His Christmas Bride

by Brooks, Helen

  ‘Wrong. You won’t. That’s very different.’

  There were hundreds of women better looking than her, better figures, more witty, sparkling personalities, more experienced in all the ways it took to hold an intelligent, cultured, strong man like Zak. Why her?

  She must have murmured the last words out loud, because now he said very softly, ‘Why you? Don’t you know that yet? I love you, Blossom. I’ve loved you from the first. Why else would I put up with you?’

  She stared at him in numb disbelief.

  ‘You might look like that, but do you think it’s been fun to toss and turn the night away and have a dozen cold showers before dawn? To hold back, when everything in me has needed you so badly I can taste it? But if we had gone to bed it would have taken something important from you, I know that. I know you. You would have regretted it in the cold light of day, but having committed to such intimacy you would probably have stayed with me. But your choice would have been gone. Moments of passion would have led you into a position in which you were never secure, never fully fulfilled, never sure of me.’

  He looked down at her, studying her face. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he said softly. ‘When you make the decision to trust me with yourself, to stay with me, to accept I’m not like him, it has to be without sex clouding the issue. We both know we would be good together, but it was probably OK with him. This time there has to be more, and you need to make the decision to commit rationally.’

  She swallowed. ‘I’ve made my decision, and it’s not to commit. I don’t want to see you any more.’

  ‘Just like that?’ As she pulled away he let her go. ‘I’ve just told you I love you. Doesn’t that merit some response, even if it’s “thanks but no thanks”?’

  She nerved herself to go through with what she had decided. Her chin lifting, she said, ‘It doesn’t make any difference.’

  ‘Doesn’t make any difference?’ he brought out in a strangled voice. ‘Damn it, Blossom, it makes all the differences in the world.’

  ‘Not to me. I’ve heard it—’ She stopped abruptly.

  His eyes narrowed. He stood looking at her, but now there was a penetrating, indecipherable expression on his face. ‘You were going to say you’ve heard it all before, weren’t you?’ he said slowly, his voice tight and controlled as he made an obvious attempt to control his temper. ‘Is that all it means to you? Well, let me tell you, you haven’t heard it from me before. Neither has any other woman, if it comes to that. And if you don’t know me well enough by now to believe it was damn hard for me to say that, then there really is no hope for us.’

  Her heart was racing and there was a lump in her throat, panic, despair, fear and dread washing over her in equal measures.

  ‘Your husband was a louse, Blossom.’ Suddenly his American accent was stronger. ‘He treated you like dirt and you didn’t deserve it. But that was over more than two years ago.’

  ‘You’re saying I should have got over it by now?’ she challenged, anger biting for the first time and providing her with welcome adrenalin. ‘Put it behind me? Is that it?’

  For a moment it looked as though he was going to deny it, and then he nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. That’s exactly what I think I’m trying to say. You’ve dealt with the fallout, and it’s time to move on and stop acting the victim.’

  She couldn’t believe he’d just said what she thought he’d said. ‘Victim?’ Her body went rigid. ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth. At some time in their lives most people get a hit, be it illness or bereavement or betrayal, or whatever. There’s no shame in being crushed, we’re human, flesh and blood. But sooner or later you bite the bullet and get the hell back in there. I’m not minimising what you went through. I’m just saying that was then and this is now. If you live in the past the past is all you’ll ever have.’

  ‘I’m not living in the past.’ Blossom glared at him. ‘And I have moved on.’

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ he said without heat, a strange sadness coming over his face. ‘You look at me, and all you see is a man governed purely by what’s between his legs.’

  She stiffened at the crudity but he made no apology for it.

  ‘You’re not prepared to even consider that I can make what has gone wrong for you right. That I can deal with the hurt and rejection and wipe them away with my love. And I’m talking about love, Blossom. It has four letters—l-o-v-e, not s-e-x. Get that clear in your mind.’

  She bit her lip. She had to hold on to what she had decided. She couldn’t weaken. She must not. He was confusing her, making her doubt herself. Self-control was all she had.

  ‘I know about rejection and loss,’ he said quietly. ‘They were my childhood companions, and they accompanied me into adulthood. They turned my father into a bitter shell of a man who was capable of great cruelty to his own son, and for a while it looked as though they’d stay with me for life. But I chose to show them the door, and when I did that I became free.’

  His voice was very soft and gentle; it caused a physical ache in her chest that was overwhelming. He looked tough and strong but very vulnerable at the same time, and it was breaking her heart but the sense of self-protection was more powerful.

  He might be right in everything he said, Blossom thought. She should stop dragging the past around like a ball and chain and discard the feelings of inadequacy and fear, and the hundred and one other emotions that paralysed her with regard to the future. And she had, to some extent. The therapy had seen to that. But she never wanted to feel like she had when Dean had left. She wouldn’t survive it a second time. And she knew, knew without the shadow of a doubt, that if Zak let her down it would be a hundred times worse than what had gone before. So the possibility of that happening had to be dealt with.

  ‘I don’t think you’re like Dean,’ she said slowly. ‘But you can’t say how you’re going to feel in a few months, a year, two years. No one can.’ Her voice had an undeniable tremor in it, and she prayed she could finish without breaking down. If he held her again, if he kissed her, she’d be lost. ‘I’ve got used to being on my own. I know where I stand that way. I fight my own battles and overcome my problems myself. I’m responsible to no one, and I don’t depend on anyone. I have my home and my career, friends, family. It’s enough for me.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ His voice was flat. ‘And one day you’ll realise it when it’s too late.’

  ‘Then that will be another problem I’ll have to get over.’ It sounded trite. She hadn’t meant it to, but as she watched his face darken she knew he’d thought she was being flippant.

  ‘And where does that leave me?’ For the first time since she had known him, he was glaring at her in pure rage. ‘I love you, and I know as sure as I’m standing here that what you feel for me is not some lukewarm emotion. If you gave yourself half a chance, you’d love me too. And I don’t believe that rubbish that there’s several partners in the world a person can fall in love with. I know what I feel. If you walk away you’re giving us both a life sentence.’

  He pulled her into him, kissing her with a desperate urgency that spoke of frustration and helpless rage. For a moment she almost weakened, wanting him so badly it seemed impossible she was considering sending him out of her life. He felt strong and solid and enduring, his fierce passion invoking an immediate response that was impossible to hide. Then she tore her mouth away, pushing against him with all her strength as she cried, ‘Leave me alone, can’t you? I don’t want this, I don’t want you!’ Hysteria was in her voice.

  He let her go at once, shaking his head in the manner of a boxer coming round from the knock out punch.

  ‘Please go.’ She had backed into a corner of the room to put some space between them, terrified she would run into his arms and tell him she’d changed her mind, that she loved him, that she’d take whatever he could give for as long as he wanted to give it.

  ‘Hell, Blossom, don’t look at me like that.’ His voice was a growl.
‘What do you think I am? I wasn’t going to hurt you.’

  But he already had. She stayed where she was, barely breathing, her face white and her eyes staring.

  She watched him take several long pulls of air before he raked his hand through his hair and straightened his coat. And then he walked across the room without a word and opened the door, not pausing before shutting it behind him.

  He had gone. Blossom’s legs gave way and she sank down on to the carpet, shaking uncontrollably. He couldn’t have gone, not like that.

  But he had. The seconds ticked by in the silence of the room. She was alone, as she had told him she wanted to be. It had been the worst possible ending and it was all her fault.

  Chapter 9

  The night was endless, stretching interminably before it gave way to a cold, rainy dawn. Blossom had spent most of the night hours curled in an armchair in the sitting room in the dark, listening to the rain beating down, and endlessly going over every word she and Zak had spoken.

  The telephone rang at seven o’ clock just when she was making herself toast and coffee, and she leapt to answer it, her heart beating wildly. ‘He-hello?’ she stammered.

  ‘Blossom?’ Melissa’s voice was pseudo-apologetic. ‘I hope you don’t mind me ringing so early, but I had to know. How did it go?’

  Blossom shut her eyes tightly as the pounding in her chest subsided. Of course it wasn’t Zak. Why would he ring her after everything she had said? She was so stupid.

  ‘Blossom?’ Melissa repeated. ‘How did things go with Zak?’

  ‘Not good,’ she said briefly. Understatement of the year.

  ‘As in little bit of tension, or more volcanic eruption?’

  ‘Krakatoa, east of Java.’ The film of the same name had been one of their favourites when they were little. They had always cried buckets when the lava had swept away the village.

  ‘So it’s over?’ Melissa said disappointedly.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s definitely over.’ To her horror the last word came out on a sob. She bit her lower lip hard.

  There followed a great deal of cluck-clucking down the line as Melissa went into mother-hen mode, but eventually Blossom managed to persuade her sister she wasn’t about to throw herself off a high building and finished the call. Unfortunately she didn’t have any work that day; in her business it was often all or nothing, and today was nothing. The hours stretched endlessly before her, and she couldn’t even go for a walk in the park with it raining cats and dogs. She sat limp and lifeless in the chair.

  No. She wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to slip into the frame of mind she’d had after Dean left, when for days on end the effort to get out of bed had been too much. She reached for her toast and forced herself to eat it, although it tasted like cardboard.

  After breakfast she showered and pulled on some old clothes, and cleaned the flat from top to bottom, which took most of the day.

  In the evening she received an answer to her e-mail: was there any possibility of her arriving a fortnight earlier than planned? Certain arrangements had gone wrong and it would be such a help. If she could fly out at the end of the week…

  Blossom weighed up the couple of fairly mediocre shoots she had in the next week or two against leaving the country and escaping Zak’s brooding presence in the flat. She e-mailed back that she’d be there by Friday, and then phoned one or two colleagues who agreed to take her shoots.

  Four days later she was in the skies above Heathrow bound for the States, telling herself a new job was exactly what she needed. It would give her a different slant on things, focus her mind, keep her busy and bolster her self-confidence. It was good that Zak hadn’t telephoned or tried to contact her in any way. It was. It really was.

  From the moment she landed in America, her days were packed full without a moment to spare. The job was exciting, hectic and stimulating and, as the show moved from state to state with bewildering swiftness, half the time Blossom lost track of where she was. She needed all the skill and expertise she’d accumulated through the years to keep her head above water, but she managed it, more than holding her own with the handful of other top photographers on the job.

  At night a few of them would sit in the bar of whatever hotel they were staying at, talking, playing cards and drinking. But finally would come the moment she dreaded and she would be alone in her room. More often than not she cried herself to sleep, but the next morning she would be up with the birds, all traces of the last night’s tears gone when she presented a calm, cool and unruffled front to the world.

  She resisted asking after Zak when she talked to Melissa for the whole of the first month. Then, after a particularly bad night when she had awoken in the early hours with the tears running down her face, her body curled up foetus-position, she knew she had to find out how he was. She acknowledged she had lost the battle with her subconscious.

  She phoned Melissa when it was late evening in England and the children would be in bed. Her sister sounded slightly flustered. ‘Blossom? I thought you were phoning again on Friday, not today.’

  ‘I was.’ Blossom paused. ‘Is this a bad time?’ she asked carefully. ‘I can call later, if you’re tied up right now.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s just that we have dinner guests, that’s all. Is anything wrong?’ Melissa added a touch anxiously.

  ‘Not really, and I won’t keep you if you’ve people there. It’s just that I was wondering if you knew how Zak was. You haven’t mentioned him at all.’

  This time it was Melissa who paused. ‘No, well, I didn’t think you’d want to rake it up,’ she said at last.

  ‘I don’t want to go over the whys and wherefores, if that’s what you mean.’ Blossom wondered how to put it, and then decided to just say it as it was. This was her sister, her twin. If she couldn’t be frank and honest with Melissa, then with whom? ‘I’m concerned about him, that’s all,’ she said quietly. ‘That last night was so awful, Mel. You’ve no idea. I still feel so…’ She ran out of words to describe the indescribable.

  ‘Guilty?’ Melissa put in helpfully after a moment or two.

  She had been going to say something along the lines of ‘miserable and lonely’, but guilty was part of it too. ‘I guess,’ she said slowly. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘You know what I think. You’ve run away from him, Blossom. Taken the easy way out, instead of facing and conquering your gremlins. Of course you’re going to feel rotten.’

  ‘Thanks a bundle,’ Blossom said drily. ‘Don’t ever think of joining the Samaritans, Mel.’

  ‘Well, it’s the truth.’ Her sister’s voice softened as she added, ‘But I’m sorry you’re feeling wretched.’

  That just about described it. ‘But it’s my own fault, right?’ Before her sister could answer, she continued, ‘It’s all right, I know it is.’ The trouble was she’d found since she had left England, left Zak, that she couldn’t think clearly any more. She had tried umpteen times to convince herself she had done the right thing, but it wasn’t holding water. But when she considered the alternative it paralysed her with fear. So, either way she was snookered. Total no-win situation. The only logical, sane thing in her life was her work, and she had never been more grateful for it. It kept her focusing on something in the day.

  She took a deep breath. ‘So? Has Greg said how Zak is?’

  ‘Not really.’ This time the pause was even longer.

  Melissa sounded cautious. Blossom’s antennae pricked up. The good—or bad, depending on how you were looking at it—thing about being twins was that you knew each other through and through. ‘What is it?’ she asked flatly. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘What’s what?’ Another pause. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Definitely wary. ‘He’s not ill or anything, is he?’ she asked as sudden alarm reared up. ‘He’s not had an accident?’

  ‘Zak? No, he’s fine as far as I know.’

  Blossom closed her eyes, her heart beating in her ears.
‘Is he seeing someone else?’ Only thing left.

  ‘Blossom, he’s Greg’s boss. He doesn’t have to report his doings to us.’ Melissa paused. ‘I mean…’

  ‘But you know something.’ Melissa wasn’t Melissa tonight.

  ‘I don’t.’ Melissa sighed. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  Blossom was not convinced. The more so when Melissa added, ‘Anyway, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you tell me it was you who insisted you were both free agents now? He could be dating the whole of London and it would be none of your business any more. You signed him off good and proper, sis.’

  She knew that. If anyone knew that, she did. Most of her dreams had featured Zak with someone else. ‘It doesn’t exactly help, you pointing that out,’ she said tightly. ‘OK?’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but someone has to.’

  They didn’t, actually. ‘I have to go.’ She’d had enough.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ Melissa said cheerfully. ‘Take care and ring when you can.’

  Why? Pulling out her fingernails one by one would be more heartening. ‘Love to Greg and the kids,’ said Blossom stiffly before putting down the telephone.

  She sat staring into space, helpless misery washing over her. He was seeing someone else. She knew it. And, like Melissa had so helpfully pointed out, he had every right to. Of course a sexy, virile man like Zak wouldn’t sit at home twiddling his thumbs. She’d made it abundantly clear there was no future for them; he’d cut his losses and moved on. It was what people did.

  Her heart contracted and she bit hard on her bottom lip. She wasn’t going to ask after him again; that had been a huge mistake. He could run around with whomever he liked for all she cared. She got out her handkerchief and scrubbed at the tears coursing down her face.

  The next weeks were just as hectic as the ones before the telephone call, but now, although she was exhausted each night, sleep was elusive. If she had thought she felt miserable before, it was nothing to how she felt once she knew Zak was seeing someone else. She couldn’t sleep, she had to force herself to eat and although she was grimly professional, and the powers-that-be declared themselves delighted with her work, she got no pleasure or satisfaction from it. The last show finished five days before Christmas, and by then she was on her knees and had dropped two dress sizes. This would have been a bonus—she was at last the size ten she’d unsuccessfully aimed for since puberty—if she hadn’t been so desolate.