‘I think that may be a good idea,’ she says, then kisses me on both cheeks. ‘Happy Christmas, Cassie.’ She disappears to find Carter.
I go outside again into the crisp night and wander down the garden. Marvelling at its beauty momentarily distracts me from the task ahead.
In the pergola, I sit on the bench, which is draped with foliage, just as I’d planned, and pull my coat tightly around me. I’m hidden from the house, secreted away in a magical world. It’s a clear night, freezing out here, and the moon is high and full. My breath hangs in the air like a cloud. The snow is falling more thickly now, fat, lacy flakes fluttering to the ground. The weathermen have promised us a white Christmas and it looks as if we’re going to get one. But I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas, I’m dreaming of something entirely different.
This is the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make. It will shape the rest of my future. The thought makes me shiver inside. I can only hope that I’m making the right choice.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Before long, I hear the crunch of footsteps approaching and my stomach goes into knots of apprehension. Seconds later Carter pops his head round the foliage. He’s turned up the collar of his dinner jacket against the cold. My heart melts when I see him.
If I stand up, I know that he’ll take me into his arms and I don’t think that I could cope with that right now, so I stay seated. Instead, he comes to sit down next to me.
‘This feels very clandestine.’ He takes in the pergola. ‘It’s a romantic and beautiful refuge. I’m sorely tempted to leave it here all year round.’
‘I could arrange that for you, if it’s what you really want. I’m glad you like it.’
‘Oh, Cassie.’ He looks at me and sighs. ‘What are we going to do?’
I feel tongue-tied, but I have to tell him how I feel. ‘I didn’t want to come into the house tonight. I looked through the window and saw everyone enjoying themselves and I realised that it’s not my world.’
‘I’m not sure that it’s my world either,’ Carter admits. ‘There are hundreds of guests in there, eating my food, drinking my champagne, and I hardly know any of them. I’m a stranger at my own party. What’s that about?’ He reaches out to take my hand and holds it tightly. ‘You’re cold.’
I feel numb more than cold and shrug his concern away. ‘I’m OK.’
He looks as if he doesn’t believe it.
‘Really,’ I add.
‘Good.’ He toys with my fingers absently. ‘The garden looks fantastic. Max and Eve adore it.’
‘How are the children?’ The question hurts my throat. I long to see them both again.
‘Home from school,’ he says. ‘They keep asking about you.’
‘I miss them so much,’ I tell him honestly.
‘I knew you would.’ Carter sighs. It looks as if he’s weighing his words carefully before he speaks again. ‘I have been calling you all week, Cassie.’
‘I know. I just had to have time alone to think.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve made my decision, Carter.’ I turn to him and tears are shining in his eyes.
He holds up a hand. ‘Before you say anything more, I have something important that I want to say to you first.’ He presses on before I can object, his gaze not meeting mine. ‘Tamara has come back. She wants us to give our marriage another try. For the sake of the children.’
He sits there looking forlorn, his face drawn in anguish. I want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but I don’t. I want to speak but I don’t trust my voice, so we sit in silence, cocooned in the twinkling pergola, cut off from the rest of the world.
‘Please say something,’ he urges when the silence has gone on for too long.
‘I’m glad,’ I manage, as tears squeeze out of my eyes and roll onto my cheeks. Carter tenderly brushes them away with his thumb. ‘Honestly I am.’
‘I love you,’ he says. ‘You know that. I do love you. If the circumstances were different, if the timing were different —’ He runs out of words.
‘It’s the right thing to do.’ I can’t, however, stop myself from sobbing.
‘I owe it to Max and Eve.’ His voice sounds bleak as he continues. ‘Tamara might be flawed, she might be a pain in the bloody arse, but she’s their mother.’
And I, of all people, know all about that. However inadequate your mother might be, whatever her faults, she’s the only one that you’ll ever have. No one can take her place.
‘I desperately wanted to tell you,’ Carter said. ‘How could I text that to you? I was trying to see you, believe me.’
‘I do.’
‘Tell me that you understand.’
‘Yes.’ My body is shaking and only part of it is due to the cold. ‘Of course.’
‘My heart is telling me to call a halt to this now. To tell Tamara that we’ll never manage to patch things up. But my head says that I have to try to make a go of our relationship.’ I can feel the pain coming from him. This is not an easy thing for him to do. ‘I can’t deny Max and Eve that chance. I think of the letter that Eve wrote to Santa and it breaks my heart.’
In Carter’s shoes I’m sure that I would feel exactly the same.
‘God, I feel wretched doing this to you. Will you be all right, Cassie?’
I nod. The tears still flow, but I turn to say, ‘You may not believe this, but I actually came to tell you that I’m staying with Jim.’
‘Oh.’
That obviously takes him by surprise. Perhaps a man who is used to getting what he wants would automatically assume that I would choose him. For a moment, I think that it was a close-run thing. However, I know where my heart truly lies. I know who I want my future to be with, who I want to marry, who I want to raise children with.
We both manage a teary laugh. Carter pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. Even as I rest my head on his shoulder I feel my resolve waver.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers in my hair. ‘This has been so difficult for us both. I never meant it to be.’
‘And I never meant to fall in love with someone else.’ But it was so very easy to love Carter and his children. So very easy. ‘It’s always been Jim and that’s how I want it to stay.’
‘He’s an extremely lucky man.’
‘I’m not sure he sees it that way right now.’
The snow starts to fall even more heavily now. Flakes whirl slowly to the ground. I hold out my hand, beyond the pergola, and catch one. It melts instantly, gone as soon as it is there. I look up at the sky. ‘This reminds me of Lapland.’
‘Our trip was a very special time for me, Cassie Christmas. You’re so natural and full of warmth, you showed me what I want from my life, for my children. I’ll be forever grateful to you for that. How I wish we could have all stayed in that blissfully happy bubble.’
‘Me too.’ It’s a time in my life that I’ll always hold in my heart.
‘You have a gift for making people’s Christmas wishes come true,’ he says. ‘All the children wanted for Christmas was to be a family again with Tamara and me. Thank you for helping me to see that.’
‘The future has to be about what’s important for them.’
‘I know.’ He sighs as if he wishes it could be different. ‘I do hope that you’ll carry on with your business.’
‘I plan to. It’s been hard work, but I’ve loved every minute.’ Some of it more than I should have. ‘I couldn’t have done it without Jim,’ I confess. ‘He’s held it together for me.’ While I’ve been falling apart. ‘Jim and two of the boys from the Young Offenders’ Unit where he works. He’s given them a chance to turn their lives around and they’ve really grasped it with both hands.’
‘He sounds very noble.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s just a nice, ordinary man who tries to do his best for everyone.’
‘I’m sure the boys will really benefit from having someone like that in their lives.’
‘I hope so. They’ve done me proud in the business too. It was a risk t
aking them on but Georgina says they’ve been wonderful at co-ordinating the party with her. I can’t ask for better feedback than that.’
‘She told me so. I didn’t realise the full extent of their background, though. Sometimes it makes me feel guilty that my children have so very much.’
‘That’s just life, isn’t it? The way the cookie crumbles. The boys just need a break. Basically, they’re good kids who have taken a wrong turn. If we can help, I want to get them back on track. I’m going to try to continue the business throughout the year in some capacity so that I can give them work for as long as they want it.’
‘If you put your mind to it, then I’m sure you can do it.’
‘I hope so. Jim has already arranged for accommodation in Halfway House, a supervised flat in Hemel Hempstead. So they’ll soon have their own place to live. It’s just a matter of keeping the work coming in now so that they stay out of trouble.’
I look out at Carter’s resplendent mansion and think of Kieran having to live in a wheelie bin and wonder why life is sometimes so unfair. My heart surges with pride, with love, for Jim and the boys. They are good people. Really good people.
‘It’s just like you. Always thinking of others.’
‘You’re also putting other people’s needs ahead of what you want,’ I remind him. If it weren’t for the children, there’s no way that Carter would be trying to patch up his relationship with Tamara. ‘Sometimes it’s simply what has to be done. It will come right.’
His head rests again on top of mine and he strokes my hair. ‘Will we be able to remain friends?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I tell him. ‘A clean break is probably for the best.’
‘The children will be devastated. I’m devastated.’
‘There are no winners in this, Carter. But they’ll forget me. Children are remarkably resilient. It’s their mum who’s important now.’ I reach into my pocket. ‘I’ve brought gifts for them. Just silly little things.’
There’s a pretty, pink bracelet for Eve – not a designer label, but one that I know she’ll love. And there’s a SpyPen for Max that has a compass, a secret compartment and it writes in invisible ink.
‘That’s very kind of you.’ Carter takes them from me and slips them inside his jacket. ‘I’d better get back inside before I’m missed,’ he says sadly. ‘Or Tamara and I will be having our first row sooner than I’d like.’
‘I really hope it works out with her. For everyone’s sake.’
‘At the moment, she’s promising the moon. She says she’s going to cut back on her workload, not travel so much. She wants to do more things together as a family. It all sounds like good news, doesn’t it?’
I nod but the forced hopefulness in his voice makes me want to cry again.
‘I’ve started to look for a new CEO to take some of the pressure off me. I can’t expect it all to come from Tamara. I have to meet her halfway. If we’re both going to be at home more, we’ve even talked of moving the children to a local school. Perhaps if we both try hard enough, it really could work.’ He risks a wary smile. ‘We’ll see.’
He turns me towards him and cups my face in his hands. ‘Oh, Cassie Christmas,’ he sighs, ‘how will I live without you?’
And that’s what finally confirmed my decision for me. I could imagine a life with Carter so, so easily, but it was impossible to imagine a life without Jim.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
I ease myself away from Carter. ‘I should leave now.’
‘I love you,’ he repeats, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Don’t ever forget that. If you ever need me – for anything – you know where I am. You only have to call.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
But I know that if I’m going to make my own relationship work with Jim, I can never call Carter again. I can only hope that Jim will forgive me and we can get back to where we were. I have a lot of work to do to regain his trust.
I reach in my pocket and take out the keys to the shiny red Mercedes. ‘I can’t accept this,’ I tell him.
Carter folds my fingers around them. ‘Please do. It would make me very happy. Think of it as a small Christmas gift. Something to remember me by.’
That’s exactly why I can’t accept it. Nevertheless, I put the keys back in my pocket. I haven’t the strength to argue about it.
‘Goodbye, Carter.’
He grips me in a final tight embrace. ‘I’m finding it hard to let you go.’
I close my eyes and breathe in his scent. There will always be a secret piece of my heart reserved for Carter Randall, but that’s all it must ever be. Now I want to go to Jim. I want to go to him and love only him once again.
‘Goodbye, Cassie Christmas,’ Carter says.
We pull away from our embrace. Carter buttons his dinner jacket and flicks up the collar. He’s shivering now.
‘I’m just going to sit here for a minute longer,’ I say. ‘Gather my thoughts.’
‘How can I walk away?’
‘Your guests, your children, your wife are waiting for you. Just leave me here.’ I smile at him though my eyes are glistening with tears. ‘I’ll be fine.’
So Carter stands up, pulls his jacket more tightly around him and says, ‘If you ever see the northern lights again, think of me.’
‘I will.’ Of course I will. How could I not?
He blows me a loving kiss and, with a shake of his head, turns abruptly and strides away across the garden, back to the house.
I watch him go, with a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, but I feel peace settling in my heart.
I wait for five minutes, unmoving. Then, as I start to lose the feeling in my fingers and my toes, I think that I’d better shift myself before hypothermia sets in. Making myself stand up, I rub my arms to get some warmth back into them.
I cross the garden, leaving behind the special, secret place and skirting the hubbub of the party. At the front of the house, guests are arriving all the time and the drive is filling up with more and more swanky cars. As I pass the security guard, I hand him the keys to the shiny red Mercedes that brought me here. ‘Can you please make sure that Mr Randall gets these at the end of the evening?’
‘Sure,’ he says and pockets the keys.
I check my phone, but there’s no signal at the moment. Maybe the weather is affecting it. Perhaps it will be better if I walk to the end of the drive and try again. I can call a cab or, if that fails, walk to the local pub and ring one from there.
The snow is heavy now, settling on my hair. My coat will soon be soaked. I always knew that I would leave the car behind, but I hadn’t made any other plans for my getaway. A warmer and more waterproof jacket, at the very least, would have been more appropriate. Better still, I could have asked Gaby to come and collect me. But I didn’t think of that. For someone who’s supposed to be a professional planner, it seems I didn’t think of much at all.
Halfway along the drive, I turn and look back at the house, at the party in full swing. I think of Carter inside with his wife, his children. At an upstairs window, I see a figure. I’m sure it’s Tamara, hair piled high on her head. And I’m sure she’s staring directly down at me. Then she swishes the curtains closed and disappears from view, shutting me out of her life. That’s as it must be.
Turning away from the house, I plod on.
My feet are getting wet too. Snow seeps in through inadequate seams in my ‘fashion’ boots. Wellingtons would have been an idea. I try my phone again, but still no joy. When I reach the end of the drive and my spirits are dragging on the floor of rock bottom, I look up. Opposite the gates, I see a familiar sight.
Jim’s car is parked there and, if I’m not very much mistaken, Jim is sitting inside.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
‘Cassie!’ Jim is out of the car as soon as he catches sight of me. My heart skips a beat and I could cry with relief when I see his strong, sturdy presence in the snow.
He rushes across the road to where I stand. ??
?Where’s your car?’ His face is dark with anguish. ‘Why are you out here by yourself?’
In my surprise, I say, ‘I could ask you the same.’
‘I called Gaby to see if you wanted me to bring you up here to check on the party. I didn’t want you driving in this snow. She told me that you’d already gone.’ He looks awkward now. ‘I was just worried. I wanted to make sure you’d got here all right.’
‘Oh, Jim.’ Now I can’t hold back my tears and I start to cry. He takes me in his arms.