Page 82 of Naughty or Nice

He looks from me to Nate for the first time and his cheeks flood red. ‘You struck your sister?’

‘He was aiming for Lucas,’ I rush out. ‘I just got in the way.’

‘And that?’ He points to the swelling on Nate’s jaw.

‘Lucas—coming to my defence.’

He shakes his head, disbelieving. ‘Is this really what we’ve come to? Fist fights in the office?’

‘Don’t you dare get high and mighty, Dad,’ I say to him. ‘You’re not innocent in all of this either.’

He frowns with surprise. ‘What does that mean?’

‘All this hatred towards a man who did nothing wrong, Dad—nothing. You should’ve known—you should’ve seen through Nate’s lies and sorted this mess out long ago, before Lucas lost everything.’

‘The man is loaded, Eva,’ Nate scoffs. ‘He hardly lost everything.’

‘He lost us, Nate—us. The only real family he’s ever known. How the hell can’t you see that?’

He stares, dumbstruck, then looks from me to Dad, as if our father will say something to ease the sting of my words. But instead he takes a shaky breath and suddenly seems to age before me. I can see my words sinking in, can feel the weight of them in the air.

Nate gives an awkward laugh. ‘Oh, come on—the guy is doing fine. He always lands on his feet. Turns out he never needed us—not really. The man’s invincible...’

He says the words but there’s no power behind them.

‘That’s not true, son.’

My father’s soft-spoken remark stuns me.

‘Eva’s right.’

‘But...come on...look at him. He’s loaded—a billionaire. What do we have that he could possibly think he’s missing out on?’

I flip. ‘Are you for real? You should be running after him, begging his forgiveness.’

‘Like hell!’ he erupts, staring at us both in disbelief. ‘He bailed on me.’

‘You know what?’ I say. ‘I used to think it was the shock of Lucas going that left you so broken, always coming to me for help, advice, support. Now I realise he’d probably been covering for you for years—and I ended up doing the same.’

‘Hey, easy, honey...’

Dad steps forward, wanting to calm me, but I’m on a roll now. Five years of watching over Nate, coming to a head.

‘Don’t “easy” me. We were the closest thing to family he had and we turned our backs on him.’

‘He turned his back on us first.’

It’s Nate who speaks, and I want to swing for him, but my legs are like lead, keeping me rooted, and instead I twist on the spot to glare at him.

‘It’s true, isn’t it? It wasn’t the first time you’d messed up?’

Nate hunches forward, back in teenage mode, but his downcast eyes are admission enough.

My hands soar to the air as I fling them towards him and look to Dad. ‘You see?’

‘Yes, honey, I see. But this isn’t helping. Why don’t you just take up Janus Industries’ offer and then we’ll see what we can do about addressing the past—it’s a separate issue.’

‘What?’