She rolled over to look at him and he stroked her face as he looked at her with such affection.
‘Morning, beautiful.’
Her heart stupidly soared and she squashed it back down again. There was no place for silly emotions in their relationship. They would be friends, nothing more.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said.
He gently stroked a hair from her face. ‘Where else would I be?’
‘I don’t know, normally around now I’d see a Xander-shaped hole in the door as you ran away.’
‘I’m turning over a new leaf.’
She sighed. ‘I really needed you last night and you took care of me, so thank you. I must admit cuddling you in bed last night was a novelty I particularly enjoyed. We’ve never cuddled before. I’ve never been in your bed before either.’
‘I’ve always tried to keep my relationships separate to my home life. But there is no better feeling than waking up this morning with you in my arms. I could definitely get used to this.’
She smiled sadly, trying desperately to push away the hope that was already starting to bloom in her heart. ‘We can’t do this, Xander – us, it’s a bad idea. Someone would get hurt and most likely it will be me.’
‘You’re right, I would be a terrible husband. If Brook was still alive, she’d tell you that.’
She studied him for a moment. ‘What happened between you two? You said it was more than grief you had to deal with?’
‘I was going to tell you over breakfast.’
‘I’d rather you just tell me now.’
He nodded. ‘Brook left me. Before she died, she packed her bags one day and left. She’d been seeing another man, for several years as it turned out.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘We should never have married. We’d only beendating a few months when she found out she was pregnant. Quite honestly our relationship had run its course before then and we both knew that. She came to me one night crying because she was pregnant and she didn’t know what to do. I told her I’d marry her, take care of her and the baby. I didn’t love her, we got on well and I thought that would be enough. I thought marrying her was the right thing to do. I guess I was an attractive prospect. I had my own house, a good job, so she said yes. She gave up work almost immediately which… well, I did promise to take care of her, so I guess she took that as I would support her financially as well. I didn’t really mind but maternity pay would have come in handy, babies are super expensive. So I ended up working longer hours and she stayed at home to look after Etta. We never had a conventional marriage, not in the loving, intimate sense, but we were friends, at least at the start, and I thought that was enough.’
He picked at a stray thread on the duvet.
‘I could see being a stay at home mum was wearing thin on her. She never warmed to Etta, I don’t think she ever loved her, despite Etta being the easiest, happiest little girl. I fell in love with her instantly. I’d do all the night feeds and nappy changes almost from the very beginning as Brook was always too tired. I’d take Etta out as often as I could to give Brook some space, we’d spend the weekends out all day, just me and Etta. I hired a cleaner to take some of the workload off Brook. She always said she never had time to clean and I was doing most of it when I got home from work, so it made senseto get a cleaner to help us both in that regard. She’d always loved painting, so I bought her loads of paints, canvases, brushes and converted one of the rooms of the house into a studio so she would have somewhere to escape to that was all hers. As far as I know she never painted anything. I suggested that Brook go back to work and we’d get childcare for Etta to give Brook a break. She hated that idea. So we muddled on. Until Etta’s fifth birthday.’
He paused and Immy could see the pain in his face. When he started talking his voice was heavy and broken.
‘We’d had a party for Etta’s friends, and booked an Elsa fromFrozenlookalike to come and sing and dance with them. The party was fun but of course it was loud and chaotic with twenty overexcited little girls running around. Brook sat in the corner the whole time, rubbing her head and muttering how she needed a stiff drink to get her through it.
‘After the kids left and I was tidying up, Brook was upstairs. I didn’t know what she was doing, I thought maybe she’d gone for a lie-down. It turned out she was packing.’
‘She left on Etta’s birthday?’ Immy said in horror.
‘It gets so much worse, because you’d think if someone was going to leave their daughter, they’d at least do it discreetly for the sake of the child. But no, Brook came down to the kitchen while Etta was sitting happily at the table, doing some colouring, and announced to both of us that she was leaving. WhileEtta sat there with wide tearful eyes, Brook went off on a rant about how much she hated this life and that the kids’ party was quite possibly the worst day of her life, straight after marrying me and giving birth. I quickly got Etta out of there and told her to go to her room, but she didn’t and I didn’t realise until it was too late. She sat at the bottom of the stairs and listened to the whole tirade about how much Brook hated me and Etta. I told Brook she needed to get out of my house, that doing this on Etta’s birthday in front of Etta was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen.’
He shook his head bitterly. ‘Then Etta comes back in and said Uncle Nick was here and I’m thinking, who the bloody hell is Uncle Nick? This man walks in and I find out much later from Etta that Uncle Nick had been turning up at my house every day I was at work, every single day, and he and Brook would go off to the bedroom together for several hours, leaving Etta on her own to watch TV.’
Immy had no words, she felt like she was watching a car crash and was powerless to stop it. It just kept getting worse and worse.
‘He’d come to take Brook away, they were going to start a new life together. I just wanted her gone by this point, I wanted her as far away as possible from my daughter. And just as she was walking out, Etta says, “Daddy, are you going too?” And Brook laughed and said, “He’s not your daddy, he is,” pointing at Nick.’
Xander closed his eyes, breathing heavily, and Immy reached over and took his hand.
‘Etta isn’t yours?’ Immy said, praying that Brook had just said that to be spiteful.
‘I don’t know. I never found out. Maybe later once Etta’s older, if she wants to find out, we will go through a paternity test then, but finding out the truth wouldn’t have made any difference to me. I fell in love with her the first time I held her and that love grew and grew over the years. Etta is mine, even if she isn’t biologically.’
