Chapter 64 Family Secret
The party was over, probably the longest night of their lives as well.
The next morning, Luke and Peach didn’t mention what happened, the night passed but the faintest memories of it stayed and made Luke mute.
He was with Peach at a cafe, leaned against his seat, eyes elsewhere.
“Thanks for staying,”
“Mention not,”
The few minutes with her, the half divulgence without the proper name, everything threw him in a dazed state.
“Are you done now? Shall we go back? After the construction starts, I will contact Arabella and tell you everything myself, okay?”
She smiled in her usual lively and tempting tone, taking a sip of her coffee, glancing at him from time to time but he was not reacting at all.
Frowning at his lack of cognition, she snapped her fingers before his face to get his attention.
“Luke, are you listening?”
He blinked, “Huh? Yeah…”
“I noticed your silence after you met with her. Are you thinking about who did this to you? Or is it something else?”
“Something else,”
He exhaled, rubbing his temples to show his discontent.
Her silence, her averting gaze, there was no sign of her yearning for him back.
‘If it was a misunderstanding, wouldn’t she want me back? But why do I have no place there?’
“What is it?”
Closing his eyes, he knew the time to disclose matters and find closure had arrived. He could no longer run away from their undesirable past.
“Peach… there was something I wanted to ask her but couldn’t. I should have but the answer scared me,”
“Why did the answer scare you when you don’t know?”
His lips quivered.
She tilted his head, pity emerging from her pretty features, placing her hand gradually over his for reassurance.
He removed it and covered his mouth while telling her vaguely.
“Because I saw it in her eyes and I am too hesitant to make it crystal-clear. I had seen it and there is nothing beyond it,”
“Is it, do you love me?”
She knitted her brows together in discontent, somewhere in a buried corner of her heart, she didn’t want to know.
She hated this question.
“No,”
“Then?”
She instinctively sighed in relief. Luke noticed but ignored it, staring at the ground.
“Were you sober or drunk?”
“I don’t understand,” She blinked in confusion.
“Leave it, you won’t get it. But, can you ask her for me?”
“Uh.. sure,”
She had no context, no idea what it meant or what he hoped to gain by knowing the answer but for him, she agreed.
Taking a deep breath, he finally placed his attention to the woman before him, taking a sip of his coffee.
“Now it leaves one last thing,”
“What?”
“Return this pendant, it fell when Arabella left. It is extremely important to William. He is very emotional about it,”
He smiled feebly, showing her a dainty but glimmering pendant that made her mouth gaped in awe.
“My, my so pretty, can I have it?”
She smirked, her usual habit of gaining what was aesthetically pleasing to her eyes.
And it. Caught. Her. Eyes.
She wanted it, if not this one then she would make the same replica of it to add to her collection.
“No,” He chuckled.
“Why? What is in it?” She asked.
Checking it out with a shine in her eyes, taking pictures of it before returning it.
“Promise me, Peach, you will not tell anyone. It’s our family secret, only Bella knows about it, no one else.”
Luke took a pause, crossing his pinky finger with hers with a serious look that dried her throat.
“Can I trust you with our deepest secret?”
Her heart skipped a beat when he adorably crossed their pinkies, staring intently at the woman in hopes.
And at his one glimpse of expectations, drowning in those hazel gaze, she nodded.
“Y-Yes… What is it?”
Only to hear the truth they hadn’t told anyone, they buried the secret of their family ignorant to this world.
“William is my step-brother,”
… The very same secret Luke emotionally screamed just to agonize him.
“Wait, what!?”
Gasping, she pulled back, covering her mouth, taking a few moments to register before leaning forward and whispered to not get attention.
“H-How?”
“Our father’s first wedding was forced, he didn’t want to marry her and kept it a secret and he had an affair with our Mother too.” He told her sadly.
“William’s mother died giving birth to him,”
“Is that pendant hers?”
She paused, no longer holding interest in that piece of jewelry.
Pity evoked in her heart, feeling compassion for William for losing his mother, handling his father’s affair and accepting his other children.
“Yes. Her demise gave him an open opportunity to reveal the marriage and named William and us too as biological sibling,”
She commented, “I cannot believe it… he adored his step siblings, moreover the ones his father had an affair with,”
William was renowned for being the most devoted brother to think he did this for his step-siblings was unfathomable.
“Did he always love you this much?”
Peach questioned in disbelief and it stiff Luke for a heartbeat, his childhood flickered, the times, the fights, the not-so-good life before and after losing their parents.
Bringing moist in his eyes, his lips began to shake badly, and recalling how he used to be, Luke chuckled emptily.
“Who told you William loved us?”
“What?”
“He does, now. Inexplicably that at my one call, he will definitely come to me. But as long as our parents were alive…”
‘I HATE THEM! THEY ARE NOT MY SIBLINGS! I WISH THEY DIE!’
He remembered that statement and words abruptly vanished from his tongue, failing to convey the hatred William once held.
He couldn’t tell her because-
‘No matter how exasperating I was to him, no matter how much he hated me or disliked my presence-
He was my ideal, he always had a charm that attracted people and I wanted him to notice me too, once, just for once.
I wanted him to call me his brother which he never did,’