Chapter Thirty-Three
LUKE
Eighteen Weeks Before the Anniversary Party
She sits in a large blue armchair, and he sits in a smaller one. The coffee on the small table between them isn’t as good as the Colombian roast from the independent coffee house they met at last time, but it isn’t bad. He’s on his second cup.
He’s here to listen. Elena needs him. Just talking, nothing else.
They’ve agreed that’s what this is, and there are reasons why she would prefer to keep her situation private at the moment.
Good reasons. So why does he feel bad about telling Jess he was meeting up with a friend but conveniently skirting around giving her a name?
Elena sighs. ‘You know what? I am sick of moaning about my life. Can we talk about something else?’
‘Whatever you want. What do you want to talk about? The weather?’
She snorts softly. ‘A very British pastime, but no, thank you. I am not yet ready to be that dull.’
He smiles at her. She’s teasing him. He likes it when she teases him. It brings some of the vitality back to her eyes. Much better than the sadness that’s been filling them lately. ‘Football?’
That earns him a soft swat on the arm.
‘Ow,’ he says feigning pain, but then remembers himself. ‘Read any good books lately?’
She presses her lips together while she thinks. ‘I’m not sure if small talk is what I had in mind. We are past that, no, you and I?’
He supposes so. He’s known her for well over a decade now, although they have floated in and out of each other’s lives.
But recently she’s felt like an anchor for him.
He’s very grateful for her friendship. ‘My next thought was films and TV, so I suppose that’s out too. I’m not sure I’m very good at this.’
‘You do okay,’ she says, giving him a look he can’t quite decipher. ‘And you’re here, which means a lot.’ She sighs and looks out the large plate-glass window for a few moments, at the twinkling lights of the city.
‘What do you need from me?’
Slowly, she turns her head to look at him again. ‘I need to not feel so alone, as if I am the only one in the world who has troubles.’
He holds her gaze. He understands her words, but he’s not sure what he can do about that. ‘We could talk about the news, plenty of people in dire situations every day, but I’m not sure it’s going to cheer you up much.’
She lets out a breath of laughter. It was a bad suggestion but she’s indulging him.
‘Maybe something closer to home. Tell me your news, Luke. What’s up with you? Where are your struggles at the moment? Maybe they are not as large as mine but hearing about them – sharing with each other – may help.’
His eyes glaze over as he checks through his memory banks of the last week for something suitable.
‘This sounds pathetic in comparison, but I accidentally bought the wrong paint colour for a job we’re doing, and we’d done two rooms and a hallway before we realized.
Going to have to reorder the paint and redecorate, and it was Farrow & Ball. Dad was not pleased when he found out.’
She blinks slowly and purses her mouth. ‘You’re right. That is pathetic. I meant tell me something about you, Mr Luke Harris. Or is your life as perfect on the inside as it always seems from the outside? In which case I will have to hate you, and you will be no use to me.’
He chuckles softly, even as a shiver shoots through him. His life isn’t perfect. Nobody’s is, but is it really that bad? Is ‘not great’ bad or is it just … not great?
‘Come on, Luke. The night is still young.’
He looks more closely at her eyes as he considers his answer. She’s wearing that slightly weary, slightly teasing expression, but behind it all he sees a plea. Join me. I don’t want to be alone in this.
He takes a moment, digs deep. At first he thinks he’s just going to unearth nothing, but then he hits something hard. Something painful. Something he’d rather not talk about, actually.
But he has to. For her.
He raises his chin slightly. ‘I really want to be a father, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen.’
She leans forward, her brow creasing. ‘Why?’
He’s not sure he wants to tell her. He doesn’t want to expose himself – or Jess – but as he looks at Elena, he thinks about how much she’s shared with him in recent weeks, how vulnerable she’s been.
It hasn’t made him think any less of her.
In fact, it’s made him respect her all the more. Maybe he owes her the same?
‘I don’t know if my wife actually wants to have kids.’
Elena’s eyebrows rise. ‘You didn’t discuss this before you were married? Or in the early years?’
‘Oh, we did. I thought we were on the same page. She still says she wants to – or at least she did the last time I asked, which was probably more than a year ago now.’ However, he’s had an idea for an anniversary present for Jess, and it’s got him thinking about it again. About family.
‘But … ?’
He smiles slightly. She knows him so well, heard the unspoken word at the end of his sentence.
‘But there’s always something, always a reason why now’s not a good time, why we need to put it off.
I’m starting to wonder if she’s just waiting for her biological clock to run down and then it’ll be a done deal. Out of our hands.’
‘You truly believe this?’
He gives a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I don’t know.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Jess is a bit of a perfectionist. Maybe she’s just waiting for the perfect time.
Life has been a bit crazy in the last few years.
You know how busy I am with the business now Dad has allowed me to add a few more strings to our bow. ’
Elena seems to sense that he’s said as much as he’s able to, because she spends a while looking out the window, and then she closes her eyes.
She’s tired, he can tell, and he almost thinks she might have dozed off when she says in a whisper, ‘I would like to have children too, some day. But, as you say, life gets in the way. I no longer have a husband, but I had my eggs frozen when I was ill four years ago.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes. But if I go down that path, I suppose I will need a … what do you call it?’
‘A man?’ he says, one side of his mouth hitching up.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Not unless I can help it. I’m done with them, remember?’
‘So I recall. But you will at least need some of his best swimmers.’ The skin above her nose crinkles. She doesn’t understand the idiom. Her English is so good he sometimes forgets it’s not her first language. ‘A donor,’ he adds.
‘Ah, yes! That is the word. A donor. Not now, of course. But maybe in a year or two, if I am lucky.’ She looks at him with her large brown eyes, so wistful, but also so full of tentative hope. They hold eye contact as the seconds tick past but then he feels uncomfortable enough to look away.
God. What was that? Sometimes, when their eyes meet, it feels as if part of him is hooking on to part of her, but that time … Was she … ? Did she … ? Did that mean something? Is she saying she wants him to be the donor?
No. Of course not. Don’t be so stupid.
‘Let us not think of things that may never be,’ she says matter-of-factly, and the moment is gone. Over.
He’s always imagined what his kids would look like, wondered if they’d have white-blond hair like he did as a child, or whether a touch of Jess’s red would be in there, turning it strawberry blond, but now another image scoots into his mind unbidden – a little boy, about eighteen months old, with golden skin, dark curls and ridiculously thick eyelashes.
He shuts the thought down immediately, despite its appeal.
Not appropriate, Luke. Definitely not appropriate.
‘Solving your problem should be a lot easier than solving mine,’ she tells him. ‘What do you think is going on with Jessica? Why has she changed her mind?’
He sighs. ‘I wish I knew.’
‘You need to talk to her, Luke.’
He nods. He knows. But he’s scared of what she might say. Maybe she does want babies. Maybe she just doesn’t want them with him.