Chapter 23: The Sister's Discovery
The blue guest room was quiet, but the house felt like it was holding its breath. Aidan dressed slowly, the cotton of his shirt sticking to his skin. He could still hear the ghost of that hissed Spanish from upstairs, a language he didn’t understand but whose tone was universally clear: betrayal.
Down in the kitchen, the golden morning light felt accusatory. He was pouring a second espresso when the two sisters came back down. Jenny had changed into jeans and a simple grey sweater, her hair in a severe ponytail. Lucia followed, her earlier vibrancy replaced by a watchful, pale intensity. She looked like someone who had just revised her entire understanding of the world.
Catriona floated in from the terrace, bringing with her the scent of chlorine and jasmine. “Better,” she said, her eyes appraising Jenny’s change of clothes. “Now, who’s hungry? I can whip up some eggs Benedict.”
“I’m not hungry,” Lucia said. Her voice was flat.
“Nonsense, you’re a growing girl. Aidan, be a love and get the champagne from the cooler. We’ll have mimosas. A little hair of the dog.” She winked at Jenny, a casual intimacy that made Lucia’s jaw tighten.
“I need to talk to my sister,” Lucia said, not moving. “Alone.”
“Of course you do,” Catriona said, unfazed. She began pulling eggs and a lemon from the Sub-Zero. “The patio is lovely. We’ll give you space.”
Aidan caught Jenny’s eye. There was a pleading look there, a silent apology for the storm that had walked through their door. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. It was all he could offer.
Jenny led Lucia out through the sliding glass doors to the shaded breakfast nook. Aidan watched them go, then turned to the cooler. The champagne bottle was cold and slick in his hands.
“Leave it for a moment,” Catriona said softly. She wasn’t looking at him. She was separating an egg yolk, her movements precise. “Let them talk.”
“She knows,” Aidan said.
“Obviously.” Catriona smiled. “The question is what she knows, and what she thinks she knows. And what she wants to do with that information.”
Outside, the sisters’ voices started low but quickly climbed. They forgot to be quiet, the patio acting as a sound bowl.
“—wearing a robe, Jenny! A see-through fucking robe! In your employer’s kitchen at ten in the morning!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Or what? He looks like a nice guy. A normal, married, rich guy. Is he the one? The one you’ve been all secretive about?”
A pause. Aidan stopped breathing. Catriona stopped whisking, tilting her head to listen.
“Yes.” Jenny’s voice, small but clear.
“Jesus Christ. Does his wife know? Does the elegant lady in there know you’re fucking her husband?”
Another pause, longer. Catriona’s smile returned, deep and private.
“Yes,” Jenny said again. “She knows.”
The silence from the patio was absolute. Aidan imagined Lucia’s face, the confusion collapsing into a deeper, more profound shock.
“You’re… you’re both…?” Lucia’s voice was a disbelieving whisper that carried perfectly. “What is this, some fucked-up Pretty Woman thing? Are they paying you?”
“No! God, no. It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like, Jen? Explain it to me. Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re the live-in mistress for a wealthy couple. Is that your medical school hustle?”
“You don’t understand anything!” Jenny’s voice broke, frayed with emotion. “It’s not transactional. It’s… it’s real. We’re a… it’s a relationship. All three of us.”
Lucia barked a laugh, harsh and brittle. “A relationship. Right. Does Mom know about this ‘relationship’?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Or what? You’ll have them fire you?” Lucia’s tone shifted, the anger bleeding into something else—a morbid, reluctant curiosity. “I want to see it.”
“See what?”
“This ‘relationship.’ I don’t believe you. I think you’re lying to save face. I think you got caught being the other woman and now you’re spinning some polyamory fairy tale. So show me. If it’s so real, let me see it.”
Catriona set her whisk down. She looked at Aidan, her green eyes bright. “Well,” she murmured. “An audience.” She didn’t sound displeased. She sounded intrigued.
She wiped her hands on a linen towel and walked calmly to the sliding door. She opened it before Jenny could reply.
Both sisters jumped, whirling to face her. Jenny looked devastated. Lucia looked defiant, guilty, and utterly out of her depth.
“Lucia, sweetheart,” Catriona said, her voice warm and disarmingly kind. “If you need a demonstration to understand, we can provide that. No more secrets, no more whispers. It’s so much cleaner in the light.”
Lucia stared, her bravado crumbling into confusion. “I… I didn’t mean…”
“But you did.” Catriona stepped onto the patio, taking control of the space. “Aidan, bring the champagne, would you? And the orange juice. We’ll have our mimosas in the living room. It’s more comfortable.”
Aidan moved numbly, collecting the bottle and the crystal flute glasses Catriona had set out. His heart was a dull hammer against his ribs. This was crossing into new territory, even for them. This was exposure.
They filed into the vast, sun-drenched living room. Catriona directed traffic with a curator’s grace. “Jenny, darling, sit on the rug there, by the hearth. Aidan, you take the armchair. Lucia, you’ll have the best view on the sofa.”
It was a staging. A brutal, intimate staging. Jenny, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, lowered herself to the plush white rug. She looked up at Aidan, a silent question in her gaze. He saw the shame, but beneath it, a flicker of the same defiant heat that had started all this. A willingness to prove her sister wrong, to validate the impossible truth of her life here.
Aidan sat in the deep leather armchair. He felt colossal, awkward. The morning sun warmed the back of his neck.
Catriona perched on the arm of the sofa beside a rigid Lucia. She poured champagne, the pop of the cork absurdly loud. She topped it with juice and handed a glass to Lucia, who took it without looking.
“Now,” Catriona said, sipping her own drink. “Jenny. Come show your sister how much you love my husband. How real it is.”
The command hung in the air. Jenny blinked, a single tear escaping down her cheek. She wiped it away, smudging her mascara. Then, with a resolve that tightened Aidan’s stomach, she crawled across the rug toward him. The soft, rhythmic sound of her knees on the wool was the only noise in the room.
She stopped between his legs. She looked up at him, and in that look was everything—apology, need, devotion, a challenge. Her fingers went to the button of his jeans.
Lucia made a small, choked sound.
Jenny worked the button free, then the zipper. She didn’t look away from Aidan’s face. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and briefs and pulled them down just enough. He sprang free, already thick and heavy in the cool morning air.
Lucia’s sharp intake of breath was audible. She didn’t look away.
Catriona sipped her mimosa, her expression one of fond appraisal. “She’s exquisite with him, you know,” she said to Lucia, as if commenting on a ballet. “She learned so quickly. It’s like she was made for him.”
Jenny leaned forward, her dark hair falling like a curtain. She didn’t use her hands. She simply took him into her mouth, deeply, all at once, a practiced, consuming motion that made Aidan’s head fall back against the chair with a groan he couldn’t suppress.
It was different with an audience. A vicious, electric current ran through it. The shame burned, but it fused with a perverse thrill, a degradation that was also a form of power. He forced his eyes open, looking past Jenny’s bobbing head to the sofa.
Lucia was frozen, her knuckles white around the stem of her flute. Her face was a portrait of horrified fascination. Her lips were parted. She wasn’t disgusted. She was mesmerized.
Catriona reached over and gently pried the glass from Lucia’s hand before she dropped it. She set it on the side table. Then, she placed her own hand over Lucia’s, which was clenched on her knee.
“See?” Catriona whispered, her voice a velvet murmur in the quiet room, broken only by the wet, rhythmic sound from the rug. “It’s not sordid. It’s beauty. It’s honesty. This is our family, Lucia. This is the truth.”
Lucia didn’t pull her hand away. She watched, her breath coming in short, quiet bursts, as her sister loved another woman’s husband, with that woman’s calm encouragement. The last of her certainties dissolved there in the golden light, replaced by a terrible, awe-struck understanding.