7

Christy

Christy waved until Holly’s curls were no longer visible and the car was out of view. The temperature had plummeted overnight, and the garden gleamed silver with frost. It should have made her feel festive, but right now she felt as if someone had ripped a part of her away. She wanted to chase after the car, tell them she’d changed her mind. There was so much that felt wrong about this. It was Christmas. Families were supposed to be together at Christmas.

Feeling strangely unsettled, she closed the front door on her daughter, her friends and the cold winter air. Her safe, familiar world felt as if it was disintegrating, sliding through her fingers like grains of sand.

She’d never been parted from her child before, at least not for more than a few hours. She was surprised by the physical wrench of it, the desperate desire to grab her back and keep her safe.

What if Holly missed her? What if she needed her mother? It wasn’t as if Christy could get to her quickly. Panic tightened in her chest. The cottage felt empty and silent.

“You should have gone.” Seb was calm. “I know how much this means to you and how anxious you’ll be without her. I don’t want you to be worried.”

She was worried, and not only about Holly.

Guilt dug hard into her ribs, an uncomfortable reminder of their current situation. She kept thinking of Seb getting up early every morning, kissing her goodbye and trekking into London for his job. Except that there had been no job. Only anxiety, stress and a stagnant job market. And she hadn’t suspected anything. She’d watched the man she loved ostensibly go to work each day and had been too focused on her daughter, the cottage and her own little corner of their life to notice that something else might be going on.

What did that say about her? About their relationship? Nothing good, she was sure about that. Since when had she been so self-absorbed?

That was going to change, right now.

“I’m glad I didn’t go, Seb. I want to be here with you.”

“Why?” He stood apart from her. Unreachable. Untouchable. “You don’t trust me? You’re still convinced I’m having a wild affair with someone, and you don’t want to leave me alone?”

“No.” She wished she could take that thought back, and she wished even more that she hadn’t voiced it. “I want to be here to support you. You’ve obviously been having a horribly tough time, and you’ve been going through it alone.” Her words were designed to be a bridge, but he didn’t seem inclined to walk across it.

“It’s fine. This is my responsibility, not yours. I’ll figure it out.”

Why was he shutting her out? Was it pride? Or was it that he didn’t see her as a source of support?

Unease rippled through her. “Why is it your responsibility? I know you’re upset that I jumped to conclusions, and I really am sorry, but don’t shut me out.” She silently cursed Alix for planting that seed of doubt in her head the day before the wedding. It had lain there dormant. “We’re a team. What affects one of us affects both of us. When we got married we signed up to share the whole of our lives, not only the good parts.” She ignored the small voice in her head reminding her that there was plenty she wasn’t sharing with him. Her thoughts about the cottage. Her fears that moving to the country might have been a mistake. That was different.

“I’m not punishing you.” He picked up the mail she’d stacked on the table but hadn’t had time to open. “I don’t even blame you. I can see how it might have looked from your point of view. You saw that I was meeting a woman.”

But she should have trusted him. An affair shouldn’t have been her default assumption.

“I jumped to the wrong conclusion. You’ve never given me a reason not to trust you, Seb. I do trust you. I—I want to help. I want to know what happened. All of it. I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to be honest, and I want to do what I can to reduce the stress on you. That’s why I’m here.”

His gaze flickered from the mail to her face. “You want me to be honest? Here’s honest. You being here makes things more stressful, not less.”

“Oh!” She took a step back. He found her company stressful? “But… I’m your wife.”

“Exactly.” He put the mail down, unopened. “If you’re here I can’t focus on preparing for the interview and thinking about jobs. I’m thinking about you, too. I’m constantly reminded of the stakes. The extra pressure is a distraction. It stops me thinking clearly.”

Pressure?

“The stakes?”

“My responsibilities.” There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Do you think I don’t know how much is riding on this? Our home. Our lifestyle. Your happiness. All the things you love and that are important to you. I know all that. Believe me, I feel it. It’s the reason I haven’t slept through the night in months.”

She didn’t know that. She didn’t know any of it. Every word he spoke made her feel worse, and she didn’t know which part to tackle first. Her life was unraveling so fast she expected to find nothing but strands of it at her feet.

She’d done her best to make their home comfortable and their lives predictable, and now it turned out she’d been stressing him.

She wrapped her arms around herself. Without Holly’s cheerful chatter and laughter, the cottage seemed colder than usual.

They had to take it a step at a time. One issue at a time.

“Tell me why you’re not sleeping. Is that because of the job? But none of this is your fault.”

“Maybe not, but it is my responsibility. You didn’t sign up for this.”

Responsibility.He kept using that word, and not in a tone that suggested it was something he welcomed. She filed that in her brain as something to be tackled later. Right now there were more urgent matters to discuss.

“You’re talking as if we made some kind of deal.”

“Isn’t that what marriage is? A deal?”

“No. You make it sound like a business transaction and—” She frowned. “We didn’t get married as part of a deal. We got married because—”

“You were pregnant.” His tone was flat and his eyes tired. “We got married because you were pregnant, Christy.” He said it as if it was something they’d both denied until this point. As if it was a dark secret they needed to acknowledge.

She rubbed her chest, trying to ease the ache that had settled behind her ribs. Did he really have so little awareness of her feelings for him? Or was he describing his own feelings?

Did he regret marrying her? Was that what he was saying?

Did he regret their daughter?

She thought about the way he was with Holly. The way their little girl giggled when he played with her and fought to stay awake until Seb was home so he could read her bedtime story. His endless patience and warmth.

No, he couldn’t regret their daughter. She wouldn’t believe that. Which meant the only thing he could regret would be her.

Her heart lurched. This conversation was like standing on the deck of a ship in a storm. She felt unbalanced and unsure which rail to grab in order to steady herself. “That wasn’t why I married you. I don’t ever want you to say that again. Think of Holly. What if she heard you?” She’ll turn out like Alix. She’ll have Alix’s issues.

“I think of Holly all the time. Why do you think I’m awake at night?”

He was obviously feeling a pressure she hadn’t known existed.

“I don’t see our relationship as a deal. I see it as a partnership. And all partnerships have highs and lows. Things happen, Seb. Life happens. I know that as well as anyone, and so do you. You lost your mum when you were young. I lost my dad, and then I lost my mother a few years ago—” She swallowed. “We both know life isn’t a fairy tale. All the more reason for us to support each other through the tough times and celebrate the good.”

His jaw tightened. “Maybe, but this isn’t your tough time. It’s my problem, and I’m handling it. You don’t need to worry.”

How did she make him see that his worries were her worries? That they were in this together.

One thing was sure: she wasn’t going to solve this by standing here in a cold, empty cottage exchanging words that shed no light on anything. There was nothing about the current atmosphere that was conducive to intimacy or even proper conversation. Without Holly in the mix, their interaction felt stilted and unnatural. They were like a couple of strangers, stuck in a loop. “Let’s go out.”

“Out?” He frowned. “Out where? It’s eleven in the morning.”

“And the sun is shining. Let’s go for a walk. We rarely have a chance to do that.”

“It’s freezing out there, Christy. They’re forecasting snow.”

“So?” She grabbed her coat, sure it was the right thing to do. Anything had to be better than staying in the unnaturally silent cottage. “We’ll wrap up well. It will be good practice for Lapland.” Would they even be going to Lapland? She’d thought this was about his job, which was bad enough, but now she could see that they had far bigger issues. Like the fact he thought she’d only married him because she was pregnant. Did he really know so little about her feelings for him? What had happened to that incredible connection they’d had that first time they’d met? Within minutes of meeting him she’d felt as if she’d known him forever, something she’d never experienced before with anyone. Maybe she needed to remind him of that. “Remember that walk we had the morning after our first night together?”

“Regent’s Park. It was snowing then, too, and you were so excited.” Finally, he smiled, and the tension eased slightly. “I’d never seen anyone that excited. Everyone I knew always moaned about snow.”

“Good things happen to me when it snows.” She pulled on her boots, relieved to see he was doing the same. “Happy things.”

“Happy things? You mean like broken ankles and frostbite?”

It was good to move away from the serious for a moment. “I mean like building snowmen. Meeting you. Our first real date was in the snow.”

They locked the cottage and walked along the frosty path to the gate that guarded the front of their property.

It creaked as he opened it. “What do you call the night before?”

“That wasn’t a date. Not a proper one. A date is something you plan. Our night together was…” She tilted her face upward, breathing in the cold, trying to find the words. “It was serendipity.”

The weather took her right back to that time. She’d always loved winter. The sparkle of winter sun on frosted leaves. The cold bite of the clear air. The faint smell of woodsmoke.

The air was scented with Christmas.

Seb turned up the collar of his coat. “So our first date consisted of what? Throwing snowballs? I seem to recall you had perfect aim.”

“Blame a childhood spent on the netball team. And I don’t remember you holding back.”

They were talking, but every interaction felt awkward. Forced. As if they were navigating their way down an unfamiliar path. It made her realize how much of their life together revolved around Holly. Their time. Their conversations.

He glanced at her. “There wasn’t a lot of holding back that morning, or the night before.”

And now she was wondering if he was regretting it. Was he thinking that a night of fun had turned into a lifetime of responsibility?

She wanted to fix this, right now, but she didn’t know how.

Feeling helpless and a little desperate, she slipped her hand into his and was relieved when his fingers closed around hers.

It was a start.

They walked along the lane that led from the house. The ground was hard underfoot, and shimmered silver with frost. “It felt right. From the beginning, it felt right. That day with you felt special. Magical. And I couldn’t stop thinking about that night.”

“And then you discovered that you had a permanent reminder.”

She stopped walking. “It wasn’t all about Holly, Seb.”

“Our whole relationship is about Holly. We got married because of Holly. Losing my job would suck whatever my personal situation, but it sucks all the more because I’m a dad with responsibilities.”

And that feeling of responsibility was crushing him; she could see that.

We got married because of Holly.

“We got married because we had something special. If I hadn’t been pregnant, then we might have not rushed things, but we wouldn’t have got married if it hadn’t felt right.” And then she had a sudden panic that he hadn’t felt the same way. “Before Holly there was us. The two of us. Without that there would have been no Holly. And yes, we barely knew each other, but there was something there, Seb. Something strong. It wasn’t only sex. We talked. All night. And then we barely had any time apart, and we had fun together.” He had helped her explore a side of herself she’d buried. An adventurous side. A side that didn’t always follow the rules and do what other people wanted her to do. She knew she wasn’t wrong about that, but how could she make him remember? Had the pressures of the moment swamped all memories of the past?

It was too cold to stand still, and she shivered and started walking again. Maybe it was best to leave emotions aside for the time being. “Tell me what happened with your job. All of it. I want to know. I thought the company was growing and doing well.”

“It was, until about a year ago. Clients cut their budgets, which meant agencies cut their staff. It’s a fairly simple equation. If the work isn’t out there, they don’t need people.”

“But you’re brilliant at your job. Before you met me you’d had two big promotions within a year. You were the rising star of the company.”

He walked in silence, his boots crunching on the frozen surface. “That was then. Things changed. Given the situation they were in, I probably would have let me go, too.”

“What changed?”

“I did.” They walked down a narrow lane that wound its way past fields and farm buildings toward the village. “I changed. I lost my edge.” It was a big admission from anyone, particularly Seb who, when she first met him, had been full of self-confidence and self-belief.

It would have been simple to say, Don’t be silly or I’m sure you’re wrong about that, but to do that would have been to dismiss his thoughts and feelings. Right now she wanted to know every single thing that was on his mind.

“What makes you say that?”

“My favorite part of the job was pitching to new clients. Looking at their goals and their issues, working out how to communicate with their customers. I was always good at that.”

“I know. You found it fun and stimulating. You’d be working on new business pitches until midnight, and you were always so excited when you won. Which you did. Often.”

“Yes.” He licked his lips. “Not lately. As I said, I lost my edge. Couldn’t quite find that extra something that made the difference.”

“But you were still working for the same company. Same people. What changed?”

He dug his hands deep into his pockets. “I guess it started to matter.”

“Matter?”

“Getting it right. Doing it well. Doing it better. Getting the next promotion, climbing the ladder.”

She was confused. “But wasn’t that always what you were doing?”

“Not consciously. In the beginning I lived in the moment. Went from pitch to pitch, from success to success. I treated the job like a game of poker. The aim was to win, beat the competition, and I employed every strategy in the book to do it. It was fun.” He gave a shrug, as if that was something that should have embarrassed him. “Gave me a buzz.”

“You won some huge accounts.”

“Yes. But that was before.”

They’d reached the edge of the village. Tiny lights were strung between the trees, and the shop windows gleamed with red ribbons and baubles. The main street led to the village green, which was surrounded by pretty cottages with thatched roofs and ivy creeping up the honey-colored walls. Rising in the distance was the spire of the thirteenth-century church that had once been the heart of the village. The place felt a million miles from the busy streets of London.

Normally, Christy would have been savoring the festive atmosphere, but right now all her focus was on Seb.

“Before what? What changed? Why did it suddenly matter?”

He stopped and stared into the window of a bakery. “My life changed. In an instant, or so it felt. I went from being carefree and single to having a wife and a child.”

Her mouth dried. “You’re saying we’re the reason things changed at work?” When he didn’t answer her, she prompted him. “Seb?”

He glanced at her. “Until I met you I didn’t give a damn about having a career. I did a job because I was enjoying it, and if I stopped enjoying it, then I looked for something else. I didn’t feel the pressure to be more or want more. It was all about the moment.” He gave a tired smile. “All I cared about was enjoying myself. Killing it at work. Having a good time. A few beers to celebrate a good day. Another win. Another client. Another bonus. Maybe a club. Women.”

Seb Sullivan isn’t the type to settle down, Christy.

Her mouth was so dry she could barely force the words out. “And then you met me, and I ruined all that.”

A couple walked past them, hand in hand and laughing together. Christy felt a pang of envy. What did they see when they looked at her and Seb? A couple standing far apart, obviously in the middle of a difficult conversation. Family had always been the most important thing in the world to her, and right now that felt threatened. What did this mean for her? For Holly?

“Not ruined. But it was a big change for me.” He was brutally honest. “I knew everything about having fun. About making a good life for myself. Seizing the moment. Nothing about responsibility. But suddenly I had to step up. I went from single guy with no one to think about but myself—no one to please but myself—to father and husband.”

“That’s a big change.” Her heart was pounding hard. “This isn’t how you thought life would look, is it?” It was her dream, and she realized now she’d never asked him what his dream was. A key question, and yet one she’d let take second place to passion and romance.

He stared at the elaborately decorated chocolate cake in the window. “Probably not. I never saw myself married with kids.” He glanced at her with a half smile. “All far too grown-up for me. I’m the guy who never called after a date and who spent money the second he earned it. The biggest decision I had to make in my day was which restaurant to eat in. My goal was to have a good time. Not let life weigh me down. No ties. No responsibilities. I never so much as had a plant to look after. And then I met you.”

It was a struggle to get her voice to work. “Yes.”

He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I bet you’re regretting that day.”

“What? Why would you say that?”

“Because your life was as different from mine as it could possibly be. Your upbringing was different. Your life experience. Let’s be honest. You wouldn’t normally have been seen dead in that bar. You went to concerts and book groups and had friends over for dinner.” He reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “That night was a departure for you, and you only did it because of Alix. She was trying to encourage you to let your hair down.” He gave a wry smile. “In the end I was the one who did that. You had it all coiled up in a fancy twist, and I pulled out the clip. Remember?”

“I remember.” She remembered all of it, including the way she’d felt. The excitement in her belly, the delicious sense of anticipation as she’d felt his fingers in her hair and then his hands cupping her face. The flash of his smile. The look in his eyes that was just for her. The level of attraction had left her breathless and overwhelmed. She hadn’t known what to do with all the feelings, but she’d known she wanted to hold on to them forever.

He touched her face now, his fingers as gentle as the look in his eyes. “It was supposed to be one night of fun with the bad boy, wasn’t it? Except I made you pregnant and ruined your perfect life. I’m sorry, Princess.”

She pulled away sharply. “Don’t call me that! And please don’t ever say you ruined my life. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

No, she wouldn’t. But she was beginning to wonder if he would, and it was a terrifying thought.

He’d finally given her a glimpse of what was going on in his head. What his life had been, and what it was like now. The difference was stark. The whole thing had been as big a change for him as it had been for her. The difference was that she’d relished the change. Yes, her pregnancy had been an accident, and a surprise, but it had been a pleasant surprise. For her it had been a whirlwind romance, intense, intoxicating, but also deep and real. And she’d always wanted to be a mother. But for him…

He’d felt nothing but pressure. Pressure to settle down. Pressure to give up the life he loved. Pressure to provide. And that pressure had slowly crushed him.

Now, finally, she saw it all clearly, and what she saw was scary and threatening. She longed for the time only days earlier when the biggest problem in her life was a leaky cottage.

Part of her wanted to run from the problem, but a bigger part of her knew that she had to face this. For his sake. She wanted him, yes, but more than anything, she wanted him to be happy. And yet he’d been on his own with this, and miserable.

“You didn’t ruin my life, but from what you’ve been saying, I ruined yours.” She stepped to one side as a family walked past, dragging a large Christmas tree. “Drinks after work, clubs, women—you gave all that up. You loved your work because you felt no pressure, but suddenly you felt pressure, and it sucked the joy from it. And I didn’t know that you felt this way.” Something she’d done had made him feel he couldn’t talk to her and tell her the truth. He hadn’t felt able to confide in her. She thought about Alix and how there had been a time when they’d told each other everything. She’d wanted it to be that way between her and Seb.

He shrugged. “I guess every father feels that same pressure and responsibility.”

And panic.

“But I worked, too, Seb. It was our responsibility, not yours alone.”

“Not really. I know how much you wanted to stay home with Holly. You have a clear vision of what family life should look like, and I wanted you to have the life you dreamed of having and deserved.”

And he’d felt he was the one who had to provide it, which explained why he felt he’d let her down.

She felt something cool on her hair and on her cheek and realized it was snowing. It was actually snowing, in this pretty Oxfordshire village with its sandy-colored stone and twinkling lights and church bells pealing in the background.

It should have felt like a perfect moment, but instead it felt like the scariest moment of her life.

“What about the life you deserved, Seb? What about your own happiness? Your vision of family life?” She’d never even asked him how he saw it. She’d replicated her own experience. Done what her mother had done and never questioned it.

He shrugged. “I didn’t really have a vision. You knew more about it than I did. I guess I saw you as the expert and was happy to follow your lead.”

Christy thought about the life she’d created for them. Expert? Sometimes it felt exhausting. The endless lists, the constant striving to stay on top of the jobs. Every time she tidied away toys so that the cottage looked half-decent, she felt as if she was disappointing her daughter, and every time the house was less than immaculate, she could hear her mother’s voice in her head. “But what about your vision for our family? You must have had some ideas of your own.”

It embarrassed her that she was only asking this question now, but he didn’t seem to think it was strange.

“Not really. I didn’t have anyone at home when I was young. My mother was gone, and my father was out working. The apartment felt like somewhere we ate and slept, but not a home. There was nothing cozy or warm about it. There was no routine. We never sat down for a meal at the table.” He smiled at her. “No candles or conversation. It was fast food, eaten on our laps in front of the TV. I didn’t want that for Holly. Your vision seemed pretty good to me. But I hadn’t anticipated how having a family sucks up money.”

She reached out and touched his arm. “And I was the one who wanted to move to the country. I feel terrible about that. Why didn’t you tell me you felt this way? Why did you say yes to moving and buying the cottage?”

“Because it was your dream,” he said softly. “And I badly wanted to make your dream come true.”

“But not at the expense of yours.” She forced herself to ask the question that had been burning inside her. “If you could turn the clock back, would you do things differently? Would you choose not to dance with me? Go home with me? Make a life with me? Be a father to our daughter? Do you regret it, Seb?”

If he could have chosen a different path, would he?

Suddenly her whole future felt uncertain. The life she’d imagined, threatened.

Waiting for his answer, she felt a wave of panic.

She’d tried to make their life perfect. She’d tried to make herself perfect. And in doing so she’d become as far from perfect as it was possible to be.