The letter was from Dougal and Bright, Liz’s lawyers. She’d named me in her Will and had left me everything – her entire estate. She hadn’t owned much, but her small apartment in north London was worth over $550,000.
“Why did she leave it to me? We were friends, but… I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand, Caro? She loved you. Why do you always have a hard time realizing that, baby?”
I shrugged.
“This is good news,” he said, stroking my hair. “Out of all of this shit, it’s something good.”
“I know. It’s just… so unexpected.”
He hesitated before he spoke again. “It’ll pay off your mortgage: you wouldn’t have to work overseas… if you didn’t want to…”
I knew what he was trying to say, but I couldn’t make a decision like that here and now.
“Anyway, it’s our money,” I said quietly.
Sebastian shook his head angrily.
“I’m not going to take your fucking money, Caro!”
I placed my hand over his mouth, cutting off his stormy words.
“I mean it, Sebastian. Either we’re in this together, or we’re not. If you won’t accept it, then I won’t accept it. I’ll give it to the Journalism Without Borders charity before I let this money come between us. You said yourself we deserved some good luck.”
He ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
“She didn’t even like me, Caro. There’s no way she’d want me to have anything to do with your inheritance. Hell, as far as she was concerned, I was just fucking you for something to do and…”
“You’re wrong. She knew all about us.”
His rant ground to a halt; he looked stunned.
“She did?”
“Of course. I told her everything – and I told her we were going to get married.”
Sebastian leaned back and stared at me. “You told her? Everything?”
“Yes, tesoro.”
He scratched his eyebrow thoughtfully. “What did she say?”
I gave him a small smile. “She wanted to know if you were as good in bed as she’d heard.”
I thought he was going to choke, but then I saw a wicked gleam in his eye. “And what did you say?”
I gave him a prim look. “Nothing, of course… although…”
“Although what?”
“I may have winked at her.”
He smirked at me.
“Sebastian,” I said, my voice serious, “if it hadn’t been for me, you would have gone to college, gotten your degree…”
I waved away his denial.
“We both know that’s true: well, here we are – I can pay off the mortgage, you can use the GI bill, go to college, get your degree, if that’s what you want.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “It doesn’t feel right, Caro. Let me think about it.”
He was so frustrating, I wanted to hit him. Or kiss him. Probably both.
And, as we were on a roll, I decided to tackle one more task that we’d both been putting off.
I took a deep breath.
“Sebastian,” I said, gently, “it’s time you decided what you want to do with your uniforms – and your medals.”
His sudden, sharp intake of breath showed how hard he found this, but he nodded slowly, staring at the floor. Then he squared his shoulders and met my steady gaze.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
We stood up and I took him by the hand, leading him into the spare room. He leaned against the door frame, his arms folded tightly across his chest. I gave him a quick, encouraging smile, then pulled out his duffel bag and backpack from under the bed.
His Dress Blues and khaki Service Uniform were crumpled and rather sad when I dragged them out. There was no sign of his desert utility uniform; I didn’t want to think about the reason why – I assumed the doctors would have had to cut him out of it when...
He stared at the clothes coldly, keeping all his emotions tightly contained.
“Get rid of them, Caro. I don’t want to see them again.”