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But it lacked any bite and Oti felt her smile warming her from the inside. She dipped her head to conceal it.
‘Fair enough. Either way, my point is that it suited my father to let people think I was still that wild child. Whilst they were speculating about me, they weren’t looking at him. Plus, there were rumours that he was having some financial trouble, and I became the perfect scapegoat.’
‘He could tell them that you had blown through your inheritance on exotic holidays, wild parties and drugs,’ Lukas realised. ‘That way, no one would think he was the one who’d lost it all gambling.’
‘He could also claim that he’d spent hundreds of thousands sending me to rehab.’
‘The man’s a degenerate,’ Lukas snarled. ‘But you’re a fool for letting him get away with painting you that way. Why wouldn’t you say something?’
She could tell him about HOP, and how she’d always feared her father would piggyback onto the charity and try to use her involvement with it to somehow improve his image. And then she thought about Edward, and how his accident was the reason that she’d ended up fleeing to the charity in the first instance.
She couldn’t tell Lukas about one without the other.
‘It’s complicated,’ she hedged at last.
‘And that’s a cop-out.’
His look of disappointment cut through her, but the distant wail of an ambulance siren saved her from the need to answer. They each lapsed into silence, waiting for the sound to get closer, as Oti tried to pretend to herself that she didn’t care that Lukas had been so easily stopped from asking her anything more.
And yet she waited and held her breath. But he still didn’t speak. She needed to pull herself together.
‘I’d better go and alert my new patient,’ she commented, standing up straight. ‘They look like they’re all too preoccupied to have heard it.’
‘Will you need to accompany them to the hospital?’ Lukas asked.
‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head. ‘There were no complications, so a handover to the paramedics should suffice.’
‘Good. Then we’ll head back home and talk properly.’
‘No, I can’t...’ The words came out in a panicked rush. ‘I have to go and see... I have to go.’
She could feel the change in Lukas instantly. Even if she hadn’t been so close that she could feel him tense, she would have felt it in the way the air around them tightened. It thickened.
‘That will not happen, Octavia. You’re not going anywhere until we’ve talked.’
‘I don’t know what you think is going on here,’ Oti cried desperately. ‘But I have to go. I need to see Edward.’
‘Edward?’
‘My brother.’ She watched Lukas’s expression change from anger to disbelief to shock, all in the space of about a second, and it occurred to her that she was far too tuned in to the man if she could recognise all that so easily. ‘The money I needed from you was for him. For an operation.’
‘I thought your brother died,’ he said slowly.
‘He didn’t.’ Misery washed over her at the disgust beginning to settle over Lukas’s features. ‘That was another of my father’s lies.’
And one that Edward had wanted her repeat, if only for his own dignity. But she wasn’t about to tell Lukas that.
The sirens’ wail was louder now, and Oti knew she had to go. But she felt rooted to the spot. Paralysed.
‘Go and help your patient. I’ll leave George to take you to Edward.’
‘You’re going?’ She didn’t know why she felt so surprised. Or so deflated.
‘I have a meeting to get to.’
There really was no reason for her to feel disappointed. So why did she?
‘Then take the car, Lukas.’
