Chapter 46
When Naomi and Sam had finished eating and her friend decided to go to bed early, she was once again back on the beach alone when she heard voices up ahead.
Arguing voices. Familiar voices.
Naomi turned, her brow furrowed as she sought out the direction they were coming from. Judy and Karen were so consumed in their sniping that they didn’t seem to notice anyone else down by the water in the darkness.
She hurried toward her sisters to get closer so as to better make out what they were saying.
And hopefully intervene before things got out of hand.
She wasn’t sure she was ready to find out what was truly going on with these two, but it was now or never.
While it seemed as though they were enjoying the trip and content with spending their days sunbathing by the pool or at the beach, there was still an undercurrent every time they all met up to eat.
But now it was time for peace between the warring factions and Naomi was going to be their Switzerland.
‘She deserves to know …’ Karen was saying.
‘That doesn’t give you the right to tell her,’ Judy countered. ‘Especially not while we’re here. That would be lousy.’
‘I really don’t think I can keep quiet for much longer. It’s impossible.’
‘Think of the fallout though. Her entire world is tied up in Greg.’
Naomi’s heart stopped. Their argument was about her? And what did Greg have to do with any of it? She wanted to interrupt and demand answers, but knew she’d learn more by being silent. Under the cover of darkness, they hadn’t seemed to notice her yet and so she wasn’t going to announce herself.
‘It’s not as though he’s even worth it. Haven’t you seen him in action on this trip? Or should I say, not in action? All of us have barely seen him, Naomi included. It’s not right. And I wish she could see it.’
Naomi’s heart twisted. She could see it, though. And it seemed everyone else did too.
‘Look, it’s true I never had much time for him either,’ Judy admitted. ‘He’s arrogant and self-absorbed, but at the end of the day he makes her happy.’
‘She isn’t happy though,’ Karen continued to argue.
‘She’s nearly forty years old and waiting for a proposal that isn’t going to come!
Greg holds all the cards and I get the sense that he’s inveigled himself into her business too; who knows, he might even control the purse strings?
It makes no sense that for such a tightwad, he would suddenly splash out on this trip for us all out of his own pocket.
And since he’s already abandoned his firstborn, I very much doubt he’s about to play happy families with Naomi either.
So what exactly is he bringing to the table?
’ her sister asked. ‘Honestly, I can’t understand how she doesn’t see what’s really going on since it’s as plain as the nose on her face. ’
It was as if Naomi had been doused in freezing water. She found herself unable to take a breath. What the hell did that mean? ‘Plain as the nose on her face?’ What did her sisters know about Greg that she didn’t?
‘What are you talking about?’ she blurted out finally and the sisters turned in shock to find her standing on the sand in the darkness behind them. ‘What don’t I know about Greg?’
Both girls gasped in simultaneous surprise. ‘Jeez, Naomi, you nearly gave us a heart attack. What are you doing sneaking around out here?’ Karen asked, giving Judy a cautionary look.
Naomi stepped forward and stopped in front of her older sister, her nerves on high alert.
‘I wasn’t sneaking around, I could hear you two pretty much all the way back at the hotel.
But tell me, what were you talking about?
Or should I say arguing about? If all this is something to do with me, I deserve to know. ’
A collective sigh rose between her siblings but Naomi wouldn’t take her eyes from her eldest’s sister face. ‘Judy, don’t lie to me. I’m asking you a question. What’s going on?’
Her sister’s face bore the same regret that her words would surely cause. ‘I’m sorry, honey. It’s not my place, or Karen’s,’ she added, giving the other sibling a sideways glance.
‘She’s right,’ Karen said softly. ‘I think maybe you need to ask Greg.’
‘Oh come on! You can’t leave me in the lurch like this.
You’re my family and if there’s something that I need to know, then it’s not fair of you to keep it from me.
What am I supposed to be asking Greg about?
’ Naomi’s mind immediately jumped to that recent impromptu lunch at the hotel, but nothing about that made sense either.
If Greg was having an affair or something, he’d hardly have brought the other woman all the way here to St Lucia, the same location as his girlfriend and her entire family?
Her younger sister seemed torn. Karen bit her lip and glanced at Judy as if asking for permission, and the other sister nodded resignedly.
Karen turned back to Naomi. ‘It’s just … well, I came across Greg a few weeks ago while I was on that mini-break down in Somerset.’
‘Somerset?’ Naomi repeated, her nervous system calming a little. Greg’s mother lived in Somerset. He’d gone to visit her a few weeks back. When she said this, Karen stepped forward and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘Honey, I don’t think she was the only one he was visiting.’
She stepped backwards. ‘What do you mean?’
Karen sighed deeply. ‘I could be wrong, maybe she was his sister or something …’ But Naomi knew Greg didn’t have any sisters.
‘Or a close friend even. But they looked very cosy and …’ Her sister took a deep breath as if steeling herself.
‘There was a child there too. A boy about five or six, I’d say. And he looked an awful lot like Greg.’
Naomi felt faint as her mind reeled with the implications of what she was hearing. Did Greg have another family hidden away, a son … was he married even?
‘I’m so sorry,’ Karen cried, looking distraught. ‘I didn’t want to tell you like this. Judy didn’t think I should tell you at all.’
‘I didn’t want you hurt or upset, especially so close to this trip. I know how much you were looking forward to this. And I know how much you love Greg,’ Judy explained in turn. ‘So I thought maybe it was for the best if you didn’t know.’
‘The best?’ Naomi cried, outraged.
‘Well, I mean until we could maybe find out more ourselves, instead of landing something like this on you without any context or background. I was planning on confronting Greg myself when we got back home,’ Judy continued, putting a comforting arm around her shoulder, while inwardly Naomi tried to make sense of her feelings.
Hurt, disappointment, embarrassment, surprise even?
But was she surprised, really? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had her own doubts about Greg.
Still, never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined something like this, that her boyfriend, whom she hoped would ultimately be her husband, might already have a family, a completely alternate hidden life that she knew nothing about.
It was devastating, mortifying and deeply humiliating too, she realised, her feelings changing like the wind until finally settling on one overriding emotion. Anger.
So much for a big proposal.
‘There could easily be a simple explanation,’ Judy insisted. ‘So while of course I agreed with Karen that you needed to know, to my mind telling you without having all the facts or the full story isn’t fair either,’ her sister insisted. ‘It only hurts you and changes nothing.’
But of course it changed things, Naomi raged, wiping the tears from her eyes.
It changed everything.