A muscle flexed in the plane of his cheek, just to the side of his scar. ‘I’m only human, and my basic human needs are no different to anyone else’s.’

It took Ailsa a couple of seconds to find her voice after that incendiary comment, because she was busy fielding the giant wave of hurt that washed over her at the idea of Jake having his sexual needs met by another woman … maybe even more than one woman. They’d been divorced for four years now, after all, and it was hardly the first time the thought had crossed her mind. Most times she quickly pushed it away. But she intimately knew her husband’s needs in that department.

‘What about my needs?’ she asked, struggling to keep her voice level. ‘Do I have the same freedom there as you do, Jake? Or don’t you think I have such needs any more, since the accident rendered me unable to bear children? Perhaps you think it’s made me less of a woman?’

About the Author

The day MAGGIE COX saw the film version of Wuthering Heights, with a beautiful Merle Oberon and a very handsome Laurence Olivier, was the day she became hooked on romance. From that day onwards she spent a lot of time dreaming up her own romances, secretly hoping that one day she might become published and get paid for doing what she loved most! Now that her dream is being realised, she wakes up every morning and counts her blessings. She is married to a gorgeous man, and is the mother of two wonderful sons. Her two other great passions in life—besides her family and reading/writing—are music and films.

Recent titles by the same author:

SURRENDER TO HER SPANISH HUSBAND

SECRETARY BY DAY, MISTRESS BY NIGHT

BRAZILIAN BOSS, VIRGIN HOUSEKEEPER

The Lost Wife

Maggie Cox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

SHE ran to the window when she heard the muffled engine sound of the car coming up the drive. When it pulled up in front of the cottage, the smart silver-grey SUV that belonged to her ex-husband looked like a snowmobile, blanketed in several layers of thick white frosting. And still the crystalline flakes fell relentlessly from the sky, as if poured through some divine sieve.

The snowy display hadn’t let up all day. Ailsa would have succumbed to the magic of it if she hadn’t been so concerned about Jake returning their daughter safely home. Living in an English country idyll had lots to commend it, but when severe winter weather kicked in the hilly narrow roads could be utterly treacherous. She stood waiting with the front door open as the driver of the vehicle stepped out and walked across the snow-laden path towards her.

It wasn’t Alain—the slim, smart-suited chauffeur she’d been expecting. Usually it was Jake’s French driver that brought Saskia home from her fortnightly trips to London to visit her father, or from the airport when Jake was working in Copenhagen and she stayed with him there. When Ailsa saw the once familiar diamond-chipped blue eyes staring back at her through the relentlessly falling snow, her heart stalled.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She hadn’t seen her ex-husband face to face in a long time … not since his chauffeur had become a reliable go-between. The impact of confronting those carved, unforgettable features hadn’t lessened one iota, she discovered. He’d always had the kind of effortlessly handsome looks that guaranteed major female interest wherever he went. Even with the cruel scar that ran down his cheekbone. In truth, it made his already compelling visage utterly and disturbingly memorable—and not just because his beautiful face carried such a vivid wound. But the sight of that wound now made Ailsa’s heart pound and her stomach clench with remembered sorrow at how it had occurred.

For a long moment she got lost in the dark cavern of memory, then realised that Jake was staring at her, waiting for her greeting. ‘Hello … it’s been a long time, Jake.’

Even as she spoke, she was thinking he should have warned her that there’d been a change of plan.

Her insides jolted. ‘Where’s Saskia?’

‘I’ve been trying to ring you all day but there’s been no damn signal! Why in God’s name you would choose to live out here in the middle of nowhere is beyond me.’

Ignoring the irritation in his voice, which bisected her heart with knives, Ailsa pushed back her hair and crossed her arms over her thick Arran sweater. Just standing on the doorstep inside the peg-tiled porch, she was already freezing from the blast of icy air that had hit her when she’d opened the door.

‘Has something happened? Why isn’t Saskia with you?’ Peering over his shoulder at the snow-covered vehicle, she willed herself to see her daughter’s pretty heart-shaped face staring back at her through a window—any window so long as she was there. When she realised the car was empty the bones in her legs morphed into limp spaghetti.

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to call you about. She wanted to stay with her grandmother in Copenhagen for a while … she pleaded with me to let her stay until Christmas Eve. I agreed. Because she was worried that you might be upset about that I agreed to travel here myself and give you the news. I’d heard the weather was bad but I had no idea it was as grim as this.’

His hand impatiently swept the snow from his champagne-blond hair, but the white flakes quickly settled again to render the gesture pointless. For a long moment Ailsa couldn’t summon the words to reply. Shock and disappointment rolled through her in a sickening hurtful wave as she thought of all the plans she’d made for the lead-up to Christmas Day with Saskia. The plans that now wouldn’t be materialising.

They’d been going to make a special trip to London for shopping, then stay at a nice hotel for the night so they could go to the theatre and out to dinner. Only yesterday the Norwegian pine she’d ordered had arrived, and was standing bare and alone in the living room just waiting for the shiny baubles that would transform it into a magical seasonal emblem. Mother and daughter were going to decorate it together, with carols playing joyfully in the background either on a CD or from the radio. It was inconceivable that her beloved child wouldn’t be home again until Christmas Eve.

In Ailsa’s mind the days leading up to that date would only serve to remind her of how lonely she could feel without the family she had once counted upon … Jake and Saskia … She’d barely got through the past week without Saskia as it was.

‘How could you do this to me? How? You and your mother have already had her staying with you for a week! You must know that I was counting on you bringing her back today.’

The broad shoulders beneath the stylish black overcoat now smothered in snow shrugged laconically. ‘Would you deny our daughter the chance to be with her grandmother when she’s so recently lost my father? Saskia lifts her spirits like no other human being can.’

Knowing her daughter’s warm, bubbly nature, Ailsa didn’t doubt her ex-husband’s words. But it didn’t make her absence any easier to bear. And underneath her frustration her heart constricted at the thought that Jake’s father was gone. The senior Jacob Larsen had been imposing, and even a little intimidating, but he had always treated her with the utmost respect. When Saskia had arrived in the world he hadn’t stinted on his praise, proclaiming his new granddaughter to be the most beautiful baby in the world.

How sad for his son that he was gone. Their relationship had had its challenges, but there was no doubt in her mind that Jake had loved his father.

The swirling snow that was rapidly turning into a blizzard added to her misery and distress. ‘I’m sorry you lost your dad … he was a good man. But I’ve already endured Saskia not being here for too long. Can’t you understand why I’d want her back with me when it’s so close to Christmas? I’d made plans …’

‘I’m sorry about that, but sometimes whether we like it or not plans are hostage to change. The fact is that our daughter is safe with my mother in Copenhagen and you don’t need to worry.’ Sucking in a breath, Jake blew it out again onto the frosted air. He thumbed towards the bank of snow-covered cedars edging the road at the end of the drive behind him. ‘There was a police roadblock on the way here, warning drivers not to go any further unless they absolutely had to. They only let me through because I told them you’d go crazy if I didn’t make it to the house to let you know about Saskia. I only just made it—even in the SUV. I’d be mad to try and make it back to the airport tonight in these conditions.’

As if waking from a dream, Ailsa realised he looked half frozen standing there. Another few minutes and those sculpted lips would surely turn blue. As difficult as the prospect of spending time with her estranged husband promised to be, what could she do but invite him in, make him a hot drink and agree to give him a bed for the night?

‘Well, you’d better come in, then.’

‘Thanks for making me feel so welcome,’ he answered sardonically as he stepped towards her.

His brittle reply cut her to the bone. Their divorce hadn’t exactly been acrimonious, but coming less than a year after they’d suffered the terrible car accident that had robbed them of their longed-for second child, it hadn’t been amicable either. Words had been flung … corrosive, bitter words that had eaten into their souls. But even now thinking of that horrendous time, of how their marriage had shockingly unraveled, was almost a blur to her because her senses had been so frozen by pain and sadness … like a delicate scallop sealed inside its shell after being relentlessly battered against the rocks.

Four long, hard years she’d lived without Jake. Saskia had been just five when they’d parted. Her daughter’s poignant question, ‘Why did Daddy leave, Mummy?’ replayed itself over and over again in her mind most nights, disturbing her sleep and haunting her dreams …

‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’ She grimaced apologetically. ‘I’m just a little upset, that’s all. Come in out of the cold and I’ll get you a drink.’

He passed her into the hallway and the familiar woody scent of his expensive cologne arrowed straight into Ailsa’s womb and made it contract. Inhaling a deep breath to steady herself, she hurriedly shut the door on the arctic weather outside.

The sixteenth-century beamed cottage that Jake had never been inside before was utterly charming, he mused as his senses soaked up the cosy ambience that greeted him. The lilac-painted walls of the narrow hallway were covered in a colourful array of delicate floral prints, intermingled with delightful framed photographs of Saskia as a baby, then a toddler, and a couple of more recent shots of her as a nine-year-old, already showing signs of the beauty she was becoming. And on the wall by the polished oak staircase the French long-case clock with its floral marquetry, its steady ticking peacefully punctuating the stillness … the stillness and peace that constantly seemed to elude him.

The snug little house felt so much more like a real home to Jake than the luxurious Westminster penthouse he rattled around in alone when he was in London, and even the smart townhouse he lived in when he was in Copenhagen. Only his mother’s white-painted turn-of-the-century house just outside the city, which backed onto magical woodland, could match Ailsa’s home for cosiness and charm.

When she had bought the cottage not long after they’d separated Jake had been seriously disgruntled by her refusal to let him purchase something far more spacious and grand for her and Saskia. I don’t want something grand,’ she’d replied, her amber-coloured eyes making her look as though she despaired of him ever understanding. ‘I want something that feels like home …’ The house in Primrose Hill that they’d bought when they’d married had no longer felt like home for either of them, Jake remembered, his heart heavy. Not when the love they’d once so passionately shared had been ripped away by a cruel and senseless accident …

‘Give me your coat.’

His icy fingers thawing in the warmth that enveloped him, Jake did as she asked. As he handed over the damp wool coat he couldn’t help letting his gaze linger on the golden light of her extraordinary eyes. He’d always been mesmerised by them, and it was no different now. She glanced away quickly, he noticed.

‘I’ll take off my shoes.’ He did just that, and left them by the door. He’d already noticed that Ailsa’s tiny feet were encased in black velvet slippers with a black and gold bow.

‘Let’s go into the front room. There’s a wood-burner in there. You’ll soon get warm.’

Fielding his turbulent emotions, Jake said nothing and followed her. His fingers itched to reach out and touch the long chestnut tresses that flowed down her slim back, he shoved his hand into his trouser pocket to stem the renegade urge.

The compact front room was a haven of warmth and comfort, with a substantial iron wood-burner at the centre throwing out its embracing heat, its funnel reaching high into the oak-beamed rafters of the roof. There were two red velvet couches laden with bright woollen throws and cushions, and the wooden pine floor was generously covered with a rich red and gold rug. Just one Victorian armchair was positioned by the fire. Two sets of pine shelves either side of the burner were packed with books, and in one corner—its roots embedded in a silver bucket—sat an abundant widespread Christmas tree waiting to be decorated. Jake’s insides lurched guiltily.

‘Sit down. I’ll make us a hot drink … that is unless you’d prefer a brandy?’

‘I don’t touch alcohol any more. Coffee will be fine … thanks.’ Now it was his turn to glance quickly away. But not before he’d glimpsed the slightly bewildered furrowing of Ailsa’s flawless brow.

‘Coffee it is, then.’ She left the room.

Lowering his tall, fit frame onto a couch, Jake breathed out at last. For a while he watched the increasingly heavy snow tumbling from the skies outside the window, then fell into a daydream about his daughter playing on that sumptuous red and gold rug with her dolls. She’d be chatting away non-stop to them, he mused, her vivid imagination taking her far away from this world—a world that until she was five had promised a safe and secure day-to-day existence as she grew up, a comforting life that had abruptly changed beyond all recognition when her mother and father had separated.

He didn’t realise Ailsa had returned until she stood in front of him, holding out a steaming mug of aromatic black coffee. Gratefully Jake took it. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’ He tried for a smile but knew it was a poor effort.

‘How is your mother coping since she lost your dad?’

He watched his pretty ex-wife walk across the room in that graceful, mesmerising way she had that made her look as if she glided. She’d always had that balletic quality about her, and the blue denim jeans she was wearing highlighted her slender thighs and tiny waist—especially with the broad leather belt she wore around her sweater. As she sat down on the other couch he tried to curtail his irrational disappointment that she’d chosen not to sit beside him. Her slender ringless fingers wrapped themselves around a mug of tea. From memory, Jake knew it was rare that Ailsa drank coffee. But he didn’t dwell long on that. Inside he was reeling at the unexpected sight of the missing wedding band on her finger—another painful demonstration that their marriage had well and truly ended.

Clearing his throat, he garnered the defences that he’d fine-honed during the past four years without her. ‘Outwardly she seems to be coping well,’ he replied. ‘Inwardly is another matter.’ He could have been talking about himself …

‘Well, then, perhaps it’s a good thing that Saskia stays with her for a bit longer. It’s been, what …? Six months since your dad died?’

‘About that.’ Sipping the too-hot coffee, he grimaced as the beverage scalded his tongue. If it was Ailsa’s aim to hold out an olive branch by not making a fuss about their daughter staying with her grandmother and spoiling her plans for the lead-up to Christmas, then he didn’t intend to take it. He couldn’t seem to help resenting the fact that she was clearly getting on with her life quite well without him.

‘And how about you?’ she persisted, low-voiced, leaning slightly forward, amber gaze concerned.

‘What about me?’

‘How are you coping with the loss of your dad?’

‘I’m a busy man, with a worldwide property business to run … I don’t have time to dwell on anything other than my work and my daughter.’

‘You mean you don’t have time to mourn your father? That can’t be good.’

‘Sometimes we all have to be pragmatic.’ His spine stiffening, Jake put the ceramic mug down on a nearby side-table then flattened his palms over his knees. Ailsa had always wanted to get to the heart of things and it seemed that nothing had changed there. Except that he didn’t feel like spilling his guts to her about his feelings any more … been there, done that. He had the bruises on his heart to prove it.

‘I remember that you and he had your differences, and I just thought that his passing might be an opportunity for you to reflect on the good things about your relationship, that’s all.’

‘Like I said … I’ve been too busy. He’s gone, and it’s sad, but one of the things he taught me himself was to rise above my emotions and simply get on with whatever is in front of me. At the end of the day that’s helped me cope with the “slings and arrows” of life far more than wallowing in my pain. If you don’t agree with such a strategy then I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.’

He sensed his temper and his unreasonableness rising. Privately he had nothing but contempt for such a tack. Leaving his father’s death and his regret that they hadn’t found a way to communicate more healthily aside, he reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one in this one-time marriage who had been to the depths of hell and back. In the four years since their divorce Ailsa had grown noticeably thinner, and there were faint new lines around her sweetly shaped mouth. Perhaps she wasn’t getting on with her life that well? He yearned to know how she was really coping. Saskia had told him that her mother worked long hours at her arts and crafts business, even at the weekends. There was no need for her to work at all. The divorce settlement he’d made for her was substantial, and that was the way he wanted it.

Jake frowned. ‘Why are you working so hard?’ he demanded, before he’d realised he intended to ask.

‘What?’

‘Saskia told me that you work day and night at this arts and crafts thing.’

‘Arts and crafts thing?’ She was immediately offended. ‘I run a thriving local business that keeps me busy when I’m not doing the school run or tending to Saskia, and I love it. What did you expect me to do when we broke up, Jake? Sit around twiddling my thumbs? Or perhaps you expected me to spend my divorce settlement on a chic new wardrobe every season? Or the latest sports car? Or get interior designers in with pointless regularity to remodel the house?’

Wearily he rubbed his hand round his jaw. At the same time her words made him sit up straight. When he’d met her and married her he had never envisaged Ailsa as a businesswoman in the making. ‘It’s good to hear that your business is going well. And as regards the settlement, it’s entirely up to you what you do with the money. As long as you take proper care of Saskia when she’s with you—that’s all I care about. I’ve noticed that you look tired, as well as the fact you’ve clearly lost weight … that’s why I asked. I don’t want you wearing yourself out when you don’t have to.’

Her expression pained, Ailsa tightened her hands round her mug of tea. ‘I’m not wearing myself out. I look tired because sometimes I don’t sleep very well, that’s all. It’s a bit of a legacy from the accident, I’m afraid. But it’s okay … I try and catch up with some rest whenever I can—even if it’s during the day.’

If a heavyweight boxer had slammed his fist into his gut right then Jake couldn’t have been more winded. It took him a few moments to get the words teeming in his brain to travel to his mouth. ‘I told you years ago that you should get some help from the doctor to help you sleep better. Why haven’t you?’

As she shook her head, her long chestnut hair glanced against the sides of her face. ‘I’ve seen enough doctors to make me weary of ever seeing another one again. Besides … I don’t want to take sleeping pills and walk round like a zombie. And unless the medical profession has found an infallible method for eradicating hurtful memories—because it’s those that keep me awake at night—then I’ll just have to get on with it. Isn’t that what you advocate yourself?’

‘Dear God!’ Jake pushed to his feet. How was he supposed to endure the pain he heard in her voice? The pain he held himself responsible for?

Yes, they’d been hit by a drunk driver that dark, rainy night when their world had come to an end, but he still should have been able to do something to avert the accident. Sometimes at night, deep in the midst of troubled sleep, he still heard his wife’s heartrending moans of pain and shock in the car beside him … He’d promised in their marriage vows to love and protect her always and that cruel December night he hadn’t … He hadn’t. He just thanked God that Saskia had been staying with his parents at the time and hadn’t been in the car with them. It didn’t bear thinking about that his child might have been hurt as badly as her mother.

He must be a masochist, he reflected. Why had he come here to tell Ailsa himself that Saskia was prolonging her stay with his mother? He could so easily have got his chauffeur Alain to do the deed. Wasn’t that what he’d done for the past four years, so he wouldn’t have to come face to face with the woman he’d once loved beyond imagining? Wasn’t it a situation he’d willingly engineered so he wouldn’t have to discuss the deeper issues that had wrenched them apart perhaps even more than the accident?

Sighing, he tunnelled his fingers through his hair. He was only staying the night while he was snowbound. As soon as the roads were passable again he would drive to the airport and return to Copenhagen. After spending a precious day or two with his daughter and mother he would get back to the palatial head offices of Larsen and Son, international property developers, and resume his work.

‘I’ve got an overnight bag in the car. I brought it just in case. I’ll go and bring it in.’ When he reached the door he glanced back at the slim, silent woman sitting on the couch and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry … I promise not to outstay my welcome. As soon as the roads are cleared I’ll be on my way.’ Not waiting to hear her reply, Jake stepped out into the hallway.

As hard as she bit down on her lip, Ailsa couldn’t prevent her eyes from filling up with tears. ‘Why?’ she muttered forlornly. ‘Why come here now and shake everything up again? I’m doing all right without you … I am!’

Frustrated by the unremitting sorrow that rose inside her whenever Jake or the accident were mentioned, let alone having him near, she stoically put aside any further thoughts on the matter and instead made her way up to the spare bedroom to put clean sheets on the bed for her ex-husband’s unexpected overnight stay.

On the way there she pushed open her daughter’s bedroom door and glanced in. The pretty pink walls were covered in posters, from the latest Barbie doll to instantly recognisable children’s programme characters. But amongst them were two large posters of the latest male teen movie idol, and Ailsa shook her head in wonder and near disbelief that her daughter was growing up so fast … too fast, in her book. Would it be easier if Saskia had both her parents taking care of her together instead of separately?

In the time-honoured habit of caring parents everywhere, she wondered yet again if she was a good enough mother—if she was perhaps failing her child in some fundamental unconscious way? Was she wrong in wanting a career of her own? To stand on her own feet at last and not feel as if she was depending on her ex-husband? At the thought of Jake she wondered if she hadn’t been utterly selfish in pushing him away emotionally and physically, and finally driving him into asking for a divorce. She should have talked to him more, but she hadn’t. Relations between them had deteriorated so badly that they’d barely been able to look at each other, she remembered sadly.

Hearing the front door open, then slam shut again, she quickly crossed the landing to the spare room. The pretty double bed with its old-fashioned iron bedstead was strewn with all manner of knitting and materials from her craft business, and she scooped them up and quickly heaped them on top of the neat little writing desk in the corner. She wouldn’t stop to sort them all out right now. Tomorrow she would venture out to the purpose-built heated office in the garden, where she created her designs and stored her materials, and she would store the colourful paraphernalia away properly. Right now she would concentrate on making the bed, so that Jake could bring up his overnight bag and unpack.

As she unfolded the pristine white sheets she’d retrieved from the airing cupboard Ailsa noticed that her hands were shaking. They might not be sharing a bed tonight, but it was a long time since she’d slept under the same roof as her ex-husband. Once upon a time they had been so very close—as if even an act of God couldn’t tear them asunder. She’d often fallen asleep at night after they’d made love enfolded in his arms and woken the next morning in just the same position … Her insides churned with grief and regret at what they had lost. The haunting memories that Jake’s appearance had brought to the surface again were so intense that it felt as if they might drown her.

‘It’s all right,’ she muttered to herself. ‘It’s only for one night. Tomorrow he’ll be gone again.’ But as she glanced out of the window at the cascade of white flakes still steadily falling her stomach clenched anxiously. She might well be wrong about that …

Jake had gone upstairs to take a shower and get a change of clothes. Ailsa took the opportunity to retreat to the kitchen to mull over what to cook for dinner. She’d planned on having a simple pasta dish with a home-made sauce for Saskia and herself that night, but she was concerned that it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy a healthy male specimen like Jake. He loved good food and the finer things in life, and was a surprisingly good cook himself. It was another reason why she was slightly nervous about cooking for him again. She was no domestic goddess, and during their marriage her husband had patiently tolerated her culinary attempts with great good humour—even if more often than not he had ended up suggesting they go out to eat at one of his favourite restaurants instead. Many times he’d suggested they hire a full-time chef or cook, but Ailsa had always insisted she loved to cook for her husband and daughter. At heart she was a traditionalist, and would have felt as if she’d somehow failed her family if she hadn’t prepared their meals.

Having grown up in a children’s home, it was inevitable that her greatest longing had always been to have a family of her own.

A heavy fall of snow rolled off the eaves outside the window and fell to the ground with a crash. Snapping out of her reverie, Ailsa reached for the kitchen telephone and listened intently for a dial-tone. Nothing … The lines were obviously still down. She was longing to hear Saskia’s sweet voice and find out for herself if her little girl was happy with her grandmother in Copenhagen. Knowing how warm and loving Tilda Larsen was, she didn’t doubt it, but she would have liked confirmation from Saskia herself.

Biting down on her lip, she reached for the apron behind the larder door and turned on the oven. She scrubbed and rinsed a couple of generous sized potatoes, pricked the skins with a fork and popped them in the oven on a baking tray. Then she retrieved some minced beef from the fridge, a couple of onions and some garlic, and arranged a chopping board on the counter. She would add the prepared pasta sauce to the ingredients in the frying pan, along with some kidney beans and rustle up a quick chili con carne, she decided. At least it was a recipe she knew well, and therefore there was less chance of her having a disaster.

‘You look busy.’

The huskily male voice behind her almost made her jump out of her skin. Turning, Ailsa glanced into a sea of glittering iced blue, and her whole body suddenly felt dangerously weak. ‘I’m—I’m just preparing our dinner.’

‘Don’t go to any trouble on my account.’

‘It’s no trouble. We’ve both got to eat, right?’

His gaze scanning the ingredients on the marble-topped counter, Jake shrugged. ‘Need any help?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Turning back to the job in hand, she picked up the waiting sharp knife to dice the onions. But it was hard to keep her hand perfectly steady when the image of Jake in a fitted wine-coloured sweater and tailored black trousers, his hair damply golden from his shower, kept impinging on her ability to think straight. ‘I know when we were together my cooking wasn’t great, but I’ve gotten better at it over the years and you might even be pleasantly surprised.’

The man standing behind her didn’t immediately reply. When Ailsa heard him exhale a heavy sigh, she tensed anxiously.

‘Why did you think your cooking wasn’t great?’

‘Well … you always seemed to end up suggesting we go to a restaurant whenever I made anything. Perhaps that was a clue?’

Saying nothing, Jake moved up beside her and gently removed the ivory-handled knife from her hand. Laying it down on the chopping board, he turned her round to face him. ‘I don’t remember ever suggesting we go to a restaurant when you’d already spent hours in the kitchen cooking a meal. And when I suggested we eat out it was only ever to give you a break, so that you wouldn’t stress over preparing something. You made some great food when we were together, Ailsa. You must have, because I’m still here … right?’

What special ingredient did he possess that made that crooked smile of his so heartbreaking? His eyes so penetratingly, flawlessly blue? Her breath hitched and her heart started to race …

CHAPTER TWO

IT PAINED Jake that Ailsa had harboured the belief all these years that he’d thought her cooking unpalatable. Yes, he had on occasion smiled at her earnest efforts when they hadn’t quite worked out, but he hoped he’d conveyed that he was appreciative too. He’d eat burnt offerings every day if he could turn back the clock to the time when they were together, before the shattering event that had torn them apart.

He breathed out slowly. As he examined her thoughtful amber gaze a ripple of undeniable electricity hummed between them.

‘Yes, you’re still here,’ she quietly agreed with a reticent smile.

‘Battle-scarred, but still alive and kicking,’ he added, joking.

Ailsa’s smile fled, as did the beginning-to-melt look in her eyes. ‘Don’t joke about that,’ she scolded. Her tone was softer as she looped some silky strands of hair behind her ear. ‘Does it still bother you? The scar, I mean?’

His heart thudding—as it always did whenever his scar came under scrutiny—Jake mentally strengthened his defences, hammering in iron nails to hold them fast. ‘Do you mean am I worried that it’s spoiled my good looks?’ he mocked. Spinning away from her, he jammed his hands into his pockets, but quickly turned back again before she had a chance to comment. ‘It’s been over four years since I acquired it. I’ve quite got used to it. I think it gives me a certain piratical appeal … don’t you? At least, that’s what women tell me’

‘Women?’

‘We’ve been divorced four years, Ailsa. Did you imagine I would stay celibate?’

‘Don’t!’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Be cruel. I don’t deserve that. When I asked you if your scar bothered you, I meant does it still give you pain?’

‘The only pain I get from it is when I remember what caused it … and what we lost that day.’

She fell silent. But not before Jake glimpsed the anguish in her golden eyes.

‘Well,’ she said after a while, ‘I’d better get on with the cooking or we won’t have a meal tonight at all.’ Clearly discomfited by what he’d confessed, Ailsa returned to the counter to continue dicing onions. ‘Why don’t you go and make yourself comfortable in the living room and just relax?’

‘Maybe I’ll do just that,’ he murmured, glad of the opportunity to regroup his feelings and not blurt out anything else that might hurt her. Gratefully, he exited the room.

The charming dining room had terracotta walls, exposed beams on the ceiling, and a rustic oak floor. In the centre of the sturdy table—also oak—several different-sized white and scarlet candles burned, lending a warm and inviting glow to the room now that the day had turned seasonally dark. The window blinds were not yet pulled down, and outside snowflakes continued to float past the window in a never-ending stream. In the past, when they’d been married and in love, Jake might have considered the atmosphere intimate. But something told him it wasn’t his ex-wife’s intention to create such a potentially awkward impression. She ‘d always lit candles at dinner, whatever the season. She simply loved beauty in all its forms.

She’d once told him that the children’s home she’d grown up in had been bare of beauty of any kind and her soul had longed for it. Quickly he jettisoned the poignant memory, but not before berating himself for not encouraging her to talk more about her childhood experiences when they’d been married.

Now, at her invitation, he drew out a carved wooden chair, then tried to relax as she briefly disappeared to get their food. When she returned he watched interestedly as she carefully placed the aromatic meal she’d prepared in front of him, noting how appealing she’d made it look on the plate. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he’d scented the chilli, and he tucked into it with relish when Ailsa told him to, ‘Go ahead and eat … don’t wait for me.’

‘What do you think?’

The slight suggestion of anxiety in her tone made his gut clench. Touching his napkin to his lips, Jake grinned in a bid to help dispel it. Sitting opposite him, her long hair turning almost copper in the light of the gently flickering candle flames, she was quite utterly bewitching. A little buzz of sensual heat vibrated through him. ‘It’s delicious. I can’t begin to tell you how welcome it is after a long day’s travelling,’ he answered huskily.

‘That’s all right, then. Would you like some juice or some water?’ She was already reaching her hand towards the two jugs positioned on the raffia place-mat between them.

Jake nodded. ‘Water is fine … thanks.’

They seemed to have an unspoken agreement not to talk during the meal. But then, just as he finished every last scrap of the chilli she had prepared, Ailsa took a deep breath and brought an end to the silence.

‘Was it snowing in Copenhagen when you left?’ she asked conversationally.

‘We’ve had a few heavy snow showers over the past couple of days, but nothing like you’ve got here.’

‘Saskia must be pleased, then. She loves the snow. She’s been praying for a white Christmas.’

Leaning back in his chair, Jake met her gaze warily. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring her home today.’

Ailsa didn’t reply straight away and reassure him that she was okay with it. Behind her soft amber glance he sensed deep disappointment, and perhaps some residue of anger too. He blew out a breath to release the tension that had started to gather force in the pit of his stomach.

‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but I had so many plans for Christmas. I even told my customers to get their orders in early because I was taking an extra week off before Christmas Day to spend some time with my daughter. I’m really sorry that your mother lost your father, Jake, but she’s not the only one grieving.’ She was fighting hard to contain her emotion, and her beautiful eyes misted with tears.

‘Grieving?’ he echoed, not understanding.

‘Have you forgotten what day it is today?’ Her steady gaze unflinching now, she curled her fingers into the pristine white napkin now lying crumpled by her plate. ‘It’s the anniversary of our baby’s death … the day of the accident. That’s why I needed Saskia home today. If she was here I’d be focusing all my attention on her and wouldn’t let myself dwell on it so much.’

For the second time since setting eyes on Ailsa after so long Jake felt winded. Then a plethora of raw emotion gripped him mercilessly, almost making him want to crawl out of his own skin. An intense feeling of claustrophobia descended—just as if someone had shoved him inside a dark, windowless cell and then thrown away the key …

‘I’ve never noted the date,’ he admitted, his dry throat suddenly burning. ‘Probably because I don’t need some damned anniversary to remind me of what we lost that day!’ Pushing to his feet, he crossed to the window to stare blindly out at the curtain of white still drifting relentlessly down from the heavens. Vaguely he registered the scrape of Ailsa’s chair being pushed back behind him.

‘We haven’t talked about what happened in years … not since the divorce,’ she said quietly.

‘And you think now’s the right time?’ He spun round again, feeling like a pressure cooker about to blow. Ailsa was standing in front of him with her arms folded, her expression resolute. Yet he easily noted the giveaway tremor in her lower lip that revealed she was nervous too.

‘I’m not saying I want to dwell on what happened just because it’s the anniversary of Thomas’s death, but I—’

‘Don’t call him that … Our son wasn’t even born when he died!’

At the reminder that they’d given their baby a name, Jake felt his knees almost buckle. If he didn’t think of him as having a name then he couldn’t have been real, right? He couldn’t have had an identity other than that of an unborn foetus in the womb. It was the only way he’d been able to cope with the tragedy all these years.

The delicate oval face before him, with its perfectly neat dark brows, looked faintly horrified. ‘But we did give him a name, Jake … a name and a gravestone, remember? Before the snow got really bad yesterday I took a bouquet of lilac asters and white anemones to the graveyard where he’s buried. I do it every year at this time.’

The graveyard that housed the tiny remains of his son was situated in the grounds of a picturesque Norman church tucked away behind a narrow street not far from the Westminster offices of Larsen and Son. But Jake hadn’t visited it since the day of the funeral. That had been a bitter winter’s day, when icy winds had cleaved into his wounded face like hot knives, and it was a day that he wished he could blot from his memory for ever.

Pressing his fingers into his temples, he drove them irritably back into his hair. ‘And that helps, does it?’

‘Yes, it does, as a matter of fact. I know I was only seven months pregnant when he died, but he deserves to be remembered, don’t you think? Why do you seem so angry that I’ve brought the subject up? Did you really expect to stay here the night and not have me talk about it?’

Feeling utterly drained all of a sudden, as well as a million miles away from any remedy that could soothe the pain and distress he was experiencing at the memory of the longed-for son they’d lost so cruelly, Jake moved across to the dining room door that stood ajar.

‘I’m sorry … but I really don’t think there’s any point in discussing it. What can it possibly achieve? You have to let it go, Ailsa. The past is finished—over. We’re divorced, remember? We’ve made new lives for ourselves. Who would have thought the shy young girl I married would end up running her own business? That’s quite an achievement after all that’s happened. Not everything ended in disaster between us. We’ve still got our beautiful daughter to be thankful for. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’

‘Yes, we have Saskia—and I count my blessings every day that we have. And, yes, I run my own business and I’m proud of it. But do you really believe that if we don’t discuss it the shadow of that dreadful time we endured will magically go away? If it was so easy to just let it go don’t you think I would have done it by now? I thought that the divorce would help bring some closure after our baby’s death—help us both put it behind us and eventually heal. But somehow it doesn’t feel like it has. How can it when I’ve lost half of my family and can’t even hope for more children in the future? The accident robbed me of the chance. Perhaps because we’re not together any more it helps you to pretend that it never happened at all, Jake? “Out of sight, out of mind”, as they say?’

Ailsa was so near the truth that Jake stared at her. He hadn’t really wanted a divorce at all, but he had finally instigated it when the agony and the blame he’d imagined he saw in his wife’s eyes every day began to seriously disturb him. He just hadn’t been able to deal with it.

‘How can I pretend it never happened, hmm? I only have to look in the mirror every time I go to the bathroom and see this damned scar on my face to know that it did! Anyway …’

He swallowed down a gulp of air and his thundering heartbeat gradually slowed. It gave him a chance to think what to do next … to try to blot out the torturous memory of Ailsa being so badly injured in the accident that she’d slipped into unconsciousness long before the surgeons had performed a ceasarean to try and save the baby. The head surgeon had told Jake afterwards that her womb had been irreparably damaged and their infant hadn’t survived. It was unlikely she’d ever be able to bear a child again.

‘I’ve brought some work with me that I need to take a look at before I turn in. My father’s death has meant that I’ve become CEO, and inevitably there’s a raft of problems to sort out. Thanks for dinner and the bed for the night. The food was great. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Even though his excuse was perfectly legitimate, there was no escaping the fact that it made him feel like a despicable coward.

‘If you need an extra blanket, you’ll find a pile of them in the oak chest at the end of the bed.’

Ailsa’s tone made her sound as if she was determined to rise above her disappointment at his reluctance to yet again deal with the past. He silently admired this new strength she’d acquired, and was moved to hear the compassion in her voice … compassion that he probably didn’t deserve.

‘Sleep well,’ she added with a little half-smile. ‘Don’t sit up too late working, will you? You’ve had a long day’s travelling and you must be tired.’

Obviously not expecting an answer to her remarks, she gracefully moved back to the table, then methodically started to clear away the detritus of their meal. Knowing already that his unexpected appearance had disturbed and upset her, Jake fleetingly reflected again that he should never have come here. Then he would have avoided this agonising scene. His throat locked tight with the guilt and regret that made him feel, and he swept from the room. In the prettily furnished bedroom he’d been allocated, he glanced despairingly over at the neat stack of paperwork he’d left on the hand-stitched patchwork quilt that covered the bed and angrily thumped his chest with a heartfelt groan …

Knitting at the fireside, as was her usual habit before retiring to bed—she was always working on something beautiful and handmade for a customer—Ailsa took comfort from the rhythmic click of her needles along with the crackle of fresh ash logs she’d added to the wood-burner. After that altercation with Jake earlier she was feeling distinctly raw inside—as though her very organs had been scraped with a blade. Already she’d resigned herself to another sleepless night. Sometimes she didn’t vacate the high-backed Victorian armchair until the early hours of the morning. What was the point when all she did most nights if she went to bed early was toss and turn? Sleep was still the most elusive of visitors. It wasn’t usually until around five a.m. that she’d fall into an exhausted slumber, then a couple of hours later she’d wake up again feeling drugged.

She often wondered how on earth she survived on such a relentlessly punishing lack of sleep and was able to take care of Saskia and work too. The human capacity to endure never ceased to amaze her.

But she was even more unsettled tonight by the fact that Jake was occupying the spare room upstairs. Seeing him again had been wonderful and dreadful all at the same time. But the sight of him had always made her react strongly. The deeply grooved scar on one side of his chiselled visage made him no less charismatic or handsome, she reflected. She was grief-stricken at the idea he believed that it did. And. yes … she privately admitted it did make him look rather piratical—although she hadn’t wanted to hear that other women thought so too. It nearly killed her that he seemed to have forgotten the passionate love they’d shared and moved on. There was no such ‘normal’ pattern of existence for her. How could she even look at another man with the prospect of a relationship at the back of her mind after someone like Jake Larsen?

She’d been a trainee receptionist in the Larsen offices when they’d first met. Only nineteen, yet brimming with determination to better herself after her difficult start in life, she’d been so grateful for the chance of such a ‘glamorous’ job when she’d barely had any qualifications under her belt. But she’d been studying hard at her local adult education facility to remedy that. When Jake had walked through the revolving glass doors one day, wearing a single-breasted black cashmere coat over his suit, his lightly tanned skin and blond hair making him look like some kind of mythical hero from one of those magical folk tales that had at their roots the trials and travails of life and the story of how the handsome hero and beautiful heroine overcame them together, Ailsa almost forgot to breathe.

As he’d walked up to her and her colleague, her much more confident fellow employee had whispered under her breath, ‘It’s the boss’s son … Jake Larsen. He’s come over from Copenhagen.’ But even before her colleague had told Ailsa his identity her heart had already turned over inside her chest at the arresting sight of all that sculpted Viking beauty and the spine-tingling charisma that Jake exuded. She’d never been so fascinated by a man before. And especially not a man who was clearly light years out of her league, who wore the mantle of authority and power as though it was a natural component of his DNA. Yet he’d warmly introduced himself to her, the most junior and in-experienced of his staff, as though she were no less important than one of the firm’s directors, she recalled. When he had followed up his welcome to her with a near-incandescent smile—a smile that had wiped every thought clean from her head—she’d found herself well and truly under his spell …

‘Blast!’ She dropped a stitch, patiently unravelled the multi-coloured wool, then cast on again. The logs in the burner hissed and spat and she glanced mournfully across at the beautiful Norwegian pine standing in the corner. It poignantly reminded her of a shy young girl at a party, waiting to be noticed by a boy and asked to dance … Once upon a time, in another life, Jake would have happily volunteered to help her dress the tree, singing lustily along to the carols playing in the background and teasingly increasing the volume of his voice when she protested he was singing out of tune.

It hurt that he wouldn’t discuss the baby’s death with her. Ailsa had hoped such a discussion would help them be a little easier around each other and truly be able to move on. They hadn’t had a prayer of being able to do that after the accident and then leading up to their divorce, when they’d both been so wounded, hurt and angry, blaming each other for everything. She’d even hoped that such a mutually frank discussion might at last help her to sleep better at night.

‘Oh, well …’ Murmuring under her breath, she sighed softly. When he leaves tomorrow I’ll just carry on as normal. It’s not all bad … I’ve still got Saskia. And the business is doing well … better than ever, in fact.

She bit her lip, trying hard not to cry. Sniffing determinedly, she wiped her eyes and lifted her gaze to the tree again. Her daughter might not be around to share in the joy that decorating a Christmas tree could bring but it wouldn’t stop Ailsa from taking on the task herself. After all, it was something she excelled at. She ran a very successful business designing and making beautiful things—everything from tree decorations to hand-knitted sweaters and patchwork quilts. Plus, she and Saskia had been collecting and making decorative odds and ends the whole year for this season.

Feeling her spirits lifting a little, she put her knitting away and instead of dozing in the armchair, as she normally did, for the first time in months she went upstairs to bed …

His hand fumbling for the clock beside the bed, Jake groaned when his sleep-fogged brain registered the time. Realising that he must have slept the sleep of the dead, he tried to fathom why. Like Ailsa, he had become a veritable insomniac over the years following the accident. Sitting up and arranging a plump pillow against the iron-bedstead to support his back, he was just in time to hear the radiator in the room click and hum into life. Breathing out deliberately heavily, he wasn’t surprised to see the plume of steam that hit the icy air.

Was the house usually this perishingly cold in the morning? He couldn’t help feeling a spurt of annoyance shoot through him at the thought that Ailsa could have chosen to live in much more luxurious surroundings, with under-floor heating and every available comfort. Instead she had stubbornly opted for this too isolated cottage. Charming as it was, it wasn’t the home he wanted his daughter to grow up in …

Rubbing his hands briskly together to warm them, he diverted this disturbing line of thought by wondering how soon he could get a flight back to Copenhagen today. Mulling over the possibilities—or not as the case might be—he shoved aside the patchwork quilt that covered the silk-edged woollen blankets and strode over to the window. Lifting a corner of the heavily lined floral curtain, Jake stared out at the incredible scene that confronted him with a mixture of frustration, disappointment and sheer bewildering astonishment.

As far as the eye could see and beyond everything was deeply blanketed in brilliant diamond-white. And fierce gusts of wind were making the still falling snow swirl madly like dervishes. Unless he could sprout wings and fly there’d be no getting out of here today. In any case, all the planes at the airport would surely be grounded in such Siberian weather.

‘Damn!’

He stood there in black silk pyjama bottoms, his hard-muscled chest bare, and willed himself to come up with a plan. But even as he seriously considered phoning his helicopter pilot back in Copenhagen he remembered the lack of service yesterday for both landlines and mobiles in the area. The current extreme weather conditions didn’t bode well for the service returning any time soon. The helicopter option was clearly off the agenda. As he bit back his increasing frustration, a tentative knock at the door made Jake’s heart race.

‘Jake, are you up and about yet? I was wondering if you’d like a cup of tea?’

Instead of answering, he crossed to the door and pulled it wide. Her dark hair flowing down over her shoulders, slightly mussed as if she’d had a restless night, Ailsa stood in front of him like some wide-eyed ingénue in a kimonostyle red silk dressing gown. She barely looked out of her teens, let alone the mother of a nine-year-old. Disconcertingly, that old sense of fierce protectiveness that he’d always felt around her came flooding back.

‘Never mind me. You look like you could do with a hot drink to warm you up,’ he told her gruffly. ‘Why doesn’t your heating come on earlier? Have you seen the weather outside? It’s freezing in here.’

‘The boiler is on a timer. And, yes, I have seen the weather. I don’t think the snow has let up all night. But it’s not surprising you’re cold, standing there with barely a stitch on!’

Jake couldn’t prevent the grin that hijacked his lips. ‘You know I don’t sleep with much on. Or had you forgotten that?’

‘You didn’t say whether you wanted a cup of tea or not,’ she persisted doggedly, clutching the sides of the silk dressing gown more closely together and concealing her face by letting her hair fall across it.

But not before Jake saw that she was blushing. He experienced a very male sense of satisfaction at that. It was good to know that he could still get a reaction from her, despite all the muddied water flowing under the bridge between them …

‘I definitely wouldn’t say no to a hot drink of some kind. But let me take a shower first and dress before I join you downstairs.’

‘Okay.’ The slim shoulders lifted, then fell again before she turned away. As Jake closed the door on Ailsa’s retreating back, she swung round again. ‘Shall I cook breakfast for you as well?’

He hesitated. Purely because he’d just noticed the smudged violet shadows beneath her eyes that clarified his belief that she probably hadn’t slept. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ he said huskily.

A fleeting smile curved the pretty lips he’d so loved kissing—still dreamed of kissing from time to time, whenever he tortured himself with thinking back to what they’d had.

‘It’s no trouble.’ She continued on her way down the landing and the gentle womanly sway of her hips made Jake’s heart ache.

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