Chapter 10
JAMIE
I knew it was true. As soon as she said it. I just didn’t want to believe it.
But it made sense to me. Everything I’d wondered about in the past but hadn’t had answers for suddenly fell into place: the way my father had behaved after Isabella Darlington-Hume’s death – and, come to think of it, before it too, whenever she was around him.
There was always a strange atmosphere between them when they were together – an electric sort of frisson in the air.
I also remember how my father had very rarely talked about my mother, as if he was trying to forget she existed. Because of his guilt? I could only guess if that was true.
And the way he’d just rolled over when Maxim had gone all out to bankrupt him.
And then there was his insistence that I just let April go and move on ‘to pastures new’ when she left me. He’d never been particularly keen on our relationship, now I come to think of it, though he’d stopped just short of advising me against being with her. And now I know why.
The revelations went on and on in my mind.
I sit in my living room staring out to sea now that she’s gone, feeling as though my whole world has been flung upside down, scattering every belief I thought I had, wrecking every truth I believed in.
My father had lied to me for years.
He wasn’t the man I thought he was.
As the shock finally begins to wear off and I start to fully process what April told me an hour ago, I slowly begin to accept that, actually, it was he who had been the coward, not April.
Even at the end of his life, he’d not been brave enough to tell me what he’d done and had forced that awful task onto her.
And I’d blamed her for it, like a blind, self-involved, fucking idiot, not wanting to believe that my father could be such a shit.
But he was. Because for all these years, he’d let me think it was something to do with Maxim rather than him that had kept April and I apart.
Looking again now at his letter to me, it strikes me how differently it reads now that I know the truth.
But then maybe he’d sent it to me hoping it would force me to talk to April again. To try and bring us back together now that he’s gone.
Maybe.
I’d like to think so, anyway.
I can’t believe now that I went along with that fucking ridiculous revenge plan, telling myself I’d be fine at the end of it – because it was bound finally to finish things between us. But I wasn’t fine. Not even close. Because deep down I didn’t want us to be finished.
I don’t want us to be finished.
I want her back. I need her, I realise now. My heart had been hollow since the day she’d first cut me out of her life, but it felt full again while she was here with me.
I’d been happy.
I get up and pace the room, feeling the lack of her presence here like a deep abrasion on my skin.
I’m not really angry with April, only angry with myself for letting her down and putting her in the position where she felt she couldn’t confide in me.
It was the fact that she hadn’t been able to tell me that hurt me the most. That she didn’t trust me. But then of course I’d gone and proved her right when I’d acted in such a cruel, insensitive way after we split up.
No wonder she’s shut herself off from love and relationships for all these years. No wonder she can’t trust anyone with her heart. I hurt her so badly and I wasn’t there for her when she needed me most.
All I did was think about my own selfish pain.
What a fucking mess this all is. It’s not surprising she shut right back down as soon as I showed her my anger. She must have been expecting me to turn on her, and I did. I proved her worst fears about me to be right.
But I won’t do it again.
I’m going to change the pattern of my behaviour from this point. Do the right thing by her.
I want to be the man I should have been all those years ago – supportive and understanding.
Because there’s no point trying to deny it any more: the truth is we’re meant to be together. I know it. I knew it the moment she stepped onto my island.
I can’t let her go back to England thinking I hate her. Because I don’t. In fact, I feel the exact opposite. I always have.
I know what I have to do now: I need to find her and stop her from getting on that boat. I have to ask her to stay so we can work this out. If she goes back to England, I might never get a chance to be close to her again. I have a feeling she’ll make sure of that. She’s the queen of icy resistance.
Striding out of the living room, I walk straight to the front door and out to the path leading down to the harbour.
My pulse thunders in my throat.
I might just make it. The boat wasn’t due to arrive till about now. She might still be here.
Hoping to God that my epiphany hasn’t come too late, I run towards the harbour, my heart in my mouth.
April
I see the yacht in the distance making its leisurely way towards the island, its bow bobbing gently up and down in the gentle waves.
The closer it gets, the lower my heart sinks.
Jamie hasn’t appeared and asked me to stay and talk as I’d hoped he would.
It’s obvious he hates me now, even more than before, now that I’ve confirmed what a shallow, uncaring bitch I am.
I never should have brought the conversation back to our deal about his father’s company, but I’d been on the back foot, scrabbling for control, and putting on my business head was the only way I knew how to get through that painfully emotional scene. I’d well and truly reverted to type.
I stand up with a bone-deep sigh of despair, feeling my whole body aching from holding myself so stiffly for the last hour.
I’m about to start walking to the end of the jetty when I hear a sound behind me that sounds like a shout.
Blood thundering in my ears, I slowly turn to see Jamie running towards me, his legs working hard to cover the ground between us.
‘Don’t go,’ he pants as he reaches me, skidding to a halt a few feet from where I’m standing.
Bending at the waist, he props his hands on his knees, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his accelerated breathing.
I stare at the top of his head, my nerves thrumming, trying not to let myself get too excited at his appearance here. He might just have come to deal one last cruel blow to my pride then send me on my way again after all. I need to be prepared for that.
It only takes him a moment to get his breathing back under control and he unfolds his large body and takes a step towards me, holding out both hands to me, palms forward, as if he’s attempting to tame a wild beast.
‘What do you want, Jamie?’ I ask, my voice frosty and controlled. I’m not going to let him see how much I’m hurting. I have to protect myself from this. Just in case.
‘I’m sorry about the way I reacted,’ he says levelly. ‘I was so shocked and angry I couldn’t think straight and I took it out on you.’ He raises both hands higher in a gesture of apology. ‘That was wrong of me. It was a classic case of shooting the messenger.’
‘Your reaction was actually a blessing,’ I say stiffly, not wanting to trust him.
This could all still be a ruse to get something more out of me.
‘It’s actually easier for me if we’re enemies.
To know how much you despise me. So I can stay well away from you and give us the space we both need to put this fucked-up relationship down in a dignified, humane way. ’
‘That’s not what I want, April.’
I stare at him, trying to convey the full extent of my scepticism. ‘Really? Because it seemed to be exactly what you wanted when you said that I mean nothing to you!’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ he says, exasperation roughening his voice.
‘It was a defensive reaction because I felt so fucking impotent back there, so irrelevant. I should have been given some power in that situation instead of being left hanging, wondering for the rest of time what the hell I’d done wrong when it wasn’t my fault at all.
You should have told me, let me in on the secret, instead of leaving me out in the cold, feeling like a fucking failure, rejected and unwanted! ’
‘Your father begged me not to tell you!’ I shout back at him in frustration, not caring about how crazed I must seem now.
‘He was terrified of losing you. He loved you too much to hurt you like that. He just wanted you to be happy, Jamie. You’d already lost your mother…
he didn’t want you to lose him too. To be alone.
He loved you more than anything in the world! ’
He lets out a low, exasperated sigh, slumps down onto the low wall I’d been sitting on previously and puts his head in his hands. ‘I just wish I’d known about this when he was alive. Now I’ll always have this anger gnawing away at me. Ruining every memory I have of him.’
I sit down next to him, drawing my knees up to my chest and wrapping my hands around them.
‘I did it because I wanted you to be happy, Jamie,’ I say more calmly now.
‘At the time, I thought it was better to have you hate me rather than him and have your entire world crash down around you as well. I’ve thought about telling you so many times, just to have a chance to connect with you again, but as the years have gone by and you’ve acted as if you have no respect for me whatsoever, it’s got harder and harder to say anything to you. ’
My voice breaks on the last word and to my horror I suddenly begin to sob, long-held-back tears streaming from my eyes. The utter bleakness of the situation overwhelms me.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing it for the best. I was so lost after it happened. Afraid. Alone. My father was a fucking mess, and I was the only one left to look after my sisters. I had to be strong for everyone. I had to put them first.’
I’m aware of him still sitting there with his head bowed, but I can’t look directly at him. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll never be able to stop crying.