‘This has been the most surreal conversation of my life and I don’t know what else to say,’ Angus said, his voice vibrating with an emotion she couldn’t identify. She’d hurt him, and she knew he was wondering how and why his carefully planned day had gone so awry.
‘There’s nothing to say,’ she told him, trying to smile. She took his big hand, holding it in both of hers. ‘I still intend to tell the boys that you are their father, and you can stay here, in my spare room, until you find a permanent South African base. They need you in their lives, theydo.’
‘But you don’t.’
Had he not heard anything she’d said? ‘Of course, I do, but I need more than you can give,’ she said, her voice sad. She stood up on her toes and kissed his cheek. ‘You need to get going or you’re going to miss your take-off slot.’
‘That’s it?’ Angus asked.
Thadie nodded her head. ‘Take care, Angus.’
And with her eyes brimming with hot tears, she walked out of the room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘MUM,ANGUSWANTSto talk to you,’ Gus shouted. Thadie placed a hand on his small shoulder and looked down into the screen, wondering if the butterflies in her stomach would ever go away whenever she heard his name. Angus was sitting in a wide leather seat and, judging by the inky darkness she could see in the jet’s window behind him, he was in another time zone. She took in his tight lips and stiff neck, and tried to smile but couldn’t. It had been two weeks since he’d walked out of her life but his frequent calls to the twins hadn’t stopped. He was as much a part of their lives as before, maybe even more so.
Thadie noticed the dark smudges under his eyes and his messy hair. He’d had another long day.
Finn came rushing up to them and held his hand out for the tablet. Thadie rolled her eyes as she handed it over. Her younger son had already spent ten minutes telling Angus about his day, in excruciating detail. What more could he have to say?
Angus spoke before he could. ‘Bud, I need to talk to your mum so can this wait until we chat later?’ he asked.
So he was still going to call the boys later? ‘I want to know why—’
‘Finn,bud,’ Angus interrupted him, keeping his voice gentle, ‘I want to talk to you but unless you’re feeling sick or sad, it’s going to have to wait until later, okay?’
Finn considered his words and nodded. ‘’Kay, bye!’
Finn shoved the tablet into Thadie’s hands and ran to join his brother in the playroom. In the confines of her too-small screen, Thadie watched Angus take a slug of what looked like whiskey from a crystal tumbler, before resting the glass on his forehead.
When he looked into the camera again, he managed a rueful look. ‘Just to tell you how my day is going, that conversation with my three-year-old was the most rational I’ve had today.’
She winced as she sat down on the wooden blanket box that she used as a coffee table. She missed him, yearned for him. She wanted his strong arms around her, for him to wake up beside her, to exchange long, lazy kisses, kisses with no beginning or no end.
She wished he loved her...
Oh, he probably did, as much as he could. But it wasn’t enough.
Thadie started to ask him about his day, wanting him to tell her what had gone wrong, and then remembered that she couldn’t open that door to emotional intimacy. Not when he’d made it very clear he wasn’t prepared to walk through it.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.
No, she was thoroughly miserable, she felt as if she were walking around without a heart. But that was her fault—she’d handed hers to him, and he hadn’t asked for it. ‘I’m fine,’ Thadie replied, internally wincing at her terse reply.
His eyes changed colour, turning cooler. ‘I wanted to tell you that my lawyer received all the documentation regarding the boys. Thank you for allowing joint custody, for being so reasonable.’
That wasn’t how she’d currently describe herself. Heartbroken, sad, joyless...they all applied. Reasonable? Not so much.
‘You’re a good father, Angus, I was happy to do it,’ Thadie said, forcing the words out. They weren’t the words she most wanted to say...
She was feeling tired and emotional, and it took all her effort not to let her always-close-to-the-surface tears roll down her face. She wanted to tell him she missed him. She wanted to askhim why he couldn’t love her, why he, like her parents, couldn’t give her what she most wanted. A soft place to fall, strong arms willing to catch her, a forever love to buoy and bolster her.
No, this wasn’t on her and she needed to remember that. She’d done a lot of thinking and had had more than a few major revelations. Her parents were emotionally stunted and wouldn’t have recognised love if it slapped them in the face. And she wasn’t responsible for Angus’s thoughts and decisions. She couldn’t force him to love her, and she didn’t want a love that was coerced. Love under those conditions would wither and die.
Thadie dug deep, sucked up another little bit of strength and forced what she knew was a brittle smile onto her face. ‘Sign what you need to sign, and the lawyers can take care of the formalities,’ Thadie told him. ‘We’ll tell them you are their dad when next you are in town.’
‘Okay.’ He pushed his fingers up and under his black-framed glasses—so hot!—to push his thumbs into his eyes. ‘How is your new partnership shaping up?’ he asked, his eyes still closed.