by Maggie Cox
But, as much as her heart ached to be with him, and to see her precious child much sooner than she’d expected, how could she do it? How could she return there as if everything between them had been put right and there were no more problems? There was so much still to discuss, and she had no idea where any of it would lead when they did talk about it. She might have even made the situation worse, because now that she and Jake had been intimate again her heart was wide open to even more hurt.
He’d denied there was anyone else, but she couldn’t be absolutely certain that he didn’t have some woman waiting for him when he returned to the luxurious town house that was his home. If he did, no doubt she would be a much more glamorous and worldly woman than Ailsa. Perhaps she was one of those women he had mentioned who was of the opinion that his cruel scar gave him a certain ‘piratical’ appeal?
‘Whatever you might think,’ Jake said now, ‘my intentions are good. To learn that Linus had invited you and Saskia to Christmas lunch made everything even clearer to me. I’m sure he’s a decent guy, Ailsa, but I’m not going to give up the chance of you spending Christmas with me just because he’s around. I want you to come back with me. I know that Saskia will be delighted if you do, and so will my mother. She often asks after you. Unfortunately, up until now, I haven’t been able to tell her how you’re doing. I really regret that we haven’t talked since—since what happened.’
He was standing by the granite worktop and Ailsa saw his fingers visibly tighten round the rolled edge. They flexed so hard that they turned corpse-white. A cold chill ran down her spine. Then she was moving towards him, as if her body’s volition had overridden her mind’s, and she trembled with the force of the feelings that gripped her.
‘We’ve become so good at not saying the right words, haven’t we? At not calling a thing what it is? I know we talked about some important stuff at last, but we’ve skirted around the issues that really matter like they’re unexploded bombs that might go off in our faces. Well, I’ve got news for you, Jake … The bombs have already exploded and we’ve caught the fall-out good and proper. When you say “what happened” you should say “when our baby was killed and the love we had for each other died too.” Isn’t that what you really mean to say?’
The blue eyes that lifted towards her were as desolate as the bleakest of winter nights. ‘And that makes everything better, does it? Calling a thing what it is?’
She threw up her hands in near-despair. ‘At least it’s being real … At least it’s the truth. I’m not saying I want to hang on to these feelings for ever—they’ve already cut my heart to shreds, so why would I? I don’t want to add to my suffering, and I really do want to move on. For the past four years I’ve been stuck … welded in the mire of that terrible event. Trapped so deep in it that at times I’ve felt almost paralysed. I dread to think what that might have done to Saskia. She’s so vibrant and alive, and I haven’t been the mother I want to be for so long that I know that things have to change. They’ve got to change. What I’m telling you now, Jake, is that I want to speak my truth and then I want you to speak yours … to really tell me how you felt then and how you feel now. After that … Well, we’ll see.’
‘Then tell me, Ailsa. Tell me your truth and I’ll listen. Then I’ll tell you mine.’
Catching her by the hand, Jake stared hard at her slender, ringless fingers. As if disappointed by what he saw, he let it drop back down to her side again. She wondered if the pounding of her heart was as audible to him as it was to her just then.
‘Very well, then … When I came to after the operation and they told me I’d lost the baby I thought I was in the middle of the most terrifying nightmare. I thought, Any minute now I’ll wake up and see that I’m at home in bed with Jake. I thought … I thought I’d tell you about my horrific dream and you’d comfort me … lay your hand over my tummy, where our baby was still growing … still thriving … and say, “See? It was only a dream, Ailsa. Everything is fine.”’
Her throat tightening unbearably, she threaded restless fingers through the long dark skeins of her hair. She hardly dared glance at Jake for fear she would come undone completely. ‘But it wasn’t a dream,’ she continued huskily. ‘And although they gave me morphine to dull the pain I still hurt. I hurt beyond any pain I’d ever experienced before. I’m not just talking about physical discomfort. I felt empty … empty and useless now that my baby was gone. Like a mere husk of the woman I used to be. They say that sometimes the bereaved are numb with grief, but I felt everything—as though my very skin was being flayed with knives. I mourned my child and then I mourned us, Jake. I mourned us because I knew it was the end even then. I thought things had been hard enough, but how could we ever get over that? How could we carry on and behave like normal civilised people?
‘It wasn’t long before we both realised that we couldn’t. Our lives would never be “normal” again, and because of that we took all our rage and pain out on each other. I was glad when you asked me for a divorce. I mean it. I was glad that you would have the chance to rebuild your life with someone else—to father a baby with someone else. But when you left …’ Lifting her head to face him squarely for the first time since she’d started speaking, Ailsa found it almost impossible to continue, because her throat swelled and ached so much. ‘When you left …’ With a little shake of her head she indicated she couldn’t go on.
Jake’s natural instinct was to haul her into his arms and hold her for the longest time. She looked ridiculously young and vulnerable with her chestnut hair framing the perfect pale oval of her face … like a child. But her raw admission of how she had felt at the time of their baby’s death and then afterwards, when she’d believed that their love had died too, was like a small but devastating tsunami crashing inside him.
When the dust began to clear a little he had the peculiar sense of having missed something important … something vital. The realisation hit that he’d perhaps not been as aware of his good fortune as he should have been when they were married. Instead he had blithely greeted each day imagining that the comfortable existence they’d enjoyed could go on for ever, without anything too serious ever endangering it. Even the fact that he’d become a workaholic like his father. Foolishly, perhaps even arrogantly, he had cocooned himself from the remote and terrible possibility that everything he loved could be ripped from his arms in less than a blink of an eye … He’d never even considered it.
But then why should he have? His friends and colleagues had always told him that he had the Midas touch—that everything remotely associated with him effortlessly turned to gold. Jake had it all, they said—supportive parents, a fabulous career, wealth beyond most people’s wildest dreams and then, if that wasn’t enough, he had a beautiful wife and daughter as well. Up until that horrific day when that drunken driver had ploughed into his car he had seen no reason to dispute that gilt-edged belief. The very notion of such a cataclysmic event had truly been the stuff of nightmares …
His agitated gaze came to rest on the moist bronze-gold of Ailsa’s bewitching eyes. ‘I was like a sleepwalker,’ he began. ‘Not just after the accident, when life became a living nightmare, but before it too. I didn’t notice enough of the things that were important to me. I was so fixated on the business that I missed the fact that I was lucky to have you in my life at all. It’s a terrible thing to admit, but maybe I even took you for granted. My focus was all on my work—on wanting to prove to my father that I could be everything he wanted me to be and more. My great desire was to show him that when the time came for me to take over the business I could make it even more successful. I became so fixated on that goal that I didn’t pay proper attention to my life … to our lives together. In the split second before that car hit us I didn’t see my life flash before me, as people sometimes say they do. What I saw instead was that I was about to lose everything I loved more than life itself.’
Pausing to inhale a steadying breath, Jake absently touched his fingertips to the ridged contour
s of his scar. Noticing with a jolt that the tears in Ailsa’s eyes were spilling over and sliding in an unchecked stream down her face, he pulled his hand away and, still agitated, tunnelled his fingers through his hair. It was perhaps the hardest thing he had ever done—to talk candidly like this. While the instinct to stop—to hide behind his defences as he had so often done in the past—surfaced again and again, he forced himself to stay strong and, as Ailsa had asked, to speak his truth.
‘It brought me to my knees, losing our son. I could hardly believe that such a thing could happen to me … to us. And because I was hurting so bad I took it out on you, Ailsa. I meant to be a support to you, a comfort, but instead I effected an even greater distance between us than the one we’d been struggling with already. It was probably far crueller than the bitter words I sometimes threw at you. You were bitter with me too. The truth is it was our emotional neglect of each other that finally drove us apart, wasn’t it? And, because finally I couldn’t bear what was happening to our relationship, I knew I had to be the one to bring the misery to an end. The act was a double-edged sword. Yes, it freed us a little from our pain as a couple, but individually … it simply left us to endure it alone. Was that any better?’ He stared hard at Ailsa. ‘It certainly didn’t feel like it to me. You asked me to tell you how I feel now? Well … to be honest, I’m still trying to figure that out. In the meantime, I’m simply grateful that we’re talking again.’
‘Thank you.’
Her words were so soft—softer than the delicate brush of a summer breeze against a voile curtain. Jake wondered if he’d imagined hearing them at all. But when he studied her face, she was scrubbing her tears away and smiling. Not comprehending, he stared at her. ‘What for?’
‘For telling me your truth.’
The doubt and fear inside him eased a little. ‘You’re welcome.’ Closing his fist, he glanced it lightly against the smooth granite worktop beside him. ‘Are we done now?’
‘If you mean am I going to raise the topic again while we’re together, then, no. I’m not. I’ve realised that to keep going over the pain of the past can make for a very sad existence. Well, I don’t just want to exist, Jake. I want to live … properly and fully. Today is a new day … a clean page that has yet to be written on. From now on I want to treat every day like that. I want to believe in the possibility of being happy again.’
‘So … will this new affirmation have any bearing on your decision to come to Copenhagen with me?’ he asked, his lips wrestling with the surprising desire to smile too.
‘I think it will … yes.’ She hugged her arms over the black sweater that Jake was suddenly jealous of, because of its intimate proximity to her lovely body.
‘And your decision is …?’
‘I think I will take the opportunity to go back with you—to see Saskia and to meet up with your mother again. I’d like to tell her personally how sorry I was to hear about your dad’s passing, and that I’ll always remember him. But, Jake …?’
‘Yes?’
‘Just because we’ve been honest with each other at last it doesn’t mean that we’re making any promises about the future, does it?’
Feeling his heart miss a beat, like a hurdler who had miscalculated the distance to the next hurdle, knowing his mistake had cost him the race, he forced another smile to his lips. ‘No. It doesn’t. Like you, all I want to do now is to take one day at a time.’
‘Okay. I suppose I’d better cook us some breakfast and then tidy up the house a bit, in case we have to leave soon.’
‘It might be a good idea if you packed too.’
‘I was just coming round to that, but—Oh! I’ve just thought of another thing.’
Watching her tap her fingers against her adorable chin, Jake smiled benevolently. ‘What’s that?’
‘Saskia’s Christmas presents. I mean, I still have some to get, but I’ve got quite a few that are already wrapped. Can I bring them with us?’
‘Maybe a couple of small things—but you’re going to have ample opportunity to visit the Christmas markets and get some more. At any rate, she won’t lack for gifts on Christmas Eve … not if her grandmother has anything to do with it!’
Ailsa’s animated face told Jake she’d just remembered something else. ‘Didn’t you say that she’d given you a letter to bring with you that had a list of things she might like in it?’
With a stab of guilt, he remembered the envelope he’d hastily thrown into his overnight bag when he’d left Copenhagen. ‘She did. Why don’t we read it when we get home? We’re not going to be able to shop here if we want to leave today.’
‘You’re right. Well, I suppose before I do anything else I’d better go and pack … just in case. Do you think we can get a flight today?’
‘If the planes are flying out of Heathrow I don’t doubt it. I’ll make some calls in a minute.’
‘What about the roads? Do you think they’ll be clear enough for us to get to the airport?’
‘I’d forgotten how much you worry. Trust me, sweetheart … If I say we’ll get there and everything will be all right, then it will.’
Colouring, she tucked a long strand of silky chestnut hair behind her ear and shrugged. ‘Okay, I believe you. One more thing … Where will I be staying? At your mother’s with Saskia? Or—or …?’ She coloured again, this time a deep shade of russet-pink.
‘I thought that you could stay with me.’ Unable to help it, Jake inserted a hint of steel into his tone. ‘I’ll probably have to work up until Christmas Eve, but I’ll make sure that Alain is at your disposal for whenever you want to visit Saskia at my mother’s or go shopping. I imagine we’ll all spend Christmas Day with my mother. How do you feel about that?’ His gut felt as if it was clamped in a steel vice as he waited apprehensively for her answer.
‘That sounds fine. Will you ring Saskia and let her know that we’re coming?’
‘I’ll ring as soon as I’ve booked our flight.’
‘Good.’
Ailsa left him alone then. For a long time Jake just stood staring out of the window at the melting snow, the lingering scent of her perfume tying his insides into knots as he fought to get his churning emotions under control …
CHAPTER TEN
WITH the usual commanding ease with which he was able to make most things happen, Jake got them an afternoon flight out of Heathrow that day. By the time Alain had picked them up from Kastrup Copenhagen airport at the other end and driven them to Jake’s five-storey house at one of the wealthiest addresses in the city it was getting on towards eleven in the evening.
Having spoken to her daughter a couple of times before and after the first-class flight from Heathrow, Ailsa could hardly wait to see her again. Even though their reunion would have to wait until tomorrow, because they had arrived so late, she didn’t forget that it was thanks to her ex-husband that they would be meeting up much sooner than she’d expected. It was a precious gift she wouldn’t take for granted.
Throughout the seamless journey, Jake had been unusually quiet. Ailsa was hardly surprised when she recalled the depth and frankness of his reflections about the tragedy that had driven them apart. That would be apt to leave the strongest person emotionally drained. And, because she was mindful of the deeply emotional places they had both visited over the past few days, she’d chosen not to disturb his reverie by talking. In fact, apart from eating lunch, she had slept for most of the flight. When she’d woken, she hadn’t told him that she’d been dreaming about him … dreaming about the exotic honeymoon they’d shared in the Caribbean island of St. Kitts after their wedding.
Although they’d been in one of the most beautiful locations for a honeymoon in the world, surrounded by tropical forest and a sapphire-blue sea, they had hardly ventured out from their luxurious villa. Apart from a welcome dip or two in the jewel-like warm sea, and enjoying first-class cuisine prepared by their chef out on the patio, their long hot days had mostly been languorously viewed from their opulent bed through th
e open French doors. The erotic memory of that time still had the power to flood her body with heat and make her tingle.
‘Home sweet home,’ Jake drawled now, bringing Ailsa sharply back to the present.
Just as her ex-husband had only set eyes on her traditional English country cottage for the first time a short while ago, it was now Ailsa’s turn to reciprocate and experience for the first time the opulent modernity of his own elite abode. For a girl who had been raised in a very basically furnished children’s home with minimal creature comforts the sense of wealth and exclusivity that reached out to embrace her as she stepped into the white marble hallway quickly reminded her of the stark differences in her and Jake’s backgrounds. Even though she was well acquainted with the rich trappings of the Larsen family’s wealth, it still took her aback to experience it first-hand. Her gaze sweeping the ‘winter palace’ furnishings, and the very contemporary modern art that Jake had always had a strong preference for on the walls, she suddenly had the sense of being ridiculously shy and ill-prepared here on his home turf.
‘It’s very beautiful,’ she murmured quietly, slipping off her leather gloves.
‘I say home, but you understand that I use the term loosely?’ With a wry smile, he stepped towards her. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘I had a meal on the plane, remember?’
‘That was hours ago.’
‘Are you hungry, Jake?’ Unthinkingly, Ailsa batted the question back at him. It was only when she saw his arresting eyes darken to a sultry navy blue that she realised how it had affected him.
‘For food? No. But if you’re asking if I’m hungry for you, Ailsa, then the answer will always be yes.’
Lightly touching her hair, he gave her a smile that was tender rather than passionate, but it still had the effect of quickening her pulse and warming her heart as if she’d just imbibed the most intoxicating brandy.
