by Kate Hewitt
CHAPTER EIGHT
MOLLIE walked through the expo practically on tiptoes, as if she were made of glass. Bubbles, and they were popping slowly, one by one, so that when they were all gone there would be nothing left.
She barely took in the sights that only yesterday had fired her imagination. Everything seemed to hold a memory; she could hardly walk through the hall without picturing Jacob by her side, listening to her wild ramble of ideas, offering his little suggestions, smiling faintly.
How could it hurt so much, after so little time?
She felt only relief when the day came to a close, even though it meant she’d see Jacob again, which she both desired and dreaded.
In fact, she didn’t see him until he lightly touched her shoulder. She’d been standing in front of the Zen garden exhibit again, recalling his words from yesterday: I have no trouble believing the world possesses imperfections. Or that they exist in myself. But to embrace them …
She understood what he meant now. Not only could Jacob not accept the imperfections in himself, he couldn’t forgive them. Forgive himself.
What could he not forgive? Mollie wondered helplessly. Was it the night he hit his father? Surely he knew that was self-defence. Or was there something else—something she was afraid to know? Would it change everything, like Jacob had said?
‘Did you have a good day?’ Jacob asked, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder for only a second, and startled, Mollie turned around.
A good day? Was he joking? ‘Not really,’ she said rather flatly, and Jacob simply nodded in acceptance.
‘The car’s outside.’
No more red sports car, Mollie soon saw. This was not a joyful jaunt in the countryside with the top down. Instead Jacob had hired a limo with acres of space between them and a driver at the wheel.
She slid into the leather luxury with a sharp little smile. ‘What happened to the convertible?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m leaving it in the city for a bit. I’m afraid I have to work on the way back.’ He didn’t sound remotely apologetic as he snapped open his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. Mollie turned to stare out the window. It was a good thing they hadn’t taken the convertible, she thought drearily. It had started to rain.
As the limo turned off the motorway and Mollie saw the sign for Wolfestone with a little tremor of dread, she finally summoned the courage to break the silence.
‘So what now?’
Jacob stilled. He looked up, his expression composed, although Mollie saw a flicker of wariness in his dark eyes. She was good at reading him now, at even understanding him. Even though she still didn’t understand—or know—enough.
‘What now?’ he repeated carefully. ‘I imagine you have a bit more work to complete on the gardens.’
‘Another fortnight and it will be finished. I’ll be finished,’ she emphasised starkly. Jacob said nothing and she made herself ask, ‘So we just go on for the next two weeks as if nothing has happened?’
As if you didn’t come in and shatter my world?
‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t see each other,’ Jacob said after a moment. ‘A clean break.’
Mollie shook her head slowly. ‘You really have some nerve, you know that?’
‘I know you’re hurt, Mollie—’
‘Do you?’ She thrust her face towards him, her eyes sparkling with both tears and rage. ‘Do you know that, Jacob? Empirically? Intellectually? What about with your heart?’
‘I told you—’
‘Oh, I know.’ Mollie slapped her hand to her forehead. ‘That’s one thing I know, right? Because you told me. But all the things you won’t tell me—about the man you supposedly really are—I’m just supposed to take that on trust. Right?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘How very convenient for you,’ Mollie told him. ‘You can just walk away when it gets too much because you’re so sorry but you can’t help it. You’ve got all these terrible secrets, but you won’t even tell me what they are! You know what that makes you, Jacob?’ She glared at him, trembling with anger and hurt, but Jacob’s expression didn’t even flicker.
‘What does it make me?’ he asked quietly.
‘A coward,’ Mollie spat. Vindication didn’t feel nearly as good as she wanted it to. ‘It makes you a coward.’
Jacob accepted her scorn without comment. He nodded his acceptance as the limo pulled up to Wolfe Manor. It was raining heavily now, a steady, drumming downpour. Mollie stared at him, wanting something, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t even change expression. And with a choked sob, she wrenched open the car door, grabbing her case from the driver, and headed off into the rain.
Jacob watched the rain and fog swallow Mollie as she stormed away from him, disappearing through the hedges that were no more than dark shapes in the sudden storm. He closed his eyes for a second and steeled his soul.
Calm. Control.
Coward.
He deserved her scorn, he knew. He accepted it as his due. How could he accept anything else, when she had no idea why he’d walk away from the best thing in his life? No clue as to just what kind of man he was?
The kind of man who could hit his father in cold, cold blood. Who raised his hand to his own sister. Who walked away.
Jacob slammed out of the limo. He didn’t need thoughts like this. He didn’t need to lash himself with the whip of regret. He’d felt its unrelenting sting too many times already. He’d moved forward in his life, and part of that was accepting what was and was not possible. What he could and could not have.
He’d made peace with it long ago, or at least he thought he had.
Then he’d returned to Wolfe Manor, to his old life, and all the old ghosts and memories rose up to taunt him with what he could never have. Who he could never be. And in the middle of it all, Mollie. Making him wonder and wish and want in a way he never had before.
Striding into the manor, Jacob shrugged off his suit jacket and dropped his briefcase by the door. All around him the manor echoed emptily, silently, yet he still heard the whispers. Felt them.
His gaze, as it so often did, travelled to the sweeping staircase, rested at its foot where his sister had huddled in a helpless, foetal ball while his father whipped the very life out of her. Standing there, Jacob could almost see her, hear his brothers’ desperate cries as they tugged on their father to stop his brutal abuse.
Stop it, Dad. Please, stop it …
And he felt—as he so often did these days—the answering rage in himself when he’d seen that pathetic, terrible scene; it was a rage that flowed like fire through his veins and made his pulse hammer and his fists clench. He felt it, even now, twenty years later, and it was an anger so consuming it nearly frightened him.
This he did not know how to control.
This was why he would never let someone like Mollie into his life, someone who could be hurt, or even destroyed by what he was.
Someone he could love.
Mollie threw herself into her work with the energy and drive of the obsessed. She woke as dawn was spreading its pearly fingers across the sky, pulled on her boots and her work clothes and headed out into the gardens when they were still fresh with dew. She worked all day, weeding and pruning and planting, only stopping to drink some water and eat an apple or a quick sandwich. She returned to the cottage at night, when darkness finally made it impossible to continue, and fell into bed sweaty and exhausted, yet still with enough energy to think. Remember. And wish things—Jacob—could be different.
As the days passed she told herself that it was better this way, for both her and Jacob. She asked herself if they could have ever really had a relationship, and made herself answer no.
The reasons were obvious and unrelenting. Other than these few short weeks on the Wolfe estate, they had separate lives. Separate dreams. Separate everything.
And Jacob had too many dark secrets, deep regrets. Mollie knew she could never understand or come to love until she knew those … and Jacob clearly had
no intention of letting that happen.
And what did love have to do with it anyway? she asked herself as she headed back to the cottage one afternoon to change into more decent clothes. She was meeting the tree surgeon at two o’clock and knew she should look at least somewhat presentable. She hurried upstairs, distracted by her own racing thoughts.
Love had nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know Jacob well enough to love him, or wonder if she could love him. They’d spent a handful of days together, days out of time, out of reality. It was ridiculous to think it could amount to anything. It was absurd to still feel so bereft.
Yet she did. Memories played through her mind like music, haunting, discordant notes that created a symphony of longing. She saw Jacob’s small smile, that little tug on the corner of his mouth that reached right down inside of her. She remembered how he’d thought to show her her father’s rose, and how he’d given her the gift of boots after the rip in her own had ruined his rug. And then the more painful memories of lips and hands and skin, of feeling complete and whole and known in his arms, and wanting it again, wanting it for ever.
Groaning aloud, Mollie changed quickly and dragged a brush through her unruly curls.
‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ she muttered, and hurried towards the narrow, twisting staircase she’d gone up and down a thousand times. Her foot caught on the broken brass runner at the top of the stair and in slow motion, so she almost felt as if she were witnessing the whole excruciating episode from a distance; she fell down those steep, narrow stairs, head over heels, feeling each jarring bump in every bone in her body, before she landed at the bottom, smacking her temple hard against the stone hearth of the fireplace.
She heard the resounding thwack; it was the last thing she heard. Before she could even register a thought besides That hurt, her world went black.
Jacob had been feeling out of sorts ever since he had returned from London and left Mollie storming off in the rain.
He hadn’t seen her since. He’d glimpsed her from a distance, working in the garden, and he’d wanted to go out there and snatch her into his arms, kiss away his reservations and regrets, forget the past and its awful secrets, or at least pretend they didn’t matter.
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Instead he immersed himself in work, overseeing the design of a new eco-friendly office building in Rio de Janeiro. He checked on the work on Wolfe Manor, telling himself he was relieved to see that it was progressing nicely. He could put the place on the market by the end of the month.
Why did that thought now make him ache in a way he never had before? He’d never had an affection for this place, never wanted to darken its door again. Yet the thought of leaving it, leaving all the memories behind as if they’d never been, suddenly seemed both unwanted and impossible.
How can you start fresh, without first dealing with the past?
He’d asked that question of Mollie. He’d convinced her she needed to stay and make the garden whole, that it would be a way of redeeming those lost, lonely years with her father.
Redemption was possible for her.
He’d never thought it was for him. He couldn’t start fresh; he couldn’t deal with the past.
You’ve got all these terrible secrets, but you won’t even tell me what they are …
The only way he could deal with the past was to speak of it. Admit the truth to Mollie. Even if he lost her, at least he would have been honest.
You know what that makes you, Jacob? A coward.
Yes, Jacob thought, Mollie was right. He was a coward. He’d told Mollie she didn’t know or understand him, and he knew why.
Because you never gave her a chance.
The sound of someone knocking at the front door of the manor jolted him out of his thoughts, and he strode to it, feeling relief at the interruption.
‘Mr …’ The man on the doorstep looked down at his work order dubiously. ‘Wolfe?’
‘Yes?’
‘I was supposed to meet your landscaper at two o’clock at the garden gate. Nobody showed up and she hasn’t answered her mobile so I wondered if you knew what was going on?’ His voice lilted upwards hopefully, and Jacob frowned as he checked his watch. It was half past two. If Mollie had made an appointment, he knew she’d keep it. She’d been working feverishly these past few days. He’d seen her in the garden as dawn lit the sky and as dusk settled.
‘She’s not here,’ he told the tree surgeon tersely. ‘She’s probably in the gardens somewhere, and she lost track of time.’ Yet he realised he was speaking as much to himself as to the man in front of him, and he heard the thread of fear in his voice, felt it snake coldly through his body. ‘I’ll go have a look,’ he said, and the man followed him around the house to the gardens.
By silent, mutual agreement, they separated, moving in different directions to cover more of the extensive grounds. Jacob strode through the terraced gardens, their neat rows open and exposed, seeing quickly that Mollie wasn’t there. He went to the Children’s Garden, remembering how she’d sat musing under the lilac bush, her smooth forehead puckered into a frown, the way she’d smiled when she’d seen him. She wasn’t there. The Rose
Garden was completely empty, the beds still neatly ploughed under. Where was she?
Finally he headed to the place he probably should have checked first: the cottage. It sat in its hidden little garden, dark and still. He knocked on the front door, but the sound just echoed.
After a second’s pause Jacob turned the handle and poked his head around the door. ‘Mollie …?’ he called, and then he saw her.
Jacob cursed viciously as he flung the door wide and hurried over to where Mollie lay sprawled at the bottom of stairs, blood trickling down her cheek. For a moment he felt a terrible sense of déjà vu; it roiled through him in a sickening wave and he nearly stumbled.
Again. It had happened again. And once again he’d been too late.
He bent, turning her over, feeling how light and fragile she seemed in his arms. Her head lolled back and he saw the vivid purple bruise on her forehead.
She’d fallen, he realised. She’d fallen on the damn stairs. He scooped her up, cradling her against his body as he reached for his mobile, and with his free hand stabbed the numbers 999.
Mollie came slowly to consciousness, like a swimmer rising to the surface of the water. She felt heavy, as if her limbs were weighted down. And her head throbbed abominably.
Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked at the bright light. She was in a hospital room, sterile and neat, a view of sky and trees visible from the one window. And Jacob stood next to it, his back to her, staring out at the darkening sky.
She must have made some small sound, for he turned suddenly, gazing at her with an intense anxiety that had emotion clogging her throat and stinging her eyes. She tried to smile.
‘How bad do I look?’
‘Pretty bad.’ Jacob gave her a small smile, although Mollie could see his eyes were still dark and shadowed. ‘And wonderful. I was worried about you. You’ve been unconscious for six hours.’
‘Goodness.’ Mollie closed her eyes again as the world swam sickeningly. ‘How stupid of me.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
‘I think I fell down the stairs.’ She winced. ‘Rather hard.’
‘If you hadn’t had that appointment with the tree surgeon …’ Jacob said, breaking off suddenly. Mollie opened her eyes and saw his face tense, twist.
‘What …?’ she whispered.
‘You could have lain there for hours,’ Jacob said savagely. ‘And nobody would have known. You could have died.’
She tried to smile, but even that hurt. ‘I would have woken up and crawled to the phone.’
‘I’m serious, Mollie. I’ve been staying away from you for both of our sakes and look what happened.’
‘Tell me you’re not going to blame yourself for this too,’ Mollie said. ‘Please.’ Jacob felt silent, and she shook her
head. ‘Jacob, you cannot take the whole bloody world on your shoulders. You’re not God. You’re not even Atlas.’ His mouth tightened, his eyes flashing, but she continued anyway. ‘I fell down the stairs. It was an accident.’ She thought of Annabelle, and how her father had whipped her at the bottom of the manor stairs. She knew that much. ‘It’s not like before, Jacob,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘If I—’
‘No ifs.’ She cut him off, even though it made her head throb. ‘What were you going to do? Check up on me every half-hour? Tuck me into bed?’ That made her think of other things, other memories, so she hurried on. ‘I’m an adult. Accidents happen. I’m just glad the tree surgeon had the foresight to seek you out when I didn’t show up.’ She smiled at him, wanting to smooth the deep crease between his eyebrows. ‘And that you had the tenacity to look for me—and find me.’
Jacob met her gaze, saw her smile. Mollie felt the tug between them; it was still there. It had always been there, perhaps even when she’d been a child. Even then she’d been drawn to him, to his tall, dark presence, to the strength and stability of him. ‘Even so,’ Jacob said, his words final, ‘it won’t happen again.’
Mollie leaned her head back against the pillow. ‘Well, I’ll try not to trip. I need to fix the runner.’
‘No,’ Jacob replied. ‘You’re not going back to the cottage. You’ll stay at Wolfe Manor with me.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘What?’ Mollie struggled up to a sitting position, only to fall back against the pillows, exhausted. ‘That’s not necessary—’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘For you, maybe, and your overblown sense of duty,’ she snapped. She was tired of Jacob’s staggering sense of responsibility for everyone and everything. She couldn’t compete with it. ‘I’m perfectly fine without you.’ That wasn’t completely true, but she could certainly live alone like any normal adult.