Moonlight over Manhattan

by Sarah Morgan

  No matter how hard it was for him to say, and how hard it was for Harriet to hear, he needed to be honest.

  Challenge Ethan.

  HARRIET WOKE FEELING EXHAUSTED. She’d lain awake for half the night, thinking about what she’d said, and finally fallen asleep as the first fingers of light had poked their way through the trees.

  The bed next to her was empty and cold, indicating that Ethan was long gone. For a moment she wondered if he’d packed and left, but then she saw his things strewn around the shelf.

  She flopped back against the pillow, staring at the trees.

  Way to go, Harriet. How to drive a man out into a blizzard.

  He seemed to think that what he did, who he was, wasn’t compatible with love and family life. He blamed himself. Felt responsible. She disagreed, but it wasn’t what she thought that mattered.

  You couldn’t make someone love you. That wasn’t how it worked. And a relationship between two people whose feelings were unevenly matched could only ever end in disaster. Feelings became a fault line, which would crack under pressure.

  All her life she’d wanted love. To suddenly find it and know that it wasn’t returned was the most exquisite agony.

  Was this how her father had felt? Had he lived through every day knowing that his deeply felt emotions weren’t returned? How hard must that have been to deal with?

  It wasn’t an excuse, but it was an explanation.

  Harriet realized there could have been any number of reasons why her father hadn’t loved her. Maybe she reminded him too much of her mother, the woman he loved so deeply and who didn’t love him back. Maybe loving deeply had hurt him so badly that he’d been afraid to love again, even a child. She didn’t know his reasons but what she did know was that his reasons had nothing to do with her. She wasn’t responsible for the fact that his feelings for her weren’t what she wanted them to be. If she could have gone back in time and spoken to the child she’d been then, she would have told her to stop trying so hard to please other people. She would have told her that life was hard enough without twisting yourself into knots trying to be someone you weren’t, or trying to live up to some ridiculous standard that you weren’t part of making.

  Deciding that she was going to attend Elizabeth’s wedding even if she had to go by herself, she took a shower and dressed in the outfit she’d bought for the occasion. It was a wool dress with a high neck and narrow sleeves. It had looked good the first time she’d tried it on in the store, but now she’d had her hair cut it looked fantastic.

  Ethan appeared as she was wrapping the gift she’d bought.

  From the way he was dressed, it seemed that he’d been skiing.

  “I’m sorry I disappeared early—” He closed the door against the blast of cold air and she smiled at him, forcing down all the emotions that tumbled inside her. Those emotions weren’t his problem. They were hers.

  “It’s your vacation,” she said. “Of course you want to ski. Was it fabulous out there?”

  He shrugged off his coat, his gaze fixed on her face as if he was trying to work out what was going on. “Perfect powder. And now I have less than eight minutes to get ready for the wedding.”

  Which gave them no time for conversation.

  And maybe that had been his plan.

  Harriet looked at the snow clinging to his dark hair, the roughness of his jaw, the incredible blue of his eyes. She loved him so much it was hard to look at him and not want to tell him.

  “It’s the perfect day for a wedding, and it’s not like we have far to go.” The wedding was taking place at Snow Crystal. A small wedding with family and friends in one of the barns on the resort.

  It was a five-minute drive away, but they made it in good time.

  Elizabeth and Tom stood side by side, hand in hand, exchanging vows they’d written themselves.

  Watching them together, Harriet thought about all the time she’d wasted wishing her family could have been different. Her family would never have been any different. To build something strong, you needed solid foundations and her parents had lacked that solid foundation of love.

  It didn’t matter what she felt for Ethan. It didn’t matter how much she loved him. If he didn’t return those feelings, then that was the end of it.

  She wouldn’t build a future on anything less than solid foundations. She didn’t want that.

  Back in the cabin, she packed her things, vowing that she’d come back to this beautiful place again one day, even though Ethan wouldn’t be there.

  She’d bring Fliss, and maybe Daniel and Molly. Maybe they could book a few cabins and invite her friends Matilda and Chase. Maybe Susan would come.

  And they’d definitely go dogsledding.

  Her love might not have a future, but life hadn’t ended.

  As she dragged her case into the living room, she saw Ethan standing there.

  “Have you been waiting for me?” She let go of the case. “I’m all done. Ready whenever you are.”

  His gaze held hers. “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk today.”

  “It was a wonderful day. I’ve never seen two people so happy.”

  “I wanted to talk about us. About last night.”

  She could have pretended not to know what he meant, but what was the point of that? “It’s okay, Ethan. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  “It’s not okay.” He spoke softly. “I didn’t say what you wanted me to say, I know that. You’re a wonderful person, Harriet—”

  Oh no, not that!

  Horror rippled through her. “Please—” She lifted her hand. “Spare us both the awkwardness. We do not have to discuss this.”

  “I think we do.”

  “Discussing it is a choice, and I choose not to.”

  “I’m not the perfect man, Harriet. I’m so far from the perfect man.”

  She stared at him, bemused. Was that what he thought? That she’d fallen in love with some false image of him? “I know you’re not perfect. How could you be? There is no such thing as perfect. Strengths and weaknesses are as much a part of being human as the bones, blood and muscle you deal with every day. And here’s the thing—I don’t want perfect, Ethan.” Oh what the hey, she might as well say it one more time. What did she have to lose that she hadn’t already lost? “I didn’t fall in love with you because I thought you were perfect. I fell in love with you for a million other reasons.”

  He looked pale and tired. “I like you, Harriet. I like you a lot. I care about you.”

  All good words, but not the one word she needed.

  “I know. You don’t have to explain.”

  “Everything has happened so fast—”

  “Yes.” She was surprised by how calm she felt. “Yes, it has.”

  “When we get back to New York we should spend more time together, and—”

  “No.” The word came out sharper than she intended, maybe because she was panicking. Spend more time together? Not in this lifetime. “Once we’re back in Manhattan, we won’t see each other again.”

  He looked bemused. “But you said—”

  “I said that I love you, and I do. But you don’t love me, and I’m not going to be one of those people who stays around in the hope it will happen, losing a little part of myself every day. I won’t fight for your love, Ethan. I did that once before with my father, and I’m never doing it again. If someone can’t love me the way I am, then it’s not enough for me.”

  “Wait a minute—” He looked shocked. “You’re ending it? That isn’t what I want. I still want to see you—”

  “That isn’t going to work for me. If there is one thing living with my father taught me, it’s that expecting someone to love you back just because you love them, is a shortcut to misery. It took me a long time to accept that my father didn’t love me, and never would. A long time to stop trying to force myself into being a person I thought he might like more. These past weeks, with you, I’ve been me for the first time in my life. And I want t
o carry on being me. If we carry on seeing each other I’ll be twisting myself into knots trying to get you to love me. And you’ll be feeling guilty that you don’t, and anything that develops from there will be shaky and unreliable. I can’t do that to either of us.”

  “Harriet—”

  “It’s okay.” She managed a smile. “Really. You can’t choose who you love, but you can choose to be honest about it. You’ve been honest and I appreciate that. But I hope you understand when I tell you I can’t see you anymore. I’d start to want things. Hope for things. And don’t think for one moment that I regret any of this, because I don’t. I’ve learned a lot over the past few weeks. You taught me how to be more relaxed on a date. Being with you has boosted my confidence. Being with you has taught me I have so many more resources at my disposal than I thought I had.”

  “Because I made you nervous. I made you stammer.”

  “And because of that I learned that stammering wasn’t the end of the world. Life carries on.” And her life would carry on. And at some point, hopefully, her heart would stop feeling as if it had shattered into pieces, each one inscribed with Ethan’s name.

  Knowing what she had to do, she picked up her case and walked to the door, her heart aching and her legs shaking, and realized that of all the challenges she’d set herself over the past few months, nothing came close to this one.

  She was walking away from love.

  That, she thought, was the biggest challenge of all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SHE ARRIVED BACK at her apartment to find the door ajar.

  Great.

  She’d been looking forward to a good session of wallowing in her own misery and now she had an intruder to deal with.

  Misery turned to anger. This was her home. Her home. Someone else didn’t get to break into it and take her things. That wasn’t right.

  Dragging a bottle of perfume out of her bag, she kicked open the door.

  “If you’re planning on taking something that doesn’t belong to you, you picked the wrong day and the wrong woman.”

  Fliss flew off the sofa and Harriet stared at her sister, the perfume in her hand.

  “What are you doing here?”

  It was hard to know which of them was more surprised.

  Fliss stopped too. Her jaw dropped. “Your hair!”

  Harriet dropped the perfume and they flung their arms round each other, laughing and talking at the same time.

  Fliss was the first to pull away, but only so that she could take a closer look at Harriet.

  “I would never have dared have mine cut that short. It looks fantastic. We look so different.”

  We are different, Harriet thought. Always have been. But it was only now that she was starting to appreciate those differences. “I’ve stopped trying to be like you.”

  “If you were about to clock me with a heavy object, you’re more like me than you think.” Fliss picked up the abandoned perfume bottle. “What were you going to do with this? Make sure your intruder smelled good before you killed him? Nothing more guaranteed to dampen the Christmas spirit than the scent of rotting corpse.”

  Harriet grinned, ridiculously pleased to see her sister. “What are you doing here? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. You’re supposed to be on your way to stay with Seth’s family.”

  “I wanted to see you. When you sent me that text saying that you’d broken up with Ethan I couldn’t possibly go away and leave you alone over Christmas.”

  Harriet felt a rush of warmth. Ethan’s family circle might be larger than hers, but there was nothing in the world, nothing, that came close to the sheer good fortune of having a twin.

  “I appreciate you showing up here, but I’m fine.” She retrieved her suitcase from outside the apartment and pushed the door shut.

  “How can you be fine? You haven’t said much, which I hate by the way, but I really had the impression you were in love with him.”

  “I am in love with him.” Harriet hauled her suitcase through to the bedroom, wondering if it was ever going to get easier to say that. “But he doesn’t love me.” She glanced at her sister, who was still standing in the middle of the living room watching her.

  There was anxiety in Fliss’s eyes. “You’ve not been together that long. Maybe in time he’d—”

  “No.” Harriet said it firmly. “Don’t do that. Don’t say that. You’re trying to make me feel better, but kidding myself that one day he might return my feelings isn’t helpful. Trust me.”

  “I get it. I do. You don’t want to be like Mum and Dad.”

  Hearing the shake in her sister’s voice, Harriet discovered she wasn’t as fine as she’d thought she was. “Do you mind if we don’t talk about this?”

  “Usually you like to talk about things that are bothering you.”

  “I’m getting better at handling them by myself. Where is Seth?”

  “He had to do some last-minute shopping. You know what men are like with gifts.” Fliss walked toward her. “You don’t have to handle everything by yourself. I may not still be living here, but I’m still your sister. Your twin. And your business partner. I’m only a phone call away.”

  “I know that. And of course I’ll call if I need to.” Harriet hugged her. “But I like knowing I can handle it. It gives me a sense of security, knowing I can handle it. And speaking of the business, I’ve decided that if you want to add dog sitting into the mix for established clients we know and trust, then I’m on board with that.”

  Fliss pulled away. “Seriously? Because you didn’t think you could handle that.”

  “That was then and this is now. I can handle it.”

  Fliss hugged her again. “I’m so proud of you. You’re strong and smart and amazing. I came here expecting you to be a mess. Finally you fell in love, and—sorry, sorry. I’m not talking about it.”

  “I am a mess. Truly, I feel completely and utterly crap.”

  “Never heard you say ‘crap’ before.”

  “Lately I’ve said a lot of things I’ve never said before.” Like I love you. “Right now I don’t feel strong or smart. I feel really bad, but I’ll handle it. This is just another obstacle and that’s what life is all about. It’s a series of obstacles.” She pulled away from Fliss and walked across the room to switch on the Christmas tree lights. “Over Thanksgiving I decided I was going to force myself to do a challenge a day and I planned to end that at Christmas.”

  “You’re not ending it?”

  Harriet lit the candles she kept around the living room, thinking how much she loved her apartment. “For years I’ve been thinking ‘if only I was more like Fliss,’ or ‘if I was braver life would be easier,’ but every day brings challenges and obstacles, and you can either dodge them or deal with them. For years I dodged them. I chose to take the route with no obstacles. No way was I going to make that awkward phone call, or stand up to clients when they were rude because that made me feel uncomfortable. I dodged and I hid behind you and Daniel and thanks to you I lived a safe, protected life.”

  “And then we both abandoned you.” Fliss looked stricken.

  “You didn’t abandon me. You’re living your lives, which is how it should be. And you moving out is the best thing that has happened to me.”

  The anxiety faded from Fliss’s eyes. “Should I be offended?”

  “No. If you’d stayed I probably would have carried on taking the easy road. The one with no obstacles. But a road without obstacles is a parking lot and I don’t want to live my life in a parking lot. Am I brokenhearted about Ethan?” She stood for a moment, feeling the heaviness in her chest and the lethargy that threatened to send her to bed for a month. “Yes. In fact I am. And later, once you’ve gone, I’m going to cry until my face looks like a tomato and bake a large batch of chocolate chip cookies, which I will probably eat all by myself.”

  Fliss stared at her. “You don’t look brokenhearted.”

  “The damage is on the inside.”

  “You’re hurting,
and I can’t bear it. I want to go down to the ER and punch Dr. Hot so hard he needs to practice medicine on himself.”

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “What will you do?”

  It was a question she hadn’t even dared ask herself. “I don’t know. What I always do. Walk dogs. Bake cookies. See my friends. Keep going and hope that one day I wake up and find it’s not hurting anymore.”

  Fliss sniffed. “So you’re okay then?”

  Harriet thought about Ethan. “No,” she said. “But I will be.”

  She’d already decided to get a dog. It was ridiculous that she loved dogs so much and didn’t have one of her own. True, it meant that she was free to do things like dog sit at a moment’s notice and foster animals when the animal shelter needed her help, but it also meant she didn’t have a dog of her own. And she wanted one. She wanted a dog of her own.

  And she was going to find a way to make that work.

  SHE SPENT THE whole of Christmas Eve cooking.

  The apartment was filled with the smells of baking and when she finally fell into bed, she was exhausted.

  It was the first time she’d woken up to an empty apartment on Christmas Day.

  For a moment she wished she’d accepted Fliss’s invitation to join them.

  What was so great about spending Christmas without your family? Was she suddenly some sort of martyr? This wasn’t a challenge, it was just plain stupid.

  She was wondering whether this might be the craziest thing she’d ever done, when Susan arrived. She was wearing a red sweater with black jeans and clutching an armful of parcels.

  “I’m early, but I thought you might need help in the kitchen. Okay, I’m lying. I didn’t want my own company anymore. I’m driving myself insane.”

  Harriet had never been more pleased to see anyone. “I’m so glad you’re here. You have no idea. Come in. How are you feeling?”

  “It’s possible I will live. Thanks to your chicken soup.” Susan put her parcels under the tree and then took a closer look at Harriet. “Dammit, what the hell happened to you? The man is an idiot. I need to scan his brain.”

  “Excuse me?”