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CHAPTER 17
Dylan
“Why didn’t you tell me the whole story about what happened with Charlotte, Dylan?” Damian asked gruffly the second I answered his call.
Apparently, it hadn’t taken Mum very long to get to my brothers with what I’d told her yesterday.
It was still early, and I’d already heard from Leo. Our call had been relatively brief since he was in the field, but we’d managed to get back on good terms during our call.
I’d barely had time to put my mobile back on the kitchen counter before Damian’s number had popped up on my caller ID.
“Good morning to you, too,” I said, trying to make light of his greeting and his rather abrupt question.
Damian hadn’t even bothered to say hello, which wasn’t really unusual. My brother was a get-right-to-the-point type of person.
“It’s afternoon here,” he reminded me in an irritable tone. “And don’t even try to brush off what I just asked you.”
I let out a deep breath as I reached for the cup of coffee I’d brewed while I’d been talking to Leo.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t planned on calling Damian later today anyway, but if I’d called him, I would have had a little more time to prepare for this confrontation.
“You’ve obliviously spoken with Mum,” I said. “So, you know what happened.”
“I did,” he said brusquely. “What I don’t really understand is why you didn’t explain sooner. Bloody hell, Dylan. Did you really think I wouldn’t have sympathized? All I knew is that someone you were apparently dating for a short period of time died a tragic death. You didn’t share anything else. You didn’t tell me you thought you’d lost a child or that you were right there when it happened. Or that you blamed yourself for everything.”
I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut because Damian sounded wounded that I hadn’t confided in him, but I couldn’t just shrug it off.
We’d always been close.
And I should have told him the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a hoarse apology that was long overdue. “I couldn’t talk about it, Damian, not even to you. Maybe having someone to talk to after I found out the child wasn’t mine would have mitigated some of my anger and confusion, but I wasn’t in my right mind after that happened, either. I was a complete idiot, but I’m not sure I could have changed the way I reacted at the time.”
“You weren’t and never will be an idiot, Dylan,” Damian said in a milder tone. “It’s not like I don’t understand why you reacted that way or that your responses later were due to a disorder you couldn’t control. Charlotte’s death turned your life upside down, and I respect the fact that you did everything you could to preserve Charlotte’s memory for her family. I’m not sure if I could have done the same thing. That definitely would have fucked with my head.”
“It did,” I confessed. “But what else could I have done, really? To be honest, there was a part of me that was grieving, even after I knew about all the lies. Maybe I was mourning what could have been, or the woman I thought she was, but it was…painful.”
“It was completely fucked up,” Damian rumbled. “You’d already based your entire world on your future wife and that child, which doesn’t surprise me. All you wanted was to do the right thing. No one should be punished for that like you were.”
I thought for a moment before I responded. “Maybe I should have insisted on proof like the real father of that child did. For some reason, it just never occurred to me that she wasn’t telling the truth. The Charlotte I remembered was a sweet kid.”
“Charlotte was a family friend,” he noted. “Maybe they aren’t as wealthy as we are, but you knew she wasn’t after your money. She already had a highly respected family name, too. So why would you even suspect she wasn’t telling you the truth? She wasn’t diagnosed with her mental illness when we knew her years ago. Honestly, I would have reacted the same way.”
“I doubt that,” I said wryly. “You’ve always been more careful and rational than me.”
“And you’ve always been more trusting and willing to find the best in people and situations than I ever did. That’s always been one of your best assets, Dylan, and something I wished I could develop myself instead of being a cynical bastard all the time. Don’t blame yourself for that.”
“I’m not exactly trusting anymore,” I informed him. “Everything that happened…changed me, Damian. I’m not the man I was before. I can’t erase the things I’ve done or what I put you through. Being sorry isn’t going to make it go away, and it isn’t going to change the fact that I hurt the woman you love. I can’t use the excuse that I was pissed most of the time, either. Ultimately, I was responsible for getting that way in the first place. The only thing I can do is move forward and hope you forgive me someday for everything I’ve done for the last two years.”
There were a few seconds of silence before Damian answered. “I’m not even going to try to pretend that I wasn’t angry enough to hurt you after what happened with Nicole, but I had no idea what was going on with you. I’m not angry anymore, and Nicole forgave you right after it happened. She said you never attempted to touch her and that it was just a few silly words.”
“I never touched her,” I confirmed. “I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when she walked into that bedroom. I had no fucking idea she was yours, Damian, or that you even knew her. I certainly didn’t know that she was in love with you and that she had no idea that you had an identical twin. If I had known those things, even though I was thoroughly pissed, I couldn’t see myself crossing that line. Neither one of us ever did.”
It had always been an unspoken rule between the two of us that if one of us expressed interest in a woman, the other backed off immediately.
I’d always respected any woman my brothers were dating, and vice versa.
“A lot of it was my fault because I wasn’t honest with Nicole,” he admitted. “Maybe I didn’t want to admit that in the beginning because I was frantic to get her back, and it was easier to put everything on you.”
