Epilogue
You gave me colour back
Clara
“Wowsers, Clara!” Poppy cried as she rushed towards me across the room, abandoning her large circle of admirers. I smiled at her as she gathered both my hands in hers and started jumping on the spot. “You look incredible! I knew you’d go for the pink.”
We hadn’t gone dress shopping like normal people. No, standard shopping was not Poppy Sterling’s vibe at all. She invited me and Lily back to her house, where she had about a million dresses delivered for us to try on after we’d all drunk some champagne.
“This is better,” Poppy had told me. “I can’t get sloshed properly when I’m out and about anyway, but it’s safe here.”
For someone as effervescent and social as Poppy, she was incredibly cautious now. The press had taken advantage of her openness too many times before, and, given everything that had happened this year, she only ever drank in her own home with people she trusted, and even then very rarely.
The champagne had worked its magic. Before my second glass, I had only considered black or navy dresses, but after it started to kick in I gravitated way more towards colour.
That was the thing now. I wasn’t afraid of colour anymore.
My life before had been all about blending into the background, avoiding being noticed at all costs.
But now that I felt safe, I was starting to think about what I wanted to wear and not what I needed to in order to avoid being seen.
And it turned out I liked colour. Hence the bright pink, floor-length, strapless dress I had on now.
Make-up I was still getting used to, but there was no other option than bright pink lipstick to go with the dress.
To be honest, I left all of those decisions to the army of people Poppy had sent to my house earlier that day.
When they’d finished with me, I barely recognised the woman looking back at me in the mirror.
I’d actually teared up until the make-up artist scolded me for potentially ruining my smoky eyes.
“My brother is going to lose his shit when he sees you!” Poppy was still bouncing.
She was a very bouncy human being. Tonight was another Sterling charity gala – the first one I had agreed to attend.
I just hadn’t had the confidence before now, but Rafe had been patient with me.
When I chickened out of the previous one, I’d asked him in a small voice if he was disappointed in me.
“I could never be disappointed in you, Clara,” he told me in a fierce voice.
“Of course I want you there, but if you never want to come to one of these dog and pony shows, that’s okay.
Not everyone has to love this shit like my sister does.
My ex-wife lived for coming with me to these things and resented that there weren’t more opportunities to parade around on my arm in front of the paps – and look how that turned out.
I love you, gala or no gala, it doesn’t matter. ”
It wasn’t like I never went out with Rafe. After that day at his house, when I finally accepted that he loved me and agreed to stay, he’d ramped up the romance, much to Ozzie and my brother’s disgust.
“Ugh, Dad!” Ozzie had shouted at him when he’d kissed me in the kitchen after I agreed to go out on an official date with him. “You can’t kiss in front of me! I’m a child!”
“I’m actually still technically a child as well. And I agree with Ozzie. You’re basically scarring us both,” Zach had complained into his cup of tea, but there was a smile on his face that told another story.
To be honest, in Zach’s eyes, Rafe still could do no wrong.
He’d settled into the Sterling house with surprising speed, and I knew he loved the sense of family we had here.
The Sunday roasts with Rafe’s family, the interest everyone showed in Zach’s education, the unconditional support he received from Rafe.
And, of course, his beloved dog Mungo, who slept in Zach’s bed every night, much to the earl’s horror:
“That’s a working breed, boy!” he’d tell my brother. “Needs to be out shooting.”
Zach got on well with the Sterlings, but he drew the line at hunting.
“Sometimes I think they’re more bloodthirsty than our family, Cla-Cla,” he’d confided in me one day. He wasn’t exactly wrong either.
“Get used to it, kid,” Rafe said as his arms closed around me and he kissed me again. “There’s way more where that’s coming from.”
So, I’d agreed to the date. I did tell him it was a little weird, seeing as I was already living with him, but he insisted that we weren’t going to miss any of the steps.
It wasn’t always easy. I still had a touch of agoraphobia, and I’d never be fully comfortable leaving the house on my own, but I’d made massive progress.
Tonight was a big part of that. It was also a big fuck you to my father. His sentencing had been last week, and he’d gone down for the maximum possible time: three life sentences to be served consecutively.
Everyone in my father’s organisation was totally fucked.
Cracking the code to their messaging network had been the key to a slew of evidence, the like of which the police said they’d never seen before.
The stupid bastards had shared everything over that messenger: photographs of their violence to use as deterrents, details of drug deals, all their protection rackets, everything.
I’d wanted to look that bastard in the eye when he went down.
Everyone tried to dissuade me, but Rafe seemed to know that it was what I needed.
Direct eye contact with my father had always been risky.
He often saw it as a challenge, and I’d learned to avoid it.
But that day in court I stood up as he was led away, and when he turned towards the sound of my chair scraping back, I looked straight into his eyes and held his gaze.
There was hatred in his expression and resentment, but also just a flicker of defeat. In the end, I won, and he knew it.
From what I heard, he wasn’t having an easy time in prison, and I gave exactly zero fucks.
Now the trial was over, I didn’t want to think about my family.
Yes, I had to work through the trauma they’d caused me in therapy, but other than that, they were best forgotten.
That went for my mother too. She’d only made vague attempts to contact Zach and never pushed for him to return home.
I had more patience with her than he did, and would at least visit her in that mausoleum of a house, but she was still drinking, still checked out, more so now than ever before.
I offered to help, to go with her to see the GP, to help find her a therapist, but she refused that too.
The final straw was when she asked me, “When do you think I can visit your dad?” I left after that, and I hadn’t contacted her since.
“Do I really look okay?” I asked Poppy, feeling nervous as I scanned her outfit. As always, she shone brighter than anyone in the room. There were film stars, politicians, all sorts of celebrities, but Poppy outshone them all easily.
“Of course you do, you numpty,” Poppy told me, and I just couldn’t help myself.
I moved to her and gave her a grateful hug.
Her hug in return was surprisingly fierce, and when I drew back and scanned her face, I realised that despite her normal effervescence, there was something very wrong with Poppy tonight: lines of tension around her mouth that weren’t normally there and this close up, I could see her eyes were very slightly red-rimmed as if she’d been crying.
I frowned. I had a feeling I knew exactly who was to blame. That grumpy Scottish bastard!
“Pops? Is everything––?”
“You guys hug way too much,” Zach said to me as he drew up alongside us. “It’s like a disease.”
“Dr Zach!” Poppy cried and he rolled his eyes. She then proved his point by giving him a firm hug as well.
“Again, Poppy, not a doctor. Not even a vet student yet,” Zach muttered as he patted Poppy on the back and disengaged himself as quickly as possible. He couldn’t manage these hugs without turning tomato red.
“Details, details. And animal doctors are just as important. Christ, you’re even taller. What’s Martha feeding you?” The height difference between them was almost comical. “And look at these muscles!” she squeezed his biceps. His cheeks darkened even more.
“Give over, Pops,” he complained, but he was clearly chuffed with the compliment.
Zach had filled out in the last year. Being in a stress-free environment where he wasn’t scared to leave his room, and having three square meals a day was likely a big factor in that, as was Rafe’s home gym and the personal trainer he insisted work with Zach when Zach had asked to use it.
“Cla-Cla!” I turned sharply at Ozzie’s voice, squatting down just in time to intercept an eight-year-old-little-boy-shaped hug-seeking missile as he flew into my arms. “You’ve got pink lips!”
I laughed as I kissed the side of his head, then pulled back to look at his little face.
“That I do, love.” His hair had already broken out of the hairstyle it had been brushed into earlier, sticking up in all directions, and there was a leaf on his jacket.
I plucked it off and held it up in front of him, raising one eyebrow.
“What have you been up to, Oscar Sterling?”
“Oh! Me and Margot found a—”
“Ozzie!” Margot herself cut him off and we both turned towards her. “Don’t tell the adults anything,” she hissed. “Come on, before you land us in the shit.”
“Language, Margot!” I called as I straightened from my crouch, but they’d already darted off into the crowd.
“Poppy, Zach, have you seen Clara? Rory said––” Rafe’s deep voice sounded from behind me.
I turned around to face him and he froze.
When he showed no signs of movement, I smiled at him and took a few steps forward to close the distance between us.
“Clara?” he breathed, scanning me from head to toe. “What the fuck?”