All Over You (20 page)

“You know that thing I was talking about before, about Grace being a good keeper of secrets? I think we might be stumbling through the middle of one right now,” he said. “You want to tell me what it is you think I already know, Serena?”

If it was possible, Serena’s face got even paler.

“God, you
don’t
know any of it? Shit,” she said.

The sick look was back, and more tears. Mac stood and put his hand on her shoulder, stooping to make eye contact with her.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked gently but firmly.

G
RACE HAD WAITED
till the end of the day to drive out to the studio to confess all to Mac. She’d almost convinced herself that he wouldn’t be fazed, that she wouldn’t see a return of that frustrated look that had been such a frequent feature of the early days of their relationship. She should have told him ages ago. Claudia was right. Damn her.

Why hadn’t she? Part of it was genuinely that she hadn’t wanted him to look at her with pity. She didn’t need his sympathy. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Sadie had called the Owen-Serena thing the most important thing in her life. She hated to think of it that way. It was part of the reason she’d moved on when she’d found out about Owen — she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge how hurt she’d been, how devastated. If she never talked about it, it hadn’t happened. Her reasoning had almost been that simple.

But now it was all unraveling. She’d snapped at Serena at the family dinner, despite having told herself and the world for four years that she’d forgiven her sister. And now she was filled with rage that her sister had dared to step onto her turf at the
Boulevard.
Grace was only just now beginning to realize that she hadn’t forgiven her sister — not by a long shot. Ever since she’d seen Serena’s face staring at her from her own TV last night, anger had been percolating inside her.

Her sister had crept into her life and stolen her lover. She had destroyed the world that Grace had created with Owen, the future they’d imagined with each other. Serena had seen something — someone — that she wanted and she’d taken it, with no thought to the consequences for Grace, her own sister.

Because they were the closest in age, she and Serena had played together the most when they were children. They’d plaited each other’s hair, jumped rope, had Barbie doll adventures together using homemade miniature furniture and mom-made clothes. Then puberty had intervened and boys had become the most important thing, and the world had been divided into the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful for Grace. She’d started staying home from the beauty pageants, working on articles for the school newspaper or going thrift-shop trawling with her beloved Nana Wellington. Naturally, she and Serena had drifted apart, but they’d still been sisters. Grace had still agonized over getting the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for her sister and looked forward to the occasional dinner or movie with Serena.

And Serena had abused that trust. She had chosen her own comfort and desire over that of a loved one.

Grace was trembling as she negotiated her way through the warren of corridors, on the lookout for Mac’s temporary office. She realized all of a sudden that she didn’t just
need
to tell Mac about it all — she
wanted
to tell him. And not only because of the situation they were in, but because she knew he loved her and that somehow, by sharing her pain, she could somehow move through it, rather than pushing it aside and pretending it didn’t exist.

She’d tried that for four years, and it hadn’t worked worth a damn — witness the merry dance she’d led Mac on and her ongoing battle with intimacy.

Spotting the door she was looking for, Grace took a deep breath, rapped once sharply and opened the door.

What she saw sent bile bubbling up the back of her throat and pure, unadulterated rage ricocheting around her body.

Mac was standing in front of Serena, who was seated on the corner of his desk in a classic come-on pose. His hand was on Serena’s shoulder, his head lowered toward hers. They looked cozy. Close. Like two people on the verge of something.

Grace’s lip curled even as her hands found her hips and she slipped into Bette Davis mode instinctively.

“Didn’t take you two long, did it?” she drawled.

Mac dropped his hand, a frown creasing his forehead as he instinctively stepped away from her sister. Too late — Grace had already caught him red-handed.

Images from another long-ago scene flashed across Grace’s mind — Owen’s contrite face, Serena scrabbling desperately for something to cover herself as Grace stood, aghast, trying to comprehend what she’d walked into. And all around them, leaning against the walls of Owen’s studio, hanging from the walls, dozens of portraits of Serena. Serena laughing. Serena crying. Serena in ecstasy. All nudes, all amazing, Owen’s best work. A damning, graphic homage to her sister’s beauty and evidence that the man that Grace loved had been betraying her systematically with her sister for months on end.

Serena had a hand pressed to her mouth and was shaking her head, but Grace had nothing to say to her. She fixed her gaze on Mac, the man she’d thought she was in love with.

“All the talk, all the big promises. But when it came down to it it’s always the same, isn’t it? Little head rules big head. I hope she’s worth it, Mac. Owen thought so — he spent six months screwing her behind my back,” she said, turning away before her anger deserted her and the hurt lapping at her ankles rose up to engulf her.

She’d believed in Mac. Stupid stupid stupid.

Mac lunged forward and grabbed her arm before she could get to the door.

“Wait — this isn’t what you think,” he said.

Maybe it was the feel of his hand on her skin when she knew he’d just been touching Serena. Maybe it was the ridiculous leap her heart made, wanting to believe him. Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same: she lost it.

Spectacularly. Wrenching her arm free from his gasp, she swung her open palm at his face and slapped him so hard his head rocked.

“Don’t you ever lay a finger on me again. I don’t want to hear your voice, see your face, nothing. You have lied to me over and over and you’ve thrown away everything that we had. You make me sick, you bastard, sick to my stomach with your bullshit about trust and friendship and the future,” she screamed. “Go screw yourself, and take that faithless slut with you. You deserve each other.”

Then she was out the door, her hand stinging from its impact with his face, her body vibrating with rage.

G
RACE HAD NO RECOLLECTION
of the drive back to her apartment. She slammed her way inside, still trembling with anger, but there was no one to scream and yell at so she wound up pacing, her hands clenched into fists.

She kept seeing the red imprint of her hand on Mac’s shocked face, wishing that she’d punched him and kicked him in the balls and really hurt him, the way he’d really hurt her.

Because it was useless to pretend he hadn’t. He’d cut her to the bone.

The sound of someone pounding on her front door broke her feverish pacing and she made a bet with herself that it would be Mac. She was reaching for the phone, ready to call the police and have him charged with whatever they could come up with when she heard her sister’s voice.

“If you don’t let me in, Grace, I’m going to kick this goddamn door down,” Serena hollered. “I’ll get a rock and smash this little window and open the lock or I’ll go to the nearest Home Depot and get an axe and hack my way in.”

Grace put the phone down and resumed pacing. She felt sick with reaction as her adrenaline ebbed and she rushed to the bathroom to retch into the basin. She was washing her mouth out when she heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering and she realized her sister hadn’t been making empty threats.

Outrage welled up inside her and she stalked through her apartment to the front hallway just as Serena was letting herself in.

“How
dare
you come in here,” Grace said, her voice low and venomous. She felt as though her body would split open with anger, as though mere flesh and bone could not contain her white-hot rage.

To her utter astonishment, Serena’s chin came up and she lunged forward, shoving Grace hard in the chest, just like a frustrated child at the end of her tether. Grace staggered backward, lost her balance and fell flat on her butt.

Serena loomed over her, her face ugly with emotion.

“Just shut up and listen for five seconds! You could have killed yourself driving like that on the freeway. I thought you were going to die when you cut in front of that truck. And all for nothing. Nothing happened between me and Mac just now. I went to see him to tell him I couldn’t take the part. Then he told me you two were in a relationship and I figured he must know about me and Owen and I got emotional. But he didn’t know and I was just about to explain to him when you walked in.”

Grace glared mutinously at her sister.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” she said, trying to get to her feet again.

Serena pushed her down again and held her there, her face just inches from Grace’s as she made her case.

“Do you really think I would do that to you again?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Do you really think I would hurt you like that again?”

Her face crumpled and she began to cry. Letting go of Grace’s shoulders, she sank to the ground until she was huddled in an abject squat.

“I know I deserve every bad thing you’ve ever thought about me, but you have to believe me, Gracie, there is not a day that goes by when I don’t regret what happened with Owen.

“I hate myself for what I did to you. I know I am a horrible, horrible person. But I have learned from that mistake and I would never, ever do that to you or anyone ever again,” Serena said.

Looking at her sister’s huddled form, hearing the sincerity in her voice, Grace knew she was speaking the truth. Nothing had happened with Mac. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem to make a difference to the maelstrom of feelings swirling inside her. She’d had four years to think about Serena’s betrayal. They’d never really talked about it, except for one awkward conversation when Serena had offered up a bunch of feeble excuses and Grace had assured her she forgave her.

The first of many lies that Grace had told herself.

She’d never been able to understand why her sister did what she did or forgive her her actions. Owen, too. How could the man who had slept beside her every night for five years — who had been inside her body, who’d dried her tears and cheered her victories — throw away everything that had happened between them so readily? It was unfathomable to Grace, who prized her friendships and family above all else. She would rather die than hurt Sadie or Claudia or any of her sisters the way Owen and Serena had hurt her.

“Why?” she demanded suddenly, needing to know after four years of silence.

Serena didn’t seem to hear her and Grace stretched out a foot and none too gently nudged her sister with it.

“Why? Why did you sleep with him?” she yelled, unable to contain the anger inside herself.

Serena lost her balance and rocked back onto her ass. Her face was a wet mask of running makeup and tears and she sniffed mightily as she nodded.

“Okay, okay. This conversation has been a long time coming, I know,” she said.

She swiped at her tears with her hands, wiped them dry inelegantly on her jeans. “Four years ago I had just turned thirty,” Serena began.

“I know how goddamn old you are. I’m your sister!” Grace said belligerently.

Serena grabbed her handbag from the floor nearby and threw it at Grace, narrowly missing her head.

“Just listen. You want to know and I’m telling you. This is the only way I know how,” Serena yelled.

Grace glared at her, but didn’t say anything else and Serena started talking again.

“I’d just turned thirty and I’d been going to auditions for nearly ten years. And I still hadn’t scored a break. Every week I was out at auditions, being told I was too tall, too short, too brunette, too skinny, too fat, too whatever that made me unsuitable for the parts I wanted. You don’t know what it’s like wanting something you can’t have, Grace. You’ve succeeded at everything you’ve ever put your hand to. You got great marks in school, you edited the school paper, you got a scholarship to UCLA and you walked out of university and straight into a job with a production company.”

“This isn’t about me. This is about why you threw away twenty-eight years of being my sister so you could hop into bed with my boyfriend,” Grace said contemptuously.

Serena’s jaw tightened and she looked as if she might cry again, but she stuck to her guns.

“When I turned thirty and I was still a waitress and not an actress, I made a deal with myself. I was going to quit, give up and do something else. Except I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried to think of another life to live, I came up blank. I wasn’t smart enough to go back to college and qualify for anything, and I’m hopeless at all things admin-related. I realized that if I stopped trying to be an actress, then I had to accept what I was — a thirty-year-old waitress who was going to become a forty-year-old waitress and then a fifty-year-old waitress.

“That scared the crap out of me, Grace. And I was still freaking out when I saw Owen again at Mom’s fiftieth birthday party. I always thought he was a nice guy. Then he called me a few weeks later and asked me to sit for him. He explained that he had an exhibition coming up, and he needed a model, and he wanted that person to be me.

“I was so flattered. For the first time in what felt like forever, someone was choosing
me,
not one of the hundreds of other hopefuls. Then I sat for him and he was so charming and flattering. He told me I had perfect features, that I was a portrait artist’s dream. He told me that just capturing the texture of my skin on canvas was going to take months. He told me…It doesn’t really matter what he told me, actually, because it was all crap, really. He just wanted to screw me. And I let him, because he made me feel special again. He made me feel like I wasn’t just a waitress. I didn’t think about you, Grace. I didn’t let myself. I kept telling myself that I needed something to keep me going.”

Serena had been studying her hands as she spoke, twisting her fingers together, grasping them tightly then releasing them. Now she looked at Grace, her blue eyes clear and honest.

“None of it’s an excuse. And I know I can never make it up to you. But it’s how I felt. It’s why it happened. I hated myself afterward when I realized what I’d done. But I was a coward. I couldn’t end it because it felt like the only thing I had and I was too scared to face reality. And I wound up hurting one of the people who means more to me than anything else in the world.”

Grace broke eye contact, focusing her gaze beyond her sister’s shoulder as she mulled over the past.

“I should never have even thought about auditioning for
Ocean Boulevard,
” Serena said. “I knew it was wrong, but I needed the money and…Again, I was being selfish. I fooled myself into believing that you didn’t care. That you really had forgiven me. But deep inside I knew that you hadn’t. That maybe you never would.”

“Why should I? What’s in it for me?” Grace said coldly. It had taken her so long to find her rage, she wasn’t letting it go without a fight.

Serena nodded as though she accepted this, as though it was only her due.

“I want you to go,” Grace said, pushing herself to her feet. She didn’t want to look at her sister’s huddled miserableness anymore. She wanted to feel pure in her anger, righteous and justified. She didn’t want there to be consequences or feelings at the other end of the equation. Serena didn’t deserve her understanding or her consideration or her compassion.

“I’ll send you the bill for the window,” Grace said.

Serena stood and walked past Grace to fetch her handbag.

“Thank you for listening. If you have any questions, if there’s anything else you want to know — even if you just want to scream at me — you know where to find me,” Serena said.

Grace crossed her arms over her chest and locked her jaw, willing her sister to go. Serena nodded, then headed for the door. At last.

Serena had disappeared down the outside staircase before Grace registered that the phone had not rung once while they had been talking. And that no one else had pulled up with a screech of tires in front of her apartment. She hustled to the top of the stairs.

“Hey!” she hollered down to Serena.

Her sister turned back, a ridiculous expression of hope on her face. Grace almost snorted with disbelief. Did her sister really think it was going to be that easy? That Grace would just open her arms and forgive her after a bit of crying and self-recrimination?

“Did Mac say anything?” she called down.

Serena stared at Grace for a beat, then shook her head.

“I explained more about me and Owen before I came after you. But he didn’t say anything,” Serena called back.

Grace frowned. In her heart of hearts, ever since she’d calmed down enough to accept that Serena was telling her the truth, that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen, she’d expected Mac to be hot on her heels the way Serena had been. Grace had expected him to see past her furious slap and insults to the pain and fear she’d been feeling. She’d expected him to understand. He always had before. He’d taken everything she threw at him and bounced back. He’d been patient. He’d been caring and kind.

Grace bit her lip as her sister got into her car and drove away.

Surely Mac hadn’t taken to heart the things she’d said to him? She tried to remember exactly
what
she had said. Something about never wanting to see him again.

But he’d know that wasn’t true. Right?

And something else about him having lied to her again and again and again.

Grace winced. She’d been so angry, she hadn’t really been rational. Owen was the one who had lied to her, not Mac. But, again, Mac knew he hadn’t lied to her.

Then she’d told him to go fornicate with himself and various other insults that were neither here nor there. If you weren’t on the receiving end of them.

The soft patter of rain on her face prompted her to return to her apartment.

Shutting the door behind her, she stared at the crushed glass beneath her feet with a complete lack of comprehension, her mind occupied elsewhere.

Mac wasn’t coming. He wasn’t calling. He’d had enough.

And why wouldn’t he have?

She remembered the conversation they’d had in her apartment that Sunday after her family dinner. Mac had challenged her to be honest about her feelings, to stop holding back with him. He’d told her he couldn’t make their relationship work on his own.

He wasn’t angry because she’d insulted him or because she’d slapped him. He was angry because she hadn’t told him the truth. Because she’d withheld herself and her past from him. The past ten days of increased intimacy had shown both of them that what they had together was real, lasting.

But it all had been based on a lie. Her lie. She’d kept her most painful secret hidden, locked away. And now he knew what she’d done.

And he’d given up.

The magnitude of what she’d done hit her like a freight train. She’d fallen in love with Mac and he had fallen in love with her — and she’d pushed him away because she was a coward, because she hadn’t dealt with the pain from her past.

She was already crying by the time she got to the phone. Claudia answered on the second ring.

“I’m such an idiot,” Grace sobbed.

“Where are you?” Claudia asked.

“Home.”

“Sadie and I will be there as soon as we can,” Claudia promised.

Grace ended the call and sank down onto the couch.

She occupied the time before her friends’ arrival mentally reviewing all the times Mac had reached out to her and she had pushed him away.

She felt as though she’d woken from a deep, dreamless sleep. She’d been so paralyzed by fear of rejection, so busy repressing the pain and anger from her breakup with Owen, that she had pushed away the sexiest, funniest, most clever man she’d ever known.

By the time Claudia and Sadie were enfolding her in their arms, she’d worked herself into a hiccupping state. She was so disgusted with herself that she couldn’t accept her friends’ comfort for long and she struggled out of their embraces to pace the space between her couches and her dining table.

“I’ve ruined everything,” she said. “He has been so generous, so patient, and I slapped him in the face and told him I never wanted to see him again. I’m such a coward. I never even told him I loved him — I never told him half of what I was feeling. I was always too scared. All this time I’ve been walking around doing Bette Davis and tearing men apart limb from limb — and it’s all a big joke. I’m not tough. I’m the biggest yellow belly out there. I’m a gutless wonder.”