Читать книгу Welcome to Mills & Boon - Jennifer Rae - Страница 33

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HELENA HADN’T WANTED to go home—not least because she wasn’t entirely sure where home was. But by mid-morning the next day, after Helena had spent the night sleeping in a very uncomfortable armchair next to her dad’s bed, Isabella was back, looking well rested, immaculate but still with an edge of fear in her eyes.

‘Helena, darling, go home and take a shower. Flynn will be waiting for you—you haven’t even seen your new marital home yet!’

‘I’m fine here, really,’ Helena said, wishing she couldn’t feel the creases on her face where she’d fallen asleep against a striped cushion. ‘Besides, all my stuff is still at Dad’s house.’ That was a thought. Maybe she could just nip back there long enough to shower and change, now she wouldn’t have to share the space with Isabella.

‘No, it isn’t.’ Isabella laid down the words like a trump card. ‘I had everything packed up and moved over to the town house the moment we returned from Italy. All your clothes, books, personal belongings—they’re all there waiting for you in your new home.’

Along with a husband who couldn’t bear to look at her. Perfect.

‘I want to wait until Dad wakes up.’

Isabella’s expression grew concerned again, and she turned to tug Thomas’s sheet a little higher over his chest. ‘Shouldn’t he have woken up already? The doctors don’t seem concerned, but even here I don’t feel you ever really have one-on-one attention, do you?’

‘They’re taking good care of him.’ Helena tried to sound soothing, and also tried to forget that she was talking to her father’s married lover. ‘The best care. And they say he shouldn’t wake up until this evening, so—’

‘So you have plenty of time to go home, shower and see your husband,’ Isabella finished for her, leaving Helena to realise, too late, that she’d been outmanoeuvred by her mother-in-law.

She spent the cab ride to the town house rehearsing what she’d say to Flynn in her head, but it proved unnecessary. Whether he’d gone to the office or his parents’ house, or even back to Italy, Helena had no idea, but Flynn was not home. Not in their home.

She wandered the half unpacked rooms, filled with unfamiliar possessions, taking in the trappings of what should have been her future. In what she assumed was supposed to be the library she found two empty crystal tumblers and a bottle of Scotch—the only real evidence so far that Flynn had even been there at all.

She dropped into one of the chairs, bone-weary, and wondered if this was where he’d sat the night before. Wondered if he’d ever speak to her again, if she’d ever get the chance to explain herself. If it would even make a difference.

She frowned, squinting at the fireplace in front of her. What was that? Leaning forward, she fished out the papers and immediately wished that she hadn’t.

As she flicked through the pages of what should have been her post-nuptial agreement, Flynn’s plan for their future, she felt the tears begin to fall at last, hot and thick against her cheeks. And, as the words blurred in front of her, she began to rewrite them in her mind, to imagine them the way they should be.

A future she’d want to live. Not one based around who got what or a schedule they had to follow. But a future that grew organically, from the love between two people.

She didn’t want a piece of paper compelling her to live her life bullet point by bullet point. And if Flynn thought that was what he needed...he was wrong. He’d spent his whole life so far trying to place order on an existence that had started in chaos—with not belonging, with bad timing, with uncertainty and manipulation. But he couldn’t do that forever. Life didn’t work that way.

She only had to look at her father in his hospital bed to know that.

Or think about the moment she’d crossed out her sister’s name on that wedding invitation.

Life leapt out at you when you least expected it, and all you could do was hold on for the ride. And someone needed to teach Flynn Ashton that fact.

Maybe even her.

Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, Helena reached into her handbag and pulled out a pen. Deliberately, and with several thick black lines, she crossed out the boring legalese title and replaced it with her own.

A Manifesto for a More Spontaneous Marriage.

She smiled at the words for a moment, her mind suddenly filled with ideas and possibilities and a world of impulsive romance. Of amazed joy.

And then, starting on the back of page one, she began to write out every hope and dream she had for her future.

Even if she had to accept it would never have Flynn in it.

* * *

Flynn couldn’t stay in the house so he went to the only place he really ever felt at home. The office.

He arrived while the place was still abandoned and dark, even the most conscientious employees still tucked up in their beds. He turned on his computer, settled back in his chair and lost himself in emails and memos and contracts for as long as he could.

By the time the sun was fully up, he’d caught up on everything that had happened since he’d left for Italy. He almost wished he hadn’t spent so much time keeping on top of his emails when he was away—it would have given him more of a distraction now, when he needed it.

And more time to spend with Helena, before everything he’d thought they were building together came crashing down.

‘So, you made it back.’ His father’s creaky voice jerked Flynn out of his own dark thoughts. He looked up to see the old man standing in his doorway, staring down at him the same way he’d always done when Flynn’s school reports came in, however good they were. ‘I heard tell you’d cut short your honeymoon. I assume you got your wife to sign the papers, as we discussed?’

Of course, that was all he was concerned about. His best friend and business partner was in hospital, his own wife hadn’t left the man’s side, but all Ezekiel Ashton cared about was paperwork.

Exactly what Helena had accused Flynn of.

‘Helena’s father just suffered a massive heart attack. Last I heard, he still hadn’t woken up. Forgive me for not pressing her on the formalities just yet.’ His voice sounded icy-cold, even to his own ears, but Flynn wondered how much he was speaking to his father and how much to himself. He wanted this sorted as much as the old man did.

He wanted it finished so he could move past the ache that never seemed to leave his chest.

‘I understand that Thomas has the only woman he needs dancing attendance on him already.’ There was bitterness in Ezekiel’s voice, deeper than Flynn had heard from him before. ‘I’m sure his daughter is superfluous to the proceedings.’

‘She’s in love with him, you know. Mum, I mean.’ Flynn didn’t say it to wound. Just to see if his father would react. If he could even feign surprise this late in the game.

‘Of course she is,’ Ezekiel scoffed. ‘Any fool could see that for the last ten years or more. But she never left me, did she? She always knew I could give her more.’

Flynn thought about his mother’s face, careworn in a way he’d never seen it as she’d brushed her hand against Thomas’s cheek. ‘She might now, I think.’

‘Then she’s more of a fool than your brother and your runaway bride put together.’

‘Actually,’ Flynn said, ‘I’m starting to think that Thea and Zeke were the only ones to get things right in all this.’

Ezekiel’s blank expression told Flynn all he needed to know. His father would never understand love—not the way that Flynn hoped to understand it one day.

‘Get that post-nuptial agreement to me by the end of the week,’ Ezekiel said before turning and walking away.

Flynn stared after him long after he had gone. Whatever happened next with him and Helena, it wouldn’t be about paperwork, not any more. It wouldn’t be a schedule or a plan.

He couldn’t love a woman who couldn’t love her own child; it was as simple and as hard as that. Couldn’t trust a woman who had lied, and left a helpless baby behind, not to do the same to him when it suited her. And no amount of planning or paperwork could change that.

* * *

Helena awoke from dozing in her chair at the sound of a phone ringing. It took a moment for her to identify it as hers, and longer to find and answer it.

‘Helena? It’s Henry. I wanted to let you know that I got hold of your sister. She’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as her flight gets in tonight.’

‘I’ll be there.’ She wiped the sleep from her eyes and tried to focus. ‘Thanks, Henry.’

Dropping the phone into her lap, she stretched her arms up above her head, trying to relieve the ache in her shoulders. It was almost six; Flynn would be home before too long, she assumed, and she wanted to be out of the way again before that happened.

She bit her lip and stared at the mass of paper in her lap, no longer neatly clipped together and numbered, but loose and covered in her messy scrawl that grew less intelligible by the word. It would probably never make sense to another person, and she wasn’t even sure she could take it with her and look at it every day without remembering the day she hadn’t signed it. But she’d written it, and somehow that felt like enough.

Leaving the agreement on Flynn’s desk, Helena grabbed a few of her things, packing a bag with some changes of clothes and the basic necessities. She’d need to come back sooner rather than later, but it would see her through the next day at least. Isabella might have moved her stuff here, but Helena knew she couldn’t stay. She’d figure something else out.

So, with only a brief glance back at the manifesto she’d written, Helena Ashton straightened her hair and clothes and silently slipped out of the house that should have been her home.

It was time to move on.

* * *

The hospital room looked almost exactly as she had left it. Thomas still lay peacefully sleeping, the heart monitor beeping at his side, and Isabella sat in the armchair beside him, pretending to read a magazine. Helena thought she might still be on the same page she’d been staring at that morning.

‘No change?’ she asked from the door, and Isabella’s head jerked up at the sound of her voice.

‘He woke up earlier. Not for very long. But he seemed himself. He...was glad I was here.’ The relief in Isabella’s voice was palpable and Helena felt the knot in her middle start to loosen, just a touch.

‘That’s great. That’s...wonderful.’ Helena sank down into the other, less comfortable chair in the room. She might not be sure how she felt about her father right now—beyond furious and hurt—but she wasn’t ready to lose the only parent she had left. Not yet. And not before she’d figured out what to make of her relationship with him.

‘Henry called earlier,’ Helena said, smoothing down the edge of Thomas’s sheets, even though they didn’t need it. ‘Thea’s on her way—presumably with Zeke; I didn’t ask. She’ll be here tonight.’

Isabella froze, the lines of her shoulders and neck suddenly sharp. ‘I must admit, I didn’t expect to see them again so soon.’

‘I imagine they feel the same.’

Helena had assumed that everyone would have had time to get over the wedding fallout before they were all together again. That she and Flynn would be happily living their lives and Thea’s runaway bride act could become a near-miss, a funny story to tell at dinner parties. Can you believe how wrong we nearly got this? Thea almost married Flynn! Isn’t that crazy?

But not now. Now, those conversations would go very differently indeed. And Helena had been so preoccupied with the idea of having her big sister here, where she belonged, where she needed her, that she hadn’t even thought about what she was going to say. How she was going to explain what had happened since she’d left.

Or how other people would feel to see her.

Their father had been furiously disappointed in Thea. But surely that would change now? Now that he was lying in a hospital bed with an uncertain future, of course he’d want both his daughters there.

Helena had to believe that or there was no hope for her family at all.

‘I’m going to get coffee,’ Helena said. ‘Do you want coffee?’

Isabella nodded, but her eyes were already fixed on Thomas’s face again.

Three cups of coffee later, Thea arrived in a flurry of activity, sweeping through the hospital as if she were back in her power suit and high heels instead of the floaty sundress she was actually wearing. Zeke followed in her wake, grim-faced and suitcase in hand.

Their father was sleeping again, so Thea quizzed his doctors more thoroughly than Isabella or Helena had managed. Helena waited outside while Zeke spoke with his mother and Thea asked more questions.

Then they stepped out of the room again and Helena felt the weight on her shoulders start to lift.

‘You’re here.’ Helena stared at her sister across the hospital corridor. ‘You came.’ And then she burst into tears.

* * *

‘Okay, so I was gone less than a week,’ Thea said, putting her arm around Helena’s shoulders. Helena resisted the urge to snuggle up to her like a toddler, but only just. ‘Explain to me exactly how everything went up in smoke in my absence?’

‘Firstly, it is not my fault that Dad had a heart attack,’ Helena said. ‘Or that Isabella appears to have left Ezekiel and moved into Dad’s house.’

Thea blinked. ‘Okay, well, that’s a start. What is your fault, then?’

This was the big one. Helena almost wished she didn’t have to tell her. Thea looked so relaxed, so happy—and at least five years younger. It was amazing what love could do, Helena thought, as Zeke brought over more coffee and a couple of plates of sandwiches. The hospital dining area was nicer than Helena had imagined it would be, even in a private hospital. Too nice, in fact, for the scene she was pretty sure it was about to witness.

She took a breath.

‘I married Flynn.’

‘You what?’ Zeke swore as he spilt boiling coffee over his hand. ‘Give a guy some warning for that kind of news, will you?’

‘Sorry.’ Helena flashed him a quick smile then turned her attention back to Thea.

Her sister’s eyes were wide and disbelieving. ‘Why? Did Dad make you? Or Isabella?’

‘It was my idea,’ Helena told her. ‘All mine. After you left, when I thought about actually having to go down there and tell everyone the wedding was off, this seemed like a better option.’ It sounded stupid out loud, Helena thought.

‘A...better option? After you spent weeks—months!—telling me to get out, that I couldn’t marry someone I didn’t love.’ Thea sounded outraged at the very idea.

‘I know. I know. But it was different for me.’

‘Different—how?’ Zeke asked, frowning. But Thea’s eyes had gone wide and sad, and she touched her fingertips to her lips as she said, ‘Oh, Helena. You loved him.’

Helena shook her head. ‘Not at the start. It wasn’t that simple. I mean, maybe I never got over that crush I had when I was fourteen, not totally, but I wasn’t planning on basing a marriage on that. I thought, since there was no contract, we could just get a quiet little divorce once the scandal died down. I knew he wanted kids and I...can’t think about that. So I knew it couldn’t work out. But then...he convinced me it could be more. That we could have a future together, have everything he was supposed to have with you.’

‘Want me to kill him?’ Zeke asked Thea conversationally. ‘I gave that man everything he wanted—the company, mostly, admittedly—and he took Helena too. I can kill him.’

‘I’d...rather you didn’t,’ Helena said. ‘Even after everything.’

‘Tell me about “everything”,’ Thea instructed. ‘And, Zeke, stop interrupting.’

‘I don’t even know how to describe it. I can’t say what changed. We talked a lot. I learned a lot—about him, about how he grew up. He bought me a ring.’ Her gaze jumped down to her left hand, where only the too tight wedding band remained. ‘I fell in love.’

‘So what went wrong?’ Thea asked. ‘Because, given that this all happened over the course of the last week and you’ve been crying pretty much constantly since I arrived, I’m figuring it has to be big. Tell me, so I can fix it.’

Helena gave her a watery smile. ‘You can’t fix this one, Thea.’

‘Watch me try.’

‘I couldn’t sign the post-nuptial agreement Henry brought over. It had a line in it...I had to swear that I had no children.’

‘Oh.’ Thea’s eyes closed as she listened.

‘So I had to tell him about...’ Helena swallowed. ‘I told him I was sixteen, I had a baby and I gave her away.’

‘What did he say?’ Zeke asked, his voice tense.

‘He called me a monster.’ Helena shrugged. She figured that covered the basics.

‘Okay, now I really am going to kill him.’ Zeke was on his feet before Thea grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.

‘Did you explain? What happened to you?’ Thea’s gaze focused so tightly on Helena’s face that she squirmed under the attention.

‘I didn’t get into details, no.’ Helena sighed. ‘I don’t think it would make any difference, anyway.’

‘If he knew you were raped?’ Zeke shook his head. ‘You’re wrong. My brother might be an idiot but...it makes a difference.’

‘Does it really?’ Helena wasn’t sure if she was asking them or herself. ‘I put myself in that position. I went there, I got drunk and they told me I said yes. And I know, in my head, that they were wrong—that they abused me and they committed a crime. I know that, I do. But...’

‘But?’ Thea pressed when Helena stopped.

‘But I was the one who couldn’t love that child, no matter how she came into the world. And that’s what I know he’ll never forgive me for.’

The tears came again then. Thea wrapped her arms around her, and Helena clung to her big sister like a lifeline.

Thea couldn’t fix this one, she knew. But maybe having her there would be enough to help her through it.

‘You need to tell him, sweetheart,’ Thea murmured against her hair. ‘He deserves to know everything.’

‘I know,’ Helena whispered back. Because not telling Flynn everything had got her into this mess. And maybe it wouldn’t make a difference—maybe she didn’t even want it to. But if she ever wanted to move past this, she had to get it all out.

And then leave it behind.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Zeke said. ‘We can pick up the rest of your stuff while we’re there.’

Helena nodded, grateful to have someone else making the decisions for a while.

‘You can do this.’ Thea tucked a finger under Helena’s chin, making her look up into her eyes. ‘And I will be right here for you, every step of the way.’

Helena gave another shaky nod. Thea was right.

She’d survived worse than this, with her sister beside her. And she’d survive it again.

She turned to Zeke. ‘Then let’s go and get this over with.’