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An awkward silence settled in the room. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway signalled my life passing by with valuable seconds.
“If you’re hoping for some big show of forgiveness,” I said. “Then you can forget it—it’s not happening. End of. I’m here to take the rest of my things, introduce you to my future husband, and settle debts with Ben.”
Small gasps resounded around the room. “Future husband?” Ben said, his triumphant smirk suddenly gone and his face paling.
“Yes.”
“But—”
“But what, Ben? Did you think I’d come back to declare my undying love for you? Tell you I can’t live without you?”
He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His silence gave me the answer I knew anyway.
“So, you’ve jumped from one fiancé to another? In the space of two months? Sophie, I’m worried for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not engaged, Mum. I’m just telling you this is the man I plan to spend the rest of my life with.”
Brady squeezed my hand and slipped an arm around my middle.
Mum pursed her lips and sighed. “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore, Sophie. You’ve been away for eight weeks and you’re just a completely different person. I don’t understand what’s changed. Where’s my sweet, polite, wouldn’t say boo to a goose little girl gone?”
“That’s just it, Mum. I’m not a girl—I’m a woman.”
At that, Brady lifted my hand to his lips and pressed several kisses onto the back of it. All eyes fell on that simple yet tender gesture but not a word was uttered.
“Shall we go?” Brady said, not even acknowledging anyone else in the room.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” I said.
“Excuse me, young man,” Mum said, addressing Brady. “It would be nice to at least hold a conversation with the man who is keeping my daughter on the other side of the world.”
“With all due respect, Ma’am, I am not ‘keeping’ your daughter. She is free to do as she pleases, when she pleases.”
Mum’s face contorted in horror, but I couldn’t work out whether it was her title of ‘Ma’am’ or the fact that Brady put her in her place. Either way, it made me smirk.
“Well,” Dad said, his lips turning up at the edges. “I think it’s safe to say that our daughter has finally found herself a man. Well done, Sophie, and thank you—”
“Brady,” he said.
“Thank you, Brady, for being the first person in over two decades to stun my wife into silence. I hope we get a chance to meet under better circumstances someday.”
I stifled a laugh at my father’s direct approach. He was a man of few words but those he did say were always carefully thought out.
“We’re flying home next Thursday,” I said, walking us towards the front door. “If you want to see us before then, we’ll be staying at mine.”
“Where am I supposed to stay exactly?” Ben said, the tremble in his voice more than evident.
“Couldn’t care less. Since you’ve been gracing her bed for months, why don’t you try there?”
“That house is just as much mine as it is yours, Sophie. I have every right—”
“You have every right to shut the hell up and quit whinging like a little girl,” Dad said, not even looking up from his newspaper.
“Roger—”
“Enough, Sheila. I’ve never liked the boy. There’s no reason for him to think otherwise now.”
An eerie silence crept over the room and I gratefully used that as an excuse to run out of there as fast as possible. Dad rarely challenged Mum but when he did, it usually resulted in a sulking mother for days. She knew if he said something he meant, there was no budging him.
