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‘I would have liked to have had a father,’ she said after another tiny silence. ‘I guess that’s why I clung to Gerald such a lot … he filled an emptiness in my life.’
He looked at her again. ‘So what you’re saying is you’ve been carrying around a dad-shaped hole all your life.’
Her chest deflated on a little sigh. ‘Yes … I guess that is what I’m saying.’
Silence again.
‘Do you think that’s why you rushed into your relationship with Myles Lederman?’ he asked, ‘Because you were searching for another father-figure?’
‘I don’t know …’ She released another sigh. ‘Maybe. Lucy, my friend at the salon seemed to think so. I just want to be happy. I want a family to call my own. I want it all.’
‘You can’t have it all,’ he said. ‘No one can, or at least not for ever.’
‘But what about the Hendersons?’ she asked. ‘They still love each other after all these years. That’s what I want.’
‘You want an old man dribbling in a wheelchair some time in your future, do you?’
She gave him a reproving look. ‘He was once a strong, fit man like you. Pearl loves him for who he is as a person. That’s real love, Jasper. That’s what I want.’
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You really need to see someone about that idealistic complex you have. The world isn’t full of happy ever afters, Hayley. You of all people should know that.’
‘I know life isn’t always perfect, but I want my kids to have a different life from mine.’ She clamped down on her lip and then releasing it, confessed, ‘I hated my childhood. The constant stream of horrible men who came and went. I hated changing schools all the time. I hated being the odd one out, the one with the worst clothes while my mother wore the latest fashions. I hated all of it. No child should have to go through that and no child of mine will. I swear to God I won’t let it happen.’
Jasper frowned at the bitterness in her tone. ‘I hadn’t realised you were so unhappy. You seemed to enjoy living at Crickglades.’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘It was the first real home we’d ever lived in.’ She let out a little sigh and added, ‘We’d always lived in flats or council houses. Crickglades was the first real garden I’d ever been able to wander about in. I used to love the roses. There were so many of them and when it was hot the scent of them would fill the air. I loved that.’
He swallowed against the walnut-sized lump of emotion blocking his throat. How like his mother she had sounded!
‘I hated leaving when Gerald divorced my mother,’ she said in the same soft tone. ‘He asked me to stay but I thought it would upset you too much.’
He reached over and took her hand and gave it a tiny squeeze. ‘You were just a kid, sweetheart. A rather cute kid, if I remember correctly.’
She sent him an ironic look. ‘I thought you said I was a spoilt brat?’
‘You were.’
She pulled her hand out of his and pouted at him. ‘You can never hand out a compliment without a sting in its tail somewhere, can you?’
He smiled at her before turning back to the road. ‘Just keeping you in your place, baby girl. I don’t want you to get a big head just because you’re the only woman who has managed so far to get me within a bull’s roar of an altar.’
‘We’re not there yet,’ she said with a defiant hitch of he
r chin. ‘I could always pull the plug, even now at this late stage.’
His dark eyes glinted at her meaningfully. ‘You could indeed, but then that would be asking for trouble, now, wouldn’t it?’
She settled back in her seat with a scowl. ‘It seems to me I’m going to be knee deep in trouble no matter what I do.’
‘Only knee deep, huh?’ he mused as he took an exit leading her to flat. ‘I was thinking a little higher than that.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS SOON AS Jasper turned into her street Hayley saw the SOLD sign on the building where her one bedroom ground-floor flat was situated. She stared at it in shock for several heart-chugging seconds before turning to look at him. ‘Let me guess,’ she said with an accusing glare. ‘You’re my new landlord here too, right?’
He gave her a smug smile. ‘That’s right, sugar.’
She gritted her teeth and flung open the car door, slamming it behind her forcefully. She began stomping towards the building, her back and shoulders stiff with fury.
