[Oliver’s POV]
The wine breathes on the counter while I breathe through the particular hell of Sunday family dinners. Dad handed me the corkscrew twenty minutes ago like it was a sacred duty. I've been performing filial devotion ever since.
Helen bustles in the kitchen with the determination of someone who believes roast potatoes can heal family dysfunction. She's not entirely wrong. Her energy fills the house with warmth I've never quite learned to trust.
"Oliver, darling, could you check the gravy? I'm terrified it's lumping."
I check. It's lumping. I lie smoothly about its perfection.
Dad settles into his armchair with the satisfied expression of a man whose life finally assembled itself correctly. New wife. Reconciled son. Sunday roasts. The portrait of domestic success he's been chasing since Mum left.
I wonder sometimes if he'd still look that satisfied knowing what his son did for money.
The doorbell rings. My pulse does something inconvenient.
Lottie appears in the doorway twenty minutes late, apologising about tube delays that probably don't exist. Her eyes find mine across the foyer. The contact lasts approximately two seconds. Enough to communicate everything from yesterday—the hiding, the laughter, the questions neither of us answered.
We perform cordial stepsiblings through appetizers.
"Pass the bread, please."
"Of course."
"Lovely weather today."
"Unseasonably warm."
Helen beams at our manufactured civility. Dad nods approvingly. The roast arrives with appropriate ceremony, and I think perhaps we'll survive this dinner without incident.
I think wrong.
Midway through the main course, between bites of Yorkshire pudding and discussion of neighbourhood developments, Dad mentions it casually.
"Ran into Victoria Ashworth at the club yesterday."
My fork freezes. The motion is small—imperceptible to anyone not watching closely. But Lottie is watching closely. She's always watching closely now.
Victoria. Two years of arrangement. A woman who paid generously and demanded absolutely. Who never understood that professional meant boundaries. Who called at three in the morning expecting availability I couldn't provide.
Who knows exactly what I was. What I did. Every sordid detail.
"Lovely woman," Dad continues, oblivious to the detonation occurring inside my chest. "Spoke very highly of you, actually. Said you knew each other years ago."
The table feels smaller suddenly. The walls closer. My carefully constructed present colliding with my carefully buried past at devastating velocity.
"Asked me to pass along her regards." Dad smiles. "Small world, isn't it?"
Helen's curiosity activates like a heat-seeking missile. "How do you know Victoria, Oliver?"
The lie forms automatically. Muscle memory from years of performing normalcy.
"Friend of a friend. Some party years ago." My voice sounds appropriately casual. Impressively so. "We crossed paths briefly. Pleasant enough."
Dad accepts this without question. Why wouldn't he? His son the consultant. His son the success story. His son who definitely didn't spend his twenties being paid for services polite society pretends don't exist.
"She seemed quite keen to reconnect," he adds. "Mentioned something about catching up."
I smile. Nod. Take a bite of roast I cannot taste.
Across the table, Lottie's expression has tightened almost imperceptibly. She knows. She’s smart, she knows basic context and can draw her own conclusions out of it. She gathers exactly who Victoria is. What Victoria represents.
The rest of dinner passes in a haze of performed normalcy. I contribute appropriately to discussions about Helen's book club and Dad's golf handicap. I laugh at the correct moments. I am the perfect stepson.
Inside, I am calculating threat assessments.
Victoria enjoys power the way some people enjoy wine—savouring it, letting it develop complexity, appreciating its ability to alter perception. She enjoyed having leverage over me during our arrangement. Enjoyed the knowledge that she could destroy my carefully constructed facade whenever she chose.
She never did. But she never stopped enjoying that she could.
After dinner, I excuse myself toward the bathroom. Lottie follows thirty seconds later—the timing careful, the excuse plausible.
We meet in the hallway. The space feels too small for this conversation.
"Victoria," she says quietly. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Is she a threat?"
The honest answer terrifies me. I give it anyway.
"I don't know." My voice drops to barely audible. "Victoria enjoys leverage. Enjoys watching people squirm. If she decides to tell Dad—out of boredom, spite, simple amusement—everything collapses."
Lottie absorbs this with the focused attention of someone calculating damage scenarios.
"Everything meaning your past."
"Everything meaning all of it." I meet her eyes directly. "My past. Whatever this is between us. The careful fiction that I'm a legitimate businessman who happened to know her from some party."
The hallway clock ticks. Somewhere in the dining room, Helen laughs at something Dad said. Normal sounds. Normal family. Tissue-thin normalcy stretched over catastrophe.
"How long do you plan to live like this?" Lottie asks. "One chance encounter away from destruction?"
The question lands like a blade. Precise. Unavoidable.
I don't have an answer.
I've been living this way for years. Every family gathering a potential minefield. Every introduction a risk assessment. Every relationship built on foundations that could crumble if someone looked too closely.
"I don't know," I admit. The honesty tastes like surrender.
Lottie studies my face. Whatever she finds there doesn't reassure her. Doesn't reassure me either.
"We should go back separately," she says finally.
I nod. Watch her walk toward the dining room with measured steps. Wait the appropriate interval before following.
The evening continues with dessert and coffee and absolutely no further mention of Victoria Ashworth. Dad tells stories about retirement plans. Helen discusses spring gardening. Lottie and I contribute appropriately from opposite ends of the table.
The facade holds. Barely.
But something has shifted. The pleasant veneer that carried us through appetizers and roast now feels gossamer-thin. One wrong word. One deliberate revelation. One bored socialite deciding to amuse herself.
I help clear dishes. Kiss Helen's cheek goodbye. Shake Dad's hand with manufactured warmth.
Lottie and I don't look at each other as we leave.
The drive home feels longer than usual. London streets blur past while Victoria's face haunts my peripheral vision. That knowing smile she always wore. The particular pleasure she took in reminding me that my respectability was borrowed, not earned.
She asked Dad to pass along her regards.
That wasn't coincidence. Victoria doesn't do coincidence. Every action calculated. Every move deliberate.
She's circling. Testing. Enjoying the anticipation of whatever comes next.
And I have no idea how to stop her.
My flat greets me with expensive silence. I pour whiskey I don't taste. Stare at walls that offer no solutions.
One chance encounter away from destruction.
Lottie's question echoes without mercy.
The answer, if I'm honest, is that I've always lived this way. Running from one carefully constructed identity to the next. Performing the version of Oliver Crawford that each situation required.
Charming son. Skilled professional. Reformed gigolo. Appropriate stepbrother.
None of them entirely real. All of them exhausting to maintain.
Victoria knows the truth. Has always known. And now she's reminded me—and Dad—that she exists. That she remembers.
That she could end everything whenever she chooses.
The whiskey burns. The night stretches. Tomorrow I'll return to the office and pretend Friday's conference room never happened. Pretend yesterday's closet escape was comedy rather than tragedy. Pretend Victoria Ashworth is just a name.
The facade holds.
For now.