by Helen Brooks
She tried to bring her chaotic thoughts into order. ‘Zac, when we talked last night we both agreed…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I thought we’d agreed we’re very different people, that we see things differently. Your lifestyle isn’t one I could embrace, and vice versa.’ Surely he had considered they were incompatible? And that being the case, why continue the sweet torture of seeing each other, knowing it could only end messily, something he’d spent most of his adult life avoiding?
His eyes were unfathomable as they gazed into hers. ‘So you don’t want to keep in touch, to see me again?’
Maybe if he hadn’t told her about Moira and his son she could just have said no and that would have been that. She could have walked away with her dignity intact. But he had told her and that had changed things. It was important he understood now because she wasn’t another Moira who’d play fast and loose, but neither could she go into a relationship with him knowing it would mean little beyond a warm, willing body in bed as far as he was concerned. And at least she wouldn’t see him after she’d told him.
Rachel took a deep breath and hoped his coat was thick enough so he couldn’t feel her hands, which were around his waist, trembling.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to see you again. I do. Which is why I can’t.’ She wasn’t putting this very well, she could tell from the look on his face. ‘What I mean is, I—I like you, Zac. Too much.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘How can you like me too much?’
For such a worldly-wise individual, he could be incredibly dim. ‘You’d break my heart when you left,’ she said simply. ‘As, of course, I know you would. I—I wouldn’t want you for a week or a month or a year, Zac. However long it lasted before you moved on. I’d want you for ever.’
He retreated. Emotionally and physically. She saw the withdrawal in his face even as his arms dropped from around her and he took a step backwards, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his black overcoat. ‘That’s crazy. A few days ago I had to force you to go out to dinner with me and now you’re saying you’d want me for ever?’
‘I do want you for ever, that’s what love does.’ There, she’d said it, the word guaranteed to send him back to Canada as fast as the speed of light. ‘I’m just being honest here, Zac.’
His eyes narrowed, shutting out all expression. ‘You don’t love me, Rachel,’ he said quietly after a painful moment had dragged by. ‘This is just a rebound thing after the Giles bozo. I’ve wined and dined you and made you feel like a woman again, and you’re mistaking gratitude and attraction for something else.’
Gratitude? She might have known he’d say something to make her angry, he usually did. ‘Believe me, Zac,’ she said heatedly, ‘gratitude is the last thing I feel towards you. You bulldozed your way into my life and turned it upside down and then made me fall in love with the most unsuitable man I’ve ever met. You live on the other side of the world but it might as well be on another planet so different are our lifestyles and what we want out of life. You’ve been totally unfair and typically male, and if I didn’t love you, I’d hate you. Now I’ve got to try and pick up the pieces again and you calmly suggest we keep in touch so you can swan in and out of my life and make things a hundred times more difficult. No, it’s definitely not gratitude I feel.’ She glared at him, furious he’d made her say all that and spoil their last meeting.
‘You’ve got to go.’ From somewhere she found the strength to take control again and speak calmly. ‘Go and book your flight, Zac. Every minute probably counts.’
The strength held long enough for her to stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek, every part of her breathing in the smell and feel of him for the last time.
She was conscious he was standing like a block of granite, his face dark and grim, but she didn’t intend to prolong this a second longer because she knew her control was only skin deep. Another moment and she’d fling herself at him and recant everything she’d said. And she couldn’t do that, for both their sakes but especially—and she didn’t apologise to herself for it either—her own.
She opened the front door and slipped inside the flat, leaving him standing there. When she shut the door, he hadn’t moved. She leant against it, praying without hope he’d knock in a moment or two. He didn’t.
After what seemed a long time, she crept into the sitting room and stealthily peered out of the window. He had gone. Walking through to the hall again, she opened the front door and looked to where the Aston Martin had stood. It, too, had gone.
And it was only then she allowed herself the luxury of tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘OH, Rachel. Why didn’t you say you’d keep in touch? You might wear him down that way. You know, the steady drip, drip.’
It was two in the morning and Jennie and Susan had returned from a night on the town a little while earlier to find Rachel still crying. After making a pot of coffee, her two friends had settled down with tissues and comfort and listened to the whole story, patting her hand or giving her a hug at the appropriate moments and saying all the right things.
Rachel turned pink-rimmed eyes on Jennie. ‘I don’t want to wear him down, that’s why. He is as he is and if he couldn’t enter wholeheartedly into a relationship, it’s never going to work. I wouldn’t want to be wondering every minute when it’s going to end. I’m not made that way.’
‘But if you’d carried on with him, he might have begun to think he couldn’t do without you.’
Rachel shook her head wearily. ‘Jen, be real. We’re talking Zac Lawson here. Why would he believe he couldn’t do without me? Women queue to be the next in his bed, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Did he say that?’ Jennie asked indignantly.
‘He didn’t have to. You ought to have seen that little blonde at the inn I told you about. She was practically salivating every time she looked at him. She was young and cute and up for it, believe me. And the sort of women he comes into contact with all the while—sophisticated, experienced career types—are going to be just like Angel but more blasé in their approach.’ She gazed pitifully at her friends and they both put their arms round her.
‘It’s a bummer,’ Susan muttered in her ear.
‘In a word.’ She nodded. ‘So that was why it’s no contact. Why prolong the agony? All pain and no gain. And I’d end up a head case. Well, more of a head case than I am already.’
‘Of course, if you slept with him you could always get yourself accidentally pregnant,’ Jennie said thoughtfully, ‘If you’re sure he is the one, of course.’
‘Jennie!’ Two pairs of shocked eyes stared at Zac’s cousin.
‘What?’ Jennie wasn’t the least concerned by their condemnation. ‘The best scenario is that he might realise what he’s been missing all these years—a wife and a family—and ask you to marry him and it’s happy ever after; the worst, you have the baby and not only is that always a link with him but you’ve got a little piece of Zac to love. I’m sure he’d provide for the mother of his child.’
‘I couldn’t possibly do that.’ Rachel hadn’t revealed Zac’s history and had no intention of doing so. Somehow she knew he’d hate that. ‘It would be trapping him in the worse possible way.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Susan glared at Jennie.
Jennie shrugged. ‘In your place I’d do it.’
‘Which says it all.’ Susan shook her head helplessly. ‘You really are the pits at times, Jen.’
Jennie grinned, not in the least offended. ‘So hey, who said I was perfect? But one thing’s for sure, I won’t end up with a broken heart. A girl needs to be one step in front these days.’
She had a point. Rachel blew her nose and sat up straighter. She could never do what Jennie was suggesting, but this wasn’t going to crush her either. She would get through. Albeit with broken fingernails as she clung on like grim death. But she was not going to crumble.
Rachel had to remind herself of that countless times over the next days. Knowing he’d gone for good was ha
rder than she’d expected.
She came home from work on the Monday evening to find Zac had left a message on the answering machine, ostensibly for Jennie. He was sorry to have left so suddenly without thanking her for her hospitality but, as he was sure Rachel would have explained, it had been unavoidable. He’d had a short time with his grandfather before he’d passed away, for which he was thankful, but now, of course, there were funeral arrangements and things of that nature. He wished them all a merry Christmas and happy new year.
Rachel played the message ten times and then deleted it. The temptation to keep it and hear his voice was too much. Zac was back in his world, a world she could never inhabit, and once he’d come to terms with his grandfather’s death, life would go on as normal. And she had to pick up the pieces here and get on with it.
She hadn’t slept much the night before but she slept even less that night. It was one thing knowing you were doing the only thing you could for self-survival, and quite another hearing his voice. But she woke up in the morning, admittedly bleary-eyed and working on automatic, and got through the day.
The weather turned milder. The snow turned to slush and then disappeared altogether as December progressed. She was called into the office of the great ‘I am’ and told she had the manager’s position when Jeff transferred after Christmas. They were very pleased with her progress to date apparently, and she was greatly valued for who and what she was.
Rachel contemplated asking the managing director, a rosy-faced individual with a receding hairline and thin lips, if he could let her in on the secret of who she was, but decided against it. The managing director wasn’t noted for his sense of humour. But she was pleased about the promotion. If nothing else, it would provide a focus in the coming year.
She celebrated that weekend with an impromptu party for which all her friends and colleagues turned out. The flat was filled to overflowing and everyone drank too much. It was around three in the morning she found herself in the bathroom, cold, stone sober and looking down the years in front of her with something approaching horror. If only she could go to sleep and never have to wake up again, she thought. Never have to wake up to a world in which Zac didn’t feature.
The negative power of the thought was enough to jerk her out of the maelstrom of self-pity, and once everyone had gone—the last stragglers disappearing as a mother-of-pearl sky heralded a cold winter dawn—she fell into bed and slept until midday.
She awoke before Jennie and Susan and, after making herself a cup of coffee, curled up on the sofa in the sitting room, the debris of the party all around her.
She had to get some truths straight in her mind. She inhaled the fragrant aroma rising from the mug in her hands, her gaze inward looking. She could never be more than a passing pleasure in Zac’s life if she contacted him, as she ached to do. One of many females who had briefly brightened his nights and featured superficially for a short time in his life. And she couldn’t be like that. She loved him.
She twisted restlessly, wondering what he was doing right at this moment. The funeral was over, he had texted Jennie to say it had gone as well as these things ever went. He would have picked up the threads of his life in Canada by now; he might even be looking forward to the family Christmas he’d talked about, although of course it would be bitter-sweet with his grandfather’s death so recent. But Zac was rational and logical: that razor-sharp, clear mind would have determined it was time to move on.
Tears flooded into her eyes and rolled down her face. If only she could do the same. But she would, she would.
She gulped at the coffee, scalding hot though it was. She had to, even though she knew her love for him was not a passing fancy. She loved him with an intensity that had never been there with Giles, could never be there with anyone else. He was…Zac. Flawed maybe, difficult certainly, but perfect nonetheless.
Rachel stretched, but the ache in her chest was emotional, not physical. It was her heart that was being squeezed dry.
He would never understand that it was because she loved him she couldn’t cope with a temporary relationship. To him commitment meant vulnerability and pain, something that would suck the life out of him and grip him in a stranglehold. But she admitted it, she was greedy. Greedy for a total life with him, the loving, the good and bad times, all of it.
Impossible relationship. Whatever way you looked at it, impossible. Some things were meant to be and others weren’t…
She finished the coffee and had a shower before dressing quickly. She ought to start clearing up the mess left after the party and she would, but not right now. She needed to get out into the fresh air and walk, it didn’t matter where. Anywhere would do. She needed to be one of the anonymous masses.
She walked for two hours and when she got back to the flat Jennie and Susan were still fast asleep. By the time they roused themselves, she had cleared up after the party and put the flat to rights and was sitting reading the papers she had bought on her walk while their meal cooked in the oven. Normal Sunday. Except nothing was normal any more.
Five days before Christmas, Rachel did battle with her mother on the telephone. Her mother was determined that this year her errant daughter would come home for Christmas, and Rachel was equally determined she wouldn’t. She had nothing in common with her mother and sisters, she never had had, but most of her mother’s friends had big family gatherings and Anne Ellington was clearly feeling it looked bad that Rachel didn’t return to the nest. Reading between the lines, Rachel was sure someone had said something and her mother had taken umbrage.
‘You haven’t even seen your latest nephew.’ Her mother’s voice was icy with condemnation. ‘And sending a card and present when he was born is hardly adequate.’
‘He’s two months old, Mother. He’s hardly going to know if his Aunty Rachel is there or not.’
‘That’s not the point and you know it. I insist you come, Rachel.’ There was a pause and then in true Machiavellian style her mother continued, ‘You can bring that young man of yours if you want. There’s the spare room, as you know.’
Very clever, Mother. Don’t ask straight out if we’re still together because that would show you’re curious, and you’ve spent a lifetime of showing me you don’t care. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve made other arrangements. Jennie’s parents are expecting me.’
‘You can cancel them.’ It was scathing. ‘Ring them.’
‘I’m sorry but I can’t do that, not at this late date.’
There was a longer pause and then her mother’s voice became low and deadly. ‘You amaze me, girl. You’ve got no pride, have you? Forcing yourself on Jennie’s family or Susan’s year after year, they must wince at the sound of your name.’
The familiar curdling in the pit of her stomach that her mother’s venom always produced made itself felt. For the first time in her life, however, Rachel didn’t feel the need to defend herself or argue. Losing Zac was the worst that could have happened, her mother’s spitefulness was nothing in comparison. Calmly, she said, ‘Goodbye, Mother,’ and put down the phone.
It rang again immediately and she let it go to the answering machine. ‘How dare you hang up on me, girl? How dare you? You answer me right now or, by heaven, I tell you, Rachel, I’ve only got two daughters. I mean it, girl, do you hear me? You always were an insolent, unpleasant child and you’ve grown into a sour young woman with nothing to commend her. I order you to pick up the phone.’ The tirade lasted until the machine cut her off.
The room swelled with a heavy silence as she sat looking at the telephone, and for the life of her she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because it was the finish, she felt it in her bones. She did neither. Rising from the chair where she’d sat to answer the telephone having just come in from work, she walked through to the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of wine. Raising it in a toast, she said, ‘Happy Christmas, Mother,’ and set about preparing dinner. It wasn’t until Jennie and Susan came home that she even realised her cheeks were wet.
Four days before Christmas she met Jennie and Susan after work and the three of them did their Christmas shopping in one huge spree. Most of the shops stayed open until after ten o’clock to catch the Christmas trade, and by the time they got home and then ordered in a couple of pizzas while they sorted out their packages, it was nearly midnight. She flopped into bed that night too tired to think, but long before it was light she was awake and thinking about Zac, wondering what he was doing, who he was with. Especially who he was with.
He hadn’t tried to contact her. The shaft of pain was so acute she flinched, even as she reminded herself he was doing exactly what she’d told him she wanted. And if nothing else, it proved she’d been absolutely right to finish it cleanly and decisively. If there had been a glimmer of something more than sexual attraction in his feelings for her, he would have made some attempt to see if she was all right, if nothing else. He could do without her very easily and it would have been emotional suicide to continue hanging on. She believed that—in her head. It was just her heart that was having trouble accepting it.
Three days until Christmas. Her heart sank. If it wasn’t for the fact she knew Jennie wouldn’t let her, she’d have stayed at the flat alone this year. She didn’t want to spoil anyone else’s Christmas and so she knew she would have to force a gaiety she didn’t feel all over the festive period. Jennie’s parents had moved to a huge, sprawling cottage in Kent a few years ago and still had an unmarried son and daughter living with them, although three older sons were married with families. Everyone descended on Jennie’s parents on Christmas Eve and stayed over until Boxing Day or longer if they could, so the old house groaned at the seams and there was no nook or cranny for any private moments. Which was fine—normally.