Jack had planned to take some more time off work so he could be with Marli but, as luck would have it, things went awry with a hotel development in Brussels. There was no one else he could send in his place at such short notice. Packing a bag and travelling from week to week had never been a problem before. He had always enjoyed the change of scene and the kick of excitement at the thought of new casual dating experiences. But now it sickened him to his gut to think of sleeping with anyone but Harper. He couldn’t imagine feeling desire for anyone else ever again. Had fatherhood changed him so much?
Had Harper changed him so much?
His hotel suite in London had never felt less like a home. He was almost glad to be leaving it to go to Brussels, but he knew he would have to come back eventually and face the emptiness of the penthouse. It was full of luxury furniture and top-quality furnishings, it had commanding views over London, and he had staff to wait on his every whim. But oh, what he would have given for the sound of his baby daughter stirring in her sleep. Damn it, he would even welcome a full-on crying jag like the one on the journey home.
His staff had followed his instructions to the letter. There was no trace of Harper or Marli in his suite now—no rattles, or pink-beribboned teddy bears or unicorns that played lullabies. Nothing to remind him how much his life had changed.
Jack’s phone rang just as he was closing his travel bag. He glanced at the screen and saw it was his mother. He hadn’t yet told her of Harper’s decision not to marry him. He hadn’t wanted to say the words out loud because it hurt too damn much. ‘Hi, Mum, I’m just dashing off to the airport. The Brussels development has a few issues to iron out. What’s up?’
‘Nothing, darling, I just wondered if I could come by and see Marli.’
‘You’ll have to ask Harper.’
‘Can you put her on for me?’
Savage pain seized him in the gut. ‘Not at the moment.’ He let out a rough-edged sigh. ‘She’s moved back to her flat.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s decided she doesn’t want to marry me.’
‘That girl has rocks in her head turning down a marriage proposal from you.’ The indignation in his mother’s tone would have amused him on any other day, but not today. ‘Do you want me to talk to her?’ she added.
‘I don’t think it would help.’
‘I hope she’s not going to make it difficult for me to see Marli.’ His mother’s voice was less indignant now and more despairing. A despair he could relate to. But it wasn’t just Marli he wanted to see each day. It was also Harper.
Jack propped his phone against his shoulder and jaw as he zipped up his travel bag. ‘I don’t think she’ll do that. She wants what’s best for Marli.’
‘But if she wants what’s best for Marli, why isn’t she marrying you?’
‘Because she wants me to be in love with her and I can’t do that.’
There was an odd little silence. Odd because his mother rarely if ever left room for a silence.
‘Can’t or won’t?’
Jack removed his phone from its propped position against his shoulder. ‘I’ve never been in love and I don’t intend to start now. It seems to me to be a loser’s game. You only get hurt in the end.’
‘And you’re not hurting now?’
‘Not particularly.’ It was a blatant lie but he didn’t want his mother to worry about him. Or interfere and make things worse.
‘Jack... I know you found things difficult with your father,’ his mother began in a tone he had never heard her use before. ‘But he was a good man, a decent man who loved his family. You probably don’t remember the good times, you were too young. His diagnosis completely shattered him. The prospect of being disabled terrified him and it locked him down inside himself. He literally changed overnight. I kept trying to reconnect with the man I fell in love with all those years ago.’
A lump had come to Jack’s throat that made speaking difficult. ‘And did you reconnect with him?’
His mother gave a lengthy sigh. ‘Sadly no. But I lived in hope until his very last breath, because that’s what true love does. It never gives up hope.’
Jack put his phone down a few minutes later and frowned as he thought about what his mother had told him. She had given up her career and the best years of her life to nurse a grumpy and difficult man who had once loved her but never shown it in any meaningful way since, up to the day he died.
If anything, it only confirmed his stance on resisting falling in love. Feeling true love for someone seemed to him a pretty painful way to live.
And right now, he could do without any more pain.
A week later, Harper was in her office sitting at her computer trying to edit photos from the Paris shoot, but Marli was fussing in the pram even though she had been fed and changed. So this was the juggle working mothers talked about. The ceaseless demands of a small infant and the pressing demands of deadlines. Jack was still away in Brussels to deal with some sort of development issue at one of his hotels. They had spoken a couple of times on the phone and he had seemed polite but distant in his manner. But when she’d put on the video function for him to see Marli, his face lit up, reminding her of why she had fallen for him in the first place. Who could resist that killer smile? Those midnight-blue eyes? That sensual touch—?
But no, she wasnotto think of his touch. Not now. Not again. He had probably hooked up with someone else by now. Maybe more than one person. Her stomach churned at the thought, jealousy streaking through her like a poisoned arrow.