Chapter 22
‘She’s beautiful, Will.’ Nathan didn’t even try to blink back the tears as he looked at his brother, before pulling him into a hug. ‘Absolutely beautiful.’
‘She is.’ When they eventually moved apart, Will had the same mixture of relief and joy on his face as Nathan felt.
They were standing outside the hospital room where he’d just met his new niece, and where Heather was recovering from the C-section she’d ended up needing.
‘She’s absolutely perfect and when I held her in my arms for the first time, it made it feel like everything we’ve been through and all of the pain that caused won’t be for nothing any more.
I love Leo with all my heart and I’d give anything to know he was going to be okay, but the chances are we’re going to lose him.
It feels like the baby gives us something solid to hold on to, not just the hope of a miracle that probably won’t happen. Does that make me a terrible person?’
‘Of course it doesn’t.’ Nathan shook his head, his heart somehow breaking and flooding with happiness all at the same time.
‘It makes me feel like everything we’ve been through was all worth it too, but I’d have done it a hundred times over just to have whatever time we can with Leo, and I know you would too. ’
‘I would, but I’m his father and it should have been me who made all the sacrifices. You’ve had to give up far more than I ever have.’
‘You can’t measure that sacrifice when it comes to Leo, because there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for him. All of that’s in the past anyway; today is for celebrating and we don’t need to keep going over old ground.’
‘We do when it affects the here and now.’ Will put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And don’t even try to tell me that it doesn’t, or that you don’t have feelings for Rowan Adams.’
‘Bellamy.’
‘She’ll always be Adams to me and I know she will to you too. She needs to know the truth. And so does Mum, and everyone else who matters to us. I can’t carry it any more, it feels like a burden that I’ll have to pay the price for eventually and I can’t risk karma. Not now the baby is here.’
‘Everyone knowing won’t change anything, except for the worst. Mum will still have a son who committed a crime, two if you count perjury and perverting the course of justice.
And while Heather will almost certainly forgive you, do you really want to risk ending up in prison and leaving her and the baby?
Or missing valuable time with Leo? That’s why we decided to do what we did in the first place.
It was far better for me to say that I falsified the paperwork, I had much less to lose. ’
‘That’s what I thought back then, but you had a lot more to lose than we thought: six months of your life, your reputation, and your wife.’
‘If Nicole had really loved me, she wouldn’t have left and the impact of you being locked up for six months would have been far greater. As for my reputation, what makes you think I don’t like being the bad boy?’
‘Because it cost you the person who might well have been the love of your life.’
‘I’ve already said that it proved Nicole didn’t really love me. She knew what the money that was taken was used for. It wasn’t like anyone jetted off on some fancy five-star holiday, even the judge said he wished he didn’t have to impose a custodial sentence.’
‘I’m not talking about Nicole, I’m talking about Rowan. And I don’t think I can live with myself knowing this has probably taken her from you too.’
‘You’ve got to.’ Nathan’s jaw was set in a firm line.
‘That’s your punishment; having to live with the consequences of what happened and that’s more than enough.
If you suddenly confess now, all you’re going to do is hurt Heather, Leo, the baby and Mum, and we might both end up in prison this time. ’
‘Nath—’
‘No, I mean it.’ He cut his brother off, his tone sharp. ‘If you do this, I might never be able to forgive you. It’s done, I served the time and that’s all that was needed, one of us had to take the punishment for the crime and we did.’
‘But it should have been me, you didn’t know anything about it until after it was already done.’
‘It doesn’t matter and it was my choice. We both agreed it was for the best and nothing’s changed, except that you’ve got the baby to think about now too. So just live with your guilty conscience if you have to, and suck it up.’
‘Maybe I could just tell Rowan.’
‘No!’ Nathan’s response was forceful, but he needed to make sure Will got the message. ‘Telling just one person could make the whole thing unravel. This was our secret and if you tell anyone else we’ve lost control of it.’
For a moment Rowan’s words about James came back to him; maybe there was justification for her refusing to tell Nathan everything that was going on, but it was a very different situation and he couldn’t think about that now.
All that mattered was stopping Will from doing something stupid and making sure he stayed with the family who needed him.
As he locked eyes with Will, his brother finally seemed to realise that nothing had changed and they had to keep this to themselves, otherwise all of the sacrifices that had been made might really end up having been in vain.
‘Okay, it’ll stay our secret until the end, just like we promised, but I need you to know how much what you did means to me.’
‘I already know and I’ve told you before, there’s no need to thank me any more. It’s over and we can all move on.’
Will looked doubtful for a moment, and Nathan knew he couldn’t let his mask slip and allow his brother to see that his doubts were valid when it came to some people, because there were those who would never allow him to truly move on.
It was a relief when Will finally nodded.
‘Okay I know you’re right, but I think I might have found a way of showing you how much what you did means to me. ’
‘You’ve bought me a sports car?’ Nathan grinned, glad of the light relief after such an intense conversation.
‘No, but Heather and I have agreed to call your new niece Nathalia, after the uncle who made her existence possible.’
‘Is Heather really up for that?’ There was a lump in his throat as his brother nodded.
‘It was her suggestion and she doesn’t even know the half of what you’ve done for us, but she still thinks you’re amazing and absolutely the best person for our children to look up to.’
‘Are you sure that’s not the drugs from her op talking?’ Nathan grinned again and Will hit him playfully on the arm.
‘Shut up and take the compliment for once in your life.’
‘Thank you.’ He put his arms around his brother one more time and tears blurred his eyes.
They held on to one another until they both regained control of their emotions.
Things might not have worked out with Rowan and that had affected Nathan far more than it ought to have done.
But for the first time in a long time it felt as if they could look forward to the future with hope, and he’d have repeated every sacrifice he’d made a hundred times over just to hold on to that possibility.
* * *
Rowan hadn’t felt the way she had for the past two days since she was a teenager, when she’d been pining over Nathan the first time around.
Even the news that the Ofsted inspectors would be grading the school as outstanding hadn’t lifted her spirits the way it should have done, because she knew how much she’d hurt Nathan.
She woke up thinking about him and went to bed thinking about him, going over the conversations they’d had and trying to work out if there was a way she could have handled things differently and not made such a terrible mess of everything.
She’d wanted to be honest and admit that when they’d moved beyond friendship there had been a part of her that didn’t want anyone to know, because of how they might view the headteacher dating someone with a criminal record.
But she’d got past that recently, she really had, because she knew just what an amazing person Nathan was.
She hated the fact that he might doubt how she saw him, but she couldn’t tell him the whole story until the children had been told as much as they needed to hear.
It wasn’t even that she didn’t trust Nathan to keep whatever she said to himself, but she’d promised James when he’d been on the verge of doing something stupid that she’d support him through the process of talking to the children.
The trouble was James was still putting it off.
After the way his father had reacted, he’d been even more certain that they should handpick the people who were told, even once the children knew.
That was something they’d have to work through eventually, but for now her priority was getting James to face up to his responsibilities to Bella and Theo.