Chapter 9 Sperm Jackpot
She tries not to let it bother her that she knows so little about him. Tries not to let it show how worried she is that he shares so little of himself with her. Tries not to fret that after weeks and weeks of travelling, living and sleeping with this man, he’s still nothing more than a closed book to her.
It’s not that she feels unloved. With Tom, she feels anything but that. His love for her is written into the touch of his hand, into the press of his kisses and into the sheer, unadulterated adoration that seems to seize his eyes whenever he follows her with his gaze. He looks at her with a fierce possessiveness that makes her feel wanted and whole — when she walks into the room, he lights up with a glow that makes her feel happy and proud.
At first, that pride surprises her. Because why should she feel proud for merely invoking a feeling of happiness in a man? It’s so simple a feeling, happiness. So easy and universal. So primitive that she shouldn’t see it written in the face of her lover and then feel a rise of pride that she — she, Ari — made it happen. When she sees Tom light up with happiness, her pride feels both unearned and yet deserved. Unearned because he should be happy, with or without her presence, Ari thinks. And yet... and yet, she also relishes in the knowledge that she’s brought him a moment of joy. Deep down, Ari suspects that Tom has not been a happy man, that joy has been hard-won by him, and that happiness has eluded his life.
She suspects but doesn’t know.
Because he never talks about himself, beyond the day-to-day conversations of their lives. They talk about the world, and their travels, and the food they eat and the sex they have and the politics of the day and so many other mundanely amazing things that Ari’s head struggles to remember it all. She talks about herself, only a little at first, until she grows in confidence and opens up a little more. In the absence of any stories from him, she tells him all of her own, starting from the first memories of her life to the day they met. She tells him about finding her love for art aged seven in a London gallery, staring at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers . She tells him about the day her cat was hit by a car and Ari watched it die in the street, the feline’s eyes panicked and frantic as it gasped for breath, before they finally turned glassy, all life having ebbed from its broken body. She even tells Tom about her parents, about their xenophobia and homophobia and how they’d reacted when her older brother came out.
“They kicked him out,” she whispered. “He was seventeen. I was six. He visited me as often as he could, but my parents were relentlessly intolerant. When he asked me to be bridesmaid at his wedding, my parents wouldn’t allow it. I snuck out of the house to be there, and when I got back, they’d changed the locks. All my things were by the side of the road.”
“That’s awful,” Tom replied, aghast, suddenly thankful for Marnie. He was fairly certain his mom would love him no matter what.
“They’d had enough of me, I guess,” she said sadly, looking up to find Tom’s eyes ablaze with anger on her behalf. His fists were clenched, and his frown was deep, and she leaned over to kiss his knuckles, to bring him out of his fury and back to her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I don’t need them. I don’t miss them. I only feel sorry for them, now.”
“No child should be treated like that,” he returned fiercely, and it suddenly crossed Ari’s mind that perhaps — just perhaps — Tom might have had a life story a little like her own.
“Were your parents like mine—” she began, before Tom abruptly stood.
“The museum will be open now.” He pulled her up and threw a handful of notes on the table for the server.
He’s good at deflection, Ari learns. So good that often she didn’t realise he’d deflected a question until she replayed the conversation hours later in her head. He’s good at evasion and deflection and silence. He’s good at all the things that make her worry and wonder, while she tosses and turns in his arms at night.
“Who are you?” she whispers to him, staring at his slack and peaceful face, beautiful even in sleep. “Who are you, Tom? Where are you from? Who are your people, beyond me?”
She desperately wanted to know. These questions played on her mind, plaguing her so that she slept badly and ate poorly. Who was this man she’d taken into her life and bed and heart? All she really knew about him was that he was an American, a pilot and a magician. A magician, Ari mused. Wasn’t magician just another word for trickster? This thought made her stop and pause. It worried her to think that she loved a man who only offered her his shell. It worried her that she loved him without really knowing him. Would she still love him if he shared everything else too? Would she still take him into her heart? Or would she turn from him? Or even hate him?
Together they travel across the Baltic states, before crossing the water from Lithuania to Denmark. Tom keeps his passport in his backpack, bringing it out only when they cross borders, before furtively stashing it away once more.
“Why don’t you want me to see it?” Ari asks him curiously, and he gives her a strange shrug.
“I, well, it’s just a—” He pauses. “A bad photo,” he finishes, a little lamely. She nods, accepting the answer, though she keeps her eyes firmly locked on the sea. She’s not a fool, and she heard the odd lilt to his voice when he spoke. A lilt that made her question the truth of his words.
Still, she says nothing, choosing to bury herself again in his arms and in the happiness she knows they share when together. Maybe Tom isn’t the trickster, she thinks to herself bitterly. Maybe she is, though her only victim is herself. A simple wave of a magic wand, the turn of the right card and she can and will fool herself into believing anything Tom tells her. It’s the trick of the century — the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it lie in the dark. And she falls for it every time, because she loves him, and she knows he loves her too. He loves her, and tricks or not, she knows he would never deliberately hurt her.
Ari has so little experience of love in her life. So little experience of happiness. And so she tries to console herself, even when she hears Tom deflect, evade or lie in his silence. They are happy. They are in love. Their happiness and love cannot be deflected or evaded or silenced, even if Tom and the man he is can be.
It has to be enough for her.
She’s starting to learn that, with Tom, there won’t be anything else.
Denmark is a pleasant country, clean and floral and populated by generally cheerful and open-minded people. Ari and Tom spend two weeks there, soaking in the Northern European charm. One night Tom takes Ari to a tiny restaurant in Copenhagen, so small it hardly fits four tables, where they drink wine by candlelight and eat frikadelle and oysters. Afterwards, he takes her back to their hotel and strips her of her clothing, piece by piece, running his hands over her skin with disbelief at each new patch of skin that’s revealed to him.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispers against her, his lips brushing over her body so that she erupts into thousands of goosebumps. “You are so perfect. I can’t believe you let me touch you like this. I can’t believe you let me anywhere near you.”
Later, when she’s lying naked in his arms, content and sated, she can brush her worries aside. In those moments, she knows she’ll take Tom any way she can have him. Even if it’s just like this, nothing more than a string of romantic moments with a man she hardly knows.
A man she hardly knows but loves more than she can say.
Once they’ve exhausted Copenhagen, once she’s painted and discarded another three canvases and restocked her supplies, the old, inevitable question again rears its head: where next?
“Switzerland,” Ari says eagerly one afternoon. “We can go through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany into Switzerland.”
“More eggs?” Tom asks with an easy, playful grin, and she returns his smile.
“No. But the art... Oh, Tom, you’ve never seen such art. The architecture in Switzerland alone is worth a visit. We could even visit the Alps and see snow.”
“And the chocolate?” he asks.
“Why? You like it?”
He shrugs. “It depends on what’s being served with it.” He gives her a long, hot gaze that brings colour to her cheeks. “You’d look good in chocolate,” he says lightly, though his words are heavy with promise. “I’d lick every last drop from you.”
She bites on her lip. “Yes,” she agrees slowly. “Let’s go to Switzerland. For the chocolate.”
He nods, and she settles into his arms, letting him trace patterns on her arm.
“Maybe we could pop over the border from Switzerland into France,” she suggests. “We could go to Rouen, see the Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen—” She stops, noticing that Tom has stiffened behind her, his arm rock still, the veins in his hands showing.
“What?” she asks worriedly. “Is something the matter?”
“No, it’s nothing, it’s just...” Tom pauses, a strange look settling on his face. “My mother’s family comes from France.”
“Oh,” Ari says, her heart suddenly racing at the knowledge that he just shared something with her. Something of him, of his past. Ari pauses. Tom has a mother. A mother with a French background. In the absence of any other real information, it feels like a staggering intimacy. “You, um, never talk about your family.”
He shrugs then, as if it’s no matter, and perhaps it isn’t. Not to him.
“My cards... the queen of spades... that deck is from Rouen,” Tom admits, and Ari nods, soaking the information in.
“I didn’t know,” she replies. “I should give the queen of spades back to you... I should...”
“No,” Tom says suddenly, his voice firm. “That card belongs to you now.”
“But it belonged to your family . . .”
“Yes, it did. But I gave it to you. I want you to have it.” He pauses. “I like that you have it.”
“Have you ever been to Rouen?” she asks curiously, and he shakes his head.
“No. My mother never saw the point. She doesn’t look back, my mom. Just like my brother.”
“You have a brother?” Ari asks curiously, and Tom nods, but his eyes have gone dark.
“Yeah. But he’s . . . a little odd.”
“Odd? Odd how?”
“Just odd,” Tom replies, before he stands abruptly. “Let’s go out for dinner. Have a final meal in Copenhagen before we head for Holland.”
“But is your brother, like, I don’t know... mentally incapacitated? Or is he—”
“Ari,” Tom says, “let’s go out for dinner. I’m hungry.” He pulls her to him roughly. “And after dinner,” he adds languidly, “I’d like to eat some chocolate.”
“But just tell me if—”
He silences her with a kiss, his mouth hot, hard and insistent against her own.
Ari’s not a fool. She knows what this is. It’s deflection, evasion and silence, wrapped in the sweetest package. And Ari tries to pretend at this moment that it doesn’t bother her, that this doesn’t worry her.
But it does. Because she wants to love more than a shell.
She wants to love the whole man... whoever this stranger might be.
* * *
She stared at the painting and felt strangely dead inside. Empty of everything, all emotion having fled at the simple sight of a Norwegian sunset caught in blended shades of acrylic. She could recall, with perfect clarity, the cool northern breeze on her face and the clean smell of the fjords in her nose. She could still feel Tom beside her, his voice warm as he said, with confidence and pure conviction, “Ari, the painting is good.”
She gave this painting to him. She gifted it to him, this canvas, a little piece of her heart and soul. She gave it to him, and yet here it now sat, forgotten and alone, in a cold and dark corner of this gallery.
He abandoned it, Ari realised. Abandoned this painting, just like he did her.
“He sold it,” she whispered, her voice little more than a shadow. “He sold it.”
Behind her, she heard a voice clearing. A hand on her back, calm and reassuring. Sebastian. She felt him step forwards, a manicured hand resting on her shoulder.
“Ari, love,” he said kindly. “I don’t think he did.”
She turned to him, anguish in her eyes. “What do you mean?”
For a moment, Sebastian chewed on his lip. It was, she knew, a sign of his uncertainty, because she did it too. In fact, it must have been an old family trait, because Ari had a vague memory of their mother doing the same. Sebastian was a great believer in appearances, a man for perfection and order. With Sebastian, there was never a hair out of place, or a word spoken unnecessarily. His suits were always pressed, and his shoes always shone. His nails were perpetually clean and his eyes bright. If she had to put money on it, Ari would have bet that — underneath his designer vests and underwear — Sebastian’s body was as smooth and hairless as a sphynx cat, or maybe a baby seal. He did moisturise, after all.
“So, it’s a good news day and a bad news day.” Sebastian finally spoke, his voice brightening.
Ari stared at him incomprehensibly. “What?”
He paused. “Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news and—”
“Sebastian,” Ari interrupted. “I heard you. I just don’t have the foggiest what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, right.” Sebastian nodded, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his shoulder. “Just hear me out for a moment, will you?”
Ari gave him a wary look. “You only say things like that when you’re about to say something I don’t like.”
“Oh no,” Sebastian said, straightening. “It’s fine. Like I said, it’s bad news and good news.”
Ari gave a tired sigh. “Okay. So, tell me the bad news first.”
Sebastian nodded. “We’re in this gorgeous house. The wedding is in the bag. The mother of the groom has already paid the first part of what is going to be a most sizeable bill, and the bride is ecstatic with me, her soon-to-be-designed dress and the photographer we’ve managed to get onboard.”
Ari watched as Sebastian winked at Stella behind her back.
“I asked for the bad news first,” she snapped, trying to bring him back to the bloody point.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Sebastian carried on slowly. “All this is the bad news, because the sour pickle in the sweet jar here, my darling, is that you appear to not only have slept with the groom, but also to have borne the fruit of his loins.”
Ari’s mouth dropped open. “Are you . . . what do you . . . I mean . . .” she stammered, searching for thought, reason and clarity. “I . . . you said there was good news too.”
“Oh, there is. Darling,” there was an uncharacteristic squeak to his voice, which made Ari take a step back, “the groom is fucking loaded , my love. Have you seen this place? Do you know just how much money you’ve shagged your way into? My God, the retrospective child support alone will be worth millions. Oh, my darling,” Sebastian ran a proud, tender hand down Ari’s cool cheek, “you couldn’t have picked a better man to be humped and dumped by. You really did hit the sperm jackpot with this one. Brava, my lovely.”
Behind her, Ari heard the click of a camera.
“Brandon,” she heard Stella intone bluntly, “take a note of the time and the name of the corresponding photograph. Sperm Jackpot. ”
Horrified, Ari shook her head. “Can you all just... just stop for a moment.” She took a deep breath, trying to stay calm, searching for the logic in this nightmare. “Sebastian, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said slowly. “I’ve never even met this... this Tom Somerset . I’ve never met him before in my life.”
“Well, maybe you did,” Sebastian shrugged. “Back when he went by the name Tom Miller .”
Ari’s heart thudded in her chest, a vague feeling of nausea swept over her. “That’s... that’s quite a leap to make, Sebastian. You don’t know anything about the groom... this... this Tom Somerset. You don’t know anything about him at all. And,” an icy snap creeped into her voice, “you don’t know anything about Tom Miller.”
She watched as Sebastian gave a long sigh, a look of pity in his eyes as he gazed at her. “Ari, my darling, neither do you.”
It was like poison being thrown over her skin — Ari recoiled from her brother.
“Ari,” Sebastian carried on calmly, “listen to me and listen to me carefully. We’ve been here just a few days, and yet the mother of the groom has developed an unhealthy interest in you and particularly in your child. So much so that she’s just redecorated an entire bedroom to accommodate her. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I had a discussion with her last night, and she all but told me that her son Tom Somerset is Reine’s father.”
Ari froze. “She said that?”
“Well, not in those exact words, but—”
“So, she didn’t say it,” Ari interrupted him. Relief poured through her as she clung to a final thread of hope. “Of course she didn’t. It isn’t true. Tom would never do that to me. Do this to me.”
Sebastian chewed on his lip again, regarding her with a new hint of annoyance. “You knew Tom Miller for what, all of a few months? And in the eight years since you last met, you’ve heard diddly squat from him. You told me and Luis that you gave him your name, your number, your life story... He’s had ample opportunity to find you, like he promised he would. Ari, it’s time you accepted the fact that he’s broken that promise. That—”
“Sebastian,” Ari cut in, her voice breaking, along with her heart.
“No, Ari, you listen to me,” Sebastian said sternly. “He’s broken that promise, which means one of two things. That he has something to hide, or he’s dead. Regarding Tom Somerset, if you speak for any length of time with his mother, you find out quickly that he sure as hell has a shady past and something to hide.”
“Maybe not. Maybe... maybe my Tom did die,” Ari whispered, saying out loud a fear that had long settled in her heart. “I would never have known.”
“No, he’s not dead. He’s Tom Somerset, who — despite falling out of the fucking sky yesterday — is emphatically not dead yet.”
“Yet?” Ari asked.
“Yet,” Sebastian said firmly. “Because if I find out Tom Somerset really did masquerade as a man named Tom Miller, seduce you, impregnate you and abandon you, I’m probably going to kill him.”
At that, a brief smile crossed Ari’s face. “Sebastian—”
“Oh, after we change his will in Reine’s favour, darling,” Sebastian said smoothly. “Trust me,” he gestured to the hall around him, “we’re going to want a piece of this.”
Ari paused, considering his words. “Okay. So, say our groom is... is...” she struggled over the lump in her throat “. . . Tom Miller. There’s no way to prove it, no way to know. Not without coming face to face with him, and I don’t want that... I don’t want to meet him again like this. As his wedding planner .”
“Hmm.” Sebastian seemed to ponder this point for a moment. “Okay. So, let’s do some digging. Do a little spy work. His mother has already started doing a little digging of her own, I’m convinced of it.”
Ari felt a tug of worry. “Because of Reine . . . she wants to know because of Reine.”
Sebastian nodded. “Because of Reine.”
Ari exhaled deeply. “Reine can’t come here — quick, call Luis. Tell him to stop the car. Tell him to check into a nearby hotel.”
“I’ve already tried,” Sebastian replied mournfully. “But his phone is out of reception, or service, or battery or something. I got a garbled message from him that he was having car trouble before the call cut out. Honestly, this is what happens when you buy a shitty Android, even though working to a joint iCalendar would make so much more sense for both of us.”
“Sebastian, focus,” Ari snapped. “Car trouble? So, they’re probably stopped on a road somewhere? Right. I’m going to go and find them.”
“Ari—”
“Sebastian, there is only one road that leads to this massive house, and Luis and Reine are bound to be on it. I’m going to find them. I have to find them. I can’t let Reine walk into this... this situation.”
“Ari—”
“She’s my daughter , Sebastian,” Ari said. “My daughter. I have to protect her.”
Slowly, Sebastian nodded. “All right, fine. Take the car. Drive carefully. But first, something to eat and a drop of coffee.”
Ari stared at him. “Breakfast? Really? Now?”
Sebastian stared right back at her. “Yes, really, now. Look, we’re jetlagged, we’re tired, we’ve been up for less than half an hour and it’s already been a busy day. We’ve arranged a wedding photographer, looked at some nice art, found the ex-lover who fathered your child and then went missing for eight years... you need fuel, Ari. It would be irresponsible of me to let you drive on an empty stomach.” He paused. “And irresponsible of me to keep giving advice without caffeine.”
Ari frowned, but she heard some sense in her brother’s words all the same. “Fine,” she agreed. “But as soon as I’ve eaten, I’m out the door.”
“Okay. And while you’re gone, I’ll—”
“You’re going to find out if this Tom Somerset is really my Tom Miller,” Ari told him firmly.
“Right,” Sebastian said. “I’m going to stay here and find out if Tom Somerset is Tom Miller. Um... how?”
“However you can,” Ari replied.
“However I can,” Sebastian repeated, parrot-like. “Ari,” he suddenly turned to her, one hand on her arm. “What if he is?”
A sharp stab of something that resembled pain, longing, betrayal and anticipation ran through Ari.
“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I just don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it for now. Worry about Reine. I’ll do the dirty work here. I’m good at dirty work.”
“You’re the cleanest man I know,” Ari said flatly.
“The cleaner I am, the dirtier I can become,” Sebastian offered with a mock salute. “I’ll think of some way to catch him, don’t you fret.”
Ari nodded, turning back to the painting in the corner. “Ask him about this,” she said softly. “Ask him how this painting ended up here.”
“I would, but I think I already know the answer to that.”
Ari looked at Sebastian quizzically, and he sighed.
“Ari, you told Luis and I that Tom always said your work would hang next to the greats, and just look at this gallery. Look at it. Holbein, Picasso, Dali... and you. Tom Miller might have broken one promise to you, Ari, but he kept this one. You are hanging next to the greats. He hung you next to the greats.”
Ari closed her eyes, remembering once again the softness of Tom’s face as he gazed at her. She remembered the feel of a brush in her hand as she caught the pink and orange glow of a sunset. She remembered Tom’s pride in her work, his fierce belief that she would be an artist, and a great one at that. She remembered those golden flecks in his brown eyes, which shone even more brightly when settled in her direction.
When she opened her eyes again though, all she could see was Reine, and the golden flecks in her brown eyes. The eyes she’d inherited from her father.
Ari swallowed hard. She had to go and get her daughter. She had to find her.