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The breath caught in Clara’s throat. Had he spent the past five years the way she had, imagining a parallel life in which they were still together? Another universe where they were happy?
‘I couldn’t let go of us either,’ she admitted quietly. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I never pushed back when your lawyers put obstacles in my way.’
‘I wondered.’ Jacob shifted closer, just near enough so that his sleeve brushed against hers. Barely touching, but still she felt it like a lightning strike through her body. It was as if everything she’d ever been missing was finally coming home. ‘I hoped.’
‘I guess it’s not as easy as all that to just leave a year of marriage behind,’ she said, swallowing hard as she saw the heat in his eyes.
‘Oh, I don’t know. The marriage part was only ever a piece of paper. It was you I couldn’t bear to be without.’ Not the status. Not the band on his finger that showed his clients that he was serious, grown up, able to take care of business.
Her. Just Clara.
He wanted her, the way that her own family never had. And even if he decided to walk away tomorrow, she owed herself one more night of being wanted like that.
She knew now the real reason why she’d never signed those papers either. Because she still wanted him too. She’d been waiting for him to confirm that it was over.
And suddenly it wasn’t. It wasn’t over at all.
She couldn’t say which of them moved first, but in a blink of an eye the distance between them disappeared and she was close enough to feel his breath against her lips. Her tongue darted out to run over them, as if she could taste him there already.
Jacob groaned, low, in the back of his throat, and then the millimetres between them vanished altogether.
The kiss felt just as Clara remembered—like love, and home, and warmth—and she wondered how she’d lived without this for five long and lonely years. How she had ever believed, even for a moment, that things could be over between them.
She knew now, in that instant, that things could never be truly finished between her and Jacob. Whatever happened next, however large the distance between them might grow, it would never be the end. She would always be connected to this man, in a way far more elemental and real than a mere marriage certificate. It wasn’t even only Ivy who held her tied to him; it was her own heart.
And that, she’d discovered, she couldn’t organise and order into submission. Her heart had a life of its own, a love of its own, and it had chosen Jacob six years ago and had never let go.
She knew now it never would.
Jacob pulled back, just enough to look into her eyes, his forehead resting against hers and his breath coming as fast as her own.
‘Okay?’ he murmured.
‘Just fine,’ Clara replied, her mouth strangely dry.
She knew there were questions to be answered, things to consider and decisions to be made, eventually. But, right in this moment, her world had shrunk to little more than just the two of them and the snow falling outside that had kept them together on Christmas Eve, six years to the day after they met.
Then her phone buzzed and she remembered the oven warming and the food waiting to be cooked. She pulled back but Jacob’s hand shot out and he wrapped his fingers around her waist.
‘Ignore it,’ he whispered.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Clara asked.
‘Not for anything you can cook.’ Jacob gave her a slow, hot smile and Clara knew that dinner would be several hours away.
And by that time she would be ravenous.
This time, it was Clara who leant in to kiss him first and that kiss led to many, many more, each more wonderful than she’d remembered, or ever dreamt she’d feel again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
JACOB STRETCHED OUT across the sheets of the four-poster bed, luxuriating in the warmth of the fire burning in the grate, the wonderful ache in his muscles from a night of loving his wife and the feel of Clara’s smooth, bare skin beside him.
Well.
That wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d envisioned the perfect family Christmas, but now it was here...
He’d forgotten how in tune they were, physically. They might not have been able to communicate all the issues they had between them in their marriage, and in their pasts, but physically they’d always been able to express themselves totally. The way their bodies moved against each other, the way their fingers sought out sensitive places, the way their mouths moved across skin... That was beyond conversation, beyond language, even. It was innate. It was special.
It was something Jacob knew he’d never find with another living soul, no matter how hard he looked.
Maybe that was the real reason he’d held up the divorce. Maybe it hadn’t been his need not to fail, or to prove something, or to make Clara as miserable as she’d made him by leaving.
Maybe it had been as simple as knowing that Clara was his only chance at true happiness.
Only an idiot would give that up without a fight. But when Clara had left she’d denied him that fight, taking the battleground far away, somewhere he couldn’t reach.
But now he had his opportunity.
His last chance to win back his wife.
But if he wanted that chance, he had to make a decision—the biggest he might ever make. He couldn’t rush it, just because sex with Clara was so good. This mattered—Ivy mattered. Even if he couldn’t be her father, he still knew she mattered more than anything, especially to Clara. So he had to get this right. He wouldn’t hurt another child—physically or emotionally.
One night with Clara wasn’t enough to brush away all of his fears, and he’d be an idiot if he thought it could. But Clara believed in him. That counted for something.
It counted for a hell of a lot, in fact.
But was it enough?
Only Jacob could make that decision. And he wasn’t sure where to start.
* * *
Clara woke to the glorious pressure of Jacob’s lips against her skin and let herself just enjoy the moment for almost a full minute before reality came crashing down around her.
She’d slept with her ex-husband. She’d let herself get carried away by the connection between them before th
ey’d come to any decision about Ivy—just as she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do.
She hadn’t even worked on persuading him that having a child in his life would not be the terrible, horrible thing he imagined.
She’d done nothing to convince him that Heather’s childhood accident shouldn’t affect his whole life, or to deal with the issues that had spanned their marriage and led to her leaving in the first place. Instead, she’d just taken what she’d wanted, selfishly and greedily, and without thinking about what would happen in the morning.
But now it was morning.
She sighed, puffing air out into the pillow. They had talked, they’d covered all sorts of secrets and she’d given him her terms. That wasn’t nothing. She understood him a lot better now. She’d just have to hope it was enough and that he knew what he was committing to if he chose to be part of Ivy’s life.
Jacob’s hands ran up the length of her body, his fingertips skimming her skin and making her shiver. She almost didn’t want to move, didn’t want to give any sign that she was awake, because the moment she did the night would be over and they would have to deal with the hard decisions to be made in the cold light of day. If Jacob said no, if this really was the end for them, she just wanted one more moment in his arms...
But Ivy was out there waiting for her.
Opening her eyes, Clara realised that they hadn’t even managed to close the curtains before falling into the massive four-poster bed the night before, and the winter sun that Jacob had been so sure that Scotland never saw was streaming in through the glass.
‘It’s stopped snowing,’ Clara said, blinking in the light.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Jacob murmured, his lips busy working their way across her neck. ‘So it has.’
Suddenly, Clara’s mind overruled her body and she twisted around in his arms to face him, even as her skin called out for more. ‘If the snow has stopped they might be clearing the roads.’
