AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I promise,” she whispered. “I’m not keeping anything from you. I would never do that.” She pulled away and reaching for my hand, she tugged me with her. “Let’s go and grab some lunch.” As she looked up at me, I started to wonder if I was beginning to lose my marbles. If she was keeping things from me, she wouldn’t be able to still look at me like the sun set and rose with me, could she? At least, that’s what I told myself.
* * *
It was time for us to jet back home. The time had flown by far too fast with many sightseeing trips to different parts of the city and after stopping by the pharmacy to refill my prescription, we were ready to head back to reality. As we stood in theDepartureslounge saying goodbye, I knew that we would need to invite Thomas and his girls out to New York. This flying back and fore to each other was not good.
I gazed over at Isobel and watched as she made silly faces at baby Lucie. Each time that I saw the two of them it made me excited for the day when our little bean would enter the world. I knew that she was going to be a wonderful mother to our baby.
She straightened up as Thomas talked to me and I watched as she reached for her phone. Her fingers flew across the screen of her phone as she typed out a message and I wondered which of our friends from back home she was talking to.
“So, we have some news,” Thomas said as he wrapped his arm around Lauren’s shoulder.
“You’re having another baby,” I guessed in a surprised tone.
“No!” Lauren blurted out before they both laughed. “We, uh… we have kind of been browsing some houses in Manhattan.” They were grinning like loons and I couldn’t have stopped myself from pulling them both into an excited hug if I had tried. “You’re actually moving to New York?” I turned around to look at Isobel, eager to see her reaction. I had expected her to be as excited as I was but she appeared to be a little calmer than I thought.
“That’s amazing guys!” She stepped up and hugged Thomas and as she hugged Lauren, I could see the tenseness in her shoulders and that’s when I knew. Whatever had happened to make me think there was now a wall between me and Isobel, I now knew—and feared—what that truth was. Whatever was going on with Isobel had something to do with Lauren. “If I can help with anything, please let me know. I’m happy to help.” She had a warm smile on her face but as I placed my arm around her shoulders, I could feel how stiff she was.
“Thank you,” Lauren said. “We have our eye on a few homes. We are waiting to hear back from one.” Her eyes flicked to the flight schedule on the boards behind us before she nodded her head to Security. “Anyway, we just wanted you to know. You jet off and we’ll be out in time for the wedding.”
My gaze shot down to Isobel, expecting to see some reaction to the talk of weddings. I was relieved when a beautiful grin appeared on her face. “I’ll be the one in white,” she teased. She reached out and took Lauren’s hands in hers. “I’d love your opinion on flowers.”
“We’ll make a date for flower talk.” She pulled Isobel into one last hug before we said our final goodbyes.
I took Isobel’s hand in mine as we passed through the security check and I was eager to return home as soon as possible. Bringing Isobel here to meet Thomas and Lauren was supposed to be a happy time and for the most part, I believed that it was but unfortunately, something had happened and I knew that I wouldn’t find out about it until we got back to New York.
We spent the next few hours visiting some of the airport shops and after each of us purchased a paperback for the flight home, I knew that we were both tired. Sitting in our seats aboard the plane, I was surprised that we were some of the first passengers to board.
Isobel was so tired that she immediately rolled her coat up and used it as a pillow against her chair. I’d have to get her a pillow from one of the flight attendants when the flight took off. Grabbing my phone from my back pocket, I sent a quick text off to Luke before they asked us to turn our phone signals off.
“We are just leaving London. See you in eight hours.”
A response immediately came through.
“Freddie and I will pick you up. You and I need to talk when you land.”
If I didn’t know there was something wrong before, Luke’s message just clued me in. He was usually very vocal in his messages and emoticons would usually always normally make an appearance somewhere but his message just read as cold.
“Is it about Isobel? Or Lauren?”
I tapped my phone against my leg impatiently as I waited for his response. Glancing down at the screen I could see the chat bubble with the three dots appear to tell me he was typing a response. It disappeared and reappeared three more times as a message came through.
“Both. You fucked up brother. Isobel knows everything.”
Fuck.I looked over at her and stroked some stray hairs back from her face.
My phone vibrated with another text and I was afraid to face it, knowing how pissed Luke obviously was.
“You should have told her, man. Isobel is sensitive and now the mother of your child. She needs to know thatshecomes first.”
I hated the way he underlined that word. I didn’t hate it because of the way that it was worded. I hated it because she came first in everything, I did but the fact that she didn’t know it?
Yeah, that fucking killed me.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
ISOBEL
Iwas glad when we touched down and landed back home. As the pilot announced that we were safely back in New York, I felt my body finally begin to relax. Home. The lull of the plane’s engines allowed me to sleep the majority of the journey back and thankfully only waking me up for toilet trips and to eat. I needed that time with my own mind as I certainly couldn’t process the bombshell that Thomas and Lauren had given us moments before we headed towards Security. My mind was also blown by the revelation of them leaving it until now. I don’t know why they couldn’t have said that earlier.
