All The Pieces (Pieces of Lies 3) (9 page)

I swung my head around to look at Tess, who was sitting facing towards me only a few seats from where I was positioned, shaking her head in shocked disappointment. One of her hands was plastered over her face, her eyes peering through her fingers like she was embarrassed for me.

Samuel grabbed at my shoulder again. It almost felt like he was doing it because he wanted to punch me and it was the closest thing to violence he was going to get. My face was heating up as we stood, chest to chest. I was getting a little tired of his he-man act. If Samuel wasn’t careful, I’d show him that I was every bit a fighter and not just a lover. I think he had always underestimated me, and I wanted nothing more than the chance to put him in his place.

“Are you some kind of perverted creep? You shouldn’t be near her and you sure as hell shouldn’t be touching her!” Samuel hissed at me.

My chest grew even bigger, puffed in defense. “What, it’s okay for you to kiss her while she has mentally blacked out, but I’m not allowed to comfort her? That’s a bit hypocritical don’t you think mate!”

Samuel blinked rapidly and his jaw tightened. “Let’s get one thing straight Weston — I’m not your fucking mate! And what I did back in Prague was not the same thing pretty boy. I was actually helping her.”

“Well so am I,” I shot back, not willing to back down to the grease ball. Samuel bridged the tiny space between us. His jaw moved back and forth like he was grinding his teeth.

Suddenly Tess was in between our bodies, separating us with her hands, and putting her fingers up to our mouths to make sure we stopped from going to verbal war.

“Listen to me you two — If you both really care about Norah...really care...then you’ll stop this childish alpha bullshit, and you’ll let her get some sleep, right now! Don’t you two think she deserves some rest!”

Samuel gave me another angered look before his eyes swept over Norah’s sleeping body and he took a step back, acknowledging Tess as being the voice of reason. She was right. I too relaxed my body and stepped away from Samuel and Norah, hoping she wouldn’t wake up.

Samuel looked like he was going to walk back to his seat, but shook his head and then marched right up to me, his mouth inches from mine, almost spitting at me as his voice spoke in a murderous yet whispered tone. “Don’t you dare fucking touch her again! You got that pretty boy? Because if you do, I’ll make sure Lenorah gets to see what a pussy you really are and I’ll send you back to New York. Are we clear,
mate
?”

I just glared back at Samuel, not giving him an answer. He didn’t seem to need one because after he made his threat, he stalked back to the other end of the plane to cool off, leaving Tess standing near me, just shaking her head at the two of us. She then watched as I kept my eyes on Norah’s face as she slept. I wanted nothing more than to get close to her again. Just being a few steps away from her had my body feeling the six months of emptiness that had kept me from being really alive. In that moment, I knew Norah was my life source. The only real true thing that made me feel...
more
. More than this empty life of money, parties, Lappell and business. None of that mattered to me. It never had. Only Norah mattered.

Tess sighed, and rested her hand on my shoulder and used her other hand to swing my face around to meet hers. “Look Clint, I understand this must be like opening up everything you’ve probably buried deep inside yourself for months. She told me about what Josh did to you and I’m sorry that happened. I really am. It wasn’t right what he did to you, so I know this must all be very painful. I know you are not a bad guy and I see the way you are looking at her. I know you are far from over it.” Tess looked over to Norah and then back to me. “But if you are really here to help Norah, you need to respect what she needs, and distance yourself from those feelings.”

I looked to the floor of the plane, knowing Tess was right. Loving Norah meant being respectful about what made her happy. And I wanted her to be happy; I just wanted her to be happy with me.

“If it makes you feel any better Clint, from where I was sitting, you didn’t look creepy. In fact, the way you were stroking her hair looked really caring and sweet. It was beautiful to watch. I know you did it with loving thoughts in your head.”

Tess then gripped my shoulder with her hands, her nails digging in. She was sending a message now. “But don’t pull that kind of shit again. Norah doesn’t need you being a complication here, and she doesn’t need to be anymore confused than she already is. She needs lots of support, and she needs to find Josh — so be a friend, do what you said you were here to do, and don’t get in her way. Alright?”

I nodded at Tess, who seemed satisfied that I understood her correctly, and that certainly was how I wanted to appear, but after what I had just experienced with just one touch of Norah, I knew I had opened up the floodgates to what I really wanted. I wanted Norah back, and I was going to do everything I possibly could to make that happen. London was going to be my opportunity to fight the fight. It was going to be my turn to rotate the tables in my direction. I was going to be the man Norah fell in love with in Morewell, and that man was strong, determined and had a real, true connection to this girl. It was clear to me that neither Tess, nor Samuel, or even Josh, was going to get in my way. Yes, I was going to fight for our love, until the very end.

We were picked up in a car from a small airstrip and taken to Richmond, a town south-west of London where Clint’s family estate was situated. Clint told us that the house was a seventeenth century old mansion that had been passed down through the Weston family for generations. It looked like something that would feature in a Jane Austen novel with its glorious manor-style architecture and fittings. The thought made me think of Morewell and the Literary Ball. The same ball that Clint selected Mr. Darcy as his character subject that evening. Seeing Clint walk in these kinds of surroundings, he looked every bit the picture of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley Manor. I couldn’t help but smile behind him as I remembered the memory of us and a time that suddenly didn’t feel so long ago; when I was once
his
Elizabeth Bennett. Now I was here in his family’s home, getting help from his sister. I wondered how Clint could be so supportive after everything that happened. How he could be so caring or, as Austen would put it, so
agreeable
after what Josh had done?

That’s when the questions and statements began to erupt into my head. It was the first time since Josh told me about what he did to Clint and Samuel, that I was starting to really feel the impact of the words. The depth and realization of what I had so easily ignored or didn’t want to confront back in Prague.

The harsh understanding of how quickly I jumped from Clint to Josh in New York without really looking further into what happened and why.
Why Norah, why?
Did I want to run away from Clint so badly that I didn’t stop to remember everything good we shared? Was his reaction in doing what he did with the fake hit, out of love and protection, and not malice? Would I have done the same? I never really gave Clint a chance to see his point of view. I didn’t really listen to his reason for doing what he did and the choice he made. Perhaps if I had stopped and spoken to Clint and Sam before running into Josh’s arms, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. I wouldn’t be chasing some mad man through London to save Josh.

A sudden surge of guilt made me cough out loud as more and more questions that I hadn’t even considered, hit me hard. But even if my conscious wanted me to re-examine everything I said and did with Clint and Samuel, it had still all led me to Josh. My green-eyed best friend who I had known since I was thirteen. My soul mate. The guy who had always been there for me and had helped me through everything. No matter what, it was still Josh. I couldn’t imagine not being with him, even after all this. Even knowing what he had done. A switch had flipped in my head because there was so much more to our story now.

I coughed again, and suddenly my mind started to spin. The lightheaded feeling caused my ankles to bend at right angles, my body wanting to drop. Clint turned to look at me as my eyes rolled back into my head. His arms went out and grabbed my body, and I fell into his arms, my head flopping forward against his chest.

“Are you okay?” His hands were under my shoulder blades, trying to hold me upright. My head stopped spinning, and I managed to stand up. My eyes met Clint’s and I tried to pull away, but he held me steadfast and strong, refusing to let me go.

“I’m sorry. It’s just this whole situation. It’s so exhausting. I’m not used to feeling so weak.” I bit my tongue the moment the words left my mouth. I wanted to be guarded around Samuel and Clint, not open with my emotions. I had to keep my barrier up. Just because they were here to help me didn’t mean I could really trust them. I still had the odd feeling that there was something they were not telling me, something they were holding back. This time I was trusting my instincts about the possibility of a reveal.

Clint studied my face intently, looking for signs that I was going to fall again if he let go of me.

“I’m alright,” I said to him, trying to sound convincing. Clint didn’t look sure he believed me. He could still sense the frailty in my words, the way I hesitated when I lied. He still knew all my signs. He eyed me again, not withdrawing his hands from my body, even though I was on my feet. “Really, I am fine.” My words pleaded for him to not look further. I had already bared too much. Clint opened his mouth like he was about to bombard me with questions when Samuel and Tess appeared beside us.

“What happened?” Samuel asked, assisting Clint to hold me up. I pulled away from them both. Now the guilt of what I had said to Samuel was hitting me. How I could see in New York that he was being honest on that day he joined with my Dad, and how I just refused to believe it. I knew it in his eyes and his voice that he was telling me the truth, and yet I believed what I wanted to believe. It was a new kind of pain that was slicing me up inside, making me feel exposed and vulnerable. I had been so blinded by so many lies, so much fear, that I couldn’t see what was true anymore.

My head spun once more, and this time I felt the sense of nausea. My stomach doing flips and spins. What was going on? I couldn’t let this new and overwhelming confusion get to me. I needed to get myself together. I had picked my path, and these were my consequences. At that moment, I knew that I needed to put some distance between us all. I couldn’t let my head mess with my body here, even if I had no control. “I’m okay guys. I think I just need some more sleep. I think I may have hurt myself more than I realized back in Prague. That’s all.”

Tess eyed me carefully, knowing I was hiding something more than I was letting on, and was quick to back me up. “Oh yeah, for sure,” Tess said, now throwing her arm around my shoulder. “That was some scary, acrobatic, Jekyll and Hyde type of shit I saw.” I tried to generate a small smile, but Tess saw my face fall. “But it was very entertaining Norah, let me tell you. I mean if I could bend the way you do, then I’d never be alone on my Friday nights.” A real smile found its way to my lips as I tried not laugh at Tess’s sense of humor. She could always make me feel better in the most awkward of situations, even if it was crude and rude. Tess hugged me closer, but I pulled away from her and began walking in the same direction Clint was leading us, hoping I didn’t have to turn around and face them. I tried to ignore the three sets of eyes I knew were on my back as I walked away. I didn’t need ears to be able to hear their thoughts, and the screams of worry from inside their heads.

Clint caught up to me, sticking close to my side. He continued to show us through the house and onto a terrace which looked over lush gardens and the biggest hedge maze I had ever seen. It looked like something out of the movie
Labyrinth
, a favorite film of mine. We all stood in a row, staring out at the gardens, just taking a second to breathe and take in the magnificent sight of the manicured countryside. The little girl in me made me want to run down into the gardens and get lost in that maze. I think it was calling out to the inner child in all of us as we stared wide-eyed at the entry only a few yards away. But it wasn’t a time for fun, and this wasn’t a holiday. We were quickly reminded of that as we all turned around at the sound of heels clacking on the floor near the terrace doorway. A woman, not much older than Clint walked out. She stood for a second and then looked our way, squinting a little as she did.

She was gorgeous, with dead-straight blond hair that fell just past her shoulders. Milky white skin, high cheekbones, and she was wearing one of those eighties-style black power suits only a woman with her tiny figure could pull off. As she got closer, her eyes went straight to me in recognition. They looked me up and down and then they moved to Clint, a smile instantly spreading across her face.

“Little brother.” Her arms went out and drew him in. They looked so comfortable in each other’s hold. Clint had told me he was close with his sister, but seeing them like this, really warmed my heart. I knew he didn’t share this type of relationship with his parents or his older brother.