Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“What about me, Owen?” he spit out, turning to me, his words harsh, his watering eyes glistening in the overhanging chandelier light. “You think you were the only one who was suffering—struggling? You think I didn’t want to run off and find an escape, use anything to take all that pain away? Do you have any idea how lonely it was to be suffering and having everyone shouting at me what needed to be handled next? This crown is light in appearance, but I assure you, the weight it piled on me was too great when it was first placed on my head. And then I turned to my best friend in the world, my own brother, and he was gone. Before you utter another word, you might do well to consider who felt abandoned by whom.”
His words silenced me. After all these years, after all the pain, in a moment, it seemed my brother had finally spit out the heart of his strife. I saw a side of him he hadn’t shown me before.
He took a breath and squeezed his hand against the rail, clearly trying to find his bearings. He silenced, as though trying to choose his next words with even greater care, and it became evident to me in that moment, in the way he so quickly retracted his harsh words, what he had carried with him all those years.
“Owen, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, because I can’t even imagine what you must’ve been experiencing to have gone down that path, but to say I didn’t feel betrayed back then would be a lie. And I’ve worked all these years to keep from saying it that way because I didn’t want you to feel any worse than you already did. I’ve tried to hold it in, but clearly, there is a part of me that still struggles. Because when I needed someone, the one person I always turned to was gone. Where was he, Owen?”
“I didn’t even know where he was back then.”
“I can’t imagine you did, and in the time you were gone, I got good at playing Mother, didn’t I? Holding it all in. Keeping it all bottled up.”
“Seems like a trait we’ve both taken on.”
He chuckled, seemingly more out of a bitter truth than anything particularly amusing.
“Apparently more things than I realized,” he said, turning his attention back down to the ballroom, to Keegan, who was now chatting with Jace and Dax. “I was coming up here to reprimand you again for what I believed—and have interpreted from the start—as your callous, insensitive scheme to do nothing more than combat my decision about what was best for our country and this family. And needless to say, I was surprised by what I saw when you were looking down at this young American boy.”
“What surprised you?”
“That I might have been so stubborn and proud, I didn’t see that maybe there was more truth to it all than I was allowing myself to see.” For the first time in so long, I saw true sincerity in Lucas’s expression. “Since we’re being so candid right now, I might as well confess that when you first made that incredibly public statement with Keegan, I found it…insulting.”
“Lucas, I wasn’t just trying to go against your wishes. I thought—”
“That wasn’t the way I meant it, Owen. I meant…” He took a moment, scanning around, as though he wanted to ensure we were alone still. “Do you remember my friend Thomas Spiers IV?”
“The one you roomed with at uni?”
He smiled pleasantly. “Yes, that’s him. Let’s just say fencing wasn’t the only swordplay we excelled in.”
My mouth fell open at his admission. “What. The. Fuck?” I asked, the way Keegan might have.
He snickered. “You see? And here you think you know everything about everyone. At least I know I can still surprise my little brother.”
“Surprise might be an understatement.”
“Seems we both inherited a little gift from our mother’s side of the family.”
As much as it made sense, it also confused the hell out of me. “But the way you acted about finding out I was bi…”
“At the time, I thought you were being a complete ass, not expressing any actual interest in men. If I had really believed you felt as you claimed, I never would have behaved like that. And now, when I saw the way you looked at him, I realized who had been the real ass. To think, if I had shown interest in a man and been met with such anger the way you were with me…I don’t know how I would have managed that.”
I could see his regret, his pain…his remorse.
It was evident how much we’d grown apart over the years, kept our truths buried deep within us and as far from the other as we could.