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frowned. ‘No, I’ll get them.’

      Putting up a hand, she fixed him with a determined stare. ‘Jack, I can stretch to buying us a couple of drinks. Let me get them.’

      Knowing how stubborn she could be when she put her mind to it, he conceded defeat. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll have an orange and soda,’ he said, aware he needed to keep his wits about him, despite an almost overwhelming craving for a large shot of whisky to calm his frazzled nerves.

      ‘Okay, you go and find us a good table in the sun. I’ll see you out there,’ she said, already heading into the pub.

      He found a bench right by a small brook in the garden and sat down to wait for her to return, watching the fairy lights twinkling in the distance. Barely a minute later he spotted her striding over the grass to join him, a drink in each hand. It looked as though she’d gone for the soft option as well.

      He was surprised. He’d expected her to come back with something much stronger after having to deal with the nonsense his parents had subjected her to.

      A sudden and savage anger rose from somewhere deep inside him—at his parents, at her, at the world for the twisted carnage it had thrown at them both.

      She put the drinks carefully down on the table like the good little server she’d become.

      It burned him that she hadn’t done anything worthwhile with her life when there had been so much potential for her to do great things with it.

      Instead she’d given up her life with him in the States for what? To become a waitress. At this last thought his temper finally snapped.

      ‘Why the hell are you wasting your time working in the service industry? I thought your plan was to go to university to study art and design,’ he said roughly, no longer able to hold back from asking the question that had been burning a hole in his brain since he’d first seen her again.

      Her initial shock at his abrasive tone quickly flipped to indignation.

      ‘Because I’ve had to work to pay off my father’s debts, Jack,’ she blurted, sitting down heavily opposite him, clearly regretting her loss of control as soon as the words were out.

      He stared at her in shock. ‘What?’

      She swallowed visibly but didn’t break eye contact. ‘They were rather more substantial than I told you they were, but I was finally on track to pay off the last of them—until I lost my job yesterday.’

      Guilt-fuelled horror hit him hard in the chest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You said the money from the sale of your family house had taken care of the debts your father left.’

      Frustration burned through him. If she’d told him she needed money he would have offered to help. Not that she would have taken it from him at that point, he was sure. After her father’s death she’d sunk into herself, pushing everyone she’d loved away from her. Including him.

      ‘It wasn’t just the banks he owed money to,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He’d taken loans from friends and relatives too, who all came out of the woodwork to call the debts in as soon as they’d heard he’d passed away.’

      Jack frowned and shook his head in frustration. ‘Emma, your father’s debts weren’t yours to reconcile all by yourself.’

      She shrugged and took a sip of her drink before responding. ‘I didn’t want to be known for ever as the poor little rich girl whose daddy had to borrow money from his friends in order to keep her in the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed, who then ran to her rich husband to sort out her problems.’

      The pain in her eyes made his stomach burn. He went to put a reassuring hand on her arm but stopped himself. He couldn’t touch her again. It might undo something in him that he was hanging onto by a mere thread.

      ‘I didn’t want you to have to deal with being hounded by the press too,’ she added in a small voice. ‘You had enough on your plate what with starting at your new job.’

      He thought again about how he’d avoided seeking out any news from the UK after moving to the States. The cruel irony of it was, if he hadn’t done that he’d have been more aware of how her father’s name had been dragged through the press and what she’d been put through after he’d left. And ultimately that would have helped him understand why she’d shut him out of her life once he’d moved away.

      ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth, Jack, but I was overwhelmed by it all at the time. I guess I was too young and naïve to deal with it properly. It felt easier just to shut you out of it,’ she said suddenly, shocking him out of his torment.

      He felt a sting of conscience as he remembered his angry rant at her the other night.

      ‘I know I promised I’d put us first once things had settled down but sorting out the carnage that my father had left us to deal with took up my every waking second, my every ounce of energy. I felt adrift and panicky most of the time, lost and alone, and I couldn’t see past it. There didn’t ever seem to be an end in sight.’

      She took another sip of her drink but her hand was shaking so much some of the liquid sloshed over the edge of the glass and onto the table.

      ‘Every day after you’d gone I told myself that I’d call you tomorrow, that once things had settled down I’d get on a plane and go and find you, but they never did.’

      She mopped absently at the spillage with a tissue that she’d pulled out of her bag.

      ‘Months bled into each other until suddenly a whole year had passed and by that time it felt too late. I’m sorry I let things drag on the way I did, but I didn’t want to have to face the reality that there couldn’t be any us any more. That my life with you was over. You were everything I’d ever wanted but I had to let you go. I didn’t feel I had any choice.’

      She rubbed a hand across her forehead and blew out a calming sigh. ‘The other problem was that my mother wasn’t well after my father died. She became very depressed and couldn’t get out of bed for a long time. I needed to be there for her twenty-four hours a day. To check she wasn’t going to do anything—’ She paused, clearly reliving the terror that she might come back home to find herself an orphan if she left her mother alone for too long.

      Jack nodded and closed his eyes, trying to make it clear he understood what she was telling him without her needing to spell it out.

      Dragging in a breath, she gave him a sad smile. ‘So it was left to me to organise the funeral, arrange the quick sale of the home I’d lived in since I was a little girl and face the angry creditors on my own while my mother lay in bed staring at the wall.’

      ‘I could have helped you, Emma, if you’d let me,’ he broke in, feeling angry frustration flare in his chest.

      ‘I didn’t want you involved, Jack. I was hollowed out, a ghost of my former self, and I didn’t want you to see me like that. You would have hated it. I wanted to be sparkling and bright for you but my father’s death drained it all away.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, it was my family’s mess, not yours.’

      He leaned in towards her. ‘I was your family too, Emma. Not by blood, but in every other way. But you pushed me away.’

      She took a shaky-sounding breath. ‘I know my decision to stay in England hurt you terribly at the time, but my mother needed me more than you did. She would have had no one left if I’d slunk off to America and there was no way I could just leave her. There was no one else to look after her. All her friends—and I use the word in the loosest of terms—abandoned her so they didn’t find themselves tainted by our scandal.’

      Her voice was wobbling now with the effort not to cry. ‘I know that my father would have expected me to look after my mother. He would have expected us to stick together. I didn’t want to dishonour his memory by running away from our family as if I was ashamed to be a part of it.’

      She held up a hand, palm facing him. ‘I accept

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