LITMIR.BIZ

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hard to pay off his debts. To finally clear our name—’

      Her voice caught on the last word and Jack shifted in his seat, distraught to hear how much she’d suffered in silence, but he didn’t speak, letting her keep the floor, sensing how much she needed to let it all out now.

      ‘I didn’t want you to be dragged down by the mistakes my father made too. It wouldn’t have been fair on you when you were so excited about taking that amazing job offer in America. I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and how determined you were to shun the unfair advantage of your family name and do something great with your life on your own merits. It would have been cruel of me to take that chance away from you, Jack.’

      ‘There would have been other opportunities though, Emma. I was more concerned about the two of us making a new life for ourselves together,’ he broke in, before he could stop himself.

      She sighed and rubbed at her brow. ‘I wasn’t the same flighty, naïve girl you’d fallen in love with by then though. My father’s death changed me. The girl you knew died the moment he did. The last thing you needed was an emotionally crippled wife pulling at your attention while you were trying to build a successful future for us. You would have only resented me for it.’ She frowned. ‘And I loved you too much at the time to put you through all that.’

      At the time.

      Those three words said it all. She had loved him, but apparently she didn’t feel the same way any more.

      His chest felt hollow with sadness, the desolation of it spreading out from the centre of him, eating away at his insides.

      Her voice had become increasingly shaky as she’d gone on with her speech and she stood up now and brushed a tear away from under her eye.

      ‘Will you excuse me? I’m just going to visit the bathroom before we get back into the car,’ she said, giving him a wobbly smile.

      ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, grateful for a break from the intense atmosphere so he could mull over everything she’d just told him.

      He sat staring into space after she’d walked away, acutely aware of the bizarre normality of the sounds in the garden all around them while he desperately tried to make sense of the heavy weight of emotion pressing in on him.

      Emma’s painful confession had pierced him to the core.

      He was in awe of her courage and her strength in the face of such a humbling experience, but he still couldn’t shake the painful awareness that she’d chosen her mother over him.

      Frustration bit at him. If she’d only let him know what was going on at the time, how bad things had got for her, he could have helped her. But she’d chosen to shut him out and handle it all without him. She hadn’t trusted him or his love for her enough to let him be the husband he’d wanted to be.

      Though, to be fair to her, he had to give her credit for showing such strength of character in stepping up and taking on her responsibilities, even though it had meant giving up a life with him—an easy, wrapped-in-cotton-wool existence.

      If she’d been a more fragile person she could have asked him to pay off her family’s debts and saddled him with a reputation for having a gold-digging wife, but she hadn’t wanted that for him. Or for herself.

      She had more integrity than that.

      She returned a minute later and he stood up to meet her, frustration, hurt and sorrow for what they’d lost still warring in his mind.

      Just as she reached the table her phone rang and she plucked it out of her bag, giving him an apologetic smile at the interruption and muttering, ‘It’s my mother, I’d better get this,’ before answering the call.

      She sounded worried at first, which made his heart thump with concern that there was more bad news to deal with, but then her voice softened into a soothing coo as she listened to a tale of woe that her mother had called to impart to her. From what he could glean from Emma’s responses it sounded as if her mother’s new husband, Philippe, had broken something while skiing off-piste with friends and her mother was going to have to rush back to France to see him. Emma assured her that that was fine and that she’d fly over very soon to see them both.

      After cutting the call she confirmed the news, assuring him that it was better if her mother didn’t hear about what was going on with them right now as she was already upset and worried about Philippe.

      He wanted to say something to her about how it wasn’t right for her to feel she still had to protect her mother and that it should be the other way around, but he didn’t. Because it wasn’t really any of his business.

      For some reason that simple truth filled him with despair.

      Sliding her phone back into her bag, she gave him a grateful nod for waiting and started walking back to the car. He stood rooted to the spot for a moment, watching her go, and as she reached the edge of the garden he had an overwhelming urge to try and reassure her that everything would be okay.

      ‘Emma.’

      She stopped under a large tree strung with twinkling fairy lights and turned back to face him, her expression one of open interest.

      He walked quickly up to where she stood. ‘I wanted to say thank you,’ he said, taking another step towards her, closing more of the gap between them.

      ‘What for?’ Her brow crinkled in confusion.

      ‘For being so honest with me just now. It’s obviously still hard for you to talk about.’

      She glanced away, then back at him with a small smile of gratitude.

      He took another step towards her, standing so close now he could smell the intoxicating, floral scent of her.

      She looked up at him, her eyes wide and bright with unshed tears.

      ‘I also wanted to say thank you for what you did today, standing up in front of my parents like that,’ he said, putting a hand on her arm, his breath hitching as he felt her tremble under his touch. ‘It was brave of you.’

      Glancing up, he realised there was a sprig of mistletoe hanging from a branch above them, tied in amongst the glimmering lights.

      Without thinking about what he was doing, he lifted his hand and slid his fingers along her jaw, cupping her face and rubbing his thumb across the flawless skin of her cheek.

      Her eyes flickered closed for a second and she drew in a small, sharp breath as if his touch had burnt her.

      ‘Emma?’ he murmured, dropping his gaze to her beautiful, Cupid’s-bow-shaped mouth. A mouth that he had a sudden mad urge to kiss.

      His insides felt tangled, as if she’d reached inside him and twisted them in her hands.

      He wanted to do something to take away the pain and uncertainty he saw in her eyes, but intellectually he knew that kissing her now would only make things more complicated between them.

      Clearly she was feeling vulnerable and there was no way he was going to consciously make that worse.

      So he dropped his hand to his side and took a step away from her. Then another.

      ‘We should get back on the road so we miss the rush-hour traffic,’ he said gruffly, concerned at how wild the look in her eyes was and how flushed her cheeks were.

      The stress of their situation must be getting to her too.

      ‘Okay,’ she said roughly, nodding and glancing away towards where John, their driver, stood leaning against the car, his face turned towards the late autumn sunshine.

      When she looked back her eyes seemed to have taken on a glazed look.

      Perhaps she was just tired.

      Giving her a nod and a smile, which he hoped would go some way towards reassuring her that he was with her in this, he gestured for her to lead the way.

      He watched her walk back towards

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