Fear and anger duelled inside her, and she couldn’t risk letting the former win.
‘You just need to hear her out, Anouk.’ Even the black look on his face couldn’t deter her.
‘Why, because you think I should? I’m not ready to do that yet. And you don’t get to be the one to order me otherwise.’
‘I’m trying to help you,’ he growled.
The worst of it was that a part of her believed him. She barked out a hollow, unpleasant laugh, all the better to drown out the pounding of her blood through her veins.
‘By dictating to me? My, how lucky am I?’
‘You’re twisting what’s happening here.’ Sol reached out as though he was going to take hold of her shoulders again, then thought better of it and rammed his hands in his pockets.
Half of her gave herself a satisfied air-punch whilst the other half lamented the loss. She felt twisted inside out, as if she didn’t know who or where she was. Everything was wrong. Unsettled.
‘And here, of all places?’
‘It’s neutral territory. You’re a skilled doctor. This is where you feel safe and confident. It will translate into the conversation.’
‘No, it won’t,’ she gritted out. ‘Because there isn’t going to be a conversation.’
‘Anouk, don’t be scared...’
‘I’m not scared,’ she cried, the lie mocking her even as it hung in the air. ‘I’m an idiot but I’m not scared.’
‘You are and you’re lashing out. And that’s fine. But you don’t need to be frightened. I’m here to support you.’
‘Support me? You?’ She laughed, a brittle, harsh sound. ‘You can’t support me, or anyone. I was wrong when I said that you knew how to care for someone, how to love them. You don’t have it in you to think of anyone but yourself. Deciding you know what’s best for me without thinking to discuss it with me for one single second. My God, you even said the words to me. But you don’t know what they mean. You don’t know what it is to love someone. You’re every bit as selfish and arrogant as you said you were.’
And before she could fall apart completely in front of him, Anouk whirled herself around and ran—as fast as she possibly could.
* * *
Sol watched her go, her words stinging him as if every one had been a knife going into his heart.
He’d hoped that bringing her here would resolve the impasse between them. He’d hoped it would show her that he was sincere. That he wanted to be worthy of her.
He loved her.
It had been almost a week since he’d told her. Since he’d heard himself say the words out loud. And oddly, it was getting easier and easier to accept, with each passing day. He’d always thought love was something to fear but Anouk made it seem like something special. Something new. Something to aspire to, rather than dread.
Unlike any other woman he had dated, he knew, he just knew, that Anouk understood why he had to be a part of centres like Care to Play. She would never pout, or complain, or moan that the kids got more of his time than she did. Or that she would rather be going to a fancy, high-society gala than another football-and-barbecue-in-the-park event. In fact, Anouk would most likely be right there beside him. Organising every single event.
She made everything shift and change when she was around. People, places, situations. They all sparkled that little brighter under her touch. And Sol wanted, more desperately than he could remember wanting anything for such a long time, to be a part of her life.
It made no sense, yet here he was fighting every instinct to go after her and make her listen to him.
He had to let her go—for now. The best thing he could do would be to take a leaf out of the book of the woman sitting in that cafeteria back there. The woman who was so utterly desperate to meet her granddaughter for the first time, and who had longed for this moment for over three decades yet still had the patience to wait that little bit longer.
Turning around, Sol strode back down the corridor. For one thing, he owed the older woman an apology and, for a second, she was the closest thing to a source he had on Anouk.
He could give Anouk her space, but still, the more he understood this complex and enigmatic woman who had somehow crept inside the heart he’d thought locked down for good, the better.
At least he knew one thing. Tracking down Anouk’s grandmother had been the right thing to do. Whether Anouk wanted to accept the truth or not, it was clear that she needed to meet her other grandmother and learn what had really happened between her father and her mother.
Until Anouk had closure, for better or for worse, she was never going to be able to move past it and into a relationship with anyone.
With him.
* * *
Anouk had no idea how long she stood at the bright green front door, her eyes locked balefully onto the Christmas wreath and her hand poised to knock but her heart clattering much too wildly against her ribs to let her. So when the door opened, almost cautiously, she almost stumbled back down the steps.
‘Hello, Anouk.’
It took a moment for Anouk to realise that she was still standing with her arm raised. She lowered it—it felt like in slow motion—but still couldn’t work her mouth enough to answer.
‘You’ve been standing there for the better part of ten minutes. Would you like to come in?’
Would she? Her mind felt split in two.
Stiffly, she bobbed her head, trying not to allow the older woman’s soft smile to work its way inside her, and let herself be ushered carefully into the house.
A string of Christmas cards adorned the hallway, testament to how popular this new grandmother of hers appeared to be, and a decent, prettily decorated tree stood proudly in one corner of the living room.
‘Your father decorated it every year. For me,’ she was told by this older woman whom Anouk supposed was her grandmother. ‘I don’t think he ever had one at his own home. He always said Christmas was for the children, and he’d enjoy it when he had you to share it with.’
Anouk didn’t know how to respond.
A couple of minutes later they were sitting in silence at a small, glossy, yew dining table with quaint coasters in front of them and a teapot, cups and saucers, and a quintessential plate of biscuits. It was so utterly English that Anouk had to swallow a faintly hysterical gurgle.
‘I got the bag,’ she managed awkwardly after what felt like an age. Maybe two.
Someone—presumably Sol—had left it in Resus for her the next day. But he hadn’t been to see her.
She told herself it was for the best.
Her companion nodded and offered an encouraging smile. It occurred to Anouk that the older woman—it was hard to think of her as her paternal grandmother—was as nervous as she was, if not more so.
Somehow, the knowledge bolstered her.
‘It meant a lot. I never...knew...’
‘There are more bags like that,’ her grandmother said sadly. ‘Full up. Every Christmas, every birthday, without fail. We gave up sending them to you—they always got returned. But we never gave up on you.’
‘I didn’t even know you wrote to me,’ she managed, her voice thick. ‘I only knew about one letter, but I didn’t know what it said, or when it had been sent.’
‘We wrote to you all the time. Letters at first, as you saw in that bag. But diaries after a while.’
‘Oh.’ Anouk took a sip of tea by way of distracting herself, but suddenly it was impossible to swallow.
‘Do you want to see them?’
Her grandmother pushed her chair back and Anouk almost fell over herself to stop her.
‘No.’ She hadn’t meant to make the older woman jump. ‘No. Sorry. It’s just...’
‘Too much to take at once,’ her grandmother guessed. ‘Another time, perhaps.’
‘Another time,’ Anouk agreed, surprised
to realise that she really meant it.
She still hadn’t processed the emotions that had crashed over her, threatening to overwhelm her, when she’d looked into that bag and found a selection of gifts from when she was a baby, to this very year.
The letters that had accompanied them—the first few marked Return to Sender in her mother’s unmistakeable loopy handwriting—had been like a sledgehammer to her heart. Every word thumping painfully into her. Words she’d longed to hear as a kid but which her self-obsessed mother had never once uttered to her.
Her father and her grandmother had each penned letters that had been so heartfelt, so pained, that Anouk couldn’t have denied their veracity even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t.
They spoke about how much they loved her, how the dimples on her baby cheeks, or the gurgle of her laugh, had filled them with such pride, such joy, and such a feeling of completeness. And the only thing that had undercut it all had been the fact that the two of them had been compelled to snatch every snippet they could from the magazine articles, or the news items, or the TV interviews, in which her mother had trotted her out with the sole reason of making herself look like a good and doting mother.
It had taken Anouk almost two days to track down a VHS player so that she could see the recordings her father had made on the two occasions he’d travelled to the States to try to speak to Annalise Hartwood, only for her security team to practically manhandle him away.
So much for her mother’s claims that her father had wanted nothing to do with them.
‘He wanted to be with you from the moment he knew Annalise was pregnant.’ Her grandmother shook her head when Anouk voiced her thoughts out loud. ‘He even proposed.’
‘My father proposed?’ Anouk felt her stomach twist. All the stories her mother had told her seemed more and more like lies. The worst of it was that she knew, instantly, that the version of events this relative stranger was recounting made more sense than anything Annalise had ever said.
‘But your mother didn’t want to know. She was rich and famous and he was nobody. Even when you came along there was nothing he could do. She refused to acknowledge him as the father, let alone allow him to have contact. But he did try, you must know that.’
‘I do now,’ Anouk murmured.
At least Annalise had never tried to pretend her father was someone else. The one consolation she had was that the identity of her father had remained constant throughout the years, even if only to her.
‘He was so proud of the way you were growing up. He would have been over the moon to know you’d become a doctor. And that you’d come over to the UK.’
‘I wish I had tried to make contact sooner. I just... I always thought... I was led to believe...’
‘That he didn’t want to know you,’ her grandmother supplied.
Incredibly there was no bitterness or rancour to the older woman’s tone, just a deep kind of grief, even as they both silently knew that Annalise had been the one to pour all that poison.
‘It couldn’t have been further from the truth.’ Her eyes shimmered and Anouk ducked her head for a moment, pretending she didn’t notice.
She didn’t want to succumb, as well. There seemed little point in telling the woman—her grandmother—that she’d gone to his house years ago. That could be a discussion for another time.
‘You have a good one there, you know.’
‘A good one?’ Anouk frowned as her grandmother smiled warmly.
‘Solomon. The young man you’re courting...or I should say dating, shouldn’t I?’
‘Oh. No. We’re just friends.’ She could feel the blush creeping up her neck and she knew her grandmother’s surprisingly sharp eyes hadn’t missed it.
Even the older woman’s smile was suddenly faintly delighted.
‘You don’t go to the lengths your young man went to, or talk about a young lady the way he talked about you, if you’re just friends. Take my word for it.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Anouk flushed, but she could feel the tiny smile playing at the corners of her mouth, the spearhead of hope working its way around her heart like a sharp screwdriver prying the lid off an old tin of paint.
For the rest of the conversation, Anouk listened as her grandmother recounted some stories about her father, revelling in their obviously close relationship and trying not to resent her mother for keeping her from such a loving home.
She learned how her father had never married, his heart always belonging to her mother and herself, as cruelly as Annalise had treated him. Anouk didn’t know if that made him single-minded or, frankly, a bit of a wet lettuce, but she liked to think of him as loyal and loving. And for now, that would work.
Her grandmother had an unexpectedly naughty sense of humour, which began to shine through once their initial nervousness had been overcome. And, Anouk discovered to her shock, the older woman had been very happily married three times. Widowed all three times.
‘I was a bit of a saucy young lady,’ her grandmother told her, ‘but I loved each one of them very dearly. And I was always a good and faithful wife.’
And then the older woman twinkled in a way that Anouk suddenly realised was all too familiar. She had caught a glimpse of it in herself every now and then over the years, usually when Saskia had convinced her to relax on those rare nights out, but especially recently when Sol had been a part of her life.
Was it possible that Sol, like this woman with the twinkling eyes, had been a bit saucy until he’d found his soul mate? Could it be that she was Sol’s? That Sol really did love her?
Anouk filed that little nugget in a box to dissect later. When she was alone. When she had the courage.
Still, the afternoon was emotionally exhausting. No doubt even more so for her grandmother.
‘Maybe I should go,’ Anouk hazarded after a while. ‘I think I need to...absorb some of this.’
Her grandmother’s eyes raked over her. The evident need for time to regroup obviously warring with the fear of never seeing her new granddaughter again.
‘I’ll come back,’ Anouk added quickly. ‘If you’re happy for that, of course.’
A slender hand covered hers instantly, its grasp surprisingly strong.
‘Do you promise me?’
It was so small a gesture, yet so strong, making something kick hard in her chest.
‘I do,’ she choked out.
‘And you’ll thank that young man of yours?’
Despite herself, Anouk couldn’t help but smile.
‘I told you, he isn’t my young man.’
‘He is if you want him to be,’ came the surprising response.
For a moment, Anouk turned the idea over in her head.
Was he?
She wrinkled her nose and tried not to reveal her emotions. Everything seemed to be running so close to the surface these days, it was so unlike her usual self.
‘No. I don’t know if it really was once the case,’ she heard herself confessing. ‘But, if it was, it isn’t any more.’
‘That’s up to you, my flower. I know enough about men to know that one is yours for the taking. If you want him, go and get him.’
Anouk wasn’t sure if it was the grandmotherly advice or the term of endearment that tugged at her the most, but all of a sudden she had to fight the urge to break down. Right there and then.
But on the way home, her mind couldn’t stop spinning. The events of the past hour, and the past few weeks, all whirling around her head. She was a mess.
She was never a mess.
But was it because of her father? Her grandmother? Or just Sol? And, more significantly, how was she going to sort it—and herself—out? Whatever this thing was inside her, this gnawing, empty, hollow thing, it needed Sol to assuage it. She wasn’t prepared to go back to the life she’d had before him. She needed him. And whatever the
hell that meant—they would work it out together.
If Sol really was hers for the taking, how on earth was she to even set about doing such a thing?
And then it came to her. What had Libby once said about Christmas Eve being the most magical time? First, she was going to need to take a detour to the Care to Play centre.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.
His home was...changed.
He had spent the entire day looking for Anouk. Checking her apartment, the hospital, the centre, even phoning Saskia so many times that an irritated Malachi had told him to give it up and go home for the night.
He hadn’t wanted to.
The moment he’d heard that Anouk had approached Malachi for her grandmother’s address, the need to find Anouk and ensure that she was okay had been overwhelming. He had no idea what her grandmother had ultimately told her and the fear that she was somewhere, alone and hurting, tore him up in a way he would never have believed possible.
If she was traumatised, then it would be his fault. He’d never intended for her to be ambushed by the knowledge of a grandmother she’d never met. He’d expected to be with her when they first met. And now he couldn’t find Anouk anywhere. She had to be somewhere.
All he could do was head home and try again tomorrow. She couldn’t hide out from him for ever. He wouldn’t let her. He couldn’t.
Sol stood, the front door still open behind him, as he tried to work out what it was. Slowly, as if his mind couldn’t believe what his body already sensed, he kicked the door to and moved carefully to the archway.
The scene beyond was like something out of his childhood.
The main lights were low, and the place was illuminated with pretty, twinkling Christmas lights whilst a miniature winter, Christmas village covered the entire room, from little shops and houses to ice-skating rinks, Ferris wheels and small-gauge trains.
Beyond it all, Anouk stood, her hands twisted together and her face set in an anxious expression.
Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon's Heart Page 16