Read Online Who Loves You Best by Tess Stimson - Free Book Online Page B

road. I’d forgotten quite how much I fancy him. It’s been so long since we had sex, I’ve got spiderwebs between my thighs.
    “How in God’s name did that bloody bull get in the pool, anyway?” he demands.
    “Xan knocked down the gate to its field when he crashed his car.”
    “Knowing him, he did it on purpose to piss off your mother.”
    “Do you have any siblings?” I ask Jenna over my shoulder.
    “Nope. Just me.”
    “I can’t imagine being an only child. Do you get on well with your parents?”
    “Once a month,” Jenna says dryly.
    “Davina should never have been allowed to breed at all, never mind twice,” Marc says darkly. “No offense, darling, I’m glad she did, of course, but the woman has as much maternal instinct as a vampire.”
    “I suppose that’s where I get it from.” I sigh.
    “You’re not like her at all!” Jenna bursts out. She blushes furiously. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out quite like that. But you’re wonderful with the twins. I can see how much you love them.”
    I’m engulfed by the familiar rush of guilt. I love bothmy children, of course I do. But with Poppy it’s effortless, as automatic as breathing. I have to choose to love Rowan every single day.
    “I never know why they’re crying,” I tell Jenna. “You seem to have a sixth sense—”
    “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, that’s all. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’ll be much easier next time around.”
    “Sounds like an idea,” Marc murmurs, putting his hand on my thigh.
    I remove it, my ardor rapidly cooling. “Not in my lifetime.”
    “I know we said that two—Christ Almighty!”
    He yanks on the steering wheel as a figure stumbles out of the hedgerow, and the Range Rover swerves towards the middle of the road. A car coming in the opposite direction mounts the grass verge to avoid us, horn blaring angrily. Marc slams on the brakes and pulls over to the side of the road, his face white with anger. I twist in my seat and watch Xan stagger towards us, oblivious to the near-accident he just caused, shirttails flapping, laughing as if this is all a huge joke.
    Marc buzzes down his window. “What the fuck d’you think you’re playing at?”
    “Needed a lift, mate.” Xan grins.
    “Don’t ‘mate’ me. If you think I’m taking you anywhere after that—”
    “Please, Marc,” I mutter. “He’ll get himself killed if we leave him here.”
    Marc’s jaw tightens. He nods tersely towards the backof the car. “You’ll have to get in the boot. There’s no room in the back.”
    “Nice one.”
    I climb out and wait for my brother to haul himself into one of the flip-down seats in the rear of the car, making sure he puts his seat belt on. Within minutes, he’s passed out. I glance at him in the rearview mirror. He looks about twelve years old.
    I can cope with the careless way Davina behaves towards me; it stings sometimes, but I’m used to it. I try to remember that her own mother died when she was two; instead of sending her to school, her father kept her at home with him and an army of servants who waited on her hand and foot. Davina is shallow and irresponsible and utterly selfish, but is it any wonder? I can’t find it in me to hate her; if anything, I feel sorry for her.
    But I’ll never forgive her for what she’s done to Xan.
    No one who’s ever seen
Sophie’s Choice
could forget it. That harrowing moment on the railway platform at Auschwitz, when Sophie is forced by the Nazi concentration camp commandant to choose life for one of her two small children, and death for the other.
    “Don’t make me choose,” Sophie begs, clutching her children, “I
can’t
choose!” But then, when a young Nazi is told to take them both to the death camp, she releases her daughter, shouting, “Take my little girl!” and has to watch helplessly as the screaming child is carried away to die.
    I was only a kid when the film came out, motherhooda distant glimmer on the