Page 51 of Van Cort

WEST

Idon’t know where my brother is. I also don’t give a damn.

I left her in her bed at five am, and I’ve been walking around Seattle since.

That’s three hours trying to convince myself that instigating this fucking charade was a sensible plan.

At first, it was. It was payback, and revenge, and spite and hate.

I thought I could use our identical appearance to cause him as much agony as he caused me.

But, looking back now, I never thought about just how similar we are in the opposing way.

In fact, it never occurred to me that what he falls for, I’ll fall for.

What he wants, I’ll want. What he desires, I’ll desire.

I should have known that because we are the same, despite our differences.

Our genes search for the exact same thing every damn time, and there’s no plan that accounted for that.

What he needs, I need. The past proved that.

“Everett?” I look sideways at a man’s voice. He smiles and offers me his hand to shake. “It’s been a while. How’s business?” I have no idea who this fucking guy is, and, more importantly, I don’t care. Who knows, I – we – Van Cort – might even own him somehow.

“Demanding. You?”

“Stock’s up. Market’s strong.” He drones on about share prices and straightens his suit, all the time posturing his stature and position simply by existing.

My brother does that, too. Something about him always was bigger than me, bolder than me, better than me.

Not to Lara, though. No, she wanted me. And him.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get to your work.” I suppose this suit I’m still in from last night makes him think that. Everett’s suit. Perfectly cut. Perfectly fitted. The true Van Cort appearance. It isn’t, though. True, that is. Or it wasn’t before this time now. My Rhett would never have worn this.

But he isn’t mine anymore, is he?

Circumstances changed him, us, everything.

I watch the guy walk off to an expensive car idling by the side of the road, and question, not for the first fucking time since I came back here, what I want out of this place we’re in.

It’s all well and good him saying that we could get what we’ve spent our lives searching for.

But falling in love with something he loves is easy, and wanting what he wants is easy, too.

That’s what we are - it’s who we are inside, where we’re both honest and we only allow who we are to rule our being.

What isn’t easy is working out what I want, and how I want it, and if I trust him to honour the simple fucking values that I thought we once had.

Because he didn’t last time, did he? He killed us.

Looking up and along the skyline, I think back to the home we once shared – the lives we once had.

People push past me on the sidewalk, bumping and barging my state of mind.

There’s not enough space to breathe here, no room to think either.

And that, whilst frustrating to me, must have been hell for him, regardless of his strength and power in this city.

I bet he longs for peace, for order.

Bored with debating my own confusion any longer, I walk the sidewalks straight for the main entrance of the penthouse building, which Van Cort probably owns.

I wouldn’t know, but even if generations of us didn’t own this building before Rhett, he would have bought it by now.

And screw using back entrances. I’ve done that enough to satisfy his need for control.

Why shouldn’t I walk through the front door? I am Van Cort. As much as he is.

The concierge tips his hat at me as he holds the door open. “Good morning, Mr Van Cort.” I smile, just like I did last night at the restaurant, and keep moving for the shiny, private elevator reserved for the top floor.

I haven’t been called Van Cort for a long time.

West Van Cort disappeared after that day twenty years ago.

Europe didn’t know me, and with enough money in my trust fund when it kicked in at nineteen to not need to work, it was easy to become someone new.

I just stayed away from the local wealth set and settled in various cities, perhaps, as Rhett says, trying – over time – to find something that meant as much to me as Lara did.

But time proved, annoyingly, that it was never just about Lara.

It was about a twin brother, and about home, and about another side of me that, despite all attempts to dismiss, lived so strongly inside me that there was no escaping the hold it – he – has on me.

I missed Van Cort.

I missed being me.

I missed being part of him.

The elevator opens and the dark, dimly lit interior awaits me just like it has done every time I’ve walked in here.

It’s so fucking like him, it’s disturbing.

And yet soothing. It takes me back to who we were, the balance we had.

And I wonder, as I stare, if he’d ever have been that way if the beatings had never happened to him.

He loved the water once, and playing in the sun, and laughing.

We both did. But it drained from him bit by bit until all that was left was obscure and pained.

That was his love then, for her and me. Obsessive and fierce, maybe, but he loved us.

Maybe, without Father’s idea of strengthening us, Lara would still be here now.

Maybe she wouldn’t be dead.

Maybe he wouldn’t have killed her in a jealous rage.

Maybe, just maybe, it would have worked, and we would have been whole and free.

“I’m still here,” he says from the lounge.

“I know.” Of course I know. I can feel him.

“That wasn’t the secondary elevator."

“No. I didn’t feel like it.”

“That could have been problematic,” he replies quietly.

I frown at the sombre tone in his voice, wondering what’s going on. And then the twinkle of gentle notes comes into the air, a tune playing that we both know well.

I freeze, hands braced on the kitchen island, and listen to the music box. Memories flood back into me as the melody sounds in the air. It brings things to the surface, no matter how hard I’ve dismissed or been distracted from them.

“How was the date?” he asks.

My eyes narrow. Straight to it then. Let’s forget about the sound of our past haunting us, shall we? “Why do you want to know? Jealous?”

“No. Just interested in how pissed she still is.”

“She was. She’s better now. What did you do?”

“We disagreed on some fundamentals.”

“Which fundamentals?”

“Trust. Honesty. Behavioural expectations.”

“Well, she’s still got her hackles up. But she’s also incredibly well-versed in romance and enjoyment. You’re lucky she’s as pliable as you’ll need.”

The music holds my attention until eventually the mechanism slows and the notes peter out to nothing but the occasional barely there sound.

Walking into the lounge, I find him fully suited and staring at Lara’s music box still in the centre of the coffee table.

“Did you apologise for me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Did that make her happier?”

“It made her softer.” He nods and taps his fingers on his thigh, as if he’s playing notes on the piano. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be working?”

“Hmm. Probably.”

“Not, though?”

“No.” The melody carries on, and he continues to look like he’s miles away from the here and now.

“Thinking of Lara?” He glances at me as I sit opposite him, smiles slightly. “That music box is nothing to smile about, Rhett.”

I watch him think some more until he finally looks up at me fully and attempts to dismiss the trinket as inconsequential.

We both know it isn’t.

“How do you even have it?” he asks.

“I took it. The day after, when everything was fucked, I snuck into the cottage while they were out. It was part of us. It wasn’t for them to keep.” Again, another nod, this time followed by a sigh. “I stayed at Andie’s last night. Slept the whole night beside her. She was surprised. Why?”

“Because sleeping at her place suggested the kind of commitment I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, offer. I was thinking about it, but then you arrived and… plans changed. Emotions changed. The future possibly changed.”

“Has she stayed here?”

“She hasn’t even been here.”

“Do you want her here?” He smiles and tugs at his tie until he’s removing it and standing. “Question a little hard for you, brother? Need a drink? Careful now, we wouldn’t want you to lose your temper.”

A deep rumble of low laughter comes from him as he walks from the room to the kitchen, and I listen as cupboards open and the espresso machine starts whirring.

He comes back in a few minutes later, two cups in his hands and a smile on his face. “Why do you keep trying to play with your feelings, West?”

“My feelings?”

“Yes, yours. We both know you want her as much as I do, and we both know how perfect she is. Just get whatever you need to say about Lara out of your mouth, and then we can talk about River.”

“I don’t need to talk about Lara.” He sips his drink and stares at me over the cup. “I don’t.”

“You do. That’s why you came back, isn’t it? To harass me, to hurt me? You never did get the words out of your mouth back then. Maybe you’re man enough now.”

I stand, pissed at the inference. “Fuck you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Exceptional response.”

“Well, I doubt your callous ass needs to talk about her, so why bother?”

“Actually, I do. There’s a lot I want to say.”

“Really, like what? Because you threw her over a fucking cliff, Rhett. I loved her, and you threw her over a goddamned cliff because you couldn’t get your own way. What else is there to say?”

“I didn’t throw her. I just didn’t hold on when you reached for her.”

“Don’t try that shit. You put her there, and you could have just pulled her up. Given her to me. Thrown yourself over the cliff. Anything but that.”

“Would that have made you happy? Me dying instead?”

“Yes.” I frown. “Or no. But aren’t you the least bit fucking sorry?”

“For what?”

“What the hell does that mean? All of it.”