Juliet frowned and began to shiver. The cold morning air had finally cut through her thick dressing gown and pyjamas and she felt chilled to the bone.
‘Can we go inside?’ he asked, aware that she was not coping in the cold.
‘No,’ she replied flatly. ‘Everyone’s sleeping and I don’t want them to know about what happened between us. It’s over and done and they do not need to be any the wiser that their daughter made another mistake.’
‘It wasn’t a mistake.’
‘I disagree. I think me sleeping with you was a mammoth mistake. You were almost morose when we woke. I could see you didn’t want me there with you.’
‘I asked you to stay. I wanted you next to me.’
‘Yes, maybe you did that night, but in your heart you knew it would be over when the sun came up.’ Juliet began to shake from the bitter cold...and her breaking heart. ‘I just wish you’d never invited me over in the first place. I wish I’d never stayed.’
‘So you regret making love to me? Do you think falling into my bed and into my arms was the biggest mistake you could have made? Because I don’t. It’s just taken me time to work it out in my head. And my heart.’
Juliet was angry but she couldn’t lie. She didn’t regret making love to Charlie. All she regretted was allowing herself to fall in love with him. ‘I don’t understand your question. Why are you wanting to torture me? I haven’t wanted to sleep with anyone in more than four years and then I make this huge error in judgement and believe that you’re different, that perhaps you’re looking for something more, but I was wrong.’
‘You weren’t wrong.’ He pulled off his heavy jacket and gently placed it on her shoulders.
‘You’ll freeze,’ she said, attempting to give it back as he stood in a jumper and shirt. The air was misty and damp, the ground outside covered with a fresh layer of snow.
His strong hands remained resting lightly on her shoulders as he refused to take back the jacket. ‘I’m warm-blooded enough to survive while you hear me out.’
Juliet hated the fact that she couldn’t argue that fact. Charlie had been warm-blooded enough the night they’d spent together to keep her fire burning into the early hours. She also hated that while his coat was heavy it felt good to have it wrapped around her. His scent, the warmth of the lambswool lining that he had heated only moments before. It felt as if it were all she would ever need but she knew it wasn’t hers to keep. Because he wasn’t hers to keep.
‘Just let me say a few things and then if you want me to go, I will.’
‘Just go now—’
‘I can’t and I won’t. Not without telling you how I feel. How I’ve felt since I first laid eyes on you.’
‘When you told me off for being a bad mother.’
‘I didn’t say those words—’
‘But you thought it,’ she interrupted, trying to remind herself, as much as him, why they shouldn’t be together.
‘I admit, I’ve been judging everyone but mostly myself for as long as I can remember...’
‘Since the accident?’
‘Yes. I’ve been confused and carrying guilt with me for so long that I felt lost without it. I was driven to punish myself since that day.’ His voice was low and sombre.
‘But it wasn’t your fault.’
‘You and everyone in this town have said that so many times,’ he stated. ‘But it was how I saw it.’
Juliet thought she heard something more in his words but she wasn’t sure. ‘How you saw it? So it’s not how you see it now?’
Charlie looked at her and shook his head. ‘It’s not how I want to see it any more and being with you I know that’s possible.’
‘What’s changed?’ she asked, not daring to hope that he wanted her. And was ready to build a life with her. And with her daughter. The three of them as a family.
‘I know that hurting you won’t bring my wife back. Nothing can. I realised that as I’ve slept alone in my bed for the last two nights wanting you beside me. Wanting to feel your tenderness and love again. Being near you brought my spirit back and being with you and making love to you made me feel more alive than I thought possible. I won’t let you go without a fight. I know that spending the rest of my life regretting the moment my wife and I climbed in that car two years ago won’t change anything. I will still have a place in my heart for the woman I loved back then, but I don’t want to lose the two special women who have come into my life now. I want to live in the present and build a future and I want to do it with you. I want you, Juliet, now and for ever if you’ll have me, and I want to be the father that Bea needs. If you’ll let me.’
‘I never wanted to fight you on that. I just wanted to love you,’ she told him with tears welling in her eyes.
‘I know that, Juliet, and I’m sorry. The fight was never with you, the fight was with myself and my stupidity, my need to carry the guilt like a cross and my need to punish myself to make amends. I don’t want to do that any more. In the week since we met, I have been questioning everything that’s been my life, my reality for the last two years. You and Bea have made me want more. You’ve made me want a life that’s free of remorse and sad memories. You’ve brought a light back that I never thought I would see again and warmth that I never thought I would feel. I don’t want to live in the cold or the dark any more. I want to really live again. To have you by my side for the rest of my life.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Juliet,’ he said, dropping to one knee and wrapping her hand into the strength and warmth of his, ‘I’m asking you to be my wife. To love me the way you did the other night. To share your life and to bring life back into my home and make me want to sleep in our four-poster bed and make love to you every night. Will you? Will you make me the man I want to be and the man I can be if you’ll allow me?’
‘Yes,’ she answered with tears freely flowing down her face as she fell into his arms and kissed him as if there would be no tomorrow. ‘Yes, of course I’ll marry you. I love you, Charlie Warren.’
‘And I will love you for ever, Juliet...and spend the rest of my life decorating Christmas trees with Bea...and the rest of our children.’
* * * * *
Scarlet Wilson
A gift for the man who has everything...
A brief, electrifying fling—that was all Sienna McDonald and Sebastian Falco, Crown Prince of Montanari, agreed to. But on her return to Teddy’s, neonatal surgeon Sienna learns she’s brought back more than just memories...
Sienna wants to keep
