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Around lunchtime on January second, Hal pulled up outside his old home and turned off the car engine.
The snow had turned to slush, and the whole day seemed gray. Part of that, he thought with a wry twist to his lips, might be that Angel had left that morning. They’d spent all New Year’s Day in bed, only getting up to retrieve food from the kitchen. The thought made him smile. He missed her already. She was on her way back to Chepstow. She was going to spend some time packing up the bits she thought she’d need for a month away, talk to her family, wrap up any loose ends, and then once his decree absolute came through, she was going to return to the island. She’d wanted to wait until his previous marriage was legally over, and he’d agreed. They’d decided it was sensible for her not to give notice on her apartment yet; that way they’d feel no pressure to make this work, and they’d be able to take one day at a time.
Hal already knew he would want her to stay with him past the month deadline, and he was pretty sure she felt the same. But they’d both wanted the other to be certain, and it seemed to make the most sense.
He couldn’t deny he’d a flutter of anxiety deep inside that she’d change her mind once she got home. He’d be relieved when she finally pulled up outside the cottage. But she’d promised she’d ring him when she got home, and he’d already sent her a text telling her he missed her.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out and swiped the screen. She’d sent him a selfie of her taken at a service station, with a cone of vanilla ice cream, the photo taken mid-lick, her eyebrows raised suggestively. Remind you of anything? she’d texted.
He chuckled. Naughty girl, he messaged back, warmth spreading through him. And just the thought of you spreading ice cream anywhere down there makes me shiver!
LOL, she came back with. Maybe just ordinary cream then?
It’s a date, he texted, trying not to think about spreading whipped cream on her breasts and then licking it off. Now was not the time to display an erection. Speak to you later?
Of course! Around seven, I’d think. Hope all goes well. xxx
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. She hadn’t asked him what he was going to say to Rebecca, but she’d known he was going to pick up the kids, so he presumed she’d guessed he’d be talking to his ex.
The door opened, and Jamie appeared. He waved at Hal and held up his forefinger, mouthing One minute! Hal nodded and got out of the car, leaving it unlocked, and walked slowly up to the house.
It was actually more like five minutes, but eventually Jamie and Brenna came tumbling out, laden down with Christmas toys they wanted to bring with them for the week. Rebecca followed them out. “Sorry,” she said. “They simply refused to leave anything behind.”
Hal picked up one of the boxes and looked at Rebecca. She wore leggings and a gray sweater, and looked thin and pale, her red hair scraped back into a ponytail. He couldn’t help but compare her to Angel, with her curvy figure, her glowing blonde hair, and the light that danced in her eyes. “Can you wait here?” he said to her. “I want to talk to you.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he turned and walked to the car, placed the box in the boot, and gestured for the kids to get in. “I’m just going to speak to Mum,” he said. “I won’t be long. Put your seatbelts on.”
Leaving them to settle in, he walked back up the garden path, jamming his hands in the pockets of his jeans. It was still freezing, and it wouldn’t surprise him if they had more snow soon.
He stood in front of Rebecca, who was breathing fast, her pulse racing in her neck. There was no point in drawing this out.
“Angel told me what you said to her.” He watched his breath frost before his face. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Rebecca lifted her chin and met his gaze, refusing to apologize.
“She’s moving in with me,” he said.
Her jaw dropped, and her expression turned furious. “I meant every word I said,” she snapped. “I’ll take the children away from you.”
Hal walked closer to her, and she must have seen the look in his eyes because she took a step back.
“We’re done,” he said simply. “I loved you once; I don’t anymore. I love someone else now, and I think you do too. I can’t believe you’d punish the kids by taking them away from me. If you do try, I’ll fight you all the way, but it’s only going to make me, you, and the kids miserable. Is that really what you want?”
“I want you,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t. Charles has obviously proved to be less of a pushover than you anticipated, and you’re now realizing that maybe I wasn’t as much of an ass as you thought I was. But the thing is, we’ll never be together again. It was over the moment you slept with someone else. You made your bed, Rebecca, and now it’s your choice whether you continue to lie in it or not.”
He hardened his heart as her bottom lip trembled. “I just wanted to tell you,” he continued, “that if you choose to break up with Charles, you’ll be on your own. I’m not going to come running every time you have a bill you can’t pay. I’m not going to bail you out. And this house will be sold whether you stay with him or not. I should make you pay the credit card bill out of your half of the proceeds, but I won’t—we’ll settle the debts first, then split what’s left. There won’t be much. So you need to think carefully what you’re going to do with it.”
It wasn’t a hundred-percent true. If she did break up with Charles, she would still be looking after the kids half the time, and he wouldn’t be able to look the other way if she was struggling to pay her rent or her bills. But he didn’t tell her that.
A tear ran down her face. “You still have a heart of ice,” she whispered.
He looked away, across the snowy road. I don’t find you cold, Angel had told him. Quite the opposite.
His lips curved up a tiny bit before his gaze came back to Rebecca. He didn’t have to explain what he’d thought—he could see that she’d guessed by the look on his face.
“What’s going on?” Behind her, Charles appeared, frowning.
She turned and bolted past him, disappearing up the stairs to the bedroom.
Charles came outside and glared at Hal. “Fucking hell. What did you say to her?”
Hal clenched his jaw, breathing heavily. The urge to smash the guy’s face in again was overwhelming, but his kids were watching, and he didn’t want to set a bad example.
“Are you two breaking up?” he said.
Charles frowned. “No. What made you say that?”
“Rebecca said you weren’t getting on.”
Charles’s look turned thunderous. “What the fuck? I’ll fucking kill her.”
Despite his misgivings with his kids watching, the words tipped Hal over the edge. He might not love Rebecca anymore, but she would always be the mother of his children.
He put a hand on the other guy’s chest and propelled him back hard against the wall. “You lay a hand on her,” he snapped, “and you’ll be eating your dinner through a straw.”
Charles pushed his hand away impatiently. “It was metaphorical. I’d never hit a woman, for fuck’s sake.”
“What about cheat on one?” Hal refused to back away. He’d wondered for a while whether Charles had been unfaithful to her.
Charles looked startled. “What? I haven’t.”
“Don’t act as if it’s beneath you,” Hal snarled. “You slept with a married woman, remember?”
“That was different. You were the other party.”
They studied each other for a moment, both breathing heavily.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Hal demanded. “What did I ever do to you?”
Charles stared at him. “What do you mean? You know what you did! You took the only woman I ever truly loved. You only wanted Rebecca because I did, and you took her because you could, to spite me. Then when you got bored of her, you iced her out of your heart. She loved you, you fucking idiot. All I did was pick up the pieces and try to stick them together again. She’s only a shadow of the woman she was at university, after what you did to her. But I don’t care. I’m not just going to turn my back on her. I love her.” He yelled the last bit.
Hal blinked, shocked. It was only at that moment he understood how much he’d been convinced that Charles had slept with Rebecca to punish him. But the guy really loved her. Jesus Christ. This was fucked up on a monumental scale.
The two men stared at each other.
“Do you want her back?” Charles whispered. And to Hal’s surprise, there was real fear in his eyes.
Hal shook his head, feeling a sudden surge of pity for the guy. “No.”
Charles studied his face as if trying to read whether he was lying, then blew out a long, shaky breath. He watched it curl in the cold air in front of him like a silver ribbon, fighting against his emotion. Then his gaze came back to Hal. “Not that she’d choose you over me,” he pointed out.
Hal smiled wryly. “I’ve met someone else.”
Charles’s eyebrows lifted. “The girl you rescued from the refuge hut?”
“Yes. She’s moving in with me.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. I know.”
The two men studied each other for a moment, Charles shivering in his shirt sleeves.
“I’ll be handing in my resignation soon,” Hal said. “Just so you know.”
Charles nodded slowly.
Hal backed away a few steps. “Don’t blow it,” he said. “Rebecca’s all yours, good and bad.”
Charles studied his feet. “I’m going to ask her to marry me when her divorce comes through.”
It was Hal’s turn to nod. “I hope she says yes.”
“Yeah, me too.”
For the first time maybe ever, the two men exchange wry smiles.
“Happy New Year,” Hal said. Charles nodded. Then Hal turned and walked away.
He got in the car, plugged in his seatbelt, and looked over his shoulder at his kids. “You two buckled up?”
“Yes, Daddy,” Brenna said.
“Yep,” Jamie said. “Why did you push Charles? Was he being a nob?”
Hal laughed and started the engine. “A bit, yeah.”
“They’ve been arguing,” Brenna said.
“All Christmas,” Jamie added.
“I’m sorry,” Hal said, meaning it. “I don’t think they’ll be arguing anymore.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I have something to tell you. You remember Angel?” They both nodded. “Well... she’s moving in with me.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” Brenna asked.
Hal smiled. “Yes, I guess so.”
“Mum said that you two won’t be married anymore soon,” Jamie said.
“That’s right. The papers will come through over the next week or two, I hope, once the courts are back after Christmas. Then Angel will come back to the island.”
He waited, wondering whether they would say something about Rebecca, or even tell him that they didn’t want him to marry someone other than their mum.
“She has nice hair,” Brenna said.
He smiled and swallowed hard. “Yes, she does.”
“She said she’d teach me how to do jiu jitsu,” Jamie said.
Hal laughed at the thought. Did she do jiu jitsu? It wouldn’t surprise him at all. “I think she should teach all of us.” And smiling, he headed onto the main road, toward Holy Island.
