‘Yes, Jack, it’s my final decision,’ Harper said. ‘When we return to London tomorrow, I’m moving back to my flat until I find somewhere a little more suitable to live.’
He swallowed a tight stricture in his throat. ‘But the house I bought will be available soon. It just needs some more work before it’s ready.’
She gave a sad smile that cast her features into shadows like a dimmer switch on a once bright light. ‘It’s very generous of you but I can find my own accommodation.’ She paused for a moment and then continued, ‘I find it so odd you’re prepared to commit to buying a house and yet you can’t commit yourself emotionally. Why is that?’
Jack knew exactly why he was unable to commit. He had never talked about it with anyone before. It was too deeply personal and painful. But he had already shared with Harper his lost dreams of being an artist. Why not share this too? ‘I saw what loving my father did to my mother. I know you don’t like her that much but she is a good person at heart. She loved my father dearly and was one hundred per cent committed to him in sickness and in health. Unfortunately, my father’s illness meant she spent a lot more time dealing with sickness than with health. She gave up all her own aspirations to be by his side, but I’m not sure he ever appreciated her the way she deserved to be appreciated.’
‘But he loved her, didn’t he? Or did he ask her to have a loveless marriage the way you proposed to me?’
Jack was uncomfortable being compared to his father, especially now he was a father himself. ‘I’m not sure if he loved her the way she loved him. Their relationship always seemed a little one-sided. He wasn’t a particularly demonstrative man and I don’t recall him ever telling her he loved her. He may have done so in private.’
‘Did he tell you he loved you?’
‘No, but I didn’t feel unloved, or at least not in the early days. After he became ill, he changed. He became hard to be around. Only my mother could handle his moods.’ And Jack hadn’t even bothered trying. Had he missed an opportunity to build a better relationship with his ailing father? It was too late now.
Way too late.
‘When will I see Marli?’ Jack was aware of his gut tightening into knots. Aware of a sense of dread filling his chest, a creeping fear that he was going to fail as a father because he couldn’t be with his daughter the way he wanted to be. He had never planned to be a father but, now that he was, the last thing he wanted to be was a part-time one. But how could he be anything but part-time when Harper wouldn’t marry him?
‘You can see her whenever you want. I won’t stop you. I’ll have to think about some day care for her. I need to get back to work at some point.’
‘I can do a four-day week or even a three-day one,’ Jack said, wondering if he was turning into someone he couldn’t recognise. Where was the man who rarely took a weekend off? Where was the man who worked eighteen-hour days? ‘And my mother will be happy to help out.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
There was a silence so intense Jack was sure she would be able to hear each and every one of his hammering heartbeats.
‘Of course, it goes without saying that I won’t be sharing that bed with you again tonight or ever,’ Harper said. ‘It’s almost morning anyway.’
It hit him then like a punch. The knockout blow of reality that he would no longer hold Harper in his arms. No longer feel her electrifying touch gliding along his skin. No longer feel the soft but passionate press of her lips against his own. She was drawing a line underneath their relationship. A boundary line that he would not be able to cross. Or at least not without compromising himself in a way he had sworn never to do.
‘This...decision of yours seems rather sudden,’ Jack said, unable or unwilling to take the bite out of his tone. ‘Or did you want to have the extra time in Paris first?’
A hard light came into her eyes. ‘It was your idea to extend our stay, for what reason I’m not sure. Did you think it would charm me into agreeing to marry you?’
‘It clearly didn’t work if it was.’
Harper let out another heavy sigh. ‘I don’t want any animosity between us, Jack. We have to put our daughter first, and getting on with each other is important.’
He didn’t want toget onwith her. He didn’t want some formal, hands-off type of friendship. He wantedher. But how could he have her without pretending to feel things he didn’t feel?
Jack walked over to the windows but for the first time ever the view did nothing for him. It was just another river winding through yet another city. Paris, the city of love, the most romantic city in the world, was tarnished by his break-up with Harper.
‘Jack?’
Jack turned around to face her but he kept his expression masked. ‘Let’s not drag this out any more. You’ve made your decision and I’ve accepted it.’ He hadn’t but he would force himself to. He was not going to beg her to stay with him. He already had acted out of character by waiting for nine long months for her to contact him again.
‘I just wanted to say thank you again for being so supportive. Not many men would have coped as well as you did with the news of a baby arriving so suddenly. You’re a wonderful father to Marli. I wouldn’t want any of our baggage to get in the way of your relationship with her.’
Jack went over to the pram where Marli was still sleeping soundly. He stroked a barely touching finger over the peachy skin of her tiny cheek and his heart contracted at the thought of not seeing her every day. How would he bear it? How could he have gone from worldly playboy to devoted dad so seamlessly? One thing he knew for sure—he couldn’t go back to his old style of living. The footloose and fancy-free lifestyle that had a stream of nameless women coming and going in his life. But neither could he have Harper, the only woman he wanted right now. He was stuck between the two worlds and, unlike along the silvery river outside, there were no bridges.
No safe passage could get him across.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HARPERFOUNDITsadly fitting that Marli cried on and off for most of the journey back to London. It seemed as if her baby girl was crying the tears she herself was unwilling to shed—or at least not in front of Jack. She had bared her soul to him last night and it had not produced the results she had hoped for. He remained mostly silent on the flight. He helped soothe Marli, which was a blessing because Harper found it difficult to manage those piteous cries when her own heart was breaking.
Finally, the hellish journey was over and Marli was asleep in her capsule as Jack brought it inside Harper’s flat. He had arranged for his staff to transport all the baby paraphernalia from his hotel suite to her flat before they got home. He had even organised fresh food to be delivered so she didn’t have to negotiate the shops with a young baby. It was another reminder of the power and efficiency at Jack’s fingertips—he could get things done in half a day that would take other people a week, if not more.