Chapter 7
AUDREY
In retrospect, I did not need to witness that. That shimmering burst of Joshua in his prime. Nor did I need to observe the way his genius escaped from the bottle the second he saw me—over a decade of distance dissolving instantly, exposing the uneven entanglement that I remembered.
Not much has changed. I’m still fuel for his glittering career. I let him help himself, the way he always did, and I am furious all over again.
God, Audrey. Will you ever get over it?
I burst out of the building, gulping the cool, night air.
What was I expecting? That I’d catch a glimpse of him and finally prove to myself that I was really through with all of this?
That I was over the betrayal? Or did I think he’d take one look at me and show even the tiniest spark of remorse about what he did?
Because there was none of that. Worse, he handed me the full force of everything I’ve lost in exchange for a public demonstration of all he has gained. So now I’m leaning against a tree, gripped by a surge of anger and anxiety and disbelief that I let it turn out like this.
‘Audrey?’
My heart thumps, limbs tingling, head spinning—absurdly alert to the proximity of Miller blood.
‘Please go away,’ I half whisper. My body is spent from exposure to Josh’s success, my voice betraying how much it got to me.
‘Are you sure?’
There’s a quiet warmth in Fraser’s tone, and for one full, alarming second it feels even more dangerous than whatever just happened in that auditorium. I should not allow warmth of that nature near these exposed wounds.
‘Audrey, I am not my brother,’ he adds, his voice low and controlled, a deep edge to the words, as if he’s been forced to debunk this fact for years.
I already told him I don’t trust men. Not even the penguin-loving scientist kind.
But despite their physical similarities, all of Josh’s brainwashing, and my natural suspicion of anyone these days, as I turn and meet his concerned face, a jolt of truth passes between us.
He is not Joshua. He’s not anything like him.
I need to get out of here. I take out my phone and call Rach, though I’m not sure I can trust the garbled way I’m about to position tonight’s turn of events with him standing here, listening.
It turns out I don’t have to. Rach, whom I messaged on the way, confessing my imprudent lapse in judgement, dives straight in when she picks up the call, every sentence ratcheting upwards and so shrieky there is no way he’s not hearing it.
‘Audrey! I got your message. I cannot believe you went to that concert! Have you completely lost the plot?’
Yes, quite possibly? I can’t even summon the words to explain myself.
Fraser, watching me freeze, clears his throat, takes my phone, and says ‘Catwoman?’ in a way that is so disconcertingly confident and charming and ridiculous, it knocks my anxiety sideways.
‘It’s David Beckham, your fiancé from Zoe’s party. ’
There’s an audible gasp from Rach. ‘David Beckham. The younger brother?’
Yes, why not alert the man to the fact that he has been exhaustively discussed since we met, sinking from party hero to brother of nemesis? I snatch the phone back, as if by holding it, I’ll will my best friend to play it cool.
Since the night at Zoe’s, Rach and I have, naturally, over-analysed this situation.
She applied her considerable cyber skills to a forensic investigation, initially of Joshua’s last decade or so, sickeningly as good as predicted, but then of Fraser himself.
That sleuthing not only surfaced nothing remotely scandalous, but led us to a spectacular public lecture series about ocean currents and tipping icebergs and the slow burn of a warming globe, from which we both emerged with a burgeoning infatuation.
Fraser, aware of none of this (thank God!), takes my wrist and moves the phone closer to his mouth as he says in an incredibly civilised and understated manner, ‘Is there any chance you might meet us at the School of Music, Rachael? Audrey had a moment with my brother.’
A moment?
Next the doors fling open and hundreds of people swarm out, led by a rollicking child who bolts straight over to us and leaps into Fraser’s arms, squealing, ‘Daddy!’
Mayday! I report to Rach via text. There is a child.
She types back, unfazed because, unlike me, she adores kids: Joshua’s or Fraser’s?
The little girl is squeezing her father half to death.
Affirmative on the latter.
The child turns her heart-shaped face towards mine, dark, inquisitive eyes taking in my startled expression as she says, ‘Who are you?’
Now I’m not only having to interact with a small human, but being made to answer unsettling questions about myself, the only available frames of reference being a disastrous connection with this girl’s uncle and whatever it is that I’m inventing here with her dad.
‘Yes, who is your friend, Fraser?’ an older woman asks, not in a good way, when she catches up with our party.
She’s trailed by an apologetic-looking gentleman with a kind and handsome face who I can only assume is Josh and Fraser’s father.
He smiles at me—it’s Fraser’s smile, not Joshua’s, which means I warm to it instantly, a fact that I add to the growing list of items Rach and I will have to psychoanalyse after this horrendous social experiment is over.
‘You ran out of there so quickly, Fraser, I assumed it was something important—’ the mother says, losing interest the second she spots a glamorous dark-haired woman power walking across the quadrangle.
She is all business. Straight hair clipped up.
Immaculate everything. Confident gait. The child wriggles free of Fraser, dashes towards her, and screams, ‘Mummy!’
‘Sorry,’ Fraser whispers, ‘in advance.’
Advance of what?
Ex-wife alert, Rach. I repeat: EX-WIFE.
‘Daddy’s got a friend!’ the child sings, swinging her mum’s hand and raising everyone’s blood pressure as she presents us through the lens of total innocence—all ‘met in the sandpit’ vibes.
‘Gosh, aren’t you a busy little bee!’ I exclaim, and she seems delighted by the descriptor. ‘I’m not a friend, exactly—’
Not of Daddy’s, anyway.
Then, as if I weren’t already overwhelmed, we look over to where, fighting off a large posse of fans, posing for selfies and signing autographs, Joshua emerges from his most recent epicentre of triumph.
Rach, who has rushed through the park from her office across Marcus Clarke Street in her stylish, espionage-esque tailored whites and beiges, turns to Fraser, winks, and says in a sultry tone, ‘Hello, my beloved.’ I’m almost envious of the way that he smiles at this, except that his mother, not clued in on the fake-fiancé joke and clearly battling to understand what fresh hell this is, glares at Rach, while his ex-wife fires daggers at us both.
Joshua, meanwhile, has ditched his clamouring devotees and is searching intently through the bustling crowd.
Finally, he pushes free from the throng and locks eyes with me, and my heart thrashes.
I’ve spent more than a decade imagining this precise encounter, replaying versions where he doesn’t recognise me or hates me or sweeps straight past and ignores me.
In every one of those scenarios, I never predicted this unfurling reality: Joshua Miller approaching me after a performance, charged atoms of unresolved conflict leaping between us, taking me right back to that head-spinning moment when he crushed me.
‘Good to see you, Sully,’ he says in a low, gravelly voice as the Miller clan holds its collective breath.
His hand reaches for my waist as if he wants to pull me into a hug he does not deserve and back into a fictional world where we’re still friends.
Does he really think he can fly through this interaction the way he flew through all the others—on class A charisma and my unrelenting streak of goodwill?
We’re not twenty-two anymore. I’ve stored up twelve years’ worth of fury!
I pull away, ducking from the attempted embrace, unpractised rejection playing across his features with a flash of red.
Then, after I’ve cut the power from his confident pose, everything lands in my mind with belated clarity.
This man’s career soared. Mine lay stagnant.
For more than a decade, I’ve allowed this fact to eat my potential alive, and it needs to stop.
Tonight. Or I will never get my life back.