The Unexpected Holiday Gift (14 page)

Even his marriage to her.

Clara sat back, her fingers falling away from his as the implications of that washed over her. In her mind, a movie reel replayed their whole relationship with this new knowledge colouring it.

Suddenly, so many things made sense in a way they never had before.

This—
this
was why he was so determined to succeed, every moment of every day. Why he'd worked so hard to never let his father down, ever again. Why he did everything he could to bring glory and money and power to his family—to try and make up for the one time he'd got it wrong.

Finally she understood why he was so adamant that he never wanted children. Because the one time he'd been left in charge of a child something had gone terribly, almost tragically wrong.

He'd spent almost half of his life carrying this guilt, this determination not to screw up again.

Clara knew James Foster. He was a good man, a good father—but he demanded a lot. He was an innovative scientist who'd achieved a great deal in his lifetime and expected the same from his children.

She could only imagine how that sort of expectation, weighted down by his own guilt, had driven Jacob to such lengths to succeed.

She focused on her almost-ex-husband again, seeing him as if through a new camera lens. Suddenly, the man she'd thought she'd known inside out had turned out to be someone else entirely.

Someone she might never have had the chance to get to know were it not for an ill-timed snowfall and a castle in the middle of nowhere.

He was the father of her child. The man she'd always believed had no interest in kids or a family because he had other priorities—namely, chasing success. But that was only half of the truth, she realised now.

He wasn't chasing success; he was running away from failure. Because Jacob Foster was scared. Deathly afraid of screwing up. That was why he'd worked so hard to show her the trappings of success, not knowing that what she really wanted was to have her husband with her. This was why he'd avoided a family, not realising what Clara herself had only learned once Ivy had come into her life: that children, family and the love they brought were what made failure bearable, what made every setback something you could recover from.

Jacob had missed out on four years of Ivy's life. But, if Clara was right, if she could convince him that one teenage mistake didn't have to ruin his whole life, was there a chance that he might not have to miss any more?

And did she have the courage to find out? She wasn't sure.

‘All these years,' she said slowly, choosing her words with great care, ‘you've been blaming yourself for this?'

‘It was my fault,' Jacob reiterated. ‘Of course I have.'

‘Does Heather hold it against you? Your father? Your mother?' Clara knew the family, and she thought she knew the answer to two of those questions. But she wasn't quite sure about the third.

‘Heather...I'm not even sure how much she remembers. And Mum won't talk about it, ever, so I don't know how she feels.' Clara felt sure that they would have forgiven him long ago. But that wasn't enough, not if Jacob hadn't forgiven himself. And if Sheila wouldn't talk about it... Clara could understand that. Of course Sheila would want to protect her daughter, and try to block out the memories of her being hurt. But, by refusing to talk about it, she might not have realised how badly she was hurting her son.

‘What about your father?' James Foster was a fair man usually, but one with exceptionally high expectations. Why else would Jacob have gone to such trouble putting together a perfect Christmas for him?

‘I... Like I said. He calls it our lucky escape,' Jacob said. ‘I think it reminds him of how quickly things can change. Once Heather was home from the hospital...he made me make him a promise. A promise to never screw up like that again. And I haven't.'

He'd lived his whole life trying not to fail. What would that do to a person? What had it done to Jacob?

‘At least, not until you walked out that last time,' he added.

The words flowed like cold water over her. He considered their marriage his personal failure. Well, of course he did; she could see that now. But before today...she hadn't been sure he had cared that much at all.

‘Me leaving...that wasn't just
your
failure, Jacob. We were too young—we wanted different things. That's all.' Except now she was imagining the life that they maybe could have had, if she'd known his secret sooner. If she'd understood, been able to convince him that blaming himself wasn't getting him anywhere... Was it too late for that now?

‘I really thought we were supposed to be together, you know.' The wistful tone of his voice caught her by surprise. ‘That's the only reason I risked it. I knew I couldn't take responsibility for a child again, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could take care of you. But I was wrong.'

Clara's heart twisted. She couldn't leave him like this, believing this. She had to help heal Jacob's heart, even if it was the last act of their marriage. But dare she try to show him another life, one where he didn't have to be so scared of failure? Where love could be his, no matter what went wrong? Where forgiveness was automatic?

Did she even believe that love was possible any more?

She wasn't sure. But, for Ivy's sake, she knew she needed to find out for certain.

One night. That was all she had to give. One night to find out if there really could possibly be a future in which Jacob might choose to be a part of his daughter's life and maybe even forgive Clara for keeping her existence a secret from him.

One night to find out if their marriage had a future after all.

By the time the snow cleared she needed to know for certain, one way or the other.

She was almost scared to find out which it would be. But, for her daughter, she'd take the risk.

Clara swallowed around the lump that had formed in her throat.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘I've lit the fire in the main sitting room. Let's take some food and drinks through there where it's more comfortable. We've got a long, cold night ahead of us.'

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

J
ACOB
SCRUBBED
A
HAND
over his face as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He needed to get a grip. Clara was waiting out there, probably with a glass of something, definitely with a romantic fire lit and festive food. He needed to focus. He needed to figure out how not to mess up whatever happened next.

It was too late for Heather. The scars he'd caused would be with her for life; he'd accepted that long ago. He was just thankful she was here. And as for his father... Jacob had limited time. He would never be able to make up for the mistake of his youth, and he couldn't personally change the weather forecast, as much as he might want to right now.

All he could do was work with what he had. And right now that was... Clara.

Why had he never told her about Heather before? Perhaps because he didn't want his wife to know his deepest regrets and mistakes. She'd always looked at him with such love and adoration before their marriage. Awe, even.

It was only once the vows had been spoken that she'd discovered exactly the sort of man he was. And she'd left him, without even knowing his deepest shame.

Maybe she'd always had a better understanding of who he really was than he'd given her credit for.

Could he change that?

He needed to ask her about Ivy, he realised. It was strange; he'd only known that he was a father for a couple of hours but already that knowledge was buzzing at the back of his head, every moment, colouring his every thought. He just didn't quite have a handle on how he felt about it yet—at least, not beyond the initial terror.

At least Clara understood at last why he couldn't be a father.

And now...what? What did Clara want from him now?

And would he be able to give it?

It was time to find out.

‘I've put the oven on for some nibbles,' Clara said, smiling at Jacob as he opened the door. ‘Remind me to go and put them in to cook when my phone buzzes?'

‘Sure.' He took the glass of wine she offered him and returned her smile as well as he could.

‘I figured that maybe we should go for something a little more easy-going than the hard spirits, seeing as it is still only barely half past four,' she said.

‘Ah, but it is Christmas Eve,' he pointed out. ‘Everyone knows that wine o'clock comes earlier on Christmas Eve.'

‘Which is why we're having wine. Not brandy.'

‘Fair enough.'

She grinned, raised her glass, and the last of the tension he'd felt lingering from the emotional exchange in the kitchen evaporated. How did she do that? Clara had always been able to make him relax, but usually it had involved a rather different range of techniques. But now he was starting to think it had just been her, that the massages or the sex or even the wine had just been accessories, a mask, even, that was hiding the truth.

Clara just made him feel better.

How had he forgotten that over the past five years? How had he forgotten how it felt to be the centre of her world? To have her focus all that love and attention on him?

And, more to the point, what had he done to earn it back now?

‘So, we're stuck here,' Clara said, settling onto the sofa in front of the promised roaring fire. ‘At least until tomorrow at the earliest.'

‘Are you okay with that?' he asked, suddenly more aware that this wasn't just his own personal disaster. Clara had Christmas plans that had been ruined too. It might have taken him a while to catch up, but now he needed her to know that he wasn't just thinking about himself.

‘Not really.' Clara plastered on the most falsely cheery smile he'd ever seen. ‘But it's the situation, and we can't change that. So we just need to figure out how to make the most of it.'

Her smile settled into something a little sadder but more real. Something more familiar too. And suddenly he had an idea of exactly what they might do to pass the time...and it wasn't very in keeping with their divorce plans.

‘What did you have in mind?' he asked, clearing his throat as he tried to disperse the images filling his head. But really... Secluded castle, snowed in, roaring fire... There was even a sheepskin rug in front of it, just waiting for naked bodies.

But not his and Clara's bodies. Because that would be wrong. Somehow.

Why
would that be wrong again?

Clara's teeth pressed against her lower lip before she answered, and Jacob's mind wandered on a little field trip again.

‘I thought maybe you might want to hear a little about Ivy.'

He swallowed, hard.
Ivy.
His daughter. Fear rose in his throat once more at the thought. ‘I'd like to know a little more about what happened. After you left, I mean.' Facts, those he could control, could understand. So he'd focus on the events—what happened and when. ‘What did you tell people?'

‘What people?' Clara asked with a half-smile. ‘Once I left you...I didn't have anyone. Until Ivy came along, and until I met Merry.'

He hated the thought of her all alone in the world. But it had always been her choice. ‘What did you tell Merry? The truth?'

Clara shook her head. ‘I told her that I'd had a one-night stand after I left you, and that he didn't want anything to do with the result.'
The result. A daughter.
‘That's what I told anyone who asked about Ivy's dad.'

‘What did you tell her?' He swallowed. ‘Ivy.'
His
daughter.

‘That I loved her father very much but he couldn't be with us.' Her gaze locked onto his. ‘So, the truth. That's why I couldn't come back. I took that pregnancy test and...I knew I couldn't have both. I could have you or a baby. And I chose Ivy.'

Of course she had. Wasn't that what any reasonable human would do? Any loving mother?

‘You chose to lie to me,' he said, his voice hard. ‘You chose to take away
my
choice. To take away the rights of my parents to see their grandchild, to even know that they had one. You made a decision that wasn't just yours to make.' It didn't matter that her choice had been the right one. It should have been his too.

‘It was my body. My choice.'

‘My daughter.' Hearing it out loud was even more frightening. ‘Five years, and you never even told me she existed.' Never gave him the chance to understand what had really happened between them.

‘You didn't want a family—you made that crystal-clear to me from the outset. Or at least once we were married, when it was too late for me to do anything about it.'

‘So what? I'm allowed to make that choice. What did you think I would do? Did you think I'd order you to get rid of the baby?' Even the thought made his skin crawl. If she truly believed that about him, then she'd never known him at all. Their whole marriage had been a mistake.

‘No!' Clara's eyes grew wide with shock. ‘I didn't...I knew you wouldn't do that. No, Jacob. It wasn't that.' He shouldn't feel relieved—everything was still such a mess. But a very small part of him relaxed just a little bit at her words.

‘Then what? Why didn't you talk to me at the time?'

Clara ran a shaky hand through her dark hair. ‘I didn't find out until after I left. I took a dozen pregnancy tests in a hotel bathroom, just to be sure. But...I'd already left you, Jacob. Again. And I realised that was all we'd been doing since the day we'd got married: pulling apart until we snapped back together again. Everything would be perfect, then you'd get caught up in some project and I wouldn't see you for weeks. I'd get lonely, I'd walk out to get your attention...and then you'd win me back and it would be all flowers and romance. But only for a while, until it started all over again.' She sighed. ‘I knew that even if by some miracle you changed your mind about having a family—which you wouldn't have done—we couldn't have brought up a child like that. So I made the decision not to come back.'

‘And since then?' He didn't want her answers to make sense. And even if they did, he was still furious. Not because she was wrong—he couldn't say he would have changed his mind about wanting a family. He still hadn't, even though he apparently had one. But because she'd taken away his chance to decide. She'd made him powerless. He felt the same helplessness he'd felt the night Heather had been hurt. And he couldn't forgive that. ‘It's been five years, Clara. Did you really at no point think, “Ooh, maybe I should let Jacob know about
our child
”?'

‘Of course I did!'

‘Then what stopped you?' Because that was the part he really couldn't understand. Maybe a child meant that they couldn't be together any longer; maybe she was right that their marriage couldn't have taken that. But that was still no reason not to tell him.

‘You did.' Her words were soft but heavy. Full of meaning. And he understood them instantly. He hadn't been good enough. He'd failed as a husband and Clara had known he'd fail as a father—and so had he! That was exactly why he'd been so adamant about not becoming one.

But hearing her say it out loud, seeing it come from those same lips he'd been thinking about kissing... Jacob felt his heart break, just a little.

‘I see.'

‘I'm not sure you do.' Clara twisted her hands together as she stared up at him. ‘I knew you didn't want a child. Knew that Ivy was the last thing you wanted in your life. You'd made that very clear.'

‘So you were sparing me the knowledge? It was for my own good?' he asked, incredulous. Not even Clara could believe that.

‘No. It was for Ivy's. I couldn't let you reject her, and let her live her life knowing that she wasn't wanted. I wouldn't do that to her. Not even for you.'

Jacob looked away. ‘I can understand that, I guess. And...as much as I hate it, you made the right decision. For both of us.'

‘Did I?' His gaze snapped to her face as she spoke. ‘I always thought so. But after this week... I'm not so sure.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean...I thought it was all over for us, the moment I left.' Clara's gaze met his and he felt it deep in his soul. He was missing something here. And he had a feeling he couldn't afford not to listen to her this time. ‘But you never would sign those divorce papers.'

* * *

It was a risk. A calculated one, but a risk nonetheless. Still, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered. Yes, it had been five years. And yes, she understood now that Jacob's fear of failure must have played into his reluctance to actually give her the divorce. But surely the easier choice would have been to move on, to start over and succeed with someone else, if that was all it was.

There had to be something more. A bigger, better reason why he'd never really moved on from their marriage. From loving her.

Clara knew she had the advantage there. She'd never been able to move on completely, or leave Jacob behind, because his eyes had stared at her every day over the breakfast table, looking out from their daughter's face. She could never cut him out of her memories, even if she'd done her best to cut him out of her life.

But Jacob... Once they left here, that could be it for him. As soon as the snow melted, he could sign those papers and walk away for ever. Never see Ivy. Never see Clara again.

If that was what he really wanted. But she was starting to suspect it wasn't.

‘What do you want from me?' Jacob asked, pulling back to put a little more distance between them. ‘I've given you all of my secrets now. You know everything. So, what do you want?'

‘I want you to know you have a choice,' Clara said slowly, thinking it through as she spoke. ‘You have a daughter, and you know that now. You can choose to ignore that fact, but you can't deny that you know it. So you have to decide—do you want to be a part of Ivy's life?'

She held her breath while she waited for his answer.

‘You'd let me? If I wanted?'

‘Of course.' Clara nodded. ‘But there are conditions.'

‘I thought there might be.' He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Go on, then.'

‘If you want in, you have to be one hundred per cent sure. Because once she meets you...you're her father. You have to be there for her, for everything she needs. You can't let her down.'

‘And if I can't commit to that?'

‘Then you walk away now and Ivy will never know that you exist.' It was just what she'd planned, the way she'd lived for so long. So why did the idea feel like such a wrench to her heart now?

‘What about you? You'll always know. And what about us? Is our marriage part of this deal?'

Clara shook her head. ‘I don't know. It depends.' She couldn't think beyond Ivy right now.

‘Depends on what?'

She looked up and met his gaze again. ‘On why you never signed the divorce papers.'

He made a huffing sound that was almost a laugh and put his wine glass down on the table. Clara watched the firelight dancing across his skin and wondered if she really could let him go again without touching him one more time...

‘If I signed them,' Jacob said, the words slow and precise, ‘I knew, once they were signed, that there was no chance of you ever coming back. And I wasn't ready to face that.'

‘Because it would have meant you'd failed?'

‘Because I couldn't imagine my life without you in it, even when you weren't there.'

The breath caught in Clara's throat. Had he spent the past five years the way she had, imagining a parallel life in which they were still together? Another universe where they were happy?

‘I couldn't let go of us either,' she admitted quietly. ‘That's one of the reasons why I never pushed back when your lawyers put obstacles in my way.'

‘I wondered.' Jacob shifted closer, just near enough so that his sleeve brushed against hers. Barely touching, but still she felt it like a lightning strike through her body. It was as if everything she'd ever been missing was finally coming home. ‘I hoped.'