A Valentine Kiss

CHAPTER FOUR

MILA WALKED DOWN the gravel road to the amphitheatre, Jordan beside her, and some of her tension eased. It was home, she thought as she looked at the road shaded by trees, their leaves brown and gold as though they didn’t know whether to mourn or celebrate the coming winter. The grass around them had begun to lose its colour, too, though there were still patches that seemed to be fighting to remain as green as in spring.

When she made it through the trees she was standing at the top of a slope that led to the vineyard on the one side, and to the amphitheatre on the other. She had sombrely told Jordan that she would take him there that morning, and thought she needed to get over herself. She’d spent most of her time since their argument thinking about why she’d been upset—the real reason, not the one she had made up.

Because as soon as she’d given herself time to think it through—with Jordan’s words still in her head—she’d realised her reaction the previous day had been because she was doubting her skills. It wasn’t just about her job either. Jordan’s return had reminded her of her failures—at being a wife. At being a mother.

Her heart hiccupped and she laid a hand over her chest, hoping to comfort herself.

Losing her baby when she was barely six months pregnant had only succeeded in amplifying her insecurities. Insecurities that stemmed from growing up without hearing anyone tell her she was good at something—at anything. She could see now that it had led to her believing that she wasn’t good enough. Certainly not for Jordan when she’d first met him, since he’d had everything she hadn’t had in her childhood.

Love, a family, a home.

A little voice had reminded her of that throughout their marriage. It was part of the reason she wished Jordan had told her he was happy with her. Or that he was proud of her. Or that she was a good wife.

But then, they’d never shared things like that during their brief marriage. She had just accepted what he’d said because she’d been afraid to speak up in case it upset him. She hadn’t wanted to risk him realising that their relationship was too good to be true. That she wasn’t the right person for him.

Now she saw no point in keeping her thoughts to herself—he’d realised all that anyway. And perhaps that had been the reason for Jordan’s surprise—she was no longer meek Mila who didn’t speak her mind. What had that got her? Nothing but a heart broken by the loss of her husband and her child.

‘Nothing beats this view,’ Jordan said quietly from beside her, and her heart pounded when she turned and saw him looking at her. But then he nodded towards the vineyard, and she mentally kicked herself. Of course he wasn’t talking about her—especially since things between them were still tense.

She turned her attention to the vineyard to hide her embarrassment at thinking such a silly thing, and took in the clash of different shades of red and brown. Fields of the colours together was a picture she would never forget—even when it was years in the future and she no longer had any reason to be a part of the Thomas Vineyard. She could see the dam just beyond the fields, large and beautiful, and behind it the hills that made the vineyard look surreal.

Walking the vineyard with him felt like old times. Despite how difficult things were with them now, when they had walked past the chapel where they’d got married, Mila’s heart had longed for the people they’d been then. It didn’t help that the weather had turned from the rain of the previous day to bright sunshine. It reminded her of her wedding day, almost two years ago.

It had been cold, true to the season, but the sun had been shining just as it was today, as though the gods had approved their union. A fanciful thought, she realised now, indicative of the person she had been then. The person who had fallen in love at first sight and married three months later.

The fact that their wedding anniversary was a few weeks away pained her, and she tried to ignore it. Her mind reminded her that she and Jordan hadn’t been together long enough—physically or emotionally—for them to celebrate their first anniversary. Now, on their second, they’d be together physically, but emotionally...

‘It’s more beautiful than I remember,’ he said, and she almost smiled at the sincerity in his voice.

‘It’s become a bit like home to me in the past year,’ she murmured, deep in thought, and then her stomach dropped when she realised what she had said. ‘Because of Greg,’ she added hurriedly, hoping it would make her words seem less like a revelation.

He didn’t answer her, and when she looked over he had a blank expression on his face. How was it possible that the tension between them could become worse? she wondered, her insides twisting.

‘I have memories of every part of this place,’ he said, his face pensive now. ‘This is where I last saw my mother. This is where my father raised me.’

Mila frowned. Had he just willingly mentioned his mother? His reaction the previous night when she’d said something about her had been what Mila was used to. A quick brush-off, an unwillingness to respond. She had wanted to know about his mother so badly when they were dating, when they were married, but she’d never had the nerve to push beyond Jordan’s resistance. Since she didn’t really want to offer information to him either, she’d convinced herself that it didn’t matter. That one day, while they watched their children play in front of the house, he would tell her about the woman who had died when he was five, and she would hold his hand and tell him that it was okay.

But that day would never come now.

Jordan turned towards the amphitheatre and she followed him, and then she stopped, her eyes widening when she realised what going to the amphitheatre meant. Why hadn’t she realised this earlier, she thought in panic, when she could have done something about it? Before she had suggested it, for heaven’s sake!

‘Are you coming?’ Jordan asked her, and she exhaled shakily, forced her legs to move and her mouth to respond.

‘Yes...yes, I am.’

* * *

‘This is great,’ Jordan said when he saw the white marquee that covered the amphitheatre. The edges were pinned down between the trees that surrounded the area, and it had done its job for the most part, he noted. Though water ran down the steps, the seats and the stage were still dry, along with most of the ground. It would do for their event, he thought.

‘Whose idea was it to do this? It was smart.’

He took the steps as he asked the question, and was about halfway down when he realised Mila hadn’t answered him. Nor could he hear her following. When he turned back to look up at her his heart raced at her expression. Her face was white—and so was the hand that clung to the railing that ran down the middle of the stairs. He could see her chest heave—in, out...in, out—and his first instinct was to run to her side and make sure that she was okay.

But somewhere at the back of his mind he realised what was happening, and a picture of her at the bottom of the stairs at their old house, lying deadly still, flashed through his mind.

This is what you left behind, a voice told him, and a ball of grief and guilt drop in his stomach.

Careful to keep his expression blank, even as his heart thrummed, he walked up to her and slid an arm around her waist. She didn’t look at him, and he could feel her resistance, so he waited until her hand finally gripped the back of his jacket. Slowly they made their way down to the bottom of the stairs, and with each step the ball of emotion grew inside him.

‘Thank you,’ she said through tight lips when they got to the bottom, but he could hear the shakiness in her voice—felt it in her body before she stepped back from him.

‘Since the accident?’ he asked.

She lifted her eyes briefly, and then lowered them again as she straightened her shoulders. ‘Yeah. It’s not impossible to do. It just takes longer.’

He didn’t know what to say. How could he say anything at all? he wondered with disgust. He knew the loss of their son had hurt them both—Jordan lived with it every day, no matter where he was. Every moment of his life since that day still held glimpses of what it would have been like if his son had been alive—images of them as a family in the home where he and Mila used to live crushed his heart each time.

But the reality was that he wasn’t a father. And, yes, he had complicated emotions about it—dashed hopes, a broken heart—but his body was fine. Though his heart pained, he could go down a flight of stairs without thinking about the fall that had led to a placental abruption and a premature baby who couldn’t survive outside the womb. His mind, though still dimmed by grief, wasn’t addled by a fear of stairs.

Seeing Mila’s reality, seeing the effect losing their baby had had on her, gutted him. The shame and guilt he already felt about the loss of their child pierced him. And the anger—the tension Jordan felt at the fact that Mila hadn’t turned to him—flamed inside him.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She slanted a look at him. ‘About...?’

She was giving him a chance to back down, he thought briefly, but he wouldn’t do it.

‘About the stairs. Is there anything else you’re still struggling with?’

‘That isn’t your business any more, Jordan,’ she replied easily, though he could tell that the conversation was anything but easy for her.

‘You’re my wife, Mila.’ It didn’t matter to him that they had both signed divorce papers and had only found out they were still married the previous day. ‘I have a right to know.’

‘No, you don’t,’ she said tersely. ‘You gave up that right when you walked out. When you sent me divorce papers. When you didn’t come home.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I’m your wife in name only.’

‘You asked me to leave.’

‘You should have known you needed to stay!’ she shot back, and hissed out a breath.

His eyes widened at the show of temper and his heart quickened at the sight of her cheeks flushed with anger. She still took his breath away, he thought vaguely, and then his mind focused on her words.

‘Is that what you really wanted?’ he asked softly.

She pursed her lips. ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Jordan. What’s done is done.’

‘Clearly it isn’t done. Tell me,’ he begged. It had suddenly become imperative for him to know what he had walked away from. And whether she had wanted him to walk away at all.

‘You made a choice to leave, Jordan.’

She looked up at him, her eyes piercing him with their fire. It wasn’t a description he would have used of her before. And perhaps before he wouldn’t have found it quite as alluring. But it suited her, he thought.

‘We all have to live with the decisions we made then. For now, we need to focus on getting this event done.’

His jaw clenched and tension flowed through his body with his blood. She made it seem as though he had left easily—as though he had wanted to leave.

‘I left because you asked me to. Why are you punishing me for it?’

She watched him steadily, and for a brief moment, he thought he saw her soften. But it was gone before he was sure, and then she answered him in a low voice.

‘You’re fooling yourself if you think you left because I asked you to.’ She stopped, as though considering her words, and then continued, ‘You left because you couldn’t handle my grief.’

He felt his blood drain. ‘Did my father tell you that?’

Mila frowned. ‘Why would you think that?’

Because that was exactly what his father had accused him of in one of their last conversations before he’d left, Jordan thought in shock. After Jordan had told Greg he was leaving—that Mila had asked him to and that he was going to Johannesburg to focus on getting their research institute started—his father had accused him of leaving because Mila’s suffering had reminded Jordan of his mother’s suffering. And that that meant Jordan was in the same position that his father had been in.

He had ignored the words when his father had said them—had believed the two situations had nothing in common—and had refused to think about it afterwards. But hearing those words come from Mila now brought the memory into sharp focus. But, just as he had then, Jordan shut down his thoughts and feelings about it.

‘Do you think your contact would actually be able to make a customised marquee?’

He saw her blink, saw her adjust to his abrupt change in topic. She opened her mouth and closed it again, and then answered.

‘Yes, I think he would.’

Her voice was polite. No, he thought, controlled.

‘I think the more appropriate question would be if he’d be able to do it in such a short period of time.’

She took her phone out and started typing, changing the tone of their conversation. The tension was still there though, he realised, noting the stiff movement of her fingers.

‘If he is able to do it we’ll have solved one of the major problems of this event.’

‘I’m sure the others won’t be quite as bad,’ he said, and walked up the steps to the stage.

He needed space from her, even though she was standing a far enough distance away that her proximity shouldn’t have bothered him. The stage was clear of the usual clutter events brought, he saw, with only the large white screen used for movies behind him.

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ she warned. ‘We’ll have to see if the same food vendors are available, and we’ll have to find out if Karen can perform...’ She trailed off, as though the thought frightened her, and he felt the release of the tension in him at the memory of Mila dealing with the teenage singer.

‘Won’t that be fun for you?’

‘I can’t wait,’ she said wryly. ‘We might have to consider someone else if she isn’t available. After that, the hardest part is going to be getting people to come. Karen—or whoever we get to perform—will have a huge impact on that, but it’s still going to be a challenge.’

‘Social media will help,’ he said, and walked down the stairs to where she stood. She was taking pictures, and he realised that with the marquee the space was different from what she’d worked with before. ‘We can have Karen post something closer to the time. It could even be a pop-up concert.’

‘That won’t work,’ she disagreed. ‘Doing that would put us at risk of overcrowding or riots. Of course we can have her post about the event, but we need to sell tickets. That’s the only way we can know how many people to expect.’

If he’d thought she wouldn’t be insulted by it, he would have complimented her on her professional knowledge. But he’d learned his lesson the previous evening. He hadn’t been around before to see her in action, but his father had complimented her often enough. Now Jordan could see why.

‘Was it hard work the first time?’

She glanced over at him. ‘Yes, but for different reasons. We had to start from scratch then. Design it, figure out what would work, what wouldn’t. Now we don’t have those problems, but we’re working from a blueprint. Which means we’re confined. It also puts us at risk of making a loss.’

‘Well, regardless of that, we’re going to have to plan this.’ He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t here the first time.’

‘Marketing wine in American restaurants does sound more exciting,’ she said easily, and his heart knocked at hearing her attempt something remarkably close to banter. Perhaps they should stick to work, he thought.

‘Well, seven of the ten restaurants I visited now carry our wines, so I was working. Besides, if I’d been here, we probably would have been married a lot earlier—’ He broke off, cursing himself for not thinking. He almost saw Mila’s walls go up again.

‘This event is going to take a lot of work,’ she said instead of addressing his slip. ‘I might have to give Lulu a call...’