The Forbidden Innocent (15 page)

‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen pictures of Santa Barbara?’ he questioned. ‘It’s an idyllic little place—as if somebody from Central Casting had gone there and slapped down a perfect beach town on the west coast of the United States. The ocean is amazing and the vegetation was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
Blossom trees grow side by side with lush and exotic plants. Every blade on every lawn is clipped and every street is clean. It was warm and it was beautiful and I rented a house on a place called Hope Ranch—and the name seemed somehow symbolic after everything I’d been through. I could see ocean and mountains from my windows and there was a pool where I could swim every morning before breakfast.’

He sounded as if he were quoting from a travel brochure, thought Ashley—but still she said nothing.

‘To some extent, it worked. The rest and the beauty helped heal me but I guess deep down I was lonely and my experiences had left me craving company, and comfort. There was a realty agent who was showing me some of my properties and she happened to be blonde, and fun. For a while she was able to make me forget the horrors I’d seen, and, well, we became… close.’ He sighed. ‘It should never have been anything more than an affair—but somehow it didn’t quite work out that way. Because one day Kelly announced she was pregnant.’

Ashley bit back a gasp of horror. Did the story of his past have even greater ramifications than she’d thought? Did Jack also have a
child?

‘So we married,’ he continued, ignoring the blanched expression on her face—unwilling to halt the painful telling of his story in case he couldn’t bring himself to start again. ‘Only it turned out that the pregnancy wasn’t real. It was a classic case of entrapment, only I was still too blitzed to have seen through it—and too much of a gentleman to ask to see the test results. But we were
married and I was at an age to start thinking about settling down and so I thought… maybe this
can
work. And then, I have to
make
it work. Pride made me want my marriage to be a success. I gave it my best shot—I really did—but we were completely unsuited. We wanted different things out of life. Kelly liked spending my money, going to glitzy parties and flying from city to city. The life she craved was just one big adult playground, and that wasn’t me at all. I began to miss my home—the emptiness of the moors and the low English skies. I couldn’t see myself settling in the States and she took one look at a photo of Blackwood and refused to ever set foot in the place.’

‘So what happened?’ breathed Ashley.

‘I broached the subject of a separation and that’s when she started making astronomical alimony demands. Crazy stuff.’ He gave a hollow kind of laugh. ‘She wanted millions of dollars for a marriage which had lasted less than six months. I told her that while I would be fair, I had no intention of being stitched up. We were driving back towards Hope Ranch one day when she lost her temper and suddenly started hitting at me, and when that had no effect—she tried to grab the steering wheel.’

For a moment there was a long, strained silence and Ashley looked at him with a question in her eyes even though deep down she already knew the bleak answer.

‘We crashed,’ he finished baldly.

Ashley winced. ‘Crashed? ‘

‘We hit one of the tall palm trees they call “widow makers”. Kelly nearly didn’t make it—she sustained a brain injury and they operated on her that day. And when she came round from the anaesthetic, she was in a coma. A deep, vegetative state, the doctors called it.’ He swallowed. ‘In which she remains to this day.’

‘Oh, my God. Oh, how awful. Oh, Jack—I’m so sorry! How long… I mean, how long has it been?’ she whispered.

‘Two years.’

Two years?
Suddenly, Ashley felt as if her life were a jigsaw puzzle which somebody had just snatched up and shaken all over the floor.

He gave a ragged sigh as he stared at her. ‘I know what you must be thinking, Ashley—that I’m heartless and cruel and deceitful, and, yes, maybe I am. But I sat by her bedside for weeks while they conducted test after test. Weeks became months. I had every top specialist flown in and they all said the same thing. That it was hopeless, that she would never recover—and that I should go away and live my own life. For a while I refused to believe them. I said that there were such things as miracles—but I was wrong. No miracle ever happened and eventually I took their advice and came home. But I wasn’t planning on meeting someone else and falling in love with her—nor on wanting to spend the rest of my life with her.’

But words which would once have thrilled her had lost their power to move. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘And when should I have done that?’ he demanded. ‘From the moment I met you it was already too late. My guard was down because I never imagined that someone like you would pose any threat. You were too young and too gauche—you simply weren’t my type. And then I began to notice the person you really were underneath. One who was honest and spirited and yet shy all at the same time. Who had all the qualities I’d never dreamed a woman could have. You just bewitched me, Ashley, and I was imprisoned by your spell. I kept saying to myself—I will tell her today. And then, no, I will tell her tomorrow. And then tomorrow became tomorrow. There was always another tomorrow. And then, of course—we became lovers—’

‘Adulterous lovers,’ she breathed, her faced flushed with a combination of shame and brandy as she stared at him.

Uncomfortably, he shrugged. ‘In theory.’

‘No, Jack—in practice,’ she insisted and then shook her head, her heart as heavy as lead. ‘Why give me the ring? Why make the proposal?’ she demanded. ‘Was that your own form of entrapment? Of pretending that none of your past life had ever happened?’

‘And haven’t you ever pretended?’ he snapped, his face suddenly darkening with a fierce kind of anger. ‘That the world is not like it
really
is, but a Utopian version which is kind to us all?’

She stared at him. ‘Of course I have,’ she answered slowly. She, more than anyone, had spent her whole childhood fantasising about being someone else who
lived somewhere else. Pretending that she had a mother and father who loved her and a safe and cosy little house somewhere in the suburbs. ‘And you’re right—I can’t heap all the blame on you. I pretended to myself that everything was fine between us when deep down I knew there was something wrong. There were lots of unanswered questions and things that weren’t quite right. Things I didn’t dare confront because maybe I wanted the Utopian version, too. So maybe I was guilty of cowardice for not having confronted the issue.’

She remembered something else now. Something else which she had blocked. ‘There’s a scarf tucked away in your study,’ she said slowly. ‘A beautiful blue scarf, shot with gold.’

His face was ashen now and his voice sounded tortured. ‘It belonged to Kelly,’ he said. ‘She was wearing it on the day of the crash. The hospital gave it to me and I brought it home. Every time I looked at it, I thought of her lying stricken and unresponsive in her hospital bed. I could hardly bear to keep it, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.’

‘Oh, Jack.’

His mouth hardened, as if her quiet words of automatic sympathy had only added to his pain. ‘Can’t you see that the moment I told you about my past, it would have coloured it black?’ he appealed. ‘The way it’s doing right now. Maybe I just wanted to experience the joy of telling the woman I love that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her—without this dark reality pressing
down on us. Was that such a terrible thing to do, Ashley—to chase that brief moment of joy?’

‘Yes. No. I
don’t know,
Jack.’

He moved away from the fire and walked towards her and in spite of everything she could feel herself tremble with love as he grew closer.

‘This doesn’t have to change anything, you know,’ he said.

Her heart thumping she stared up at him. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Why should it? Kelly is getting the best treatment in the world and that will never change. I will continue to care for her in every way that I can. You and I could carry on being lovers—just as before. But if you want, I will divorce her. That’s one of the reasons I went down to London to see my lawyer—to find out where I stood legally, and—’

‘No!’

Her fierce response must have taken him by surprise because he stopped, his black eyes narrowing as he stared back at her.

‘You once told me you could forgive me anything,’ he said slowly.

‘And at the time I meant it—but I was wrong. I can’t pretend that everything’s hunky-dory. Don’t you see this is hopeless? That it must all end?’ she whispered. ‘I can’t be your lover any more, Jack—and I can’t put myself in the way of temptation. I have to go away from here—far away. We have to forget all about each other
and everything we’ve been to each other, don’t you see that?’

‘But why, Ashley?
Why?’

She shook her head. Couldn’t he see? Was he going to make her endure yet more pain by having to spell it out for him word by aching word? ‘Because it’s wrong—and I can’t do it. I can’t bear the thought of you divorcing a sick and helpless woman because of me—and neither can I bear the thought of sharing your bed while she’s still alive. But it’s more than that, Jack—it’s the whole trust thing. You should have told me and you didn’t tell me—and I don’t think.’ Her voice faltered slightly before the words came rushing out in a bitter stream. ‘I don’t think I would ever be able to trust you again. That trust has been broken and I don’t think it can ever be mended. And whichever way you look at it—that’s no basis for married life or any other kind of life together.’

He flinched then as if she had hit him, staring into her face for a long moment before abruptly turning away from her and going over to stare into the heart of the fire. And when he turned again, his face was changed. Different. So that for a moment he looked like a remote stranger and not like Jack at all.

‘I’m asking you to sleep on it. Not to make any decisions in the heat of the moment,’ he said. ‘I will not attempt to influence you in any way other than to emphasise that what we share is rare. You know it is, Ashley. What has happened has been one almighty mess which I could have—and should have—handled better.
But the fundamental facts haven’t changed. I love you and you love me—and I’m a lot older than you are. I’ve been around a bit and I’ve seen the way things work in this crazy world of ours.’ His voice lowered into an urgent entreaty. ‘Let me assure you that this kind of love doesn’t come along very often. We’re
compatible,
you and I—we both know that. We have something which is special. And that if we let it go… if we squander it. well, we’d be crazy.’

She thought if that was Jack
not
influencing her, then she would like to hear what he had to say when he was. Though on second thoughts, maybe she wouldn’t. Because wasn’t it difficult enough now to resist the urge to fling herself into his arms and have him cover her hair and face with his hot, sweet kisses? To let his love-making banish all her doubts and her fears. They could never go back to the way it had been before, but surely they could find another way—one which would still take into account that rare compatibility he’d spoken of.

But could she live like that—knowing that their happiness would for ever be tarnished by another woman’s tragedy? Ashley stared into Jack’s black eyes, drinking in their gleaming brilliance and hoping that her face did not betray her tumultuous thoughts. Because if he had any idea of what was in her mind, wouldn’t he try to stop her?

‘I’ve listened to everything you’ve said,’ she answered slowly. ‘And now I’m going upstairs to bed.’

‘Ashley—’

‘Let me sleep on it,’ she said. ‘Please. Don’t ask any
more than that.’ And with that, she quickly left the room—before she broke down in front of him. Knowing that there was nothing to sleep on. The words she’d spoken to him had been true. It
was
going to have to end and she
was
going to have to leave. To go somewhere far away—where Jack could not find her and tempt her into coming back.

Sleep was out of the question. Instead, she lay wide-eyed on her bed until she heard his heavy footfall on the stairs and the clicking shut of his door. She waited until the house was completely silent before she crept around her room, quietly layering a few essential pieces of clothing into a small bag—listening out like a burglar for the sound of movement.

She tried writing a note—but could find no words for what she wanted to say. To berate him for having betrayed her and broken her heart would be unnecessarily cruel to a man who had surely suffered enough. To tell him that she had loved him and suspected she always would might give both of them false hope. Because she had spoken the truth earlier and they did
not
have any kind of future. Not together.

The diamond ring she slid from her finger and laid in the centre of the table by the window, where it winked reproachfully at her—a cold and precious symbol of all that would never be hers.

But it wasn’t until dawn brought with it the concealing sound of birdsong that she made her way downstairs. Like a ghost, she slipped through the back door and
as she did she heard the shrilling sound of the phone. Briefly, she wondered who on earth was ringing at this time of the morning—but the business of Blackwood was no longer her business. Quietly, she shut the door behind her and said a silent goodbye to her old life.

Skirting the main lawns, she was soon swallowed up by the trees which bordered the lane. The light was pearly grey and it was a chill morning, but Ashley didn’t notice anything other than the frantic beat of her heart and the urgent need to get away. Far away—even though something seemed to be pulling her back towards the black-eyed man who probably was not asleep either.

She’d thought about what Jack might do if some sixth sense alerted him to her absence and sent him running after her. The nearest railway station was the first place he’d look. So she carried on walking—her ears alert to the sound of approaching cars… or horses… And only when she’d put several miles between herself and Blackwood, did she risk sliding her mobile phone from the pocket of her jeans and dialling a taxi company.