‘Hi,’ the stranger said, greeting Jess with a stunning smile. ‘I’m so sorry to call in like this on Christmas Day, but I was hoping to catch Sebastian. Is he at home?’
‘He is. They’re just finishing lunch. Would you like to come in?’
‘Aye, that would be great, thank you.’
‘I’ll go and find him – who shall I say is here?’
‘No, don’t worry about all that formality, I’ll come with you. He knows I’m coming to visit, and it’s not like I don’t know the way.’
As the woman smiled again, and Jess frowned at the familiarity she seemed to have with Sebastian, the realisation dawned, and was reinforced when she added, ‘I’m Catriona, by the way.’
Chapter 34
Jess failed miserably to make polite small talk as she led Catriona through to the dining room. To make matters worse, when they got there everyone had glasses of champagne in their hands, toasting Olivia and Candida, and the levels of happiness and revelry had reached new highs. Jess didn’t even have to introduce Catriona to the room – her arrival caught everyone’s attention. Well, why wouldn’t it? She was stunning.
Jess’s mouth went dry as she watched Catriona smile at Sebastian and extend her arms to greet him.
‘You made it,’ he said, abandoning his glass and heading for her. He glanced at the assembled group. ‘I meant to say Catriona might be popping in to see us. It must have slipped my mind.’
Jess watched in silence as Catriona wrapped her arms around Sebastian, his limbs resisting only fleetingly before he reciprocated.
As Jess willed them apart, her fingers so tight around the back of the nearest chair she feared the wood might snap, jealousy spiked in a way she’d never felt before.
Even when they did draw apart, other family members piling in to welcome Catriona, Sebastian made no move to leave Catriona’s side.
Jess felt as though the floor had turned liquid, her mind’s eye painting the craziest of pictures. Perhaps it was the fact Olivia and Candida had just got engaged, and the talk had turned to weddings, but now Jess could see Sebastian and Catriona as they would have been if they’d never broken up all those years ago. The image was all in Jess’s head, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t still come true. A fairy-tale wedding in a Highland castle. A little girl with the same flaming hair and gorgeous green eyes as Catriona; a boy with his father’s dark, handsome looks and sensitive nature.
It made sense, if Jess thought about it. Who wouldn’t want him? Who in their right mind wouldn’t drop everything to get close to Sebastian? Right now, Catriona was probably in the process of remembering what she’d had, was already wishing it back again. And she might as well face it: you could tell, just by looking at Catriona, that she would have no problem fitting in at Kirkshield. The family seemed completely unperturbed at her unannounced arrival. While Dee seemed to have trouble spending time in the same room as Jess, she was chatting to Catriona with unusual animation.
Jess glanced across to where Vivi sat. She hadn’t budged from her seat at the table and was taking in the scene with her usual sharp perception. They caught one another’s gaze but Vivi gave little away. Jess sighed. Even her aunt could tell this woman – who Jess was viewing as an interloper, but everyone else was welcoming back into the fold – was far more likely to provide Sebastian with what he needed, going forward. She even had a solid foundation of a life spent in this very place. Jess couldn’t offer him that. She struggled with most of the attributes which Sebastian deserved. Stability. Commitment. It was clear Catriona had all that and so much more to offer.
Jess tried to breathe, tried to gain some perspective, waited for the greetings to die away. But when someone handed Catriona a glass of champagne, Jess shook her head. She couldn’t do this. Nobody noticed as she gathered up the rest of the dessert bowls and made for the kitchen. Everyone was too busy with their lives – their proper lives, the lives in which Jess was simply a visitor, here for a few weeks before she’d be away, off to somewhere new. Perhaps she shouldn’t wait to be pushed; perhaps she should get on with it and jump. Right now.
She dumped the bowls beside the dishwasher, taking up Digby’s lead and clipping it to his collar as she made for the door, only momentarily slowed by the realisation that snow was falling almost as heavily as rain had the day Digby got soaked. She should put his waterproof jacket on, and let Vivi know where she was going, but Jess couldn’t face going back into the dining room.
Jess had always considered herself a logical person. She’d grieved for and survived the realisation it was unlikely she would ever grace the stage again as a singer; she’d adapted and moved and flowed with life as best she could, had thought she was doing all right. Making the best of – no, making themostof the opportunities which came her way. But what on earth had she been thinking this time? How had she allowed herself to fall in love with Sebastian? With the whole of Kirkshield, in fact. What had possessed her? Had she really thought she would be enough for him? He was a fuckingearl, for crying out loud. And who was she? A nobody, that was who, pretending she belonged here.
Maybe it would be better to pull the plug on the whole thing now, rather than to suffer the indignity of him doing it later. By the looks of the way he was hugging Catriona, Jess wondered how much later the ‘later’ might be. She’d been living in a bubble, and it was possible the bubble had just burst.
Jess set off, ignoring Digby’s protests at the snow. She stomped her way down towards the village and out beyond, taking a new direction along a track she’d never walked before. The symbolism seemed apt.
Sebastian couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to tell anyone – Jess especially – about Catriona’s call. He supposed it was a reflection on how focused he was on Jess, but there really was no excuse. Seeing Catriona again sent a flurry of different emotions through him, some of them difficult to navigate. He would be lying if he pretended otherwise.
And there was no doubting Catriona looked amazing. In the last decade she’d grown from a beautiful girl into a sensational woman, long-limbed and easy in her own skin.
‘You look well,’ she said. ‘It’s been far too long, Sebastian.’
‘It has. You’re looking wonderful, Catriona. And your partner – is he spending Christmas at Kirkshield, too?’
‘His shift patterns didn’t fit. I hate being away from him, but it’s been too long since I saw my parents. He’ll be here for Hogmanay, though. He’s going to ask my dad’s permission before he pops the question.’ She grinned. ‘Ridiculous, really. I told him nobody does any of that stuff anymore, but he’s determined to do it right. And I want the wedding to be here, in the village, so …’
As the rest of the family surrounded her, and someone passed her a glass of champagne, Sebastian took a step away, both physically and emotionally. Catriona was getting married. He couldn’t be anything but pleased for her.
Back then, they’d been playing at being grown-up, without any of the autonomy required to follow through. They were two teenagers unaware that their interactions would shape the trajectory of both their lives, unaware of the outside forces preparing to bear down on their fledgling emotions. Catriona, and what Sebastian had experienced as a result of their relationship, still sat at the very foundation of what made Sebastian the man he was. As did the reason for their break-up. At the time, the full horror of what his father had told him was enough to send Sebastian spiralling. That Henry had been having an affair with Kitty McAllister when Catriona had been conceived, and there was no way to tell for sure who was her true father, had left Sebastian panicked at the thought that he might have been sleeping with his own half-sister.
With hindsight, and with the knowledge of the poisonous lies his father had been feeding Olivia, Sebastian supposed the doubt over Catriona’s parentage could be nothing more than another web of deceit, spun to create discord and to ruin anyone else’s shot at happiness.
But as he joined in with the general conversation, the chatter about Catriona’s job in Aberdeen, the health of her parents, the state of the roads as winter closed in, Sebastian realised it was far too late to dive back into the cesspool of the past. And more than that, the past was just that. The past.
