by Heidi Rice
‘I came here to ask you to forgive me,’ he said. ‘For being such a monumental jerk about pretty much everything.’
She drew her head back, her heart shattering, the panic rising into her throat. ‘I can’t do this again. You have to leave.’
* * *
Dane looked at Xanthe’s face. Her valiant expression was a mask of determination, but the stark evidence of the pain he’d caused was clear in the shadows under her eyes that perfectly applied make-up failed to disguise. And he felt like the worst kind of coward.
He’d spent the last fortnight battling his own fear. Had come all this way finally to confront it. He had to risk everything now. Tell her the truth. The whole truth.
‘I don’t want to dissolve our marriage. I never did.’
It was the hardest thing he had ever had to say. Harder even than the pleas he’d made as an eight-year-old in that broken-down trailer.
‘I love you. I think I always have.’
She stilled, the pants of her breathing punctuating the silence. The sunlight glowed on the red-gold curls of her hair. But then the quick burst of euphoria that he’d finally had the guts to tell her what he should have told her a decade ago died.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she murmured. She looked wary and confused. But not happy. ‘If you had ever loved me,’ she said, her voice fragile but firm, ‘you would be able to trust me. And you never have.’
He felt a tiny sliver of hope enter his chest, and he who had never been an optimist, nor a romantic, never been one to explain or justify or even to address his feelings knew he had one slim chance. And no matter what happened he wasn’t going to blow it.
‘I do trust you. I just didn’t know it.’
‘Don’t talk in riddles. You didn’t trust me over the miscarriage—you thought I’d had an abortion. And you didn’t trust me not to get pregnant again. For God’s sake, you even searched my toiletries.’
‘I know. But that was down to me and stuff that happened long before I met you. I can see that now.’
‘What stuff that happened?’
Oh, hell.
He might have guessed Xanthe wouldn’t take his word for it.
He stood back, not sure he could explain himself with any clarity but knowing he would have to if they were going to stand any chance at all.
‘You asked me once a very long time ago what happened to my mother.’
‘You said she died when you were a child—like mine.’
He shook his head. How many other lies had he told to protect himself?
‘She didn’t die. She left.’
* * *
‘What? When?’
Xanthe stared blankly at Dane as he ducked his head and braced his hands against the desk. She felt exhausted, hollowed out, her heart already broken into a thousand tiny fragments. He’d said he loved her. But how could she believe him?
‘When I was a kid.’ He sighed, the deep breath making his chest expand. ‘Eight or maybe nine.’
‘I don’t understand what that has to do with us.’
He raked his fingers over his hair, finally meeting her eyes. The torment in them shocked her into silence.
‘I didn’t either. I thought I’d gotten over it. I missed her so much, and then I got angry with her. But most of all I convinced myself I’d forgotten her.’
‘But you hadn’t?’
He nodded, glanced out of the window.
Part of her didn’t expect him to explain. Part of her wasn’t even sure she wanted him to. But she felt the tiny fragments of her heart gather together as his Adam’s apple bobbed and he began to talk.
‘He hit her, too, when he was wasted. I remember she used to get me to hide. One night I hid for what felt like hours. I could hear him shouting, her crying. The sound of...’
He swallowed again, and she could see the trauma cross his face. A trauma he’d never let her see until now.
‘She was pregnant. He slapped her a couple of times and went out again. To get drunker, I guess. When I came out she was packing her stuff. Her lip was bleeding. I was terrified. I begged her to take me with her. She said she couldn’t, that she had to protect the baby. That I was big enough now to look out for myself until she could come back for me.’
His knuckles turned white where he held the edge of the desk.
‘But she never did come back for me.’
Was this why he had always found it so hard to trust her? To trust anyone? Because the one person who should have stayed with him, who had promised to protect him, had abandoned him?
‘Dane, I’m so sorry.’
Xanthe felt her heart break all over again for that boy who had been forced to grow up far too fast. But as much as she wanted to comfort him, to help him, she knew she couldn’t go back and make things better now.
‘Don’t be sorry. It was a long time ago. And in some ways it made me stronger. Once I’d survived that, I knew I could survive anything.’
‘I understand now why it was so hard for you to ever show weakness.’
And she did understand. He’d had to survive for so long and from such a young age with no one. His self-sufficiency was the only thing that had saved him. Why would he ever want to give that up?
‘But I can’t be with someone who doesn’t need me the way I need them. It was like that with my dad. And it was the same way with us. I waited too long to call him that day because I didn’t want to betray you.’
Her voice caught in her throat, but she pushed the words out. She had to stand up for herself. For who she had become. She couldn’t be that naive, impressionable girl again. Not for anyone.
‘I love you, Dane. I probably always will. You excite me and challenge me and make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt with any other person. But I can’t be with you, make a life with you, if we can’t be equal. And we never will be if you always have to hold a part of yourself back.’
But as she opened her mouth to tell him to leave he took her wrists, first one, then the other, and drew her against him. He touched his forehead to hers, his lips close to hers, his voice barely a whisper. Tension vibrated through his body as he spoke.
‘Please give me another chance. I loved that girl because she was sweet and sexy and funny, but also so fragile. I thought I could protect her the way I could never protect my mom. And I love knowing that some of that cute, bright, clever kid is still there.’
He pressed his hand to her cheek, cradled her face, and the tenderness in his eyes pushed another tear over her lid.
‘But don’t you see, Dane? I can’t be that girl any more. You walked all over me and I let you.’
He wiped the lone tear away with his thumb. ‘Shh, let me finish, Red.’
The lopsided smile and the old nickname touched that tender place in her heart that still ached for him and always would.
‘What I was going to say was, as much as I loved that girl, I love the woman she’s become so much more.’
She pulled back, scared to let herself sink into him again. ‘Don’t say that if it isn’t true.’
‘You think I told you about my mom to make you feel sorry for me?’
She shook her head, because she knew he would never do that—he had far too much bullheaded pride. ‘No, of course not. But...’
He touched his thumb to her lips. ‘I told you because I want you to know why it’s taken me so damn long to figure out the obvious. The truth is I was scared witless, Red. Of needing you too much. The way I’d once needed her. But do you know what was the first thing I felt when you walked into my office and told me we were still married?’
‘Horror?’
He laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it. ‘Yeah, maybe a little bit. But what I felt the most...’ His lips tipped up in a wary smile. ‘Was longing.’
‘That was just the sex talking.’
His hands sank down to her neck. ‘Yeah, I wanted to believe that. We both did. But we both know that’s a crock.’
She ducked
her head, but he lifted her chin.
‘I love that you’re your own woman now. That you’re still tender and sweet and sexy, but also tough and smart enough to stand up to me, to never let me get away with anything. We’re likely to drive each other nuts some of the time. I’m not always going to be able to come clean about stuff. Because I’m a guy, and that’s the way I work. But I don’t want to sign those papers. I want to give our marriage another chance. A real chance this time.’
‘But I live in London and you live in New York. And we—’
‘Can work anything out if we set our minds to it,’ he finished for her. ‘If we’re willing to try.’
It was a huge ask with a simple answer. Because she’d never stopped loving him either.
‘Except...I can’t have children naturally. But I want very much to be a mother.’
‘Then we’ll check out our options. There’s IVF, adoption—tons of stuff we can look at.’
‘You’d be willing to do all that for me?’ His instant commitment stunned her a little.
‘Not just for you—for me, too. I want to see you be a mother. I always did. I was just too dumb to say so because I was terrified I wouldn’t make the grade as a father.’
She sent him a watery smile, stupidly happy with this new evidence of exactly how equal they were. While she’d been busy nursing her own foolish insecurities she’d managed to miss completely the fact that he had some spectacularly stupid ones, too.
‘Hmm, about that...maybe we should look at the evidence?’ she teased.
‘Do we have to?’ he replied, looking adorably uncomfortable.
‘Well, you’re certainly bossy enough to make a good father.’ Her smile spread when he winced. ‘And protective enough, and tough enough, and playful enough, too.’
She pressed herself against him, reached up to circle her arms round his neck, tug the hair at his nape until his mouth bent to hers.
‘I guess we’ll just have to work on the rest.’
‘Is that a yes?’ He grinned, because he had to be able to see the answer shining in her eyes through her tears. Her happy—no, her ecstatic tears. ‘You’re willing to give this another go?’
‘I am if you are.’
His arms banded round her back to lift her off the floor. ‘Does that mean we get to have lots of make-up sex?’ he asked.
His hot gaze was setting off all the usual fires, but this time they were so much more intense. Because this time she knew they would never need to be doused.
‘We’re in my office, in the middle of the day. That would be really inappropriate.’
His grin became more than a little wicked as he boosted her into his arms. ‘Screw appropriate.’
EPILOGUE
‘YOU GRAB THAT ONE... I’ve got this one.’
Xanthe laughed, scooping up her three-year-old son, Lucas, before he could head for the pool while she watched her husband dive after their one-year-old daughter who, typically, had crawled off in the opposite direction.
Rosie wiggled and chortled as her favourite person in all the world hefted her under his arm like a sack of potatoes—very precious potatoes—into the beach house that stood on a ridge overlooking the ocean.
After facing their third round of IVF, almost two years ago now, she and Dane had embarked on the slow, arduous route to adoption. The discovery a few months later that Xanthe was pregnant, in the same week they’d been given the news that they’d been matched with a little boy in desperate need of a new home, had been like having all their Christmases come at once, while being totally terrifying at the same time.
They would be new parents with two children. But could they give Lucas the attention he needed after a tough start in life while also handling a newborn?
Xanthe could still remember the long discussions they’d had late into the night about what to do. But once they’d met Lucas the decision had been taken out of their hands. Because they’d both fallen in love with the impish little boy instantly. As quickly as they’d later fallen in love with his sister, on the day she was born.
‘Mommy, I want to do more swimming,’ Lucas demanded.
‘It’s dinnertime, honey,’ Xanthe soothed as her son squirmed. ‘No more swimming today.’
‘Yes, Mommy—yes, more swimming!’ he cried out, his compact body full of enough energy to power a jumping bean convention—which was usually a sign he was about to hit the wall, hard.
‘Hey, I’ll trade you.’ Pressing a kiss to Rosie’s nose, Dane passed her to Xanthe. ‘You give the diaper diva her supper and I’ll take the toddler terminator for his bath.’
Dane nimbly hoisted their son above his head.
‘Come on, Buster, let’s go mess up the bathroom.’
‘Daddy, can we race the boats?’
‘You bet. But this time I get to win.’
‘No, Daddy, I always win.’
Lucas chuckled—the deep belly chuckle that Xanthe adored—as Dane bounced him on his hip up the stairs of the palatial holiday home they’d bought in the Vineyard, and were considering turning into their permanent base.
Dane had already moved his design team to Cape Cod, and was thinking of relocating the marketing and sponsorship team from the New York office, too. His business was so successful now that clients were prepared to come to him.
Xanthe allowed her gaze to drift down Dane’s naked back, where the old scars were barely visible thanks to his summer tan, until it snagged on the bunch and flex of his buttocks beneath the damp broad shorts as he mounted the stairs with their son. The inevitable tug of love and longing settled low in her abdomen as her men disappeared from view.
Extracurricular activities would have to wait until their children were safely tucked up in bed.
Rosie yawned, nestling her head against Xanthe’s shoulder, and sucked her thumb, her big blue eyes blinking owlishly. She cupped her daughter’s cheek. The flushed baby-soft skin smelled of sun cream and salt and that delicious baby scent that never failed to make Xanthe’s heart expand.
‘Okay, Miss Diaper Diva, let’s see if we can get some food into you before you fall asleep.’
After a day on the beach, trying to keep up with her daddy and her big brother while they built a sand yacht, her daughter had already hit that wall.
Ella, their housekeeper, arrived from the kitchen, as the aroma of the chicken pot pie she’d prepared for the children’s evening meal made Xanthe’s stomach growl.
‘Would you like me to feed her while you take a shower?’
‘No, we’re good.’ Xanthe smiled.
In their late fifties, and with their own children now grown, Ella and her husband John had been an absolute godsend when she’d gone back to work—taking care of all the household chores and doing occasional childcare duties while she and Dane concentrated on bringing up two boisterous children and running two multinational companies with commitments in most corners of the globe.
‘Why don’t you take the rest of the evening off? I’ve got it from here,’ Xanthe added. ‘That pie smells delicious, by the way.’
‘Then I’ll get going—if you’re sure?’ Ella beamed as Xanthe nodded. ‘I made a spare pie for you and Dane, if you want it tonight. If not just shove it in the freezer.’
‘Wonderful, Ella. And thanks again,’ she said.
The housekeeper gave Rosie a quick cuddle and then bade them both goodbye before heading to the house she and her husband shared in the grounds.
As Xanthe settled her daughter in the highchair she watched the July sunlight glitter off the infinity pool and heard wild whooping from upstairs. Apparently Dane and their son were flooding the children’s bathroom again during their boat race.
The sunlight beamed through the house’s floor-to-ceiling windows, making Rosie’s blonde hair into a halo around her head. Xanthe’s heart expanded a little more as she fed her daughter. To think she’d once believed that her life was just the way she wanted it to be. She’d had her work, her company, and she’d persu
aded herself that love didn’t matter. That it was too dangerous to risk her heart a second time.
Her life was a lot more chaotic now, and not nearly as settled thanks to her many and varied commitments. They had a house on the river in London, and Dane’s penthouse in New York, as well as this estate in the Vineyard, but as both she and Dane had demanding jobs and enjoyed travel they rarely spent more than six months a year in any of them.
As a result, their children had already climbed the Sugarloaf Mountain, been on a yacht trip to the Seychelles and slept through the New Year’s Eve fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge. Eventually she and Dane would have to pick one base and stick to it, which was exactly why Dane was restructuring his business and why she’d appointed an acting CEO at Carmichael’s in London, giving herself more flexibility while overseeing the business as a whole.
But with Dane’s nomadic spirit, her own wanderlust, and their children still young enough to thrive on the adventure, they’d found a way to make their jet-set lifestyle work for now.
By risking her heart a second time she had created a home and a family and a life she adored, and discovered in the process that love was the only thing that really mattered.
Rosie spat out a mouthful of food, looking mutinous as she stuffed her thumb into her mouth.
Xanthe grinned. ‘Right, madam, time to hand you over to your daddy.’ She hauled her daughter out of the highchair and perched her on her hip. ‘He can read you a bedtime story while I feed your brother, and then rescue the bathroom.’
And once all that was done, when both her babies were in bed, she had other plans for her husband for later in the evening.
She smiled. Love mattered, and family mattered, but sometimes lust was pretty important, too.
* * *
‘How do you feel about taking the munchkins to Montserrat next month?’
‘Hmm...?’ Xanthe eased back against her husband’s chest as his words whispered into her hair and his hands settled on her belly.
The sun had started to drift towards the horizon, sending shards of light shimmering across the ocean and giving the surface of the pool a ruddy glow. She felt gloriously languid, standing on the deck. The children were finally out for the count, and Ella’s second chicken pot pie had been devoured and savoured over a quiet glass of chardonnay.
