icity. The council tax went up here a couple of months ago.’
‘What? She didn’t tell me that.’
Gladys met her gaze. ‘She didn’t want to. She thought you were putting too much on yourself already. She didn’t want you to make yourself unwell.’ Gladys sighed. ‘She also thought you weren’t giving yourself any chance of a life.’ She shot Esther a sympathetic glance. ‘You know, Esther, she told you often enough. You just don’t like to listen.’
Esther flinched. She’d no idea her mother had told Gladys quite so much. Tears swilled in her eyes. Not only had her father let her mother down, now she had too.
‘But she’s defaulted on her payments now! She’s going to lose everything.’
She was already upset but now she was completely and utterly overwhelmed. She didn’t know how they could possibly find any way out of this. The repairs to the house would require another mortgage—and could you even get a re-mortgage on a house that was fire damaged?
As for the contents—the entire kitchen would need to replaced, and the roof. That was before they even thought about the decor. Esther put her head in her hands. She had no idea what to do next. This was so much worse than she’d first imagined.
‘Who’s going to lose everything?’ Harry’s voice came from the doorway and both heads snapped around to his.
‘Maybe I should leave you both alone,’ said Gladys quickly, standing up to leave.
‘No,’ said Harry as he crossed the room and held his hand out to Esther. ‘You’ve been so good already.’ He looked down at Esther. ‘Why don’t we get some fresh air?’
Esther’s head was swimming. She couldn’t even begin to think about what all this meant. But Harry was right. She’d imposed on Gladys long enough. She didn’t want to have a complete breakdown in front of the poor woman. Fresh air wouldn’t help, but it would give her a bit of space.
She gave a reluctant nod and stood up, putting her hand in Harry’s. ‘We’ll walk to the hospital. It will be visiting time soon and I want to see how she’s doing.’ She glanced back to Gladys. ‘Please don’t tell anyone about this. Let me see if there’s anything else I can do.’
Gladys gave a thoughtful nod and left them to walk outside.
Esther was trying her best to hold it together. She got as far as the end of the street, where Harry seemed to know to lead her over to the empty children’s swing park.
He sat her down on one of the swings and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’
She couldn’t stop crying. ‘I didn’t send her enough money. She missed her insurance payments. She had no insurance. I have no idea how we can fix the house.’ By the end her words barely came out at all and Harry just pulled her towards him, letting her sob. ‘This is all my fault.’
Part of him twisted inside. When he’d first met Esther she’d worked every hour on the planet. He’d been the one to encourage her to take some time off. He’d been the one to persuade her to spend one day a week with him. The nights just hadn’t been enough for him. He’d wanted more. He’d wanted every day. Look what his actions had caused. A horrible sick feeling rose in his stomach. He couldn’t let her think this was her fault. Not for a second.
He bent down and pushed back the hair that had stuck to her face. ‘Esther, we can sort this.’
‘How?’ Her eyes were bright with tears.
He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. ‘I didn’t go for coffee. I called a letting agency and picked up some keys to a house, a few streets over. Your mum can move in straight away until things get sorted.’
She stared at the silver keys in amazement. ‘You did what? But you didn’t know anything.’
‘But I’d seen the house. I knew she couldn’t go back there tonight. And I know that if she’s anything like her daughter, she won’t want to stay with someone else and impose.’
Esther took a few deep breaths. Her brain had been whirling so much she hadn’t even considered tonight. ‘But—’
‘We can all stay there. The letting agent was in the area and was able to show me around. It’s clean, tidy and furnished. We can go and get some bedsheets and some towels before we collect your mum from the hospital.’
‘But... I need to pay you... How much was this?’
‘Nothing,’ came the quick reply.
‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘No way.’
But Harry turned to her with an equally determined look. ‘Esther, if you hadn’t been with me, if I hadn’t persuaded you to take some time off, you would still have been able to send the money to your mother that she needed.’ He put his hand on his chest. ‘This is my fault. Not yours. And I’m so, so sorry.’
Her nose wrinkled. ‘How can you think this is your fault?’
He held out his hands. ‘Because I wanted you. I wanted all of you. I wanted all your time and all your attention. Being around you has been special for me. You’ve opened my eyes to so many things. You’ve brought fun into my life—something I never really thought I might deserve.’ He paused for a second. ‘And the relationship you have with your mum? Made me ask myself questions about how things turned out with my dad. Ones that I hadn’t wanted to give myself the time to examine, because I wouldn’t like the answers.’
She shook her head. ‘But I’ve let her down, Harry. I’ve painted you a rosy picture of my life. And I do have a great relationship with my mum. I love her. I’d do anything for her. But my dad...’ She let her voice trail for a second. ‘Things weren’t perfect. He was a drifter. A dreamer. And every time he jumped from one job to the next, he made life harder for my mum. He let her down. And I think I’ve done that too.’
‘What?’
She sniffed and took a deep breath to stop the words from getting stuck in her throat. ‘She kept telling me not to work too hard. She kept telling me to get the work/life balance right. But I kept being single-minded. I kept wanting to work too hard, even though my body was telling me to stop.’ Her eyes locked with his. ‘Then I met you, Harry. I started to realise what fun was. And I kept telling myself this was a fling. A temporary thing. That it would go nowhere. But deep down, my heart wasn’t listening. It was jumping in, feet first. Even though my brain knows I can’t do this to myself. I can’t fall for a guy who isn’t around. I’ve already been hurt by that man. My father.’ She whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I should have stopped this before it started.’
His eyes went wide. She half expected him to argue back with her, to fight with her. But he surprised her by taking a deep breath and sitting down on the swing next to her, interlocking his fingers with hers. It took him a few minutes to start speaking. ‘I thought when I came up here today, I just had to explain about the photo. I thought once you realised there was nothing in it, we could be fine.’
Esther froze. ‘And now you think we can’t?’
It didn’t matter that she’d realised inside that she had to stay in Scotland. That it was likely there was no way to keep their relationship afloat. Now that he might be saying it back, every part of her body wanted to protest. To grab him and hold him tight again. To tell him that there had to be a way.
‘We’re so different,’ he said sadly.
‘You’re right, we are so different,’ she agreed. ‘And if I was feeling really brave I would tell you that fairy tales aren’t real. Not for people like me.’
He looked over at her with wounded eyes. ‘So, why does it feel like—no matter what else has gone on—the only thing that really matters to me is you?’ He ran his other hand through his hair and shook his head. ‘I don’t even deserve you, Esther. I’m not good enough for you. You’ve got a big heart. You’re easy to love, and I can’t promise you that I can be the same.’
‘Why on earth would you think you’re not good enough for me?’
His head fell. ‘Because you know how to live life. Love. You’ve lived it every day of your li
fe. You embrace it. You and your mum wouldn’t know any other way to be.’ He shook his head. ‘My experience of love has been very different to yours. Non-existent even. How can I ever be what you need me to be?’
She could almost feel something tear at her heart muscles. She loved this guy. She loved him so much it could physically hurt if she let it. And here he was, thinking he wasn’t good enough for her. Thinking he didn’t have enough love to offer because of the messages he’d been left with by his mum and dad.
She tilted her head to the side. ‘But everyone’s got to start somewhere, Harry. Nature, or nurture? We could argue for both. I would say that every day of your life you’ve learned to love something. Whether it was a person, or a thing, a pet, a food, a moment.’ She held up her hands. ‘A sight, a sound, a taste. All of them build the person that you are, and from where I’m sitting—’ she gave him a half-smile ‘—you don’t look too bad.’
He smiled and shook his head, his voice barely a whisper. ‘I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. When I heard that my father was dead, part of me was relieved to be free of the storm clouds that felt as if they constantly hung over my head. But part of me—’ his voice trembled a little ‘—was still that five-year-old little kid, wondering what on earth he could do to make his mum and dad love him the way that other families did. It seemed like something was wrong with me. And I wanted to be... I wanted to be enough.’ He reached over and touched her cheek. ‘You were the first person that made me think I might be good enough. Good enough to love. You don’t care about the duke stuff. You don’t care about the surgeon stuff. And I too thought this would just be fun. Just be a fling. But, Esther—’ he put his hand to his chest ‘—I can’t be that person. I can’t be the person that moves around. I’ve spent so long looking for love that now that I’ve found it, I don’t ever want to let it go. I want to be enough. I want to be more than enough for you. I’ve never wanted anything more. I don’t want to live this life without you.’