Page 48 of Spiralling Skywards
“Sarah, please.”
“What?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Don’t call her your wife? What should I call her then Liam? That woman you married? They both mean exactly the same in my book.” Her voice rose with every word.
Okay, she wanted to know. I’d tell her. I’d tell her all of it and let her see me for the arsehole that I was. At least then she’d know the type of person she was getting involved with.
“Olivia. Her name’s Olivia. Our fathers are best friends but were competitors when it came to business. Her dad had no sons, my dad had me. Our lives were planned from the time we were kids. I loved her like a sister at first, but they wanted us married. Hormones came into play when we were teenagers and emotions got involved once we had sex. I was her first.”
She closed her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Was she yours?” I closed my eyes and tilted my face to the ceiling. Why the fuck did she ask that? Why did she do that to herself? She let out a little whimper even before I answered.
“Yes, we were each other’s firsts. I was her only for a long time, but I didn’t commit to her the way she deserved, the way she thought I would. Her family are strict Italian Catholics. She wasn’t really allowed out much during high school. My parents divorced when I was six, I lived mainly with my mum, but because I had two older sisters and was a boy, my mum was a little more relaxed with me.
“I was a boy. Just a normal teenage boy. My only interests were sports, sex, and food. I grew up in a beach town where there were parties every weekend. I was allowed to go to them. Olivia wasn’t.” I puffed out my cheeks and blew out air whilst considering how to word what I was gonna say next without sounding like a total prick.
“I was young. I was a dick. I was fucking Olivia and anything else female that had a pulse and was willing. She just accepted it so I just kept doing it. I had no intention of marrying her, but then my dad had his first heart attack and wanted to slow down. He wanted to start making plans to hand the business over to me once I’d finished uni. I wanted to travel. By that point, he’d remarried and had two more boys, they were much younger than me at this stage, so he threatened to leave the businesses in trust for them if I didn’t marry Olivia. So we made a deal. I would marry her but I still wanted to travel for a while. All I wanted to do was make him happy. I didn’t want him to stress about the future of the business he’d spent so much of his life building up. It’d cost him two marriages; I didn’t want it to cost him his life too. But I also needed time to be me, so this worked for both of us.”
We sat silently for a few long moments. Sarah tilted her head down, resting it on my shoulder, her arms still down at her sides. I brushed my fingertips from the tops of her thighs to her knee and back up her thighs again, acutely aware of the fact that she was naked underneath the T-shirt of mine she was wearing.
“I spent two years overseas, and when I got back he turned the business over to me and I married Olivia.”
I let out a long breath as I remembered the heated arguments I’d had on the phone with my dad about me coming back home. In the end, I just stopped calling.
“I was twenty-four when I got back, I managed to put the wedding off for another year, but my dad had another heart attack, and I knew it was time to step up and fulfil my part of the bargain. We stayed married and together for just under two years, we’ve now been separated for two years. We’ve actually been apart for longer than we were together.”
I’d watched her the whole time I was talking, trying to gauge her reaction as I spoke.
“How’s your dad now?”
See, that was why I was in so much trouble. That was why it was going to be so easy to fall in love with this girl. I’d just confessed to being married, and her first concern was for my dad.
“Dad’s doing okay. He had to have a bypass, which gave him a new lease of life and enough energy to move on to wife number three.”
Her eyebrows shot up at that piece of information. Maybe I should’ve left it out, the last thing I wanted was her thinking I was anything like my old man.
“And he’s not pushing you to stay married?”
“No. We talked after I caught Olivia in bed with Seb Markham. I admitted that neither of us had been faithful during our marriage, that it wasn’t working, and that there was no way I would ever consider having children with Olivia.”
She nodded her head but kept her eyes fixed on something just over my shoulder. I was blown away by how calm she was being about all that I was admitting to her.
“And you think it’s gonna get complicated? Will you have to go back? For the divorce I mean.”
She finally looked up and made eye contact as she spoke, hope bloomed in my belly that she would accept my explanation and excuses regarding my marriage.
“I hope not,” I told her honestly. “I hope the lawyers can deal with it all in my absence.”
I watched as she raked her teeth over her bottom lip while thinking about my reply.
“I’d like to go back one day and take you with me, if that’s something you’d like to do?”
She stilled for a moment, her blue eyes widening.
“To Australia?”
