Matthew's POV
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Rifles, it's my first thought. They have rifles and hunting gear. Play it cool and calm, Matthew, you've done nothing wrong. Nothing untoward, charming and lying your way into Emily's heart. Pleasing your way into her world, horse back rides and diamond rings. Sunday lunches with her father all opportunities where not once did you mention that you had a past. As my mind works over the situations where I could have easily brought up my ex partner, I tell myself that people have a past and that's normal. Taylor is my past and everybody has a a past life, an ex love and a previous version of themselves.
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I'm sure in my heart that Emily has a past, I know that she will have loved others and yet I've never pressed her on it. I've not demanded to know. True, she has shared her whole entire family with me and I have not attempted to do the same. However circumstances like having a sister who dislikes you and your soon to be wife are sometimes difficult to navigate.
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Emily's life is characterised by loving fathers and cousins that clearly complete a full background check before marrying anybody into the Robinson name. Emily is cared for and all be it she has lost people, she is perfect unlike myself.
I have no father and I have a mother who is married to a new man of whom she would rather focus on his children. A sister that has an overprotective relationship to her brother's ex partner. The odds were against me from the beginning. Standing I look up at the night sky, the owl hooting in the background and the trees rustling. A faint whistle from the wind picking up, and chimneys puffing out smoke from the estate home that is far more warm and inviting than being out here. Instead of addressing Jerry I pull out my smokes and light up again. He holds his eyes on my every move, even when I place my clipper back into my breast pocket. Lounging back I sigh slightly and he looks upon me impatiently.
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"Taylor Gilbert Scott, you say?" I begin slowly and he eyes me curiously.
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"That's the one: unmissable woman." He says eyeing me like a detective.
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"Well she was" I whisper grinning slightly and inhaling my cigarette.
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"Taylor was the first love of my life. Taylor and I dated before I attended university in California. We were your typical sweethearts, in it for life" I whisper and he looks upon me alarmed that I'm giving him exactly what he already knows, first rule of lying. Never lie when they can prove you wrong.
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"We ran through our relationship as if it was an open field, no care for anything going wrong. Like life was full of daisies and sunshine. I was eighteen when we conceived our first." I whisper and it's almost like going to therapy, only my therapist is an angst thirty year old who wants to bring me down.
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"Twins" I murmur slowly and his face softens just slightly. He lights up another cigarette and takes a seat on the bonnet of my Porsche.
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"We had imagined we would have a boy and a girl" I smile over at him, thinking back to my house in California and how it's become a shrine for that time. Scan pictures, photograph's of us line the walls and all of the gifts we had given each other. The easel that she got me for Christmas and the pictures and paintings of her.
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"What happened to them" he asks softly when I go quiet, when the air remains still and when only the owl can be heard.
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"Vanishing twin syndrome, we lost the first and then a few weeks later we lost the second via miscarriage" I whisper and he gasps, details are important. It sets up exactly why I have not mentioned it, highlighting how this would be difficult to divulge to another.
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"We lost both and I sunk into depression. I was too young to deal with my emotions and eventually growing tired she pulled away from me" I whisper looking into the darkness and inhaling my cigarette as he sits and stares past me.
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"What happened?" He whispers slowly horrified by my tragedy. I suppose when something becomes your reality you just learn to deal with it. You try your best and in my case you fail to remedy the situation. Here I sit the big failure that managed to screw up his first relationship, trying to convince Emily's family that I'm a good choice for her.
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"She married my best friend" I say softly and he sucks in a breath of air, eyeing me incredulously before he wipes his face clear of any expression.
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"I'm not proud of it, okay would you be?" I whisper slowly and he shakes his head ditching his smoke on the gravel.
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"I let her down and I paid the price. It's on me" I say. Reaffirming that I am aware of my shortcomings.
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"It's not something I talk about, it's not an ice breaker" I quip and he laughs slightly.
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"Here I'm sorry for that" he whispers as we begin heading back, the gravel crunching under foot.
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"No need to be sorry" I say silkily and he shakes his head still shocked by my confession and I begin to wonder how thorough his background check was. I can't imagine him skimping on the money, but he sure didn't know about the twins. In an odd way I feel provoked that my babies were left out of the report. Like they've been forgotten or never existed. Clenching my fists before I push my hair back telling myself to get a grip.
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"How did you know her name" I whisper under my breath as he walks through the warm marble hall. The flowers, roses and petunias and the celebratory banners surrounding us. Candles lit and loud laughter filtering through the dining room.
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"What?" He says jovially as I pull his arm back from the oak door that leads into the hall. He stiffens slightly and I'm close to pinning him to the wall but I remind myself that I do not do that anymore. Not the new Matthew, old Matthew would have punched him by now. Most likely caused a scene and fled.
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"How did you know her name" I repeat calmly and he smiles, we're all friends here. Friends that search you up or hire investigators.
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"I paid for some information" he whispers slowly, watching my eyes.
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"It's protocol. Simple as. We tend to like to know what we are marrying into" he laughs as if it's nothing.
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"You could have just asked me" I whisper.
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"You could have just said in the first place" he counters and I shake my head removing my physical contact. Jerry brushes himself down and I get the feeling that he is no stranger to a fight. He straightens up his handkerchief before flashing me a grin and slipping through the large ornate doors back to the party.
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***
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Even the windows in the house are dressed, in the highest style and fashion with draping curtains, the finest fabrics. A suitable pelmet that covers the top of the sash window. When I pull them closed the material feels heavy and it offers complete privacy. Considering the lack of neighbours it’s not all that important to have a blackout curtain yet it’s a luxury afforded to the master suite bedroom.
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My eyes rake over the small balcony and the glass doors as Emily gets ready in the en-suite bathroom. Laying back on the huge bed with my legs dangling off of the side wandering what other information was in the report on the background check of my life.
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Emily appears as I’m succumbing to sleep, her hair trailing down her back as she hovers over me in one of my shirts. A look of concern on her face as she watches me closely.
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“You were calling out” she whispers, a look of confusion over her face. I giggle slightly and open up the button up shirt, she watches me closely whereas normally she would smile.
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“It’s the Brandy” I announce laughing, praying that I wasn’t calling out for Taylor. Talking about her and the babies usually makes me dream about them, about the life I could have had.
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“Are you sure” she says simply raising a plucked eyebrow.
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“Yes Brandy and needing my soon to be wife in bed” I smile openly rubbing her bare hips under the shirt. The grandfather clock ticks away down the hall as she watches me silently, I’m sure that the noise of the ticking will wake me up constantly through the night.
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“Come on Em, we’re engaged. Come to bed” I smile up at her as she straightens up and watches me. Pulling my button up shirt around her.
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“What is it!?” I smile when she doesn’t respond, all of my insecurities swirl around me. Not being good enough for her, being a liar and a cheat. The dead weight in our relationship; the one with no family or friends.
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“It’s just you were shouting don’t leave me” she whispers slowly and I shake my head. Launching into a torrent of excuses about how I had been dreaming of her, how it’s a silly recurring dream I’ve been having. My voice calm as I lie knowing very well how I had most likely had visions of Taylor, the night she fled from our home in California. The last time we had been a couple. I had all but erased those memories until Jerry decided to bring up my past and shove it under my nose.
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“Oh is that right?” She questions slowly, my mind wanders which is worse. The dreams of Taylor walking out on me or the nightmare I had of me walking out on her in Italy. That night haunted me for years; the birth of Emilia, Taylor’s second child. I had turned up unannounced and Taylor even after several months had wrapped me around her finger, holding me, her words swirling around my mind. Empty promises pulling me under, no woman has ever had the control Taylor managed to exercise over me. I had taken one look at her baby, brunette curls and soft olive skin. Emilia opened her eyes and she was Taylor through and through. I had thought; this is what our children would have looked like.
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“It’s just Matthew, you were shouting don’t leave me Taylor” she says slowly and carefully. Anticipating a full blown inquisition I shake my head and wish for this night to end. It’s not the first time Taylor has been brought up tonight.
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“It’s nothing Emily” I whisper resting my head back, my chest constricting in the realisation of how much I have to lose. Horse rides, holding her close and promising her forever.
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“Who is Taylor?” She remarks and I sigh sitting up and crossing my legs. She watches me and I beckon her to sit with me. My arms wrapping around her waist as I pull her into my lap. Emily faces away from me and I inhale the scent of her shampoo before I begin. Telling her the truth, although difficult and challenging, is necessary when her cousin has already carried out a background check. Holding onto her like it may be the last time. Like she may recoil from me when she knows who I am.
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