Maids Under The Mistletoe Collection. Christy McKellen

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СКАЧАТЬ Emma, like a fool, thinking you’d finally put us first once you’d had time to grieve for your father, but you never did.’

      His gaze burnt into hers, his eyes dark with frustration.

      ‘I know you took it all very personally, Jack, and I can’t blame you for that, but I promise you it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was just the wrong time for us.’

      He didn’t respond to that, just kept looking at her with that unsettling, intense gaze of his.

      ‘Goodnight, Jack,’ she forced herself to say, moderating her tone so he wouldn’t hear the pain this was causing her in her voice, and without waiting for his response she walked past him and shut the door.

      Staggering into the room, her legs suddenly weak and shaky, she flopped down onto the large four-poster bed, its heavy mahogany frame squeaking with the movement, and curled into a ball, taking deep, calming breaths through her nose to stop herself from crying.

      She understood why he was still upset with her. In his eyes she’d betrayed him, and Jack was not a man to easily forgive people who had hurt him. And she really couldn’t blame him for so publicly cutting off their association at the knees, instead of letting it limp on painfully when there had been nowhere left for it to go.

      Uncurling herself, she turned onto her back and stared up at the dark burgundy canopy above her.

      Seeing him again, after all these years apart, made her heart heavy with a sorrowful nostalgia for the past. She’d grieved for Jack the same way she’d mourned her father at the time, only it had been a different kind of pain—with a sharp edge that constantly sliced into her well-being, reminding her that it had been her decision to end things with him and that there could be no going back from it. The damage had been done.

      It had left a residual raw ache deep inside her that she’d never been able to shake.

      Too tired now to even get undressed, she crawled beneath the sheets and let her mind run over the events of the evening. Her heart beat forcefully in her chest as she finally accepted that Jack was back in her life, although for how long she had no idea. He was obviously keen to get their ‘situation’ resolved so he could cut her completely out of his life and become available to marry someone more fitting of his position when the need arose.

      She lay there with her thoughts spinning, suddenly wide awake.

      In the first year after they’d parted she’d regularly tossed and turned in her bed like this, feeling so painfully alone that she’d given in to the tears, physically aching for Jack to be there with her, to hold her and whisper that everything would be okay, that she was doing a good job of dealing with the fallout from her father’s death and that he was proud of her.

      That he was there for her.

      But he hadn’t been.

      Because she hadn’t let him be.

      A while after they’d split she’d considered moving on from him, finding someone new to love, but what with her intense working schedule and the mental rigor of taking care of her emotionally delicate mother there hadn’t been room for anyone else in her life.

      So she’d been on her own since Jack left for the States, and perhaps that had been for the best. She hadn’t wanted to rely on someone else for emotional support after her father had let her down so badly, because that would have left her exposed and vulnerable again, something she’d been careful to put up walls against over the last few years.

      At least on her own she felt some semblance of control. She was the one who would make things better.

      She turned over in bed and snuggled down further into the covers, hoping that fatigue would pull her under soon.

      She’d find a way to deal with having Jack back in her life again. It would all be okay.

      * * *

      Or so she thought.

      Waking early the next morning, her head fuzzy from a night of broken sleep and disturbingly intense dreams, Emma heaved herself groggily out of bed, wrinkling her nose at the smell of old booze on her crumpled clothes, and went to the window to see what sort of weather they had in store for them today, hoping for a bit of late autumn sunshine to give her the boost of optimism she needed before facing Jack again.

      But it seemed that bad weather was to be the least of her problems.

      Peering down at the street below her window, Emma realised with a sickening lurch that the pavement in front of Jack’s house was swarming with people, some of whom were gazing up at the window she was looking out of as if waiting to see something. When they spotted her, almost as one, they raised a bank of long-lens cameras to point right at her. Even from this distance she could see the press of their fingers on the shutter buttons and practically hear the ominous clicking of hundreds of pictures being taken of her standing at Jack’s window looking as if she’d just climbed out of his bed.

      Leaping away from the window, she hastily yanked the curtains together again.

      Someone at the party must have blabbed about what they saw and heard last night.

      The press had found out about them.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      JACK HAD WOKEN EARLY, feeling uneasy about what he’d said to Emma the night before. He was annoyed with himself for losing his temper as he had, but hearing her practically accusing him of cheating on her had caused something to snap inside him.

      He’d waited for months after moving to the States for word from her to let him know she was finally going to join him there, months of loneliness and uncertainty, only to finally be told, in the most painful conversation of his life, that she wasn’t coming after all.

      She’d given up on their marriage before it had even started.

      He’d understood in theory that he’d been asking too much of her, expecting her to walk away from her life in England at such a difficult time, but he’d also been left with a niggling feeing that she’d chosen her mother over him and that she hadn’t loved him enough to put him first.

      After taking a quick shower and pulling on some clothes he strode down to the kitchen to set the coffee maker up, waiting impatiently for the liquid to filter through.

      He was determined to stay in control today. There was no point in rehashing the past. It was time to move on.

      Lifting a mug out of the cupboard, he banged it down on the counter. What was he thinking? He had moved on. Years ago.

      But seeing Emma again had apparently brought back those feelings of frustration and inadequacy that had haunted him after he’d finally accepted she wasn’t interested in being married to him any longer.

      Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his face. He needed to get a grip on himself if he was going to get through this unscathed. The last thing he needed right now was Emma’s reappearance in his life messing with his carefully constructed plan for the future.

      He’d just sat down at the kitchen table with a mug of very strong coffee when she came hurrying into the kitchen, her eyes wide with СКАЧАТЬ