The Unexpected Holiday Gift

by Sophie Pembroke

  He’d hidden away the other parts, the bits of him he wanted to pretend didn’t exist. All the parts that made his family ashamed of him.

  Would it have made a difference if he’d shown them to Clara? Or would they just have made her leave him sooner?

  ‘I always knew,’ he said slowly, ‘that something was different the last time you left. I just never guessed it could be this. I always thought that it was me and that I’d let you down. And I had, I know. But that’s not why you didn’t come back to try again. That was because...’

  Clara finished the thought for him. ‘Ivy mattered more.’

  ‘And that’s why I could never have children.’ Jacob gave her a wonky smile then tilted his glass to drain the last few drops. ‘I never did seem to grasp the concept of other people mattering more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Clara asked, frowning. ‘Do you want me to tell you you’re selfish? Because you are a workaholic who often forgets there’s a life outside the office...or at least you used to be. I think this Perfect Christmas project of yours shows that you’re definitely capable of thinking of others when you want to.’

  Jacob’s mind raced with warnings to himself. With all the things he’d never told Clara—all his failures, the acts and mistakes that would strip away any respect she’d ever had for him.

  Why tell her now? Except it was his last chance. The last opportunity he might ever have to explain himself to her and to make her understand the sort of husband he’d been and why.

  Should he tell her? He gazed into her eyes and saw a slight spark there. Was he imagining the connection that still existed between them? The thread that drew them together, even after all these years?

  Would the truth be the thing that finally broke it? Or maybe—just maybe—could it draw her in to him again?

  ‘I made a mistake once,’ he started.

  ‘Just the once? Jacob, I’ve made hundreds.’ She was joking, of course, because she couldn’t know yet that this wasn’t a laughing matter. Not for him and not for his family.

  ‘Only once that counts,’ he said and something in his tone must have got through to her because she settled down in her chair, her expression suddenly serious.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My parents... They left me in charge of Heather one evening while they were at a friends’ Christmas party. I was sixteen. She was six. I resented it. I wanted to be out with my friends and instead I was stuck in, babysitting.’ Across the table, Clara’s eyes were wide as she waited, even though she had to know that the story ended as well as it could. Heather was still with them.

  Just.

  ‘I was messing around in the kitchen,’ he went on, hating the very memory. He could still smell the scent of the Christmas tree in the hallway, the mulled wine spices in the pan on the stove. ‘I was experimenting. I used to think I wanted to be a scientist, did I ever tell you that?’

  Clara shook her head. ‘No, you didn’t. Like your father, you mean? What changed?’

  ‘Yeah, like my dad.’ That was all he’d wanted: to be like his father. To invent something that changed people’s lives for the better. At least he had until that night. ‘And as for what changed...’ He swallowed. ‘I sent Heather up to bed early because I didn’t want her getting in my way. I was trying some experiment I’d read about—a flame in a bottle thing—when the phone rang. I turned towards it, moving away from the table.’ The memory was so clear, as if he was right there all over again. A familiar terror rose in his throat. As if it were happening again and this time he might not be able to stop it...

  ‘I was far enough away when I heard the explosion. And then I heard Heather scream,’ he went on, the lump in his throat growing painfully large. But still he struggled to speak around it. ‘The experiment... The fire should have been contained in the bottle, burning up the methanol. But I screwed it up, somehow. It exploded. And when I turned back... Heather...’

  ‘Oh, Jacob,’ Clara whispered and reached out across the table to take his hand. He squeezed her fingers in gratitude.

  ‘She’d come downstairs to see what I was doing,’ he explained. ‘She was right by the table when it happened. Her arms...’

  ‘I’d seen the scars,’ Clara admitted. ‘I just never thought... She always kept them covered, so I didn’t like to ask. I should have.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. We don’t... Nobody in my family likes to talk about it. We like to pretend it never happened.’ Even though there hadn’t been a day since when Jacob hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t wished he’d acted differently. ‘Dad only ever refers to it as our lucky escape. Heather put her arms up to protect herself when the bottle exploded but her pyjamas caught fire. I grabbed a throw blanket and smothered her with it to put the flames out but...’ He swallowed. This was the part of the memory that haunted him the most. ‘The fire chief said that she would have been burnt beyond recognition if I’d been a moment slower, if her hair had caught fire. It could have taken her sight too. And she might have...’

  Clara’s fingers tightened around his. ‘But she didn’t. She’s fine, Jacob. She’s out there right now with your parents, waiting for this snow to clear. She’s fine.’

  She’s alive. Some mornings, that was the first thing he said to himself. Whenever he worried about the day ahead, about a deal that might go wrong or a business decision he had to make, he just reminded himself that Heather was alive, and he knew anything was possible. But nothing had ever been the same since. His parents had never looked at him the same way. They loved him, he knew. Forgave him even, maybe. But they couldn’t love him the same way they had before he’d hurt their baby girl. And they couldn’t trust him, not with people.

  He’d been lucky—far luckier than anyone had any right to be, his father had said. But Jacob knew he couldn’t ever rely on that again. He’d used up his allocation of good luck and all he had left was hard graft and determination.

  A determination never to let his family down like that again. A resolution never to put himself in a position where he was responsible for a child again.

  He couldn’t be trusted. He should always focus on his own dream, his own ambition, instead of another person’s welfare. He couldn’t take the risk of hurting another kid that way again.

  He’d thought that maybe he could manage marriage, as long as it was on his terms. And when he’d met Clara he’d known he had to try.

  But in the end he’d only let her down too. He’d neglected her the way he’d neglected Heather that night, but the difference was that Clara had been an adult.

  When he’d hurt her, Clara could leave, and she had done exactly that.

  And he couldn’t ever blame her.

  * * *

  Clara held Jacob’s hand hard and tight, her whole being filled with sympathy and love for that younger version of her husband. A teenage boy who’d been acting exactly like sixteen-year-old boys always would—foolishly—and had almost destroyed his family.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Jacob,’ she said and his gaze snapped up to meet hers.

  ‘How can you say that? It was entirely my fault. Every last bit of it.’

  The awful thing was, he was right. ‘You were a child.’

  ‘I was sixteen. Old enough to be responsible, at least in my parents’ eyes. I let them down.’

  And he’d never forgiven himself, Clara realised. He’d held this failure over himself for years and it had coloured every single thing he’d ever done since.

  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

  JACOB 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.