I whisper in his ear, "Moral support."
"Rick needs that too?" he says in an equally soft voice while rolling his eyes toward his brother.
"Did you tell them yet?"
He flattens his lips and twists them this way and that.
I take that as a no. "Go on, get it over with. Everything will be okay."
Pippa Hunter smiles at us. "Are you two talking about when to get married?"
She's joking. I think.
"No," I tell Nick's mom. "Not yet."
Why did I say "not yet"? Pippa will think I'm in love with her son. Maybe I am. Comforting him during his big confession matters a lot to me, and I never want to see Nick humiliated or hurt.
While I gaze into his beautiful eyes, the truth hits me so hard I almost gasp. Oh God, I do love him.
"Let's eat first," Nick says to everyone.
"No procrastinating," I tell him, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"You're right, I know." Nick clears his throat. "I have something to tell all of you. So, here goes."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nick
I tell them everything—why I quit school, why that rumor upset me so much, and why I ran away to America because of it. They're going to think I'm an idiot, aren't they? I deserve their scorn, but I know they won't give me any of that. I've also assured them I have not been feeling like a failure for all these years or worrying women like Rick better than they like me. It's only been over the past two months that I've felt that way again.
Yes, it's all Lady Prescott's fault.
But I should thank Georgina for being a spiteful cow, I suppose, since I wouldn't have met Siobhan otherwise.
No, I'll thank fate for that, not Lady Sodding Prescott.
My parents and my brother are looking at me like they want to laugh.
Luckily, Siobhan is still seated on my lap. Her bum on my thighs makes me feel much better about being a complete moron.
"That's what you think?" Richard says. "Dad gave me the company because he doesn't trust you to run it properly. And I stole your girlfriend. Gina? I barely even remember that silly bint. I only sh—uh, went out with her once, then she took up with a footballer, the star player on the uni team."
He almost said he'd shagged her, which I already knew, but he seems to think that revelation will shock our parents. Or maybe he doesn't want Maddie to know about that.
But it's what he did say that surprises me.
"Gina did what?" I say. "How did I never know that?"
"Because we weren't, ah, seeing much of each other back then."
Yes, my polite brother is trying not to offend me, though I can't see why he'd think the fact we weren't best mates back then would bother me.
Well… All right, maybe it did bother me a little. At the time. Not now, though. Rick and I are close these days, so the past doesn't matter.
Our father smiles and shakes his head. "Do you think Mother and I don't know what you two are talking about? Nick enjoyed a bit of 'how's your father' with a silly chit who then threw him over for Rick, and he enjoyed the same favor until the girl threw him over too. For heaven's sake, Pippa and I aren't prudes, you know. We realize our adult sons have sex from time to time. Do you think Mother and I don't?"
Honestly, I prefer not to dwell on what my parents get up to in private. Yes, I'm a forty-year-old man who doesn't want to know that his parents shag. That's hardly the most idiotic thing I've ever done.