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“If this was the way it really went down, why didn’t you come straight to me?”
“Because she blackmailed me, threatened sexual assault, and you saw what happened with Dad and the family; with her parents and how her mom behaved toward her. Sweet adorable Charlotte? Would you have believed me if I had? The woman you loved or the brother you hated?”
“I never hated you, I disliked the way you treated me, the way you’ve always treated me.” James immediately looked guilty, but he had a point, in my own way I had sided with Charlotte. Perhaps this was the way it started, and I could see Charlotte using his vulnerability to her advantage.
“I’ll admit it, I was very jealous of you growing up. You were everything I aspired to be but had no talent for. Athletic, clever, musical, charming, everyone loved you, Dad’s golden boy. Do you know how many times that was put to me? Why couldn’t I do it because my little brother had no problem with it?”
“Are you jealous of me now?”
“I am. Everything you do is the right thing. You have no idea how it feels to have to compete for attention in your own family. I’m the eldest, the son and heir apparent, and when Dad looks at me all I see in his eyes is disappointment.”
“What are you talking about, you’ve always been an incredible athlete. We’re not supposed to be in competition with each other, we were supposed to lift one another up. Besides this stuff about our father isn’t true, he went to every one of your kickboxing tournaments. I don’t remember a time when he ever came to watch my music recitals or baseball games. Plus, you’re working with him now.”
“Only because you don’t want to take over his businesses. He’s getting older and feeling less confident about continuing much longer. If you haven’t noticed, he’s not in perfect health like he once was.”
“He’s in his mid-sixties, which is no age these days.”
“Agreed, but the body only has so much adrenaline, Sawyer. It takes huge balls to do what Dad does, and he’s becoming exhausted.”
“Okay, you’ve gone off topic, this conversation is for another day. I’m here about you and what you did with Charlotte. What you both did to me.”
James sat with his knees apart, his forearms resting on his thighs and his hands hanging between them. He rubbed them together and looked up at me with real sorrow in his eyes. “I know. Fuck, every day I know. Every time I look at you, I know. Every time I see Charlotte make a play for you, I know. What I did was the lowest I could have done to any man.”
“Something we agree on, at least,” I snapped back. “Why did you stay with her if this was how you felt?”
“Why else? Blackmail. The shit she spread about me, threatening accusations, threatening to harm herself if I didn’t take her calls, being pregnant and losing the baby, which I know now wasn’t how it went down. She had the baby aborted, and I drove her to that fucking appointment. She destroyed who I was, Sawyer. I suppose, the ultimate reason I stayed was because all the time she was with me, I knew you could never make the mistake of taking her back.”
“You stayed with her through fear and some misguided honor? Brotherhood? I’d never have touched her again with a ten-foot pole,” I ground out. “You honestly think I’d have gone there after you …” I had no words.
“Sawyer, if I’m being totally honest, I did. Charlotte’s a master manipulator, look where I am because of how she behaved, the player got played.”
“How she behaved?” I said, because it took two people to have an affair.
“There you go, ready to jump to her defense again. She didn’t give a thought for you when she got with me. She was only thinking of herself. What happened was disgusting and humiliating for you and I’m so fucking sorry, Sawyer. I walked away from her, and she came after me. It wore me down when she threatened to tell her parents and ours, when in fact what she did to me was sexual assault.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair and grabbing a fistful.
“Think about it, I was a thirty-eight-year-old playboy with a hell of a reputation with women, and she was a twenty-eight-year-old society woman who was in a stable long-term relationship with my brother. Everyone adored her. All she needed to add were crocodile tears and her feminine wiles and who would be believed? Oh, wait, everyone already did believe her.”
“But you stayed,” I shouted, not willing to accept the woman I’d lived with was capable of such a low move. “If what you say is true, you still stayed.”
“Jesus, Bro, have you been listening at all? I’m not with her now you have Billie and she has outed herself. We’re done, and I for one am relieved it’s finally over.”
Five years I lived with her. How could I not have guessed she was capable of something like this? Then I reminded myself she had managed to con me into a living arrangement I had been dead set against in the beginning.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said, sighing heavily as I finally conceded there could have been coercion, but with this came another reality, and that meant viewing James in a totally new light.
I stood staring at my brother and wondered if he really was as flawed as his story suggested. I considered whether James had ever been the man I thought I knew if Charlotte had been able to manipulate him so easily. It was true, James had a different girl on his arm for each event, he was popular and the women he hung out with adored him.
One thing I did know was our families and our community were stunned when Charlotte left me and moved in with him. After hearing what he had to say, the question was: had James merely wanted what was mine, or like he insisted, had Charlotte forced their relationship upon him?
“Do you still want Charlotte, Sawyer? Is that what this is about? Would you still want her now, if I hadn’t done what I did?”
“I didn’t get the chance to find that out, did I?”
“Then I’m not solely to blame for that, and if that’s all you’ve got in reply to my question, then you shouldn’t be marrying Billie. You can’t change the past. None of us can, but if you still have feelings for Charlotte then you should be honest with yourself, and with the beautiful woman you have waiting at home.”
Hearing his pointed comment set me straight. “I love Billie, she’s my world,” I bit back. “What I meant is my relationship with Charlotte never came to a natural ending, and I’m stuck with that going around in a loop. We didn’t get the chance to peter out, the way we ended was hurtful and abrupt.”
