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"Lilly?” His dark brows slash down with the severity of his frown as he looks between my mother and me.
“Mary?" He asks, his voice low and controlled, clearly not sure which name belongs to me.
Shit! Damn! Fuck everything to hell!
I swallow the ball of dread in my throat and glance at Freya. Her smile has completely disappeared as she looks between us. I’m suddenly freezing, as if all the blood has drained from my body despite my hammering heart telling me differently. I wrap my coat tighter around myself and stare at the scene unfolding in absolute horror.
"I'm Mary." My mother steps around me and continues down the stairs to where they're standing. Harry doesn’t take his eyes off me as she approached him. Only when she’s standing directly in front of him does he look at her.
The anger seems to disappear as he smiles warmly at her. But, I can see the tick of the muscle in his jaw, as well as how the hand that's not shaking my mother's, has curled into a fist. He grips so tightly that his knuckles look like they might pop and break free of his hand.
My toes curl as I take him in. He looks gorgeous. I thought my memory was being generous when it recalled him. If anything, he’s even more handsome now than he was then. He's wearing jeans, a thick dark grey sweater and a black leather jacket over it all. His hair is longer, his curls more luxurious.
I want to slap myself. Who cares about his curls? This is a full-scale nightmare.
I watch him talking to my parents and it's like watching a car barreling toward you and knowing that no matter what you do, you can't avoid the impact. This is the worst thing that could have happened. I have no cover, nothing to shield me from the full body blow this is going to be. Oh God.
"I'm Omar, this our grandson, Anthony, and our daughter, Lilly." As my dad moves to stand by my mother's side, he glances at me quickly, one of his cinnamon eyebrows arched in question. My dad always knows when something is up and now is no different. If he'd been around during the last five years, there is no way I could have kept everything bottled up.
I close my eyes and wish for the floor to open up and swallow the entire room whole, or that I could rewind and find an excuse to miss this wedding.
Harry looks away from my parents and back to me. His dark eyes are the epitome of cold rage.
"Lilly?" My name leaves his mouth and travels the space between us like a dangerous storm cloud.
"Harry," I say lamely. My voice is barely above a whisper. My chest is tight, my whole body feels hot and cold, like I have a fever. Freya comes to stand beside him and nudges him with her
elbow. He glances down at her and his eyes close briefly. When he opens them, all of their ire becomes completely opaque and enigmatic before he looks away from me and back to the rest of the people in the hall.
"Welcome! I'm sorry I can't stay. I'm late getting to the store," he says. It’s directed to parents, and then without another word, he leaves.
We all stand there in an awkward silence as we watch him retreat.
“We were just going for a walk when you caught us, Lilly. Go get settled in, we’ll see you at lunch,” my mother says in her trademark calm. She’s always been like this. Able to ignore tension, an expert at avoiding confrontation. She drags my father off in the same direction Harry just left in. He looks over his shoulder at me as they walk away, a question still marks his face. I look away.
Freya bends down to smile brightly at Anthony, "Okay, sweetie. Why don't you show your Auntie to her room?"
"Okay, I can do that," Anthony says, as he solemnly accepts the responsibility.
She gives his unruly curls a light tousle as she straightens. I watch them with a fond smile, my looming crisis momentarily forgotten. That is until her eyes meet mine. The cold, but palpable anger in them chills me to the bone.
When she passes me, walking in the direction Harry just left, her eyes never leave mine. As she brushes past me, she whispers: "Hello, Emma."
She knows.
My heart falls to my toes and tears prick the back of my eyes.
I'm tempted to grab her hand, to beg her to understand. But, Anthony starts to pulling me up the stairs. He’s talking a mile a minute, oblivious to the impending disaster.
19
Harry
For the split of half a second, when I saw her, a surge of happiness nearly made me dizzy. The face that held my thoughts, my entire being hostage had suddenly appeared in front of me. But as I take her in, I remember that underneath that beauty is a fraud.
What had I done to deserve this shit? Her name is Lilly. She’s named after, of all things, a symbol of purity. What a fucking joke.
I'd spent the last three months hating her, talking to Freya about her in disparaging terms. The memories of the most amazing sex I'd ever had tried to make me forget that every moan had been a lie. Months later, the conversation from the nights we talked until the sun came up, ring hollow. She never talked about herself.
