Devotion: The Beauty in Between (Beautiful Series book 4.5) Read Free Page B

Marcus.
    The only time she ever reacted badly towards Marcus was when he married a girl they had never met. Mrs Bailey wore black for months, and kept crossing herself all the time like there was some sort of demon in the room. It was ridiculous. But I still don’t think she blamed Marcus. Her negativity seemed to be aimed more toward his wife, Lisa. I don’t think Marcus can ever do wrong in her eyes.
    So, you see, her walking in on Theo and I being…sexual… and finding out that we’re living together before we’ve married, is probably going to give her a heart attack or something. And, it will be primarily blamed on me.
    I guess because she still sees Marcus as the baby in the family, she overlooks a lot of his faults. But with Theo, she seems to have very high expectations. Perhaps because he’s the oldest and therefore is expected to be more mature and level headed. As a result, Theo feels as though he’s a bit of a disappointment. But at the grass root of it all, it’s always the women in their life who lead her boys astray. My sister-in-law, Lisa, has gone through a multitude of drama at the hands of this woman. And from what I can gather, she isn’t going to be happy until one of us gives her our first-born child as some sort of sacrifice to the gods of overbearing mother-in-laws everywhere.
    For a while, she was ok with Marcus and Lisa’s marriage (once she had gone through her mourning period after they eloped, that is.) But then, Marcus and Lisa made it very clear that they weren’t ready to start a family, and that has got her nose severely out of joint again. She just can’t understand the point of marriage unless there are children.
    Which brings us back to the fact that Theo and I still aren’t married. Not only are our friends on our backs about when it’s going to happen , but Mrs Bailey is permanently on our case about it – perhaps that’s another reason we haven’t done it yet. Perhaps in some silly way, we are rebelling against her like we’re still teenagers…
    I pull away from Theo’s embrace with a dramatic sigh and move to our bedroom to get dressed. He follows behind me, trying to assure me that it isn’t as bad as I think it is until his phone rings.
    “It’s Marcus,” he says, pressing the key to accept his brother’s call before holding the phone to his ear. “Hey man, what’s up?” he asks in greeting.
    Pulling on some underwear and a pa ir of jeans and a fitted black singlet top, I twist my towel around my head in a turban as I keep an eye on Theo’s reaction to his brother’s call. I just know that she’s gone straight to Marcus and Lisa to tell them what we ‘did’ to her.
    “Yeah, she’s here,” Theo says, pressing his lips together before lowering his phone and hitting the ‘speaker’ option. Marcus’s voice filters out through the speaker and into the room.
    “Guys, what the hell happened? We just had Mu m over here ranting about you two. Now, my Italian is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure she was calling Naomi a whore and saying that you‘re both going to hell.”
    “I’m going to kill her,” Theo growls, shaking his head. “She can’t talk about Naomi that way.”
    “Calm down, mate. You don’t want to start World War Three here,” Marcus says.
    “Is that what ‘ puttana’ means? Whore?” I say at the same time to Theo, who doesn’t nod to confirm it, but by the look on his face, I know I’m right. “Bloody hell,” I sigh, shaking my head as it begins to throb.
    Lisa’s voice joins in on the conversation. “ Listen, I have no idea what she said. But she never comes here to complain about you guys. If she comes here, it’s to clean our already tidy home, and let me know what a disappointment I am for not being pregnant yet.”
    I hear Perry bark over the receiver. “I know, Perry. You’re the baby of this house, aren’t you?” she says to him.
    “What did you two do?” Marcus asks again.
    Theo lets out a sigh.