on while I've been gone! Why are you shacked up with some gold digging slut?” man she's vicious, I'm actually glad I wasn't as quick at getting down there as Carlos, or she'd no doubt be scratching my eyes out by now.
I don't get his family; how can you have someone as thoughtful and caring as Carlos, with two siblings so venomous and twisted? It's not even like they have horrible parents, or hard lives, there is no logical explanation as to why they've turned out so different.
I can tell Carlos is seething, his voice has lowered, so I can't hear what he's saying back to her, but I know from when he met Jake that when he's really angry he gets quieter.
With Carlos defending me, it must be safe to venture downstairs, I tread lightly though, so not to draw too much attention in my direction.
I'm halfway down when she spots me, “What the hell are you doing here? Marcus told me what you did” she spits the words at me.
“I've already told you...” Carlos starts, but she doesn't let him finish.
“If you don't believe it that's your issue” she barks at him, “but I'm not about to let some cheap slag take advantage of your stupidity” her eyes are burning into me with vengeance. I'm not about to go through all this crap again, I've had just about enough of these cruel accusations.
“Julia, so nice to see you again” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm, “Marcus is messed up and if you haven't worked that out by now then there's really no point in continuing this conversation.”
“That's my brother your talking about” she snaps back, taking a step towards me, but I hold my ground, I am not backing down now.
“Julia!” Carlos warns, taking hold of her arm, which she instantly jerks out of his grasp.
“Carlos it's OK” I assure him, “look I'm not doing all this again, Marcus admitted he lied to Carlos and your parents and now he's just seeing if he can get away with it with you too. Frankly it's pathetic, but if you don't believe me, take a look in his art book”
Carlos's attention shifts from Julia to me, “What do you mean?” he asks, confused.
“He sketched me when I was on the beach, I didn't know he was there, but then he showed it to me in a bid to 'seduce me' that night. If I was the one hitting on him, why would he have drawn that?”
They both stare at me in silence, taking in the value of my words, Julia is the first to respond, “Fine I will look, but this isn't over yet!” she sounds slightly deflated, but still determined to undermine me, as she stomps out.
“Why didn't you tell me about that picture?” Carlos asks softly, he seems hurt by the revelation.
“No reason, to be honest I forgot all about it until now.” I say honestly, coming towards him for a hug, he takes me in to his arms willingly cuddling away the trauma.
“I'm sorry about her, I told you she was a bit of a bitch!”
“You weren't wrong there. It's OK, but if I have one more run in with one of your family I might just explode” I'm not even joking now. It's getting a bit ridiculous now, they clearly all care about him deeply, but do they have to be so psycho about it?
“Can we go and see Blair today?” I ask changing the subject, plus I could really do with being surrounded by people who are on my side for a change.
“Sure, give her a ring and I'll whip us up some breakfast, scrambled eggs good with you? They're about all I can make!”
“Sounds wonderful” I smile, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, before heading to the bedroom to make the call in relative privacy.
Blair is ecstatic to hear from me, nearly deafening me with her screeching, she knew Carlos had come after me, but as she hadn't seen or heard from me since she wasn't sure that I'd come back with him.
“Oh come on, did you actually think I could say no after he made such an effort? He chased me down in the airport for goodness sake, it was so romantic” I giggle.
“That's true, so what's happened since?”
I give her a brief rundown of the good the bad and the ugly, explaining that any more detail will have to wait until we're next alone together, then we agree to