6. Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Callum
" D addy told me Fleur won't take his calls."
Sabine looked stressed when I took her out to dinner. I tried to do that once a month, but since Fleur and I broke up four weeks and two days ago, it had become more frequent. A part of it was my need to get rid of Fleur; the other was curiosity to see if I was interested in Sabine as more than Seamus's widow and a member of my family.
"Fleur's made her bed," I said more harshly than I intended. She'd blocked me on her phone as well.
My private investigator had found out that she worked for a software company and was a Senior Director there. He did tell me she drew a salary of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Now, that had been a surprise; that was a hell of a lot of money—granted, it wasn't independently wealthy funds, but it was very, very good. I paid that much to my Vice Presidents. My PI had also discovered that Fleur had a bachelor's in computer science engineering, which I knew but that she also had completed a master's degree at MIT. What the fuck? The way her family talked about her and the way she carried herself never hinted at how intelligent she was (because she'd have to be to study at MIT) or the impressive income she earned.
When I'd asked the PI about her personal life, he'd said he hadn't been able to get much from after she left Tulane and started working. It was as if she had no identity on the Internet. No social media, no nothing. Not even a personal email from what he could see. "Her company does a lot of work with the government; maybe that's why," the PI had remarked.
My enigmatic ex was getting more so by the day.
"I worry about my parents." Sabine picked up her glass of wine. "And I worry about Fleur and what she's doing to them."
Once again, I wondered if I could have sex with Sabine.
I wasn't sure.
I was attracted to her. Every man sitting at Per Antoine's right now probably was. She wore a cocktail dress that was both elegant and sexy. She was a beautiful woman, and she looked damn good on my arm, just as she had on Seamus's , a voice inside my head reminded me.
"You don't miss her?" Sabine asked, her blue eyes soft.
I didn't know how to answer her question.
Of course, I missed Fleur. We were together for eight months. We fucked almost every night. Woke up together almost every morning. We watched movies. Did stuff all the time—listened to live jazz, went on boat rides in the bayou, went on silly walking tours, tried to do a séance. We talked. Laughed. Fuck, I laughed so much and so hard with Fleur. She had such an awesome sense of humor, and she made my chest feel light.
Yeah, I missed her. The ache for her was like a constant thing. But I didn't understand it. I was convinced that it would pass. It had just been a month since we broke up. In a few weeks I wouldn't even think about her, though now I did all the fucking time .
"Have you ever known me to miss a woman?" I asked instead of telling the truth because that would hurt Sabine. She was a soft-hearted, emotional woman. It wasn't that she didn't want her sister to be happy in a relationship, but she was afraid of losing me. After all, I was her last link to Seamus, and she was mine to him. Maybe Brian was right. We should date. We could take care of each other.
"Sabine?" I heard a male voice say. I turned to see a man I'd never seen before.
"Malone." Something moved in her eyes, and she stood up abruptly. "What are you doing here?"
"Come to see the family for Thanksgiving." He leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek. She didn't flinch, but it was obvious she didn't like it.
"Callum, this is Malone Collins. We went to Vandy together. He works in Houston now," she introduced us.
"Callum Gallagher?" Malone frowned and then looked at Sabine. "Isn't he the brother of…?"
Sabine immediately looked sad, and I knew she was thinking of Seamus. Fuck, this woman had loved my brother so hard, so deep. I would always be grateful that he'd felt that love before he died. Could she love me like that? Maybe. But the question was could I love her back—hard, deep, and forever?
Fleur’s words came to mind then as she read a poem to me by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight.
She'd introduced me to poetry when I told her I never really cared for it. She'd bought books and taken me to poetry readings at Baldwin because it was true, I would.
"Then love me," she whispered, her heart in her eyes. "Please, Callum. I'm so lonely, and I just want to be happy. You make me happy. No other man has made me feel what you do. Not since Seamus."
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. This wasn't quite how I'd expected this to happen. I was going to ask for time, and then…then what ?
"I do love you," I told her because I did. "But I need some time."
I hated it when her eyes filled with tears.
"Are you not in love with me?" she asked.
My heart broke for her. "I don't know. You're my friend and family. You're the woman I'm closest to after my mother."
She lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. Nothing. It did nothing to me to have her mouth on my skin. In contrast, Fleur just had to look at me, and my dick would be hard enough to pound nails.
I found Sabine attractive, but almost in a theoretical way. She was traffic-stopping beautiful. You couldn't look away from her beauty. But in practice, I didn't feel sexual attraction for her. Had I ever? Maybe once in a while, if I were honest. I spent a lot of time with Sabine. She'd touch me, hug me, lie down with me. I was a man, and if a half-naked woman was around me, my dick would respond. But it wasn't doing so now as she pleaded with me to love her. Sabine's perfect face did nothing for my cock. But, I had to just think about Fleur, and there we go ; my blood went south in a big hurry.
I was all kinds of an asshole, but I'd not fuck a woman while thinking of another. No way would I be with Sabine while I wanted Fleur.
I wanted Fleur! I still wanted her. Bloody fucking hell!
"Let me make this easy for you," Sabine said, her lips brushing the back of my hand as she spoke. "I’ve fallen in love with you. I didn’t realize it until I… until I saw you with Fleur. It hit me so hard, Callum. I’ll always love Seamus—you know that. But I think it’s time for me to live again. To love again."
"Are you sure you're not just jealous of Fleur?" I asked.
I'd accused Fleur of being envious of Sabine, but right now, I wondered if the other way around was also true. The sisters didn't get along, period. Maybe there were bad feelings from both sides, not just from Fleur toward Sabine.
A titter escaped Sabine. I didn't like the sound of it. There was something malicious about it. It didn't suit the elegant woman I knew. I stiffened, not keen to hear what she would say next because it would be unpleasant; I was certain of it.
Sabine did not disappoint.
"Why on earth would I be jealous of Fleur?"
Because she's fucking awesome?
"Just because you had sex with her doesn't mean anything to me, Callum. I doubt she was any good. I know her track record. She can't keep a boyfriend, and between that loser job of hers—"
"She gets paid very well for working in a senior position in a highly successful software company." I had no idea why I felt the need to defend Fleur, but there it was.
Sabine waved a hand. "What do you see when you look at me?"
Right now? Darling, I don't think you want to know.
"Get to your point," I suggested, low on patience.
"Fleur is not in my league and definitely out of yours. Just because you went slumming for a while doesn't make me jealous. Probably not the first time or last. Seamus had his flings too and—"
"What?" I knew my brother, and no fucking way would he have cheated on his wife.
She froze as she realized what she said. "I mean, before we were married."
She was backtracking. I knew Sabine, maybe better than I thought I did—because I was anticipating her eyes to fill with tears to avoid discussing Seamus further, and bam , they just did.
"I miss him so much."
I didn't believe her. In the past two years, since I'd gotten close to Sabine after Seamus passed, I'd never doubted her—but now, I just wasn't sure. The way she talked about Fleur made me uneasy.
"I know. Sabine, I talked to your father, and he said that he has never supported Fleur financially. You mentioned that—"
"Can we stop talking about Fleur?" Tears streamed down her face. "I'm really trying here, Callum, to keep it together. I love you. I'm in love with you and I know you love me too. You just need to accept that Seamus wouldn't mind us being together. In fact, I know he'd want this for us."
I had never been irritated by Sabine until now. This was the first time that I didn't want to be patient with her. I wanted to shake her and understand why the fuck she'd lied about Fleur, because she fucking had. What else was she lying about? An unpleasant feeling slithered inside me—guilt and common sense warred against each other.
I couldn't and wouldn't let Seamus down, but Fleur was nothing like what her sister and parents made her sound like. She wasn't selfish. Her friends had rallied around her the minute I'd fucked up. Did Sabine have friends like that? She had me, but I was there because she was Seamus's wife, and sure, I'd become fond of her, but….
"Callum? Are you even listening to me?"
I snapped out of my thoughts. "Darling, I'm sorry."
Damn it, Seamus, help me out, man. I'm fucking lost.
She gave me a watery smile. "How about we go to your place and—"
"No, let's go to yours."
My house still smelled like Fleur, and I wasn't ready to have another woman's scent replace that.
Fact was that I was sparingly spraying the perfume Fleur had forgotten in my bathroom onto my pillow at night like a pathetic schoolboy.