Chapter One
Jack
Thanksgiving in New York City was one of the biggest holidays of the year. It was a day of national feasting, of gratitude. A day marked by the iconic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where air-filled balloons would bob along the parade route in the shape of Snoopy, Shrek or the Energizer Bunny, carrying along with them the feelings of hope, promise and new beginnings.
But tonight, Jack Churchill would remember this Thanksgiving for all the wrong reasons.
As the November wind crept through the gap in the back doors that opened out on to the patio of his father’s home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Jack grabbed his chance for some fresh air before the annual party began. He slipped out the door and rubbed his hands together briskly against the cold. He’d thought he’d be alone, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark he saw Nicole, his father’s housekeeper, crouched on the ground in the far corner behind the ash tree.
He moved closer and shivered when the icy wind met his chest, which was only covered in the white dress shirt of his tuxedo. ‘Nicole? Is everything all right?’
When Nicole turned around Jack realised she’d been concealing a young woman, huddled beneath a blanket, sitting on the paving stones. In the shadows with the moonlight finding it difficult to battle through the cluster of bare tree branches above, in this tiny slice of Manhattan, she looked terrified. And when she looked up she locked gazes with Jack, her eyes hollow and lost.
Jack noticed the foil tray on the ground, with a fork protruding and ready to go. ‘Nicole, what’s going on?’
‘I’m just helping her out.’ Nicole wasn’t only the housekeeper who had worked with his father for thirteen years. She was also a friend, almost a part of their family, which needed all the help it could get. And he’d never seen her look as sheepish as she did right now. She’d always had a confidence about her that had somehow worked with Jack the teenager, Kent the widower. In fact, when Nicole had turned up in their lives, three months shy of Jack’s fifteenth birthday and four years following the death of his mother, Cynthia, she’d been a symbol of hope like the first snowdrop of spring. With Nicole the world suddenly became colourful again, and somehow, although he’d never asked her outright, he believed they’d filled an unspoken void in her life too.
The young woman refused to meet his gaze, but Jack winked at Nicole. ‘You’d better not let Dad catch you out here.’
Visibly relieved, Nicole said, ‘Thank you, Jackson.’
He held up a hand to acknowledge her thanks and left her to continue her good deed as he turned to go back inside. But before he made it to the back door that must’ve swung right open in the wind, he came face to face with his father.
‘Jack, what the devil are you doing out here? It’s freezing.’ Kent was accompanied by Braydon, an employee of their family jewellery business. ‘There was such a draught I came to investigate what was going on.’
Jack had thought he may be able to usher them all inside, but behind his father appeared Marian, Kent’s latest woman. He swore his father had had more girlfriends since his wife had died than Jack had had in his whole life, and there was something rather disturbing about that. None of them ever lasted though, and for that Jack was thankful. But this one, Marian, at least seemed to have a bit of common sense, because after checking out their faces as Kent looked past Jack and zoned in on Nicole and the stranger, Marian excused herself to go back to the party.
Jack knew his father and he knew his tolerance levels. He could see his jaw tensing up, his eyes narrowing. No, this wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all. The Churchills associated with certain people and they did not include a down and out woman who was still sitting on the patio, hands still but eyes focused on the food in the foil container. She was probably wondering whether she’d even get to eat it now.
‘What’s going on here?’ Kent took a step closer, his handsome exterior menacing, negating his usual approachability in company.
‘I can explain,’ Nicole began. ‘I was just help—’
‘I can see very well what’s going on. Jack?’
Jack held up his hands in defence. ‘I’m as surprised as you are.’ He almost wished he knew something, that he could start an argument with his father. Perhaps it would shake him into seeing his son as his own person, rather than a clone to carry on the family name and the business.
‘Get her off my property,’ Kent spat. ‘Now!’
Jack’s eyes widened almost as much as Nicole’s. No matter what the situation was, they never spoke to Nicole with anything other than respect and familiarity. Tonight it was almost as though she was a stranger to Kent Churchill.
Kent took a step towards the young woman. ‘You need to leave before I call the police.’ His voice low and laced with promise, Nicole stepped in front to shield the terrified stranger. But Kent hadn’t finished his tirade. ‘Is that mine?’ He pointed at the red woollen blanket she was huddled beneath.
Nicole seemed suddenly terrified of this man she didn’t recognise. ‘You told me to get rid of it.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t want to throw it away when it could be put to better use.’ Jack had never heard her voice so small, and when Kent spotted the foil container filled with food, Nicole told him, ‘It’s just leftovers, scraps. I would’ve thrown them out anyway.’
Jack watched his father. Surely he wasn’t going to use physical force to get his way? He’d never acted like this. Kent was an elitist—Jack got a kick out of it sometimes—but tonight he was acting as though he didn’t have an ounce of compassion running through his veins. Yes, the woman was trespassing, and yes, Nicole had given away things from their home, but did he really need to deal with the situation like this? Like it was something else he could control. Sometimes Jack longed to hatch out of the cocoon he’d become wrapped up in as a Churchill, as Kent’s son, expected to act, exist and be exactly like his father. Because to Jack, it seemed a bleak existence that lacked real joy or the happiness the man had never regained since losing his wife.
Quietly observing until now, Braydon stepped forward and took a turn. ‘You heard the man,’ he told the girl. ‘You need to go.’ The way he sneered at her, his voice full of malevolence, made Jack dislike the man all the more.
Nicole stayed in front of the young woman, hands moving to her hips in defiance, and Jack had to hand it to her for not losing it before now. ‘Leave her alone,’ she said. ‘Go back inside, and I’ll see to it that she leaves.’
Kent’s hostility carried on the icy wind. ‘Don’t you dare come back, do you hear? Or I’ll call the police.’
The woman stood up, pulling the blanket tighter around herself, and all the while Nicole shielded her from any of them reaching her if they so much as tried.
