How I didn’t know where to go next. How the internship with the professor I’d thought would lead me to graduate studies and an academic career suddenly couldn’t offer anything beyond the holidays. How I knew my parents wanted me to get a real job, a real life – a life like theirs. A happy marriage, a couple of kids. And I wanted all that too – wanted to be a grown up out in the real world.
How a tiny part of me wanted to follow my heart into research and academia, even while the rest of me knew the failed internship was probably a sign to give up now.
Then, of course, Darren had come back and my decision was almost made for me. I’d go wherever he went. Until now.
But I knew my story – I wanted to know Aiden’s.
I didn’t really expect him to tell me, but maybe he was remembering the same moment I was. He looked up at me, meeting my gaze, and gave a small nod.
‘So, I was really stupid.’
‘You surprise me.’
He gave me an offended look. ‘You know, you really don’t know me well enough to be that sarcastic.’
‘Yes I do.’ It was true. Despite the fourteen years that had passed, I still felt that I knew Aiden, in a way I’d rarely got to know anyone else.
‘You knew me,’ he corrected me. ‘I could have changed in fourteen years.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ I agreed. ‘Just not in the ways that make any difference.’ I’d thought, looking at his posters on the tube, that he must have done. But even just the last few hours had shown me that he was still the Aiden I’d known. My Aiden.
His expression changed, shifting into something I couldn’t name, couldn’t put my finger on. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he murmured. Then he shook his head. ‘Anyway. I was stupid in the way that almost everyone is stupid from time to time. I fell for the wrong woman.’
‘Easily done.’ I mean, I’d not only fallen for the wrong man, I’d married him and spent almost half my life with him.
Had Darren always been the wrong man? That was one thing I just couldn’t be sure of. I couldn’t regret my marriage, not really – it had given me Max, after all, and he was indisputably the best thing in my life. Which, admittedly, wasn’t saying very much, but still. The thought was there.
But the thing that kept me awake at night was wondering if Darren and I could have ever managed a happy ever after. If I’d behaved differently, like my mother thought I should. Or, more relevantly, if he hadn’t gone off and slept with another woman behind my back. Had there ever been a chance of it working out? Or were we doomed from the start?
I looked up and caught Aiden watching me, and suddenly I couldn’t help but think I’d known the answer all along – before Darren ever proposed.
‘So, who was she?’ I asked, keen to focus the conversation back on him, and keep my thoughts away from my own screwed up love life. Maybe it was cruel, but sometimes it helped to know that other people had made mistakes too.
‘My editor,’ Aiden said and I winced on his behalf.
‘Ah. I can see how that could go wrong.’
‘And it did. In basically every possible way you can imagine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling guilty for wanting to know about his miseries. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
‘You’re giving me the choice this time?’ I pulled a face, and he sighed before continuing. ‘About two years ago, my old editor moved publishers, and I got switched to Melody. She was this up-and-coming star the publishers were bragging about all over the place – and she was damn good at her job too, so she deserved it. We worked well together from the start, and my career continued to climb along with hers.’
‘Sounds pretty perfect,’ I commented. ‘So why’d you screw it up?’
‘Because I’m a self-sabotaging idiot.’ His gaze turned sharper. ‘Didn’t we establish that almost a decade and a half ago?’
I looked away. I’d wondered sometimes if he thought back to all those conversations we’d shared over those two weeks, the way I did. Wondered how much he remembered of the things we’d said and shared, but with one comment he’d made it pretty clear – he remembered everything. Just like I did.
‘What happened?’ I asked, ignoring the jibe.
Aiden leant back in his seat, stretching his legs out as Tony took his plate. Around the table, I was vaguely aware of everyone else chatting, making meaningless everyday conversation. But across the way and a couple of seats up diagonally, I could see Saskia watching us as she nodded along absently to whatever Edward was saying.
‘I was up for some award – which I didn’t win, I might add.’ He’d won others though, I knew. I might not have spoken to him since university, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t followed his career. ‘There was a dinner-and-drinks thing and I might have had a glass or two too many, and so did she. And you know where that sort of thing tends to lead.’
‘To bed.’ The words felt heavy in my mouth. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened with the two of us, that first night? One too many beers and not enough to eat and suddenly all the boundaries were gone. How many other women had he spent nights like that with?
It wasn’t the sex that made a flare of jealousy spark somewhere deep inside me. It was everything else that we’d shared.
Perhaps something of my thoughts showed in my face, because Aiden’s expression softened, just a touch. ‘Yeah, the usual drunken fling. So cliché, I know.’
‘I remember.’ We might have had two weeks, but really, what had we been but an extended one night stand? Maybe the distance of years had given that Christmas far more importance in my memory than it deserved.
He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’ His voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper. ‘Not like us.’
Those three words pulled the weight from my heart. Not like us. There had been an us, once, even if no one else knew. And that brief time where we’d existed… it had been special. Precious. I hated the thought of him sharing that with anyone else, even after all this time.
Which, now I thought about it, was kind of crazy.
‘Of course, she actually stuck around afterwards, so…’ he said, and I laughed.
‘Sensible woman,’ I replied, without thinking.
Aiden’s gaze flew to mine, his surprise clear. ‘Wait. Are you actually admitting that you should have stayed, instead of running after Darren?’
Was I? I stalled, my skin too hot and my hands unsteady, not even sure of my answer in my own head. Instead, all I could do was replay that awful morning – the one where Darren had come back early, unexpected, and showed up on my doorstep looking to make up and get back together. And I’d looked back at Aiden, still lying in my bed, out of Daren’s sightline. I’d met his eyes, seen what he wanted, and made the decision to go anyway.
And every Christmas since – only at Christmas – I’d let myself wonder what might have happened if I’d made a different choice.
As it was, Aiden had been gone when I got back, along with the star on my tree, and I’d had a diamond ring on my finger.
God, what a mess. How could I even begin to explain all the ways I’d screwed things up before and since then?
I shook my head as Aiden held my gaze in his own, waiting for an answer. I couldn’t find the words.
Thankfully, Tony arrived with the next course – a delicious beef casserole with ginger and cranberries in it – before the silence between us grew too heavy. Then Isabelle stood up and declared that it was time for us all to change places.
‘What? Why?’ Aiden asked, as everyone else got to their feet.
‘Because that’s what we always do on Christmas Eve,’ Isabelle answered.
Aiden looked to Saskia for confirmation, and she nodded. ‘It’s true. It’s because we always tend to have more people for Christmas Eve dinner, and if we all stay sitting in the same places, we only get to talk to the same people.’
‘Nathaniel was usually bored of his dinner companions by the end of the first course,’ Theres
e added, a small smile on her lips. ‘Especially on the years cousin Mark and his wife came to stay.’
I didn’t care about the provenance of the tradition – all that concerned me was that I had the perfect opportunity to escape from Aiden’s knowing eyes and uncomfortable questions.
And maybe even buy myself the time to think of some answers.
Chapter Four
For the main course, I sat between Sally and Greg, who talked over my head about all the fun Christmas traditions I’d get to experience over the next few days. I hoped that there’d be some sort of printed itinerary, otherwise there was no way I was going to remember them all – especially as I hadn’t really been listening. But they both sounded so excited, I couldn’t help but nod along. It was better than thinking about all our traditions that had gone by the wayside that year, anyway.
We swapped seats again for pudding and, this time, I found myself at the far end of the table, with Tony at the head – chatting to my mother next to him – and Therese on my left.
‘So. I hear you have a past acquaintance with our Aiden,’ Therese said, before I’d even managed to swallow my first spoonful of tiramisu. Thank goodness for puddings with alcohol in them.
‘We’ve met before,’ I allowed. ‘But not for years.’
‘Still. He’s the kind of man who sticks in the memory, I’d think.’ I risked a glance up the table. Aiden sat at the other end, flirting and laughing with Ellie and Caro. Ellie handed him the baby and he jiggled her on his shoulder, making her giggle. When I looked back, Therese was watching me, her eyes far too knowing for my liking.
‘Memories can be unreliable,’ I said flatly.
Because the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that had to be the case. The same way that I always remembered childhood holidays at my dad’s parents’ farm as idyllic, until Mum reminded me of the years it rained for six weeks solid, and how much I complained about having to get up to feed the pigs at stupid o’clock in the morning.
In my memory, that Christmas with Aiden had been perfect. Transformative. Important.
All those memories – walking together in the snow on Christmas morning, feeling like the only people in the world; the way he touched me, in the darkness of my room, like I was a holy thing; laughing together at terrible cracker jokes, and writing our own; how I’d felt like the centre of his world, and like my world had shifted and rebuilt itself around him. They couldn’t be real. Because if things had been as wonderful as my memory told me they were, why would I have left?
In reality, the sex had probably been mediocre, we were both kind of drunk a lot of the time, and we’d been young. So damn young. We might have thought we knew everything, but with the benefit of hindsight, I knew exactly how young and foolish we’d been.
But even taking all that into account, I was still left with the conversations.
In those two weeks with Aiden, I’d told him more about myself, about the deepest, most secret things that mattered to me, than I’d ever told Darren in thirteen years of marriage. From my hopes for my career, to what true love meant to me, to exactly how I needed to be touched… Even memory couldn’t disguise that connection.
And he’d told me things too, over the course of that fortnight. Things that I’d spent the next fourteen years trying to reconcile with what I saw of his public persona, and failing. The Aiden Waites up there on the telly talking about his latest release, or being interviewed in the Sunday supplements, never sounded quite like the Aiden I’d known that Christmas. I’d chalked that difference up to the years and his growing up and growing fame. But seeing him again, talking with him again… he still seemed just like my Aiden.
I’d been thinking about this too long. Conversation with Therese had stalled, and when I looked up at her with a smile, hoping to change the subject, I found her watching me, an appraising glint in her eye.
Somehow, I got the impression that the conversational topics for the evening were really not going to be of my choosing.
‘Edward told me about what happened with your husband,’ she said, still watching carefully, obviously judging my reaction. I tried to school my expression into my best ‘devastated but coping bravely’ look – the one I always employed with my mother. ‘I’m very sorry.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling uncomfortable. ‘But you know, life goes on.’
‘Yes it does, doesn’t it?’ Therese said, smiling suddenly. ‘I always felt that the best response to heartbreak was to get right back on the horse, so to speak.’
Oh God, was she suggesting I go out and jump Aiden as a Christmas present to myself, or something? I wasn’t about to tell the older lady – who had to be sixty-five if she was a day – that I’d already done that, thanks. And screwed it up by walking out on him the moment my ex walked back into my life.
‘My mother read somewhere that you should wait at least a year after a divorce is finalised to start dating again.’ It was true – Mum had been reading up a lot on the effects of divorce since the day I showed up at her door with a Victoria sponge and some very unwelcome news. ‘Apparently that’s the best way to avoid sabotaging a new relationship by still reliving past hurts and failures.’ Or something like that, anyway.
Therese rolled her eyes. ‘That sounds just like something someone who has never been in love would say. As if you can regulate the heart and make it stick to timelines and procedures! No, no. Love happens when it happens, and with whomever it is meant to happen with. All we can do is go along for the ride.’
Suddenly, I found myself mentally reviewing the sections of the Rosewood Journals that featured Therese. As Nathaniel’s younger sister, Therese had spent a lot of time at Rosewood before her marriage – famously having a wild fling with a reporter who later died in mysterious circumstances at the house itself. Then she’d married some bloke called George a year later and there wasn’t much else about her until he died, when she was forty or so, and she moved to Rosewood full time.
From then, she’d been a companion to her brother, a friend to all the family, and – according to Saskia’s foreword – always been on hand with baked goods and afternoon tea when someone needed a chat.
Which was all very well, but it didn’t tell me what I needed to know. Had Therese had her heart broken? Was that why she married George so soon after Matthew’s death? And why, if she was only young when she was widowed, hadn’t she gone looking for love again?
I eyed Therese with interest. Here, I couldn’t help but think, was someone who understood love, in a way I never had. All I had to go on was my mother’s reports from the latest books on divorce and the psyche, and my own, paltry experience of the emotion.
In fact, I was starting to think that I’d never got the hang of love at all. Surely if I had, I’d have been much more heartbroken than relieved when Darren walked out? Instead, I’d been angrier with myself, for settling for a love that was suddenly so clearly not the real thing.
Maybe I wasn’t made for true love – the sort of epic grand romance that Rosewood seemed to be home to. Not everybody was, I supposed. Not every person got to live out their dreams – to be a world famous writer, or live in a place like Rosewood. Some of us had to live the ordinary, boring lives – the ones that never got written about.
‘You sound like someone who has taken a ride on love, so to speak,’ I said, reaching out to top up Therese’s wine glass.
Therese chuckled. ‘You could say that. But then, it seems like Rosewood is built for romance. Don’t you think?’
‘I think I’m giving up on love,’ I replied. ‘Seems far too much like hard work to me.’
But Therese shook her head. ‘Oh no, Freya. That’s the thing about love. When it’s right, it’s effortless – you fall without trying at all.’
‘Hmm, maybe.’ I wasn’t convinced. My marriage had been nothing but hard work from the start – although maybe that was rather the point.
‘Oh, I’m not saying you don’t have to work at a relationship,’ There
se clarified. ‘Making love work – that can be the hardest job of all. But the falling in love part? That happens whether you want it to or not. Whether you’re ready for it or not. And even if it’s the worst idea in the world, once love decides it’s there – there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop it.’
Maybe I’d never been in love at all. Because I’d done all the hard work stuff, for sure. But I’d never felt like love with Darren was inevitable, or that it would happen whether I tried or not.
Of course, it was equally possible that Therese had drunk one too many Mistletoe Mojitos and didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
Before I could figure out which it was, the sound of cutlery clinking on glass brought all conversation to a standstill. At the other end of the table, Saskia stood, wine glass in hand, waiting until she had all our attention.
‘What is she doing?’ Therese murmured, as she turned to watch.
‘Everyone, I hope you don’t mind, but…’ Saskia pulled a small, thin book out from behind her back, and Therese made a small, muffled sound I couldn’t quite identify. ‘Last year was our first Christmas without Nathaniel, and there were a lot of things that still felt too raw. So we let some traditions fall by the wayside, until some of that immediate grief had passed, I think. But this year… this year, I’d like to bring some of them back. This one, in particular.’
She held up the book so we could see the cover, but I was none the wiser for that. It was a small, hardback book – one that looked professionally printed, but it wasn’t one I’d ever seen before. On the front, there was a picture of a snow-covered village, and the title above it read ‘The Town That Forgot Christmas’. Underneath, in small silver letters, was Nathaniel’s name. I could have sworn I’d read every Nathaniel Drury book in existence, but I’d never even heard of this one.
‘Every Christmas Eve,’ she explained, ‘Nathaniel would read us this story. It’s never been published anywhere, except for a short run of self-published copies he had made for the family. He said he wanted us to all have something of him that only belonged to us, not the rest of the world.’ She smiled. ‘And now I’d like to share it with Edward’s family, too.’
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