Chapter 45
45
AGE 20
“ H e won’t talk to me either,” Ash says to Ma in a low voice, but she’s not quiet enough. “I’ve tried. He’s been like this for the past two weeks ever since he came back from L.A.”
I don’t bother confirming I can hear them talking about me because it takes too much effort to open my mouth and speak. Lifting my glass to my mouth, I take another large gulp of my beer. My family know I went chasing after Vivien, only for her to make me a laughingstock in front of the entire world.
Celebrity Land is giddy at the prospect of Hollywood’s Golden Boy reuniting with his childhood love, and it’s all I fucking see when I open social media or walk past magazine shelves in shops. The same media who hounded and humiliated Vivien have done a three-sixty, and now they can’t get enough of Hollywood’s new potential IT couple.
Ironically, it helps me to relate to what Vivien went through on a deeper level. It’s no wonder she flew thousands of miles away to escape it. I’d do anything to get away from the continual onslaught. I should be angry. I have been angry, but mostly I’m just fucking gutted and drowning under a mountain of self- loathing. I’ve lost her, and I don’t know how I’ll come back from that.
I should have done everything differently.
If I had, she’d be here with me. Not back with him .
I hate Reeve Lancaster even more than I did before, and I know I signed that NDA, but some day, somehow, I will make him pay for everything he’s taken from me.
“Leave him be,” Shane says. “If Dillon doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s his choice.” He squeezes my shoulder in quiet support, and I’m grateful.
“We’re here if you need us, Dillon.” Ma reaches over to pat my hand. “And you should eat. You look thin.”
“I’m not hungry.” My appetite disappeared about the same time Vivien did. My heart hurts, same as always when I think about her. Pushing my uneaten plate away, I take another swig of my beer and mentally count down the hours until I can go home and lock myself away in my bedroom.
After dinner is over, I head out with Shane and Da, spending a few hours working on the farm. My brother and my dad don’t pester me, and I appreciate it. Pounding my frustration out via manual labor helps but not much.
Back at the farmhouse, I walk ahead of Ash and Ro as they say their goodbyes.
“Dil.” Ciarán pulls me into a hug. “I’m here if you need me.”
I nod, falling into his hug and letting him clap me on the back.
“I hate seeing you like this,” Ma says, fighting tears as she clings to me. “Please take care of yourself.”
“I’m fine,” I manage to croak out.
“No, you’re not.” She grasps my cheeks in her hands. “And it’s okay not to be. Just don’t bottle it all up, Dillon. Please.”
I nod again, though I’m in no state to promise my mother anything. I have zero experience dealing with personal heartbreak, and I’m clinging to the edge of my sanity by my fingernails.
Jamie sits in the passenger seat while Ro and I hop into the back seat as Ash drives us back to the city. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the window. Even being in this car is hard. I’m used to being the one behind the wheel with my pretty American beauty bouncing in the seat by my side. But it’s Ash’s car now. Viv left it for her, which was super generous.
I suppose it’s proof their friendship was legit, though it could be the opposite. If Vivien always planned to return to Reeve, she’d know it would spell the demise of her friendship with Ash. Maybe the car was a peace offering. A way to ease her guilty conscience for doing my sister dirty.
Who knows? My mind still flits from one extreme to the other, and I can’t decide whether all of this was premeditated or not. It’s confusing as fuck, and it’s tearing me apart. Pain slams into me like a tidal wave, and if I wasn’t sitting down, I’d have fallen over. I bend over, clutching my head in my hands, as I struggle to breathe through the pain. It’s like this sometimes. Crashing into me all of a sudden, knocking me flat on my arse.
“Everything will be okay, Dil,” Ro quietly says as Jay and Ash talk privately in the front. “Wait and see. After this A she’s let my sister down too. “She played us, Ash. My guess is this was always her plan. She was never going to stay here. She was always planning to go back to him, and she knew that would mean the end of your friendship too.”
“No, Dil.” Ash rubs at her red-rimmed eyes before propping up on one elbow. “I refuse to believe that. I know Vivien.” She places her hand on my heart. “You do too. She didn’t plan this. You didn’t see her after that last night in the pub. She was devastated, Dillon. She threw up and everything. Her heartbreak was written all over her face.”
“Her mother is one of the best actresses in the world, Ash. Who’s to say she wasn’t acting too?” I don’t really think she had it in her, but I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about her now.
“To what end, Dil? What the fuck did Viv have to gain by playing us?”
I considered asking Simon outright on the phone that day. But if he put Vivien up to this, he’d never admit it. “I don’t know,” I lie. As far-fetched as it seems, I have considered this was some plan concocted by the three of them. That they sent her here deliberately to seduce and destroy me. To eliminate me as a threat to Reeve Fucking Lancaster. How else would she end up back in his arms the instant her feet hit Californian soil? “But it’s obvious she doesn’t want to explain it to you.”
She nibbles on her lip, staring off into space for a few seconds. “I know those balcony pictures seem damning, but it could’ve been staged that way.” She stares me in the face. “You know the kind of media shite she had to deal with previously. All they seem to do over there is manipulate situations to their advantage. I warned you Reeve would make a play for her. That’s what I think this is.”
“You’re too smart to be this na?ve.” I sit up against the headboard while Ash sits cross-legged in front of me. “She fucked him, Ash.” Pain scorches a blazing trail up my throat, singeing my words on the way out. “She didn’t give a flying fuck about me if she could do that because I can’t even think about laying a hand on another woman without feeling sick.”
“They have a lot of history, and he was her best friend before he was anything else. I didn’t say anything to you before because I didn’t want to upset you, but Audrey and I butted heads a lot that week we spent with Viv’s parents on holiday. She was purposely mentioning Reeve and dropping all these hints that he was working hard to make things up to her.”
Anger is a red-hot poker stabbing me in the eye. “You should have fucking told me!”
“I was supposed to be Switzerland, remember?”
I snort out a bitter laugh. “You’re more like South Vietnam, Syria, and Afghanistan all rolled into one.”
“She hasn’t abandoned me.”
“Then why isn’t she calling you back?”
“Because she’s embarrassed and heartbroken. She thinks you don’t want her and you’re shacked up with Aoife most likely.”
“All things related to me. She promised your relationship wouldn’t be impacted by ours. She. Lied.” Tension tightens my jaw.
“Gawd, it’s all such a mess.” Ash flips onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “I just know she didn’t come here with an agenda, Dillon. She didn’t come here expecting to find love, but she did.” She locks eyes with mine. “She loves you. Like really fucking loves you. I know it’s true. She wasn’t lying about that.”
“If she loved me, she’d be with me right now. But she’s not. She’s with him.”
“There is nothing on social media to confirm that. Those pics are the only pics of them since she returned to America. I’m telling you all is not as it seems.”
“It doesn’t matter. She chose to return to L.A. which is as good as saying she chose to return to him. She’s gone. I’ve lost her. The end.”
Ash sighs and rolls over onto her stomach. “I wish you’d gotten to speak to her in L.A. If you’d looked her in the eye and asked her, you’d know the truth.”
Pain presses down on my chest, compressing my lungs and making it hard to breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Oh, Dil.” Ash hugs me. “I wish I could take all your pain away. I wish I knew how to fix this.”
I draw air deep into my lungs and push past the pain. “There is nothing to fix, Ash. Viv and I aren’t together anymore. Technically, she hasn’t even done anything wrong. I pushed her back into his arms with the way I behaved that last week. That’s all on me. I’m the one who has to live with the consequences. You shouldn’t be paying any price. That one’s on Viv.” I press a kiss to her brow. “I’m sorry you’ve lost your friend.”
“I haven’t lost her yet,” she quietly says, but we both know the truth. “And you know if it was a choice, I’d choose you. The same way you have always chosen me.”
“You have Jay now. You should always choose him.”
“You’re my brother, Dil. I’ll always have your back.” She kisses my cheek. “I won’t ask you about her again, but I want you to promise you’ll come to me when you have bad days. Let me help. Even if it’s only to give you a hug or make you tea.”
“I’ll try. That’s as much as I can promise.”