Reaching past him, she stole a carrot stick, crunching as she watched him rearrange his features into something neutral.
‘How about we don’t worry about it until it actually happens? I know you’ve already prepared everything you could. I trust you.’
She saw the muscle of his jaw tick and pressed a kiss there, reaching as she did so for more of the carrots.
He tapped the back of her hand playfully, the atmosphere between them easing a little. ‘If you keep eating them at this rate, there’ll be none left for dinner.’
She huffed, taking just one more. ‘What can I say? You wore me out. I need to refuel.’ He smiled at that, and she let herself breathe a little easier. Things had threatened to get heavy there for a minute and that had never been what this was about. They had agreed that this was just a bit of fun. And there was nothing fun about digging into one another’s hang-ups. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted him digging into hers. It was just hard, seeing him so obviously hurting over something that had been so completely out of his control.
But it was Christmas, and she would avoid arguing if only for the sake of that.
‘I’m not sure Lara’s followers are interested in me peeling carrots,’ he said, his features warming to her.
‘You look hot with a speed-peeler,’ she said, taking another couple of pictures.
‘What, like this?’ he asked, holding a particularly large carrot in a way that bordered on obscene, reducing Jess to a fit of laughter.
‘I am definitely not sending these to Lara,’ she said, showing him the photo reel. He laughed too, and suddenly she could breathe again. Until her phone started ringing, and her mum’s name showed on the screen.
‘I have to take this,’ she said, moving a step away from him. She knew this was going to be hard, and having Rufus listen in would only make it harder.
She walked through the door to the great hall as she swiped ‘Answer’ on the screen.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said. ‘Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas,’ her mum said, obviously trying to inject some jollity into her voice, but Jess could hear how fake it was.
‘Are you and Dad having a nice morning?’
‘Oh, you know...’
And she did—she did know. And it broke her heart.
‘Mum, do you think...?’ She took a deep breath. Thought of all the hints that she’d dropped all those years, and all the times that she’d stopped short of coming out and saying what she’d been thinking. ‘Are you happy?’
Her mum’s silence said it all.
‘Because I worry about you,’ Jess went on. ‘I really want you to be happy. Dad too. And I don’t think you make each other happy any more. Not since we lost Charlotte. I’m sorry, but it’s Christmas, and I just can’t bear the thought that you two have been miserable all this time, and if what you think I’ll feel if you split up is any part of why you haven’t, just...don’t. Please.’
‘Jess, your dad and I love you very much.’
‘I know! I know you do. But you don’t seem to love each other any more. You don’t seem to make each other happy. And maybe we should all go to lots of therapy together. I don’t know. I just know that something should change. Because the way things feel isn’t right.’
It had taken this—being here, away from her family—for her to realise that she couldn’t just carry on. She couldn’t get through another Christmas with all this unsaid. Something had to change.
She spoke to her mum for a few more minutes, assured her that everything was fine at Upton, and the local weather reports were expecting a thaw in a couple of days. She even managed a couple of words with her dad before the lump in her throat got too big to ignore and she made her excuses and hung up, with promises that they would all talk some more when she got home. She sat on the sheepskin in front of the fire, winding her scarf round her neck while she looked into the flames, wondering how her family had been reduced to this. Wondering whether she’d invented those childhood memories of laughing, happy parents, noisy Christmas mornings, ripping through paper with Charlotte.
No, she reminded herself. Those memories were real, and she owed it to Charlotte to remember that. To fight back against the pit of despair her parents threatened to pull her into. That they had pulled each other into. She just wished that she could make them happier. That she could undo the years that they had spent not talking about how they really felt and being miserable instead. The years that she had spent without her sister. With a part of herself missing.
It was the reminder that she needed, at just the right time, of why she didn’t do this. Why she didn’t get involved. Why she had agreed to walk away from Rufus when the snow was gone. She was never going to live how her parents did. And if that meant walking away from a man like Rufus then that was what she would have to do.
‘Hey,’ said a voice behind her, and she looked up to find Rufus leaning against the staircase, watching her. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, crossing over to where she was sitting on the floor. He sat behind her, his strong thighs bracketing her hips as he pulled her back against him and wrapped his arms tight around her.
Jess nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet, and Rufus pressed his lips to her hair.
‘I’m sorry you’re sad,’ he said gently. ‘Today especially. Is there anything I can do to help?’
‘This,’ Jess said softly. ‘This is good. This is helping.’