Brothers at War [#Wattys2017]

prologue

"We can't carry on like this."

"I know," he sighed, "but I can't just drop everything and leave. You know that." His hand reached up to my cheek and wiped away the stray tears which were beginning to make themselves at home there.

To anyone on the outside, this situation would appear normal. A loved-up couple, spending the weekend away in a hotel room together, pretending that the rest of the world didn't exist until it came time to return to that world. This situation, however, was as far away from normal as you got.

The man I was sharing a bed with, the man I was in love with, was a married man. To the rest of the world, he had hit the jackpot with his wife, but to me, it was just another heartbreak after falling for a man I could never actually have.

"If you really loved me, as you say you do, then that's exactly what you would do," I sighed, averting my gaze to the floor because the pained expression on his face was too much for me to handle.

This was all wrong and we shouldn't be doing it. I shouldn't be in love with him.

Not only was he a married man, but I was also ten years his junior. I was nothing more than a child who still had much to learn about life, and the things which were still to come for me. I was ready to walk away from this, from him, and spend the rest of my days in tears.

Alone.

Because, while I didn't want to believe it, it was the truth. I was stupid—no, I was naïve—to think that he wanted to me. To think that this could work between the two of us.

He was rich. He owned his own business and he had the most beautiful woman as his wife, and that woman wasn't me, nor would it ever be me.

I, on the other hand, was nothing. I was just out of University. I had no money, no job, no prospects as of this moment, and no man I could even call my own.

"Sophie, it's not that simple. I love you, I really do, but every is just one big mess at the moment." His voice was soft and, as always when he spoke, it was enough to send shivers down my spine while his touch was enough to cause goosebumps on my skin.

But that wasn't enough to prevent the damn from breaking or the anger from showing. "Nothing is ever simple with you, is it Matt? No. There is always an excuse, or a reason, or some explanation as to why you can't keep your promises."

"You wouldn't understand. You're still just a child." And there is was. Case and point. He was never going to see me as anything more than a child, and he was never going to love me as any more than his dirty little secret; something which I had been content with for the last two years.

But, the moment he stood in front of me, his height made me feel inferior and he immediately cast a spell over me.

There was something about him. There has always been something about Matthew Barnes, something so different that it was impossible for me to ignore it. To ignore him.

"What is your problem, Soph? This isn't the first time you have snapped at me." Matt placed his hand on my arm, rubbing it in what I would usually deem a comforting manner, but all it did currently was serve as a reminder of the coldness which I was delivering.

"There is no problem. Not unless you plan on creating on?"

"Yeah. Sure. No problem my arse," he laughed, but I wasn't finding this amusing. I wasn't finding any of this amusing and I was close to punching him, hoping that I could hit him hard enough to knock him out, giving me just enough time to make my escape.

But then I knew that would be pointless even attempting to do that.

The emotional hold which he had over me was too strong, and it was never going to be broken. He was always going to be the one that I wanted; the one that I needed.

"Will you tell me what your problem is, Soph? I'm getting a little tired of having to second guess your every move, fearing that I may find myself injured by you."

He had the right to know what my problem was. I wasn't selfish enough to have convinced myself that he didn't have the right to know, but I simply didn't want to tell him because then he would always have a hold over me and I would never be able to let him go; and I needed to be free.

"How do you do it, Matt?" I burst out after a couple of minutes of silence. It wasn't what I wanted to ask, and neither did it really answer his question, but there was no time to stop the words from rolling off my tongue and into the air around me.

"Do what?" He asked. I had never found it attractive when he played the stupid card, and it wasn't a trait I looked for in any male, but it was the card he always pulled when he didn't want to answer my question.

"Go back to your wife and pretend you love her?" I was still unsure whether he was pretending to love her, as he always informed me, or whether he was just playing me and was genuinely in love with her. In every picture of the two of them, the love appeared genuine, and there was no sign of the lie which Matt tirelessly insisted he was living with her.

"There are times in life when you have to do things, not for yourself, but for the people around you. Loving Amena is easy, even easier when I imagine it's you that I'm looking at and not her."

"Me? Ha. Like I believe that." I could fall for his words, not when this was goodbye, and not when I was leaving without having told him the secret I was supposed to have told him.

"Believe what you like, Sophie, but I love you." And it's surprising just how much damage those words can do to a person.

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