Chapter 36 #2
“Leo originally hurt your ankle because he thought you were me,” he says.
“Yeah, I know that,” I say impatiently.
Vaughn’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “Wait, what?”
“I figured it out right after it happened. It wasn’t that hard. A random man attacks me with syrup, and he happened to have worked at QuantumTech at the same time as you.” I wave my hand. “Anyway, let’s circle back to the love part.”
“Seriously, you don’t care that Leo hurt you because he was trying to get back at me?”
“Well, I guess I’m slightly curious about what you did to make him so angry, but I’m more interested in the fact that you claim the man I love loves me back. So if we could just focus on that bit for now, I’d appreciate it.”
Vaughn stares at me. Then he lets out something between a laugh and a sigh.
“Well, it’s kind of related.” He takes a deep breath. “When we worked at QuantumTech, I stole an idea of Leo’s for an innovative blockchain security protocol and pretended it was my own.”
I stare at him. “You did what?”
“I stole his idea and presented it as mine. I got promoted off the back of it.” He can’t quite meet my eyes.
“It was just after you got that scholarship to Harvard. I thought… I don’t know.
I thought if I could just do something impressive, something that was mine, Mom and Dad would—” He stops.
“Anyway. That doesn’t matter. The point is, Leo had a good reason for wanting to dump syrup on me. ”
What the fuck?
My brain is whirling, trying to process the fact that my brother stole someone’s intellectual property, and that someone is the man I’m in love with, who is apparently in love with me.
And I’m having this conversation with my brother in a café near the Tower of London, where people used to get their heads cut off, which suddenly feels like a proportionate response to the information I’m receiving.
“I saw that photo Elizabeth posted of you and him together on Instagram,” Vaughn continues. “It freaked me out. I thought he might be trying to get back at me through you. So I flew over here to confront him.”
My eyebrows fly up. “You confronted Leo about me? Here, in London, when Leo was still here?”
“Yeah. And he recorded our conversation, where I pretty much confessed to stealing his idea. I thought he was going to use it to expose me, destroy my career.” Vaughn pauses. “But then he told me he’d delete everything if I agreed to be a good brother to you.”
I’m reeling. The café has gone blurry at the edges because tears are prickling my eyes. I have to grip the edge of the table because the room feels like it’s tilting, which is an unwelcome reminder of the last time my world rearranged itself in a restaurant.
“So this whole thing,” I say slowly. “You being here, us…reuniting. It’s because Leo blackmailed you?”
“No!” Vaughn’s voice is loud enough that the woman at the next table glances over. He lowers it. “No. Leo said… He said the fact that I flew here to protect you proved I still cared. He just…gave me permission to show it.”
He pushes his coffee cup to one side, like he needs the space, or maybe it’s just something to do with his hands.
“I’m sorry, Archie. I was a shit brother to you.”
I don’t argue because Vaughn was a shit brother.
“I was a selfish asshole. I let my ego get in the way of everything. I couldn’t handle always being outshone by you.
” Vaughn’s eyes are bright, and I realize with a start that he’s close to tears too.
The Mansley brothers, both of us, are on the verge of falling apart in a London café. Our parents would be horrified.
“I didn’t try to outshine you.”
“I know you didn’t. I know you couldn’t help it.
But it’s taken me a while to understand that.
” He swallows. “When you graduated from Oxford, I’d just been passed over for a promotion, and all Mom and Dad could talk about was you.
And I was so hurt and angry that I lashed out at you.
I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry that I did. ”
More tears prickle my eyes. I impatiently wipe them away.
“I realize now that it’s not a zero-sum game,” he says. “That your success doesn’t mean I can’t also succeed. I’m trying my hardest to be a better brother, and not because Leo told me to, but because you deserve one.”
I don’t trust myself to speak. The tears are threatening to do something embarrassing.
“So why did he leave?” I manage.
Vaughn shrugs. “I guess he thought you and I wouldn’t be able to repair our relationship if he were on the scene.”
“That’s—”
“He said something about how there would be lots of men who would fall in love with you, but you only had one brother.”
Holy hell.
Leo. The stupid, noble, self-sacrificing idiot.
“But I can’t stand you sitting there thinking Leo doesn’t love you. Because he loves you so much that he was prepared to walk away from you because he thought that’s what you needed to be happy.”
I stare out the window. The Thames is gray and flat and going about its business, the way it has for thousands of years. The Tower stands on the opposite bank, ancient and solid, a building that has survived every betrayal, siege, and act of cruelty that history could throw at it.
Things survive. Even when you think they can’t.
“I have to talk to him,” I say.
Vaughn almost smiles. “Yeah. I figured you’d say that.”
“I have to tell him—” I stop. What do I have to tell Leo? That I love him? That I’ve loved him since somewhere between the unicorn onesie and the toothpaste? That every joke I made was a love letter I was too scared to send?
“You have to tell him he’s an idiot,” Vaughn supplies.
“He is a massive idiot.”
“To be fair, he’s a massive idiot who was prepared to suffer because he wanted you to be happy more than he wanted anything else. That’s a pretty high-quality idiot.”
“That point is arguable,” I grumble.
I look at my brother. He’s looking back at me with an expression I haven’t seen in years. Not since we were kids, before everything went wrong. The expression of someone who’s on my side.
“Thank you,” I say. “For telling me.”
“Thank Leo. He’s the one who—”
“I’m thanking you. For being here. For the last two weeks. For Doctor Nutsworth.”
His mouth does something unsteady. “Archie, don’t make this—”
“Shut up. I’m thanking you. Accept it.”
He accepts it. Badly, but he accepts it.
We sit there for a while, in a café near the Tower of London, two brothers who nearly lost each other and are slowly finding their way back.
I pull my phone out of my pocket.
“What are you doing?” Vaughn asks.
“Looking up flights to San Francisco.”
“You’re planning to turn up to see him in person?”
“Yes. If Leo Brennan thinks he can make a grand romantic sacrifice and then just go back to his spreadsheets, he has severely underestimated who he’s dealing with.”