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“Do you really want to have this conversation about your sister?”
“Not really. But I do want to know.”
I sigh. “No. No one, ever. Only Dayna.”
“You’re the one who kept walking away, Layton.”
I sit forwards, my elbows on my knees, and drop my head in my hands. “I know. I wish I’d never walked away from her. I just always listened to him and his fucking tripe about the business, the Layton name and Cross’s reputation.”
“Your dad’s a wanker, Layton.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or lash out. He’s dead right, and if I said it about my father, that’d be fine. But my father has this hold over me. No one else can bad-mouth him like that, not even Jay. Not even when I know it’s the truth.
“You should tell Connie.”
I look at him for evidence that he’s seriously lost his sanity.
“She’s going out of her mind wondering what’s wrong with her.”
“Christ, I don’t want to hurt her any more than I already have.”
“You hurt her every day she questions herself, man. Tell her why. You’ll hurt her at first, then she’ll realise it’s you who’s the fuckwit, and she might just get her confidence back. She deserves to know the truth, Layton, and goddamn, you better tell her about Dayna before she finds out some other way. If you don’t, and she finds out, I’m gonna fuck you up.”
He couldn’t, but the sentiment hits home. “I hear you.”
I head to the fridge, take out another two beers and come back to the sofa. As I sit, lilac satin catches my eyes from down the side of the sofa cushion. I hook the thong over the head of my beer bottle. “Been having a good time, Jay?”
He laughs, I think as grateful as I am for the break in tension. “Sasha Lorelli.”
I whistle. “Does she live up to her reputation?”
“Best fuck of my life.”
I lean forwards, and he clinks the top of his bottle with mine.
Four Buds and a couple of hours later, I lie back on my bed, moonlight tingeing my bedroom blue. Any other night alone, I might sort myself out with my right hand. Tonight, I can’t stand the thought of getting off any way other than with Dayna in my arms. Jesus, I’m right back to four years ago. I take my hands behind my head and wish I could stop seeing her in my head — her silk skin, her soft pink lips, her on her knees, crying because I broke her again. I have to put it aside, at least for now. All I need to focus on now is this joint bid. Keeping her safe from Caspar Kahn and any other oil hounds who come for her.
As I finally start to drift off, one last thought comes to me, Caspar’s words as I threatened him… Harold might be willing to lose that well to me, Clark, but I’m certain he won’t want to lose to a Cross.
I PULL UP to my folks’ house and kill the engine of my Audi. I head into the house, saying hello to the staff as I pass them in the long hallway.
“Are they around?” I ask.
Elspeth, my favourite, is heading upstairs with a tray of tea and toast. “Mrs Layton is dressing. Mr Layton is in the driving range.”
“Thank you. Have a good day, Elspeth.”
“And you, son.” I smile at her. She has been more of a guardian to me over the years than the sperm and egg donors I call parents.
I can hear my father whacking golf balls as I head across the gravel path towards his practice area. I duck through the wooden door into the small three-walled building with two bays. A camera in the far corner is focussed down on my father as he sets himself up for his next shot. He’s training. Later he’ll play his video back and grumble about whatever’s wrong with his stroke, then proceed to waste more hours out here perfecting his grip, his swing, or the position of his feet.
I pick up the remote from the wooden bench behind him and click off the camera, then I take a club from his bag. I look down the driver, checking it’s straight, and rub residual mud from the grains in the metal on the flat side of the head. I set a ball onto a tee in the spare bay, get into position, and drive the shit out of the ball.
“You’re hanging left.”
“I’ll never be good enough for you,” I tell him.
“Not with shots like that.” He positions another ball on a tee and strikes it. I have to fight to supress a grin when his shot hangs right and doesn’t get the distance of mine. “I heard a rumour you were skiing last weekend.”
