Brothers at War [#Wattys2017]

four (ii)

When I, finally, made me way down the stairs, I was already forty-five minutes late and I wasn't even surprised to see Amena hanging off Matt's arm as though he was going to leave her the moment she let go of him.

"Sophie," Amena grinned when she caught sight of me at the bottom of the stairs and, unlike the other five females who were stood there, she genuinely looked happy to see me joining her for the day.

"Sorry I'm late. I couldn't sleep last night." It wasn't technically a lie, I hadn't been able to sleep. My mind had been buzzing with the conversation which I had shared with Markus, and the way he had become immediately protective over the prospect of his brother taking Callie from me, but then he had returned to the man I had come to know.

"Oh. I know. Your mother told me this morning that you would be joining us, and that I just needed to wait patiently for you to come down." I had expected the woman Matt was married to, the woman Matt had cheated on multiple times, to be something she wasn't.

I had wanted her to be stuck-up, obnoxious, and rude. I had wanted her to be your typical spoiled brat who got whatever she wanted with the click of her fingers. I had, even, wanted her to the type of girl who had a daddy who would do anything to ensure that his perfect princess got everything she wanted.

But she was none of those things. She wasn't even the type of woman Matt had led me to believe she was.

She was sweet, beautiful, innocent, and bubbly. I had thought seeing her would ease the guilt of sleeping with her husband, but it had had the opposite effect, and now the guilt had increased tenfold. Especially with the knowledge that I had given him the daughter he had always wanted while, for some reason, Amena was unable to have children.

I was the worst kind of person and I could feel the bile rising from my stomach at the thought of what I had done to the woman who stood before me now: the woman who had a grin on her face and was undeniably excited about spending the day with me.

"She also told me," Amena paused as she moved closer me and wrapped her hand gently around my arm, coming in close as though she knew something about me which wasn't to be shared with the rest of the world, "that you have a fear of horse riding."

"Uh. Yeah?"

"I just wanted to assure you that all of the horses have been trained by the best and, because I don't want you to feel too uncomfortable, I thought that you might like to be paired with one of the most experienced riders I know?"

"Thanks. I appreciate the thought." I managed to give her a smile. It was weak and pathetic, but it was a smile nonetheless, and that's really all I could muster with the guilt which was consuming me.

"But, if you don't mind me asking of course, why do you have such an aversion to horse riding?"

"I was sixteen and I had been told, promised in fact, that the horse I was riding was trained. But that had been a lie," I sighed, my ribs stinging as I remembered the day which had turned me from horse riding. "Something spooked the horse and it threw me off. It then saw me as the threat and I was kicked twice before the horse ran over me."