‘What did you have in mind?’ he asked, clearing his throat as he tried to disperse the images filling his head. But really... Secluded castle, snowed in, roaring fire... There was even a sheepskin rug in front of it, just waiting for naked bodies.
But not his and Clara’s bodies. Because that would be wrong. Somehow.
Why would that be wrong again?
Clara’s teeth pressed against her lower lip before she answered, and Jacob’s mind wandered on a little field trip again.
‘I thought maybe you might want to hear a little about Ivy.’
He swallowed, hard. Ivy. His daughter. Fear rose in his throat once more at the thought. ‘I’d like to know a little more about what happened. After you left, I mean.’ Facts, those he could control, could understand. So he’d focus on the events—what happened and when. ‘What did you tell people?’
‘What people?’ Clara asked with a half-smile. ‘Once I left you...I didn’t have anyone. Until Ivy came along, and until I met Merry.’
He hated the thought of her all alone in the world. But it had always been her choice. ‘What did you tell Merry? The truth?’
Clara shook her head. ‘I told her that I’d had a one-night stand after I left you, and that he didn’t want anything to do with the result.’ The result. A daughter. ‘That’s what I told anyone who asked about Ivy’s dad.’
‘What did you tell her?’ He swallowed. ‘Ivy.’ His daughter.
‘That I loved her father very much but he couldn’t be with us.’ Her gaze locked onto his. ‘So, the truth. That’s why I couldn’t come back. I took that pregnancy test and...I knew I couldn’t have both. I could have you or a baby. And I chose Ivy.’
Of course she had. Wasn’t that what any reasonable human would do? Any loving mother?
‘You chose to lie to me,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘You chose to take away my choice. To take away the rights of my parents to see their grandchild, to even know that they had one. You made a decision that wasn’t just yours to make.’ It didn’t matter that her choice had been the right one. It should have been his too.
‘It was my body. My choice.’
‘My daughter.’ Hearing it out loud was even more frightening. ‘Five years, and you never even told me she existed.’ Never gave him the chance to understand what had really happened between them.
‘You didn’t want a family—you made that crystal-clear to me from the outset. Or at least once we were married, when it was too late for me to do anything about it.’
‘So what? I’m allowed to make that choice. What did you think I would do? Did you think I’d order you to get rid of the baby?’ Even the thought made his skin crawl. If she truly believed that about him, then she’d never known him at all. Their whole marriage had been a mistake.
‘No!’ Clara’s eyes grew wide with shock. ‘I didn’t...I knew you wouldn’t do that. No, Jacob. It wasn’t that.’ He shouldn’t feel relieved—everything was still such a mess. But a very small part of him relaxed just a little bit at her words.
‘Then what? Why didn’t you talk to me at the time?’
Clara ran a shaky hand through her dark hair. ‘I didn’t find out until after I left. I took a dozen pregnancy tests in a hotel bathroom, just to be sure. But...I’d already left you, Jacob. Again. And I realised that was all we’d been doing since the day we’d got married: pulling apart until we snapped back together again. Everything would be perfect, then you’d get caught up in some project and I wouldn’t see you for weeks. I’d get lonely, I’d walk out to get your attention...and then you’d win me back and it would be all flowers and romance. But only for a while, until it started all over again.’ She sighed. ‘I knew that even if by some miracle you changed your mind about having a family—which you wouldn’t have done—we couldn’t have brought up a child like that. So I made the decision not to come back.’
‘And since then?’ He didn’t want her answers to make sense. And even if they did, he was still furious. Not because she was wrong—he couldn’t say he would have changed his mind about wanting a family. He still hadn’t, even though he apparently had one. But because she’d taken away his chance to decide. She’d made him powerless. He felt the same helplessness he’d felt the night Heather had been hurt. And he couldn’t forgive that. ‘It’s been five years, Clara. Did you really at no point think, “Ooh, maybe I should let Jacob know about our child”?’
‘Of course I did!’
‘Then what stopped you?’ Because that was the part he really couldn’t understand. Maybe a child meant that they couldn’t be together any longer; maybe she was right that their marriage couldn’t have taken that. But that was still no reason not to tell him.
‘You did.’ Her words were soft but heavy. Full of meaning. And he understood them instantly. He hadn’t been good enough. He’d failed as a husband and Clara had known he’d fail as a father—and so had he! That was exactly why he’d been so adamant about not becoming one.
But hearing her say it out loud, seeing it come from those same lips he’d been thinking about kissing... Jacob felt his heart break, just a little.
‘I see.’
‘I’m not sure you do.’ Clara twisted her hands together as she stared up at him. ‘I knew you didn’t want a child. Knew that Ivy was the last thing you wanted in your life. You’d made that very clear.’
‘So you were sparing me the knowledge? It was for my own good?’ he asked, incredulous. Not even Clara could believe that.
‘No. It was for Ivy’s. I couldn’t let you reject her, and let her live her life knowing that she wasn’t wanted. I wouldn’t do that to her. Not even for you.’
Jacob looked away. ‘I can understand that, I guess. And...as much as I hate it, you made the right decision. For both of us.’
‘Did I?’ His gaze snapped to her face as she spoke. ‘I always thought so. But after this week... I’m not so sure.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean...I thought it was all over for us, the moment I left.’ Clara’s gaze met his and he felt it deep in his soul. He was missing something here. And he had a feeling he couldn’t afford not to listen to her this time. ‘But you never would sign those divorce papers.’
* * *
It was a risk. A calculated one, but a risk nonetheless. Still, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered. Yes, it had been five years. And yes, she understood now that Jacob’s fear of failure must have played into his reluctance to actually give her the divorce. But surely the easier choice would have been to move on, to start over and succeed with someone else, if that was all it was.
There had to be something more. A bigger, better reason why he’d never really moved on from their marriage. From loving her.
Clara knew she had the advantage there. She’d never been able to move on completely, or leave Jacob behind, because his eyes had stared at her every day over the breakfast table, looking out from their daughter’s face. She could never cut him out of her memories, even if she’d done her best to cut him out of her life.
But Jacob... Once they left here, that could be it for him. As soon as the snow melted, he could sign those papers and walk away for ever. Never see Ivy. Never see Clara again.
If that was what he really wanted. But she was starting to suspect it wasn’t.
‘What do you want from me?’ Jacob asked, pulling back to put a little more distance between them. ‘I’ve given you all of my secrets now. You know everything. So, what do you want?’
‘I want you to know you have a choice,’ Clara said slowly, thinking it through as she spoke. ‘You have a daughter, and you know that now. You can choose to ignore that fact, but you can’t deny that you know it. So you have to decide—do you want to be a part of Ivy’s life?’
She held her breath while she waited for his answer.
&
nbsp; ‘You’d let me? If I wanted?’
‘Of course.’ Clara nodded. ‘But there are conditions.’
‘I thought there might be.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Go on, then.’
‘If you want in, you have to be one hundred per cent sure. Because once she meets you...you’re her father. You have to be there for her, for everything she needs. You can’t let her down.’
‘And if I can’t commit to that?’
‘Then you walk away now and Ivy will never know that you exist.’ It was just what she’d planned, the way she’d lived for so long. So why did the idea feel like such a wrench to her heart now?
‘What about you? You’ll always know. And what about us? Is our marriage part of this deal?’
Clara shook her head. ‘I don’t know. It depends.’ She couldn’t think beyond Ivy right now.
‘Depends on what?’
She looked up and met his gaze again. ‘On why you never signed the divorce papers.’
He made a huffing sound that was almost a laugh and put his wine glass down on the table. Clara watched the firelight dancing across his skin and wondered if she really could let him go again without touching him one more time...
‘If I signed them,’ Jacob said, the words slow and precise, ‘I knew, once they were signed, that there was no chance of you ever coming back. And I wasn’t ready to face that.’
‘Because it would have meant you’d failed?’
‘Because I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it, even when you weren’t there.’