Second Chance Under the Mistletoe, page 13
At the time he hadn’t questioned that headlong tumble into love and commitment—just believed that what he’d found with Natalie was for life and his future would be linked with hers. Sadly—tragically, when he thought about it—his eyes had been opened to what could go wrong when a person’s life turned completely upside down. Now he’d heard the truth about his split from Natalie and Clem, he never wanted anything to do with her parents again—he wasn’t sure he’d be able to restrain himself. Even if they were Clem’s grandparents.
Was this reunion with Natalie simply a scratching of an old itch—or something more profound? She had such a complete life here now, whereas his was more peripatetic, with constant travel and no real ties to anywhere, except that Australia was his home base. What might Natalie want from him? What could he give her?
Was there a place for him in Natalie’s life as being anything more than her daughter’s father? They had made love, and it had been every bit as wonderful as it had been when they were younger. But he wanted more. Not just sex. He wanted her in his life, by his side. For how long he didn’t know—preferably for ever. It was early days to be thinking that far ahead. But he sure as hell wanted to try to secure her. Not everyone was given a second chance. He wanted to see if they could start again and move forward. It might or might not work out with her—they were different people now. He was aware of that. But he wouldn’t know if they didn’t give a new relationship a chance.
He had missed out on her twenties and her thirties, but Natalie’s forties and more stretched ahead of her—possibly with him. He didn’t want to miss out on further years with her.
He had never imagined this would happen, this reunion with his former wife. He had gone to that first meeting at the park determined to do anything in his power to strengthen his newly revived relationship with his daughter. Anger towards Natalie had still simmered under his polite conversation. At the time he hadn’t known how angry she, in turn, still was towards him for his so-called infidelity and betrayal. Yet despite that, the old attraction had been too powerful to be ignored. And he had found himself slipping back into the enjoyment of her company—as he had never enjoyed another woman’s company.
He wondered now if that was the reason he had never had a satisfactory long-term relationship—no other woman could match Natalie. His second wife had accused him of never having got over his first. He had vehemently denied it, but perhaps she’d made a valid point. And now he’d found his first wife again, he didn’t want to lose her.
Natalie stirred and stretched out her limbs luxuriously. He watched as her eyes flickered open. There was a moment of surprise followed by pleasure and delight. ‘So, you’re not a dream,’ she murmured as she reached out a hand to put on his arm—he was real. She smiled. ‘It’s really you, naked and next to me, Jonathan James Grayson.’
‘All present and correct,’ he said.
‘Thank you for last night,’ she murmured.
‘Thank you,’ he replied.
‘The dinner and the ballet were good too,’ she said, a knowing smile curving her lips.
‘They were,’ he admitted. ‘But not as good as what came after.’
‘Agreed,’ she said, moving closer, dropping a kiss on his shoulder. ‘We’re brilliant together.’
‘We always were.’
‘From our very first time.’
‘I don’t want to let you go again, Natalie,’ he said, his voice rough with emotion.
‘I don’t have to go home until after the musical tomorrow night. Freddie is with my neighbour until then.’
‘I don’t mean that.’ He cupped her face in his hands. ‘I don’t mean just today. I mean tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow after that. We’ve got more than twenty years apart to make up for.’
She tilted her head to the side. ‘Do you really feel that way?’
‘Very much so,’ he said.
‘Thank heaven,’ she said. ‘Because I do too. It’s…well, it seems to me like a gift that we’ve been given a second chance. Let’s grab it with both hands and see what happens.’ She went quiet for a moment. ‘But we’re different people now. Burdened with scars and baggage. Maybe the old magic won’t ignite again. But it was there for me last night and I’m more than willing to give it a go. And if it fizzles out, at least we know we tried.’
‘Count me in,’ he said hoarsely.
She kissed him, a brief, sweet kiss. ‘Me too, and with no one interfering this time,’ she added.
‘Shall we tell Clem?’ he asked. ‘That we’re going to try again, I mean?’
Natalie smiled. ‘You mean, you think she might interfere? She would most certainly have her own strong opinions. But I don’t want to be influenced by my darling daughter either. So, I don’t think we should tell her. Not yet, anyway.’
‘In that case I don’t think we should tell anyone at all,’ he said.
‘Good idea. I especially don’t want anyone in my family to know we’re giving it a try.’
‘With your parents in Spain and your brother in Canada that seems unlikely.’
‘If…if it doesn’t work out for us no one need know. We’ll be spared the commiserations.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I… I don’t think it’s a good idea if we’re seen together in Guildford. I know a lot of people there and anyway—’
‘I have no interest in seeing the house where you lived with Hugo.’ He couldn’t think of anything worse. Wisely or not, he just didn’t want to think about that time of her life where she’d existed completely without him.
‘I understand that.’
He lay back against the pillow and she rested her head on his shoulder with his arm encircling her. ‘Were you happy with Hugo? Did you love him?’ He held his breath for her answer.
It took her a few beats. ‘He was a good man, and I had a good life with him.’ She paused again. ‘He was a loving father to Clem and she loved him.’
She still hadn’t said if she’d loved Hugo, but Jon couldn’t press her. He probably shouldn’t have asked her. He couldn’t bear to hear Natalie tell him Hugo had been the love of her life.
Deep down he still believed Hugo, in cahoots with Natalie’s parents, had stolen his wife. Then Hugo had triumphed further and won Clem away from him—with Natalie on the sidelines not protesting. Jon had been gutted when, at age thirteen, Clem had informed him she didn’t want to see him any more, at all. Just at the time when he’d had more opportunity and finances to see more of her. He would never admit it to Natalie but there were occasions when he’d been visiting the UK when he’d gone to Clem’s school at pick-up time, mingling anonymously with the crowd of other parents, just to catch a glimpse of his teenage daughter.
Natalie took a deep breath. ‘Shall we say I soon realised I had to dial down my expectations of marriage to Hugo. There…there was never any real passion between us. I had no independence. No career of my own. But I did grow to care for him very much.’
‘Fair enough.’ He hated the thought of her merely existing with boring old Hugo.
Jon forced his voice into the range of reasonable. ‘I’m glad he was good to Clem, at least.’ And was secretly pleased he hadn’t given Natalie the orgasms he gave her so easily. Or, indeed, a child.
It was as if she’d read his mind. ‘If it makes you feel better, I never went to a ballet or a musical or a rock concert with Hugo, because he didn’t have a musical bone in his body. It was dinner parties and worthy plays, and Clem’s school concerts and speech nights, visits to the world’s most boring parents-in-law, and gardening on the weekend.’
‘So he wasn’t the love of your life?’ he said, knowing he wasn’t succeeding in keeping the jealousy from his voice.
‘I think you know who the love of my life was,’ she said, her voice hitching.
And will be again, Jon vowed to himself.
She lifted herself up and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Can we keep Hugo out of our bedroom and concentrate on us?’
‘Absolutely,’ Jon said. That was just what he wanted to hear.
‘Let’s spend the day in bed making love and watching TV and ordering take-out food to be delivered,’ Natalie said. ‘We can catch up on some of the lazy days and relaxed home times we were cheated of. Then we can dress up and go out to the musical tonight as planned.’
‘Sounds like an excellent plan,’ he said. Could there possibly be a better one?
‘I’ve had another thought. Do you have your guitar here?’
‘Not the one I had when we were at uni. That’s in Perth. But I do have a guitar here.’
‘What say we surprise Clem by singing a few Christmas carols on Christmas Day?’
‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ he said.
‘Is it such a bad thought?’
‘It’s a long time since we’ve sung together. We’ll need to practise.’
‘Do you think we could do it again?’
‘I suspect we could. We won’t know until we try.’
‘Let’s try, then. I think Clem would like it.’ She paused. ‘I would like it.’
‘I would like it too,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll tune the guitar this afternoon. Any carols in particular?’
‘I think “Silent Night” might be nice for Clem—you know, “mother and child”.’
‘I have a yen for “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”.’
‘“Away in a Manger” is another good one for an expectant mother.’
He laughed. ‘Keep in mind Clem’s only twenty-four. I reckon she’d like “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Or something more rousing, anyway.’
‘And of course we’ll wear our sequinned Santa hats.’
‘Will we?’ He laughed. ‘Why not?’
Jon had a feeling that, with Natalie involved, Christmas at Clem’s might be livelier than he had imagined. He was looking forward to it. If he and Natalie sang as harmoniously as they had when they were younger, might Clem guess they were more to each other again now? That might be a good way to introduce their new relationship. Personally, he wanted to sing ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ because that was the truth of it for him. Being with Natalie and Clem would be the best Christmas present of all, with the bonus of a grandbaby to come in the new year.
‘Good,’ Natalie said. ‘That’s sorted, then. Tomorrow, you can drive me back home and wait while I pick up Freddie, and pack up more clothes. Then we’ll come back here and I’ll stay with you until Christmas Day when we go to Clem’s.’
‘And after that?’ He couldn’t hide the raw hunger from his voice.
‘By then I think we’ll be clear on where we want to go with this,’ she said. He realised neither of them had addressed the elephant in the room—the big one wearing an outsized custom-made, red sequinned Santa hat. If this reunion worked out there was the inescapable fact to consider that he lived in Australia where his business and interests lay. She lived in England, where all her interests lay. Who would have to compromise?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
What about after Christmas Day? What would happen then? The following day, by the time Natalie was dressed in the jeans and jacket she’d worn to Hampton Court Palace, ready to head back home to pick up Freddie, she was very sure about where she wanted to go with Jon. All the way. Full-on commitment. In his life again as his wife—whether or not they formalised it with an actual second marriage ceremony.
Back then, when she’d been eighteen, she’d made up her mind about Jay Jay very quickly. It was no different now. She and Jon belonged together. They should never have been apart. No questions asked. She was, in fact, terrified of losing him again. She didn’t know how she’d manage a second time.
But while there were no questions about her commitment—and although they hadn’t actually spoken about it, she believed Jon felt the same—there were questions about how they might manage a future together. The biggest question to be answered was about where they would live. His home was in Western Australia, the other side of the world in a country she had never even visited, let alone contemplated living there. The place where Jon had disappeared to all those years ago. Back then there had been times she’d hated Australia and had vowed never to go there. She lived in Guildford, in a house she would never want to live in with Jon and yet it was Clem’s childhood home, her safety net.
Clem. Her daughter was the main issue. Clem was about to embark on a life as a mother and she needed her own mother. Her father too. Clem had asked both her parents for help.
Clem would need help not just around the time of the birth and caring for a newborn, but also when her baby was older. Bringing up a child was tough—rewarding but tough—even with two parents. Clem had a career she would need to maintain. Natalie wanted to help her as much as she could, on her daughter’s terms, not the way her own mother had ‘helped’ her and Jon all the way to the divorce court. When it boiled down to it, Natalie would be there when Clem needed her. On call. She could give no less.
But how did that fit in with the love of her life back on the scene with his home being on the other side of the world?
‘Ready?’ Jon asked.
‘Just about,’ she said. ‘I’m just looking around checking what I need to make Freddie comfortable here. I might need to buy him a few things. And remind me, when we get back here, I need to find where the nearest parks are. Oh, and while I’m thinking about shopping—’
‘As you do,’ said Jon, swinging her into his arms for a swift hug and an affectionate kiss dropped on the top of her head.
She laughed. ‘Well, yes. That’s me. But seriously, we need to get something Christmassy for this apartment. Maybe after we get back from Guildford, we could pop down to the South Bank Christmas market and buy one of those cute little trees that come already decorated and—’
‘Whatever you want,’ he said, indulgently. ‘You can string this place with lights and decorations from rafter to floor as far as I’m concerned. As long as you’re here with me, I don’t mind how Christmassy you make it.’
‘Hmm, okay, you’re giving me carte blanche, you say?’ She smiled teasingly as she looked around, exaggerating a search of places to lavishly decorate.
‘Now I’m getting worried,’ he said, with a mock frown.
Natalie laughed again. As she did, she realised she had laughed more with Jon in these few days than she could remember doing over the last two years. ‘Seriously, no cause for concern. The beauty of this place is in its stark simplicity. Just a small tree will do. For this year anyway—’ She realised what she had said and faltered to a halt.
He looked down into her face. ‘We need to talk about next year. Where we’ll be, how we’ll manage the distance between where we both live now.’
She took his hand and gripped it tightly. ‘Yes. We do need to talk. I want to be with you, you know that, don’t you?’
‘And I with you. I told you, I don’t want to let you go.’
They shared a swift, sweet kiss.
‘It all revolves around Clem,’ Natalie said. ‘I know she has something going on with Leo, but he’s not the baby’s father and anything might happen. We’re the only people in her life who can be there for her the way she needs for the motherhood journey she’s about to embark on. She has Tyler’s parents, too, yes, but it’s her own parents she needs most. Her mother—’
‘And her father,’ Jon said firmly.
‘We… I…am tied to her. I have to put her first.’ As she had when she’d agreed to marry Hugo. In truth, there was no sacrifice she wouldn’t make for her daughter.
‘We have options. We can work it out.’
‘I… I’m scared if you go back to Australia without me, I… I’ll never see you again. Like…like last time. I couldn’t bear that, Jon.’
He pulled her to him in a tight hug. ‘Me neither. I couldn’t bear it either. Last time was hell on both of us.’ He pulled back and looked into her face. ‘Communication. This time we’ll get it right.’ He paused. ‘We’ll have an hour in the car, let’s talk it over then. Most likely the first of many talks.’
‘Good idea. I’m ready to go,’ she said.
She went to pick up her handbag from the table just as her phone inside it started to ring. ‘That’s probably my neighbour calling to confirm the time I’ll be picking up Freddie.’ She burrowed in her bag and found her phone. She looked at the screen and frowned. ‘I don’t know this number.’
‘Don’t answer it,’ said Jon as he shrugged on his coat.
Natalie put her phone back in her bag. It rang again. ‘I think I should answer it,’ she said. ‘You never know…’ Later, Natalie would be so glad she’d picked the phone up that second time.
‘Hello. Yes.’
Natalie listened carefully to the midwife from Kensington hospital. She could feel the colour draining from her face with every word. Finally, she disconnected the phone with fingers that barely worked. She turned to Jon.
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.
‘It…it’s Clem. That was a midwife. Clem’s been admitted to hospital with pre-eclampsia. It’s a complication of pregnancy. She’s being kept in for…for observation and monitoring.’ Her voice broke on the last words.
As she spoke Jon was looking up pre-eclampsia on his phone. He read out his findings. ‘Pre-eclampsia is characterised by persistent undiagnosed high blood pressure, protein in the urine, swelling of the face, hands and feet.’ He looked across at Natalie. ‘It’s potentially dangerous to both mother and baby.’
Natalie put her hand to her heart. ‘She’s only thirty-four and a half weeks pregnant.’
‘That’s too early to—’
‘Yes. It is. Far too early. Oh, how has this happened? Clem has looked after herself brilliantly, and she was fine at all her pre-natal check-ups. I saw her three days ago and she looked fine, although I did notice she seemed tired.’
