Chapter Eleven #2
And yet…a part of her mind pictured a future with Jack.
Jack waiting for her at the end of the aisle of a church.
Jack stroking her swollen belly, with a proud smile on his handsome face.
Jack helping her through the agony and ecstasy of labour.
Jack holding a tiny red-faced bundle in his arms, his blue eyes moist with tears of joy and pride and love.
Sylvie shook herself out of her stasis and brought herself back to the moment. ‘Oh yes, Jack is my new neighbour. Jack, this is my mother, Linda, and her fiancé, Patrick.’
Jack reached out his hand to each of them, warmly greeting them both. ‘So nice to meet you. Congratulations on your engagement. When’s the big day?’
Linda’s eyes threatened to outshine the diamond glittering on her left hand. ‘That’s what we wanted to talk to Sylvie about tonight.’ She shifted her sparkling gaze to her daughter. ‘We don’t want to wait for months and months—it’s ridiculous at our age, so we thought sooner rather than later.’
Sylvie was aware she was frowning instead of smiling and tried to relax her tight expression, but her worries about her mother rushing into a second marriage made her tense and uneasy. ‘How soon?’
‘Next month,’ Patrick said, smiling affectionately at his bride-to-be.
Linda beamed up at him, and Sylvie saw Patrick squeeze her mother’s hand, his eyes full of love and admiration for his future wife.
Sylvie was finding it hard to think of something to say.
She didn’t feel comfortable encouraging a hasty marriage and yet she was glad her mother had found a seemingly lovely man after twenty-two years on her own.
Who was she to spoil her mother’s happiness?
Life was short and her mum had wasted a lot of it already.
How could Sylvie deny her this special moment in her life?
‘I seem to be gatecrashing a family evening,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll leave you to discuss the wedding with Sylvie.’
‘Oh, please don’t leave,’ Linda said. ‘At least Patrick will have someone to talk to while we girls talk wedding stuff.’
Sylvie wanted to sink beneath the floor.
She was not the discuss-wedding-stuff type.
She had never gazed longingly at the wedding dress displays in bridal boutiques.
She had never looked at diamond rings in jewellery shop windows.
She had never thought about walking up the aisle of a church or a wedding venue…
until recently. Very recently. Scarily recently.
And she had to stop thinking about it because she knew Jack wasn’t thinking along those lines at all and never would.
She was being foolish for allowing her feelings to get involved in their fling.
Flings and feelings didn’t go together, or at least that was what she had fooled herself into believing.
‘No, please stay, Jack,’ Sylvie found herself saying, thinking that at least she would have someone to debrief with once her mother and Patrick left.
‘If you’re sure?’ Jack was nothing if not polite.
Sylvie smiled until she thought her face would crack. ‘I’m sure.’
Dinner was a surprisingly convivial affair, although Sylvie wondered why she was so surprised given she already knew how charming Jack could be.
He made the dinner party flow with lively conversation and he drew out the more reserved nature of Patrick with consummate ease.
Once the main meal was over, Sylvie and her mother headed to the kitchen to assemble a dessert Sylvie had prepared earlier.
Jack and Patrick wandered outside so Jack could get some landscaping advice from Patrick, who was a keen gardener.
Sylvie suspected Jack was giving her the space to talk to her mother and it made her feelings for him grow all the more.
A few weeks ago, she would never have considered Jack a sensitive man and yet the more time she spent with him the more she realised he was not just intellectually intelligent, but highly emotionally and socially intelligent, qualities she deeply admired.
And with his razor-sharp wit and dry humour he was everything a woman wanted.
The crazy thing was, she hadn’t known she wanted it. Wanted him.
‘So, tell me about Jack,’ Linda said, giving Sylvie a twinkling eyed look.
‘We’re neighbours and colleagues and…friends.’ She could have kicked herself for hesitating over the word friends but she’d realised he wasn’t just a lover, he was indeed a friend, not the enemy she had always thought him to be.
‘Friends with benefits?’ Linda asked.
Sylvie could feel her cheeks heating. She had never discussed her dating life with her mother because of her mother’s lack of one.
She hadn’t wanted to make her mum feel even worse about her aching loneliness after the divorce from Sylvie’s father.
But everything had changed now. Her mother was engaged and clearly had a loving and satisfying physical relationship with Patrick, judging by the affectionate touches and looks she had witnessed between them during the evening.
‘I don’t quite know how to describe my relationship with Jack,’ Sylvie said, absently handing her mother a washed punnet of strawberries to hull.
She dried her hands on some kitchen paper and continued.
‘I never used to like him. I found him arrogant and way too self-assured and he’s so wealthy and privileged it’s ridiculous, but he moved in next door and I started to get to know him more. ’
‘And?’ her mother prompted, her eyes expectant, hopeful.
‘And we see each other from time to time but he’s a playboy and I’m a career woman, so there’s no future in it.’
‘Are you sure?’
Sylvie slid a cheesecake closer to her mother to decorate with the strawberries.
‘Can anyone be sure about how relationships will go? I’d like to know more about Patrick and why you’re in such a hurry to marry him, especially when you married my father within months of meeting him.
How can you be sure you’re not making the same mistake? ’
Linda met Sylvie’s concerned gaze with a confident and assured look in her own. ‘I know Patrick loves me and I love him, whereas I was never sure of your father’s love. He was hot and cold towards me but the hot times were so good, they kept me tied to him for far longer than they should have.
‘I’m older and wiser now. I’ve spent a long time on my own and I’ve done a lot of reflecting on why I was so biddable and accommodating with your father. He controlled me like a string puppet. I am Patrick’s equal and we enjoy a very different dynamic. I want you to experience that too.’
‘Oh, Mum, you know how important my career is to me.’
‘I do but what about when you’re my age or older? When you retire? Is it going to be as satisfying and rewarding then? Life isn’t just about work. I understand some people enjoy solitude and their own space but I worry your lack of interest in relationships is my fault.’
Sylvie made a business of wiping away a tiny crumb from the cheesecake base off the serving dish. ‘It’s not your fault at all.’
‘The divorce hit me hard, darling, but I see now how much harder it hit you. You didn’t just lose your father and your home; you lost the mother you needed.
I was so broken by his betrayal I didn’t recognise how my depression was affecting you.
You had to be the adult, which no young child should ever have to be.
I shouldn’t have been so blind to what you were going through, but you always were good at masking your feelings, even as a tiny child.
You witnessed things, arguments and shouting matches for instance, that made you shut down.
I’ve read up on it recently. It’s traumatic for young children to be in such a toxic environment.
You didn’t feel safe and I couldn’t keep you safe.
I’m glad now your father left. I can’t believe I was so distraught when he did because I was the one who should have left him.
But there weren’t the supports around that there are today.
I was also immature and too proud to ask for help. ’
‘You did your best, Mum. That’s all anyone can do under such difficult circumstances.’
Linda put her arms around Sylvie and hugged her tightly. ‘Don’t mask your feelings for Jack if you have them. Be yourself with him, your real self. Patrick has helped me to understand showing vulnerability isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength.’
Sylvie hugged her mother back, delighted she had finally gained some insight, but she was left with a lot to think about herself.
Was she masking her feelings for Jack? What exactly did she feel for him?
Wasn’t it just lust? A crush that would soon fade.
A week or three of madness she would look back on one day as an enjoyable experience but nothing else. What else could it be?
Sylvie’s mother and partner had not long left for their hotel when Jack said he too should go home and get some sleep.
‘Wouldn’t you like a nightcap?’ Sylvie asked, trying to disguise the longing in her tone for more of his company.
He gave her one of his spine-tingling crooked smiles, the type of smile that made his eyes light up and sent her senses into free fall. ‘Just the one.’
He insisted on helping her clear away the dinner things first, which to her seemed something way outside his experience having grown up with so much wealth—there was no doubt a staff member for every task at Wildewood, his family pile.
Sylvie gave him a sideways glance as he reached for the same plate as her, his fingers brushing hers, sending a shower of sparks exploding through her flesh. ‘When did you become so domesticated?’
‘I was in a share house during university. What an eye-opener that was.’
Sylvie stopped clearing the table to stare at him. ‘A share house? With more than one person?’
‘Yep. I even learned to cook.’
‘Really?’