Hanukkah at the Great Greenwich Ice Creamery: A heart-warming Christmas romance full of surprises

by Sharon Ibbotson

  I want to do so much more than sleep with you. I want to love you. I want to pleasure you. I want to feel all the hidden corners of your body. I want to feel your bare skin under my hands.

  But that’s not all this is, River. Not even close. More than anything, I want to know you. I want to know your favourite foods and your favourite memories. I want to know why, when you smile, you wrinkle your nose ever-so-slightly. I want to know how you get all those ribbons in your hair.

  I want to know you more than I want to sleep with you, River. And I want to sleep with you more than anything, so that should tell you how deep my feelings go.

  Why are you in London? the next question asked.

  His brow furrowed and he felt that old, panicked sense of having to justify his life choices.

  Just after my ex-wife left me, my father died of cancer and my mother remarried.

  I’m a Vice-President of the company I work for and so I asked for a secondment to Europe. I made out that the work here was too important to leave to anyone else but, actually, that wasn’t true.

  I told my mother that I was angry at her for remarrying so quickly, and that I needed time away from her and her new wife but, actually, that also wasn’t true.

  I told the few friends I have that I couldn’t bear to see my ex-wife parading around our social set with her new boyfriend. But that was also a lie.

  The truth is, I came here because I couldn’t see New York without seeing my father everywhere I went.

  When he was sick, he asked me to visit him. He wanted to build bridges, mend the rift, that sort of thing. It seemed that cancer had given him a new outlook on fatherhood after a lifetime of being a deadbeat dad.

  But I kept making excuses and, in the end, I never did get to see him before he died. He slipped away, alone, in a dingy New York hospice.

  And now, whenever I’m in that city, I see his face everywhere I look.

  And it’s always a face full of recriminations.

  He ordered another pint. At this rate, he knows he’d be half-cut by eleven, but God damn if he didn’t need the dull buzz that alcohol brought.

  When do you go home?

  At this question, there was no hesitation.

  Two weeks. Christmas. But I don’t want to go. If you’ll have me, I’ll stay with you forever.

  You understand, of course, that my mama is going to kill you?

  At this next question, Cohen felt a deep stab of anxiety. He didn’t have anything against Rushi, not really, but he knew that she disliked him on behalf of his mother, and that, having heard the stories of his misspent youth, she regarded him with deep suspicion if not open hostility.

  He recalled Rushi’s scowl, her look of pure scepticism and her scathing disregard for any feelings he couldn’t, by her opinion, possibly have.

  But with the memory of River’s kiss in his mind, the taste of her still in his mouth, he was now long past the point where walking away was an option. Let Rushi do her worst.

  You’re worth it, he wrote.

  The next few lines weren’t a question. Cohen felt himself fill with hopeful adrenaline, a frisson of excitement running down his spine, as he read them.

  I really like you, Cohen.

  But I understand why this might be too much for you.

  I just want you to know, that even if this is just a one-time thing, I’ll always think of you fondly.

  But before anything else, and most importantly of all, I need to know something. And you must understand, that this is a make-or-break question.

  He stiffened, preparing himself for the worst. He’d made a lifetime of errors, a litany of mistakes. Which of them might be the confession that proved too much for River?

  Favourite ice cream flavour?

  The rush of relief that ran through his body was better than any of the numbing pleasure the alcohol let flow through his veins. He laughed out loud, hardly caring that the barman was regarding him with deep disdain.

  When I was a child, he wrote, I always liked strawberry. My father hated that. He said pink was a girl’s colour and strawberry a girl’s flavour. So, whenever I was with him, he made me have vanilla. Plain, simple and inoffensive. A man’s flavour.

  But when I went to sign for his body at the hospice, the nurses informed me that in the few days before he died, when he could stomach food, all he asked for was strawberry ice cream.

  River’s questionnaire ended with a simple statement.

  Tuesday, then?

  Tuesday. He nodded emphatically as he wrote. This Tuesday, next Tuesday and every Tuesday after that. For as long as you’ll have me, River.

  And he smiled, a smile of hope, as well as a smile of rue.

  Because next Tuesday couldn’t come fast enough.

  Chapter Five

  Jaded Green Tea

  The week that followed brought two surprising revelations into Cohen’s life.

  The first was that he felt, for the first time in a long time, a sense of ease and well-being. It wasn’t the all-encompassing feeling of peace he’d always imagined or envied in others, it wasn’t zen-like. He didn’t wake in the morning and feel a sudden urge to do yoga by the river with flowers in his hair. But he did wake without the urge to drown his emotions in work and black coffee. He woke and was able to look at himself in the mirror, without hating the dark hair he inherited from his mother, or the brown eyes he knew he’d received from his father. He stood tall, his back straight, and was able to nod at the reflection that stared back at him.

  It was odd and unfamiliar and liberating all at once.

  The second was that Andrew Canning, current CEO of Roberts-Canning LLC, had decided to retire, taking his platinum silk suits and withered expression into tax haven exile. Cohen barely had time to ponder this email, or to think more than ‘Good luck, Panama, you’ll need every bit of it with that vicious reprobate in your country’, when a second, more worrying, email dropped into his inbox.

  Canning wanted Cohen to take over his position.

  While I fervently believe this decision to be a massive error on the part of our current, beloved CEO, Fowler wrote in his scathing email detailing the news, Mr Canning is most insistent on your taking the leadership position. He truly (though mistakenly, in my opinion) thinks you can take this company forwards into the future.

  Fowler ended the email with the usual empty words: a letter had been sent with the details of this decision, a meeting with the board had been arranged for January, the company was looking forward to his forthcoming return, etc, etc. Each sentence dripped with condescending and ill-concealed disdain, and Cohen closed the email with a quick tap of his finger.

  Another email from Fowler popped up, the subject box empty, with just one line crossing the screen.

  You better not mess this up, Ford.

  Well, indeed.

  Cohen knew he shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events. Canning had been grooming him for leadership for about ten years, ever since he’d persuaded Cohen to leave his fulfilling internship at the Sedler Foundation, swapping it for a less fulfilling role at Roberts-Canning, where the benefits (more money, bigger office and zero presence of his mother) outweighed the negatives (Canning, a less-than-ethical business practice and Tarquin freaking Fowler).

  He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d worked hard for this moment. He’d put in the hours, made the right connections, put Roberts-Canning above anything and everything else in his life.

  And it’d been easy. Too easy.

  Too easy to put the company above Christine and the little soirées she held in their penthouse. God knew that, compared to eating vegan, low-carb and organic canapés with Christine and her vapid friends, the office was actually preferable.

  Too easy to miss Christmas or Easter with his mother ... again. Too easy to lay claim to a faith in which he’d long since lost faith as a reason for his absence.

  We’re Jewish, we don’t even celebrate Christmas. I don’t know why you’re so upset, he’d normal
ly text Esther at some point in October.

  Well, I never see you during Hanukkah or on your birthday any more, she’d instantly text back. So, I might as well see you on the birthday of a man who could turn water into wine. God knows that’s a skill worth celebrating. Besides, I’m ordering chow mein and Uncle Israel’s bringing fruitcake.

  And joy to the world and ding dong merrily on high if that wasn’t reason enough for Cohen to stay away.

  And it had been far, far too easy to put back another meeting with his father. Too easy to leave yet another tense voicemail indicating that ‘sorry Dad, but work, you know how it is’, even though Jim, the shiftiest king of the shiftless, had no idea what a real day of work ever entailed.

  Roberts-Canning had always come first for Cohen. Of that there had never been any doubt.

  Until today, that was.

  Until River.

  Because Cohen, despite Fowler’s beliefs to the contrary, was no fool. He understood that accepting leadership of Roberts-Canning LLC meant committing himself to a lifetime of long hours in the city that never slept. He understood that it would mean putting the needs of the business before any needs of his own. Needs that, prior to meeting River, he refused to acknowledge he might even have.

  After all, that’s why Canning had chosen him above all others. Because Cohen didn’t have needs. And if desire for something more ever crossed his path, he was to deal with it as he did everything else: methodically, coolly and without feeling.

  Just like Canning.

  He realised now, with a shudder, that for ten years he had been nothing more than a pale imitation of Canning in all his terrible glory. He’d been a man wearing a mask, not waiting for the day he could reveal his true face – because the real Cohen Ford had long since been buried – but for the day when the mask was so truly part of his skin that no one even realised he was wearing it. He’d been a man in the shadows, biding his time until Canning’s time fell, allowing him to rise into his light.

  Or, perhaps, descend completely into his darkness.

  There were times when Cohen wondered exactly what he was doing at Roberts-Canning. Of course he knew that on paper he was a financier, with a specialty in wealth growth and management. But ‘financier’ had never sat well with Cohen, being a word that covered a multitude of terrible sins. There were times when he sat back, having moved money three times around the world to cover a shady arms deal, and stared at the New York City skyline, reconsidering his life. Times when he knew – just knew – that given the right circumstances, the right environment, the right universe, that Canning could be truly evil rather than just diabolical.

  But then perhaps, given the right conditions, so could he.

  And that thought made Cohen break out in a cold sweat.

  He thought of River then, imagined her sweet smile, her glorious eyes. He thought of her hands, small and delicate, but with strong, lean fingers. He recalled her smell, syrup-warm, while he remembered the feel of her lips on his.

  River made and sold ice cream. Her career had brought about no pain, only joy. For her labours she was rewarded with the wide smiles of children, sticky and content. Adults took a paper cup of ice cream from her and offered up their happy, wistful sighs. Years from now, River’s work would be remembered with gladness, with open hearts and content satisfaction.

  Cohen could not say the same.

  What happiness had he ever brought about? Had there ever been a smile worn by others which he’d created through his own efforts? Had a genuine moment of joy ever been felt because of him?

  Certainly not at home. His father left, after all. Christine too, in the end. And his mother ... Cohen swallowed hard, grim with the knowledge that to Esther he had always been a monumental disappointment. A difficult child, an unruly teen and then a detached adult. The perfectly imperfect son.

  And certainly, he’d created little happiness at work. Cohen’s career, though profitable for those who had skin in the game, came at a terrible cost to others, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. No longer could he sit back and only see green arrows and increased revenue and undetected transfers. No, now Cohen saw what the world must have seen: misery, pain and profiteering of the worst calibre.

  And if he accepted Canning’s job, he would become the centre of the problem. He would be a man of limitless wealth, of great power and wide opportunity ... but morally bankrupt, emotionally empty and defunct as a good human being.

  And the man in the mask would die, leaving behind only a shadowed husk. A shadow Cohen didn’t think he could bear to see reflected back in the mirror.

  And River ...

  If Cohen took this role, he would have to give her up. It was that simple. He knew that River and the lifestyle Roberts-Canning offered were incompatible. He could have left Christine for days on end while he made deals in Dubai, or Niger, or Pakistan. He could have worked a sixteen-hour day, coming home for a brief sleep and shower before dressing and going back to the office. Cohen instinctively knew that Christine, had she stayed, would have been the perfect Roberts-Canning bride. Beautiful, vapid and entirely happy with the crumbs of attention Cohen could offer her.

  Crumbs Cohen would well and truly pay for in diamonds, designer handbags and red-soled shoes.

  But not River.

  Cohen knew that if he were ever to be so fortunate as to have her by his side, he could never let her go. He was beginning to know himself, beginning to see the needs Canning so adamantly ordered him not to have. The thought of spending more than a day away from River, of being in a different city, a different country, a different time zone ... it made his stomach clench painfully. He felt physical pain when he contemplated not being near her.

  Cohen sighed, going to the window and looking out at the view beyond. With River, he felt like he could either have everything ... or nothing at all.

  From the thirty-sixth floor of the Roberts-Canning building, London thrived below. People moved like ants through lean alleys and bustling roads. Boats moved slowly down a murky river like leaves in a current. Trains weaved, snake-like, between buildings both ancient and modern. Somewhere, Big Ben chimed the hour, while above a 747 cut cleanly through the sky.

  London was busy. London was alive. London was a mess of people and emotions and timetables and getting from A to B and back again, all day, every day.

  But Cohen was quiet. Cohen was calm. Cohen felt, for the first time ever, utterly at peace with himself and the world. Because in a choice between River and Roberts-Canning LLC, between River and profit, between River and, well, anything ... River would always win.

  Cohen opened his inbox again, finding Fowler’s bitter message congratulating him on his promotion, asking him to pencil in the board meeting where his new position would be made official.

  He smiled as he typed back a reply.

  Thanks, but no thanks.

  The Great Greenwich Ice Creamery was thriving when Cohen walked in. Crowds of people were pressed into the little café, and a queue made its way calmly to the door and beyond. Around Cohen came the happy noises of children, licking pastel-coloured ice cream from spoons, their chins sticky with sugar and chocolate. Parents lingered near them, most with cups of steaming hot coffee or tea, but some with gleeful expressions, indulging in a scoop or two of mint chocolate chip or pistachio pecan swirl.

  Cohen envied them their happiness.

  River was busy behind the counter, dispensing ice cream with the assistance of a good-looking, well-built man. He was all at once talking to a customer while signing to River and clearly something amused them, because he stopped to sling an easy arm around River and laugh, before turning to the coffee machine.

  Cohen watched silently in the shadows for a time, taking in how a lamp flashed whenever someone entered the ice creamery to let River know there was a customer. He took in the little details he had missed on previous visits, when he was so wrapped up in River and gingham aprons and hazel eyes and ribbons that he hardly noticed his surroundings at a
ll: the gingham tablecloths in a rainbow of colours, spread neatly across wooden tables; the Christmas tree in the corner, the lights bright and cheerful; the printed menu in Cohen’s hand which clearly stated that the manager was deaf and offered instructions on how to order, while a few basic signs were printed on the back.

  Hello. Goodbye. Please. Thank you.

  With a stab of pride and appreciation, Cohen realised that Rushi had a system in place so that River never felt uncomfortable or out of her depth in a hearing world.

  But mostly, he watched River. His eyes lingered on her arms as she stretched into the freezer to scoop ice cream, lean and graceful even in this. He smiled as she topped a sundae with lashings of whipped cream, holding her bottom lip between her teeth in concentration, swirling the white concoction into a perfect spiral. And his heart leapt to life when he saw her lick a long, silver spoon, closing her eyes in a perfect appreciation of flavour and sweetness.

  He was lost in thoughts of vanilla kisses and sugared lips when River spotted him from across the ice creamery. How her smile didn’t melt the ice cream in her hands, the ice on the windowpanes or even the snow that lay thickly across all of London, Cohen didn’t know. She waved happily before indicating to the crowds of people. She raised her hands in a stay there gesture, before turning to her assistant, conversing quickly with her hands and pointing to Cohen.

  The man looked up at Cohen, his brow furrowing, his smile falling, and Cohen felt instantly ill at ease. Cohen had deep experience of mistrust and dislike and recognised both emotions easily in the faces of others. And this man, this good-looking man who could actually talk to River, did not like Cohen.

  And in that moment, jealous and resentful, Cohen didn’t much like him either.

  Cohen watched as the man took off his apron – and honestly, he even looked good in ruffled gingham, and how many men could pull that look off? – washed his hands and came out from behind the counter towards Cohen. Without ceremony he slid into the seat next to him, tapping his fingers on the table and giving him a look that could freeze, well, ice cream.