Fake (14 page)

*~*~*

Lydia

Something was bothering Ruben.

For the life of me, I just couldn’t figure out what it was. He was the same, but different. With me, he was perfectly fine but when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, he had this look in his eyes like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

And I knew he wasn’t sleeping well at night.

So I was on a mission to find out what was going on, without questioning him.

Throwing some of his clothes in the wash, I checked the pockets of his jeans like always, to make sure he hadn’t left anything in there. I rolled my eyes when my hands brushed across something in the back pocket of his favourite jeans; he never did remember to empty them.

I pulled the card out of the pocket and frowned at it.

What would Ruben want with a wedding planner’s card?

I had a sick feeling in my stomach.

The questions in my mind were multiplying daily and I genuinely felt like my brain was going to explode. The problem was, it had gone on for too long. Most people wouldn’t, couldn’t understand it. My fear of the unknown had only grown over the years.

I
knew
that I didn’t have all of Ruben. But at the same time, he took everything I had emotionally and gave me everything he could. Which to me, had been enough...but it wouldn’t be enough forever.

So for once, just because the compulsion was too much and I knew for my own sanity that I had to...I called Ruben into the kitchen.

“Why do you have a wedding planner’s card in your jeans?”

His face, no matter how much he tried to conceal it, drained of colour and he gulped.

Not a good sign.

Then, like he’d just had a ‘Eureka!’ moment, he rolled his eyes and spoke.

“Damn it! I knew I could never keep a secret from you for long,” he joked, unconvincingly. Then he took a deep breath and lowered to one knee in front of me. “Lydia, I had all these plans to make this the perfect for you but it makes sense that this is how I’d do it. Some of my favourite moments with you started right here in this kitchen,” he winked and I blushed. “Anyway, I decided a long time ago that you were, are, the woman for me. I was just waiting for the right moment to ask you. Will you marry me?”

He held out a small, silver ring in his fingertips and I just stared.

At him.

At the ring.

Then I nodded my head slowly, but didn’t say a word.

“Is that a yes?” He asked with a grin.

“Yes!” I screeched, then threw myself at him on the floor. We ended up sprawled side by side as I rained kisses all over his face. He cupped my face in one hand and swept my cheek with his thumb.

“I love you, Lydia Romero. I can’t wait to make you my wife.”

“I love you too, Ruben Brent. I can wait to be the Mrs to your Mr,” I shook my head, still not sure what had happened in the last five minutes. “I can’t believe I’m going to be Mrs Brent.”

A cocky smile spread across his face, “Believe it, baby.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ruben

I officially, no doubt about it, asked my woman to marry me...to keep my secret.

I’m a dick.

I don’t deny that.

But it’s a fact.

I planned to ask her. I hadn’t lied about that bit. I wanted a wife, a family, and I couldn’t imagine having that with anyone else other than Lydia. Ever.

But the wedding planner card belonged to Mase, who’d got it from the crazy lady who planned Jackson and Taylor’s wedding.

So maybe the way it was done was wrong, but I was still over the moon that Lydia had agreed to marry me. I’d been carrying the little ring in my wallet for weeks, just waiting for the right moment.

It wasn’t the right moment.

But I meant what I said to her, it just made sense that we’d end up taking the next step in our relationship, right in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Hour later, I held her close to my side in her bed after I’d had her crying my name again and again. Sated, we relaxed back and I tangled her leg with mine.

I liked to sleep with her close.

She was idly running her fingers up and down my arm and I thought she was drifting off to sleep but she must have just been thinking.

“I think you should find your brother.” She said, making my heart jump into my throat.

“W-what? Why?”

“Well, I want to get married and I don’t care about a big day or anything. WE certainly don’t need a wedding planner. But no girl wants to get married with
no one
there. Who am I going to invite, Ruben? There’s an off chance that Lucas could get a day release pass now that he’s in an open prison. I can’t invite my mum or my dad. I don’t have any friends from the estate that I can invite. Maybe Jase from work? That’s it!”

I hadn’t even thought that far ahead.

I omitted. I twisted the truth and I bent it to fit what I needed but I never outright lied.

If she’d have looked me in the face and asked me if I ever saw my brothers or how much money I had, even what my actual job-role at the club was - I’d have told her. I would have
had
to tell her.

But she never did.

So I twisted the truth again.

Because I’m a dick.

And a coward.

“Yeah, maybe. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll look into it. It probably wouldn’t take too long to find them with social media and everything.” I said.

Because it was technically true. I would look into it, by going home and seeing Mase for myself.

“Them?” She questioned and I cursed my own stupidity.

She hadn’t ever known about Jackson.

“Err, yeah. I have an older brother too but my dad made him leave when he was a teenager, I was about seven at the time.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that. Your dad really does sound like a twat.”

She didn’t know the half of it, so I just nodded. The web of deceit was spreading by the day and I was finding it hard to keep up. I knew I was stupid to let it go on any further, but with Jase breathing down my neck too, the pressure was almost too much.

I stretched and sat up, gathering my clothes.

“I’ve got to head to work, babe. I’m there tonight and tomorrow, but I’ll come see you on Monday night, yeah?”

She smiled lazily and nodded, already half asleep. I threw my clothes on, kissed her forehead and my way out. I couldn’t decide if it was more of a relief or an annoyance that she never questioned why I didn’t stay very often.

*~*~*

The next night at work progressed excruciatingly slowly. I’d done all the accounts and orders so I just sat staring at nothing. Give me a computer or technology any day and I could fix anything.

This?

Not at all.

No matter how I tried to word it, the explanations sounded all wrong in
my
head, let alone Lydia’s. So I was panicking, and I’d have been stupid not to. Jase was right and I had to tell her as soon as possible.

First, because it was wrong that she didn’t know my family.
More
than wrong even. And secondly, because I couldn’t marry her without having my family there, and I wanted to marry her soon.

I rubbed circles around my temples to ease the headache that had been brewing for days and I sighed. The irrational part of me wanted to stomp my feet and blame everyone else for my mistakes, but I knew I couldn’t do it. I decided that I really was just going to ‘rip the band-aid off’ so to speak. Literally just tell Lydia everything I’d been hiding, let her scream at me and probably throw shit. Then I’d try and talk her down.

It was wishful thinking.

I knew that, but there was no other way.

Plus, it was just too damn hard to keep living two lives. I
knew
my family more than suspected something was going on and I
knew
that Lydia avoided asking me any questions, ever, for fear of what my answer might be.

So enough was enough.

I would tell her.

Just not that night...maybe the day after instead.

My attention caught on Jase and Harper in the crowd of people who had just walked through the main doors of the club and I smiled. They were there most nights that the club was open, not always drinking, but always dancing. I knew it was Harper that dragged Jase there. He was a guy who loved to be out, of course, but I doubt it would be four nights a week unless Miss Drama Queen dragged him.

Mase snagged her around the waist within seconds of them entering the main room and it wasn’t clear enough to see for sure, but I was almost certain that Jase rolled his eyes. It was like the two of them had a sensor for each other.

I should have been watching all of the cameras, it was my job after all, but I couldn’t help staring at the three of them. It was natural, the way they were with each other, the way we
all
we were with each other. Yet I wasn’t allowing Lydia to have that and the pain of that knowledge just kept growing.

Then my attention caught on the woman who occupied every one of my waking thoughts.

And my world stopped.

The people kept moving, the clock kept ticking and inside the bar, the drinks kept flowing.

But my heart had turned to stone.

She’d never been to the club, so why she was there right then, I had no idea. I flexed my frozen fingers because they had started to cramp from gripping the chair’s arm rests so much, but it didn’t help. My bones ached, my skin was burning and my muscles were screaming at me.

But my heart was ice cold.

Nothing about this was going to go down well.

Still frozen in my seat, I watched Jase do a double take when Lydia walked into the main room, looking like Bambi after he lost his mother.

I didn’t think she’d ever even been to a club before so it didn’t surprise me that she was nervous. It surprised me that she was there full stop.

Jase pushed through the crowd towards her and I crossed my fingers that he’d find some way to make her leave. I
know
it was wrong to think like that but nothing I said in that situation would make it ok, she’d feel out of her depth in my territory.

But he didn’t make her leave.

Instead, he grabbed her hand and led her over to the bar, not even slightly avoiding the curious looks from Harper and Mase. Thankfully, Lydia hadn’t noticed them though because there was no way she wouldn’t know who Mase was. He looked just like me.

They fought their way to the front of the bar and Jase grabbed them two drinks before leading her back out of the main room. She looked so confused and my already breaking heart, cracked a little more. I swivelled on my chair to follow them on the monitors and cringed when Jase opened the door to one of the meeting rooms on the first floor.

This was it.

This was when everything was going to fall to shit.

Realising that I was wasting time watching, when I could have been down there and getting my side of the story across first, I left everything littered across the desk and jogged from the room.

*~*~*

Lydia

I have no idea what came over me, but work and being at home had seemed a thousand times worse that day, so I thought it would be an amazing idea to go and surprise Ruben at work.

I knew where he worked, but I’d never been there. I’d actually never been to a nightclub in my life. Sad, I know, but it just seemed like a waste of money to me when I didn’t drink much and I couldn’t dance to save my life. Plus, the way Ruben always described them, they didn’t seem like the sort of places I wanted to spend time in anyway.

But I wanted to see him.

The engagement ring he’d given me, although small, had felt like a heavy weight around my finger all day. Not in a bad way, of course, but like a constant reminder. A reminder that I needed to stop being such a coward and fight for the right to know everything about him.

Because I should.

I wanted to marry him, wanted to be his wife and have a family with
him
- more than anything in the world. But I couldn’t do it without having all of him.

Something I’d never had.

Something I was determined to get.

Which brought me to the place he worked - or ‘phase 1’ in my new mission. As nervous as I was, I actually didn’t feel that bad as I waited in the queue outside. It didn’t look like a rowdy place and I didn’t feel unsafe.

But I
did
feel on edge.

I knew I was taking a risk, in a place that big, I could easily get swallowed up by the crowd or maybe not even find Ruben at all. But I had to try because he’d always kept me away from the place and I wanted to know why. Until that point, I couldn’t see any reason.

The doorman didn’t even ID me on the door, which was slightly insulting considering I was only twenty, but I shook it off and went inside.

And doubted Ruben even more.

The place was beautiful. It was clean and classy, and I didn’t see anyone throwing up or stumbling around like they needed to lie down. It was definitely nothing like I had been imagining.

I followed the crowd of people heading through the next set of doors. Feeling majorly underdressed, in my jeans and red wrap-around top, I was at least glad that I’d used my common sense and threw some old heels on before I’d left my home. I scanned the room and was about to start my search when Jase appeared in front of me and I felt my face light up.

“Hey!” I called over the base of the music. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He didn’t exactly look happy to see me, and Jase was always happy, so it set my confidence back and I started feeling nauseous.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Ruben. He works here!”

Instead of giving me any response, he grabbed my hand and dragged me through the crowd, pushing his way to the front of the bar. Some of the people around us complained and I cowered a little, but Jase didn’t seem to care.

“What are you drinking?” He asked.

“Um…” I wasn’t sure what to say to him. I’d only ever had wine - did people even drink wine in nightclubs?

He rolled his eyes and yelled something over to the bartender. Without paying, which I thought was weird, he turned back around with two glasses and handed me one. I looked at it like it was going to bite me.

He laughed.

“It’s a Jagerbomb. Just cover the top and hold on to it for a minute. Follow me…”

He didn’t give me a choice in the matter because, yet again, he dragged me along behind him. Along a corridor, through another set of doors and into a pitch-black room.

“Um…!” I started.

“Give me a second.”

He flicked on the lights and I my eye-brows drew together.

“Um…should we be in here?”

Jase flapped his hand in the air, “I know the owner.”

“Whoa. Really?”

He nodded.

Without warning, he told me the owner’s name.

No preparation. No easing me into it.

He just told me. “Jackson Brent, owns this club.”

Now, I’ll be honest, ‘Brent’ isn’t a particularly rare name. But I knew, just from the look on his face, that he was telling me something huge. That nauseous feeling in my stomach grew.

“Jackson...Brent. As in, Ruben, my Ruben...his um, brother?”

Audibly swallowing, he nodded his head slowly.

“And you know this because...you know my Ruben.” I stated as a fact, but he nodded again to confirm it. Still slowly, cautiously. He looked almost guilty. Whether it was for hiding it from me or for telling me, I guess I’d never know.

My breathing increased and I physically
felt
my blood pressure start to rise.