Page 33 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

Chapter

Twelve

Why, when you want something so bad, is it always so fucking complicated?

Gideon

It’s late afternoon the next day and I stand in the kitchen looking thoughtfully down at the tray on the table in front of me.

A pot of strawberry jam glows a bright scarlet.

Next to it is a pat of the creamy butter that is produced here on the estate.

Croissants made by Maggie and stored in the freezer here have been heated up and they steam gently in a basket next to the cafetière where coffee waits to brew.

I tap my lip. There’s something missing, and it has to be perfect.

My mind strays upstairs to the warm body lying lax across the bed, his tanned olive skin glowing in the late afternoon sunshine.

He’d been so tired, having travelled from Dubai and then straight down here, then I’d exacerbated his condition with four bouts of sex, each one even better than the first. I shift a little, smiling at the tenderness in my arse.

He’d hardly stirred when I moved out of bed.

Even the clandestine kiss I dropped on his shoulder blades over his dragon tattoo hadn’t woken him.

I look down at the tray and exclaim, “Of course!” The backdoor is open, so, grabbing a pair of scissors, I pad outside to the small stone terrace.

The garden is still a bit of wilderness, which they’ll probably tame for the first guests, but I secretly like it.

It’s full of mature, blowsy plants that let out the most gorgeous scents that drift into the house.

One of those plants is a rose bush with beautiful flowers that are a deep purple-black and give out a heavy perfume.

I look at it and painstakingly examine each bloom until I spot the perfect flower.

It’s lush and heavy with scent and I cut it neatly off, holding it gingerly so I don’t get pricked by the thorns.

Then I flinch as the front door slams, and I hear my brother shout, “Gideon!” Footsteps sound and he appears at the backdoor.

“Shush!” I say, gesturing at him furiously.

“Why?” He stares down at the flower in my hand. “Will I wake the flowers?” he enquires sympathetically as if he thinks I’ve finally gone off my rocker.

“What on earth are you babbling about?” I enquire acerbically, trying frantically to gather the shreds of my dignity together which are very threadbare. I am, after all, only dressed in a pair of blue and white striped pyjama shorts with a hickey dark on my neck. And I’m clutching a flower.

His eyebrows rise slowly until they almost disappear into his hairline. Then realisation dawns. “Oh my God,” he says slowly. Then. “Oh my God ,” a lot louder. “You’ve got someone here.” He looks at the rose. “Someone who deserves flowers the next day. Gideon Patrick Ramsay !”

“Oh, shut up,” I say sourly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My gaze involuntarily shoots to the bedroom window, which is open.

I don’t need Milo finding out about this.

He’d have opinions. Lots of opinions. And I’m not in the mood for them.

I’m in the mood to climb the stairs and cuddle back down against Eli’s warm body that has made my sheets smell of spunk and coconut.

Milo’s clever eyes have tracked me, and I see him noting the open bedroom window. “Who’s up there?” he whispers.

My first instinct is a shameful and old one, and, after all these years, I almost fall into by rote. In my head I can hear Frankie say to lie. Lie and hide and deny. They can’t prove anything. I even open my mouth to do it. Then realisation strikes me that if I lie, I will lose Eli.

We haven’t discussed it yet, but I know he isn’t the type to climb in my closet with me. He’s too honest. Too forthright and principled. But if I have him, I’ll lose my career. Everything I’ve worked for. For a second, the two wants fight in me, but then my reason wins.

“Eli’s up there,” I say.

“Eli, your nurse?”

“He’s not my nurse,” I say quickly. “He hasn’t been my nurse for months.”

“Oh my God, was this going on during the cruise?” His eyes are turbulent with worry.

“No,” I say firmly. “No. He wouldn’t do anything.

Said he had to protect me and make sure I knew my own mind.

The four months apart have been about making sure I’m not coming into it out of gratitude.

” I roll my eyes, although those protective words are still engraved on a tiny bit of my heart.

“As if I don’t know my own mind, and when did I ever show gratitude for anything? ”

“Gideon, I don’t think you’ve known your own mind since you were a teenager and fancied Ralph Fiennes.

And you do express gratitude. You thanked Niall for getting you a sandwich the other day.

” He pauses. “After lecturing him on how long he took to do it.” He shrugs helplessly. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Thank you,” I say enthusiastically. “I wish more people recognised that.”

“That a lecture is as good as a thank you? You should give etiquette classes.”

“We’d have a whole new generation of coolly rude people coming up the ranks.”

He shakes his head, dismissing the avenue of distraction I’m offering. My brother is resolute. Niall would totally have fallen for it.

“So he protected you?” Approval warms his eyes. “I like that. You need that.”

“I don’t need protecting ,” I say, revolted. “I’m not a fucking hedgehog.”

“You’ve been enough of a prick in your day,” he says smartly, expecting me to laugh, but my expression stops him. “What?”

“I was a prick,” I burst out, feeling the words tumble out beyond my capacity to will them back.

“Okay,” he says in an alarmed voice, sitting down at the small iron table and gesturing to a seat. “I think we need to talk about this. It’s not going to be settled until we do.”

I sit down, putting the rose carefully on the table, and for a few minutes we stare at each other.

Finally, I sigh and scrub my hands down my face.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry for all the shit I put you through when I found out about you and Niall.

It was completely out of order, and I’m ashamed of myself every time I think about it. ”

“Have you told Eli about Niall?”

“Not yet.” I bite my lip. “I can’t tell him that.”

“You have to,” he says sternly. “That’s too big a thing to keep covered up.”

“Thank you. I always try to keep my big thing covered,” I say pertly, but he doesn’t rise to the bait and returns to the previous topic.

“Why are you still worrying about this, Gid? You said sorry before. We had that long chat and came to an understanding.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t tell you the truth about everything.”

“ What? ” he says, sounding unnerved. “Are you not okay with me being with Niall?”

“Of course I am,” I say quickly. “Completely okay and very happy about it. He’s perfect for you.

Like I said to you at the time, it was hurt pride that caused my behaviour and worry because I was losing someone I could be myself with.

Or as close as I came in those days.” I pause and say in a rush, “Do you remember thinking that I’d been pushing you towards him in Verbier?

That I’d engineered it all?” He nods. “Yeah, I wasn’t,” I say quickly.

“Not all the time, anyway. I was pretty fucking angry. And to be honest, that move only works in Jilly Cooper books.”

Whatever I’d expected his reaction to be when I told the truth, him laughing was never it. He laughs and chuckles and when he manages to stop, his eyes are streaming. “God, that’s good,” he finally says.

“Milo,” I say in a warning tone which nearly sets him off again. “I let you believe I’d done a good thing when in actual fact it was completely accidental.”

Finally, he sobers. “I knew that,” he says.

“How?”

“Because you’re not a very good actor around me, Gid.”

“I bloody am,” I say indignantly. “Really, Milo, you’re not doing a lot for my confidence. First you said I looked in my fifties.”

“Your confidence shows no sign of being depleted, and I said forties,” he murmurs but I continue.

“In my fifties and now you’re saying I’m shit at acting.”

“Only with me,” he says, a smile brimming in his eyes. “I see through you, Gid. Not always at first, but usually when I stop to think about it.” He shrugs. “I knew about ten minutes after I left you that night. I sat thinking for a bit, and I knew then.”

“And you’re not mad?”

“Of course I’m not,” he says simply. “Because while you tend to forget every time in the past when you might have been good and focus on all your bad behaviour, I still remember. I remember how kind you are and thoughtful. How protective you are. It’s a very hidden part of your character, Gid, but it’s still there. ”

“But I haven’t shown it to you. You of all people should have had that.”

“But I did,” he says firmly. “When you used to read me stories at night. When you came in when I had nightmares, when you stuck up for me against Jamie the next-door neighbour when he was bullying me and calling me a faggot and you pushed him in the pond. You alone believed me and sorted it out. Even though it got you sent back to school early. You sent Niall when I needed him because you knew there was something wrong.” He grabs my hand.

“You did everything you could for me for someone who was much older than me and who Mum and Dad pushed so far out of the family some days they didn’t even remember they had another child.

” I flinch and his hand grabs tighter. “But I remembered, Gid. I always remembered. I know what they did was wrong, and I know that we don’t talk about it because you’re worried about hurting my feelings.

But Gid, you’re more my family than they are. ”

“ What? ”