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‘Like I said, make yourselves at home. I’m really glad you’re here.’
He left them, and Faye noticed that all their stuff had already been unpacked and put away.
Primo was looking a little stunned.
Faye went up to him. ‘Are you okay?’
He nodded. ‘It’s just a lot...to take in. He’s younger than me, but I feel like he’s older.’
‘I guess having children will do that to you,’ Faye joked.
Primo looked at her and pulled her close, she went willingly.
He said, ‘Thank you for coming with me.’
‘You’d have been fine on your own.’
‘I think it helps to have people around to defuse the tension between me and Quin.’
Faye shook her head. ‘I don’t think he bears any grudges. And Sadie seems nice. Normal.’
‘She’s good for him.’ Primo looked at the bed then, and said with faux innocence, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.’
Faye moved closer, pressing against Primo. ‘Me too.’ She reached up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. ‘Absolutely wrecked.’
He started taking off her clothes, and Faye savoured every single moment leading up to them both being naked.
They made love in their own private tropical forest house, but afterwards, even as her body hummed with a sense of deep satisfaction, Faye couldn’t escape the uneasy sensation that this was where things would come to a head.
There were so many raw emotions flying around, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to escape unscathed. It was getting harder and harder to try and hide the depth of her feelings around Primo.
The following day, Primo surveyed the domestic scene before him on the lawn. His nephew, Sol, was shadowing his two crawling twin sisters like a mother hen. Gently manoeuvring them in a safer direction if he thought they were getting too close to danger. Sadie was talking to Faye, and both women were watching the little tableau.
Faye was relaxed here in this domestic situation. Not fazed. Not bored. Not sending him pointed looks as if to say,When are we leaving?He’d noticed that she did seem a little reluctant to get too close to the children, but he put it down to lack of experience, like him. Sol and the babies alternately fascinated and terrified him.
Absurdly, emotion rose. Emotion that he hadn’t felt in years. In for ever. Not since he was a small boy, when he’d pushed it down deep, because he couldn’t be the one to lose it over their mother leaving. Quin had done that for both of them. Primo had had to be strong.
‘I’m sure this is nothing like you’re used to,’ said Quin.
His brother’s dry tone cut into Primo’s reflections. He shook his head, didn’t dare look at his brother just yet, in case he saw something Primo wasn’t quite ready to reveal. But things were sinking into place inside him, whispering of yearnings that he’d only recently allowed himself to think of. A life with Faye—awholelife.
Maybe this was why he’d gravitated towards seeing his brother. Because he’d needed to see this, feel it first-hand. Feel a desire forthis.Something he and Quin had never really experienced and yet here he was—in this idyll of...a family.Love.For the first time he was seeing it up close, and he had to admit that for some...it could exist.
Primo said, ‘Family is important, isn’t it?’
Then he clarified, ‘I mean,this.’ He gestured to the scene before them where Sadie had now put the twins in a double buggy in a shaded area and was kicking a ball with Sol. ‘Not what our father drummed into us.’
He looked at Quin, who was watching him carefully.
Quin said, ‘It’s everything. The only thing that matters.’
Primo blurted out, ‘I’m sorry.’
Quin frowned. ‘For what?’
‘For not checking that you were okay after...everything.’
‘After discovering our father wasn’tmyfather?’