. Because in my heart, I hoped that he was still him. Kyle had told me what the journal contained, what had made David so angry, so shocked. Kyle himself was dumb with astonishment about it. Either that, or he didn’t understand. But I’d left my baby boy in the house and run up the hill the moment Kyle told me what Uncle David had read from the book. Because I could hardly believe it was true.

Because despite what everyone had been telling me—my mom, David, and Kyle himself, with his unending adoration of Lucien—I’d been blind. Blind to the fact that the man I was slowly falling for, the man I knew now without a shadow of a doubt that I loved, was someone else. Someone from long ago, to whom I knew deep in my heart, there was nothing to say.

“Laura,” said Lucien. And for a moment, I saw him, as if he’d taken off a mask and revealed himself to me. I could see his close-cropped hair growing, his beard vanishing, his broad muscles tensing and vanishing to reveal the man I’d loved as a girl. And now he was here, at the door of Lakeview. A house he’d built not as a monument to Conor, but an attempt to bury him.

There were no words. I could feel my whole body shaking, my stomach leaping into my chest when I tried to speak to him. I was paralyzed by the green eyes.

“Where were you?” the man in front of me said.

“What do you mean?” I gasped, silently.

“That day at the church,” muttered Lucien, and now his vowels had slid and brightened, his perfect diction relaxing a little. And I could hear with it his voice releasing its tension until the man standing in front of me spoke with the faintest hint of his father’s Irish accent, his voice a little lighter than Lucien’s but recognizably the same. How hard had he worked to bury every inch of himself, to forget even the smallest motions that would have instantly helped me remember Conor? Was I a fool for not noticing? Conor looked pained in the moonlight, his scar twisted as he looked away.

“I went and got the train,” I said. “We spoke by the hotel. And I went and got the train afterwards. I took a cab, I couldn’t…”

“Why, Laura?” cried Conor, as he stepped towards me. “Why did you do it?”

“Because I couldn’t marry you,” I said. The indignation of having to defend myself to a man who’d lied to me, who’d deceived me, hadn’t set in. And the truth was this was the only thing I’d wanted to say to Conor. For years, I’d wanted to tell him who I really was and why it could never have been him.

“Why not, Laura!” said Conor, as he stepped down. He was so emotional that his stiff bearing was gone, and I could see now that Conor was back, that there was no stopping him. “Why not? Twelve years…and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to know.”

“I was pregnant,” I said.

“I would have looked after you.”

“That’s not what you said,” I told him stiffly. I could feel anger hardening my heart as I said those words. I could feel a long-awaited truth coming up through my lungs, escaping like a breath as I carried on talking. “You said that you couldn’t stand the thought of any little Lauras…or any little Conors running around our house. How was I supposed to react to that, Conor? What was I supposed to do?”

Conor had frozen where he stood. “I would have always stuck by you,” he said. “Always taken care of you. I wanted you to pursue your career.”

“And I did!” I said. “I had Kyle and I pursued a career! Without you, Conor. Because it was…you all along. You were what drove me away. Not my mom. Not David. Not anyone else.”

“If there was anything I could have done—” said Conor.

“Then you would have done it,” I replied.