‘You’re plenty good enough, hubby darling,’ comes her singsong retort from the kitchen. ‘But I need words with my sly big sis.’
I frown at Pete and he simply shrugs. ‘Damned if I know, but I’ll sort you both drinks and get the kids setting the table. That ought to take her stressometer down a notch or two.’
‘I heard that,’ Fee calls over her shoulder as we enter the kitchen. Steam fills the air as several pans bubble on the stove, and the smell is divine.
‘You were meant to, my love.’ Pete walks up to her, grips her by the hips and plants a kiss on her cheek. The gesture is so small but so sweet, and the pang in my chest returns. The same sensation I’ve had over and over these past two weeks, every time I see a couple holding hands, talking intimately over a dinner table, taking a walk...
‘Gin and tonic, ladies?’
‘Please,’ we say in unison and he disappears into the dining room where the antique drinks cabinet from our old family home lives.
‘Shall I open a window?’ I say.
‘That would be great, thanks.’ I squeeze past Fee in the galley kitchen and reach over the counter to the latch on the window at the end.
‘So, when were you going to tell me about Valentine Boretti?’
I almost slide down the window and faceplant on the countertop.
‘What? How? What?’ I turn to face her, my brows knitted together, and I know there’s no colour left in my face. It’s all sunk to the pit of my stomach, which is now twisted up into a tight ball.
‘Gossip Central had a lovely little shot of you leaving a football match together a few weeks ago. I would have grilled you sooner, but you’ve been impossible to get hold of.’ She’s navigating the pots and pans but her focus is entirely on me and I’m struck still, my body awash with the pain of it, of what I’ve done and what a mistake I’ve made.
She turns away from the cooking, her eyes narrowing on me. ‘Jesus, what’s wrong, Liv? You look about to...’
Too late. The tears I’ve been fighting fall freely down my face and she’s across the room in seconds, her arms around me.
‘Here we go, ladies, two—what? What happened?’
Fee turns to Pete, my head tucked into her bosom. ‘Shoo, no, leave those, then shoo.’
I hear the glasses hit the surface and the soft click of the door closing. I rise my head on a sob-cum-snort and she pulls me back into her chest.
‘It’s all right, honey. Whatever it is, just tell me.’
I shake my head, hiccupping as I struggle to speak, to control my voice long enough to get anything out.
‘Bugger.’ She quickly releases me. ‘One second.’
She rushes around the kitchen, turning off the heat, pulling things out of the oven, a quick swoosh and then she’s back and I’m wiping my face on my sleeve, trying to dry it even as the tears keep falling.
‘I messed up, Fee.’ I suck in a shaky breath. ‘He told me he loved me and I... I basically told him he was ridiculous, that the idea of an us was ridiculous.’
‘Wait. You need to back up a bit. Start from the top. Who is he to you?’
I tell her everything—how we met, minus the club detail, the boardroom visit, the fantastic strides we’ve made with the charity thanks to him, the people he introduced me to, the football, the week that followed and...the track day...the argument.
‘So, let me get this straight...’ she squints at me ‘...you told him that he shouldn’t live his life constrained by what happened to his wife, and by what-ifs over the future, but you did the exact same thing to him.’
‘I didn’t.’ I shake my head at her and she walks away to take up the drinks that Pete left.
‘I didn’t.’ I repeat into her silence, only it’s much weaker.
She comes back to me and passes me my drink, takes a sip of her own as she eyes me with compassion and a look that says, You bloody did, you bloody idiot.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘Like what?’ she says over the rim of her glass.
‘Like I’m an idiot.’
‘You have to admit, you are a bit of an idiot. Don’t you think it makes you a hypocrite?’
‘A what?’
‘You pushed him away because of your past, because of what you went through. You’re letting your past dictate your future. Just as you accused him of doing.’
My gin catches in my throat. ‘I—No...’
‘Yes! And he told you he loves you, just the way you are. Actually loves you.’ Her brows lift to the ceiling as she throws back a gulp of gin, swallows it audibly. ‘And my God, sis, is he hot.’
‘He’s also twenty years younger than me.’
She frowns. ‘I’m sure he’s not.’
‘Okay, sixteen, but it’s just as bad.’
‘It’s less than the gap between you and Nathan.’
‘I’ve done that argument to death already with myself, with him. I don’t need to go over it again.’
She studies me quietly for several moments and then she places her glass down on the side, takes my hand.
‘Look, Liv, I love you and heaven knows you’ve worried me silly this past year, but part of you had a point.’
‘Part of me? How generous of you.’
She ignores my gibe as she squeezes my hand. ‘Look, I know you and Nathan loved each other, but surely you must see how he changed you, how you changed yourself being with him. It wasn’t healthy. You spent years trying to get Dad’s approval, another two decades hanging off Nathan’s. And now you have a guy telling you he loves you just the way you are...’
‘And? What does that have to do with me having a point?’
‘Correction. Had a point. Because it seems to me you’ve lost your way again. You were all about living each day to the full after Nathan passed, living for the now and making the most of
