The Unexpected Holiday Gift

SHE DID LOOK DIFFERENT.

Jacob hadn’t been able to clock all the changes through the window, it dawned on him now. He’d thought she looked the same, but she didn’t, not really. And it wasn’t just that her hair was longer, or that slight extra curve to her body, or even that her wedding ring was missing.

It was just her.

Her shoulders straightened, just an inch, and he realised that was part of it. An air of confidence he hadn’t seen in her before. When they’d been married—properly married, living together and in love, not this strange limbo he’d been perpetuating—she’d been...what, exactly? Attentive, loving...undemanding, he supposed. She had just always been there, at home, happy to organise his business dinners or fly with him across the world at a moment’s notice. She’d been the perfect hostess, the perfect businessman’s wife, just like his mother had been for his father for so many years.

His father, he remembered, had been delighted in Jacob’s choice of wife. ‘She won’t let you down, that one,’ he’d said.

Until she’d walked out and left him, of course.

Perhaps he’d been underestimating Clara all along. So much for a five-minute job convincing her to help him. This was going to take work. This new Clara, he feared, would ask questions. Lots of them.

‘Jacob,’ she said again, impatiently. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You need to leave soon, your friend said?’

Clara gave a sharp nod. ‘I do. So if we could make this quick...’

Unlikely. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we met up later. For dinner, perhaps?’ Somewhere he could ply her with wine, good food and charm and convince her that this was a good idea.

‘Sorry, I can’t do that.’ There was no debate, no maybe and no other offer. Even the apology at the start didn’t sound much like one. This Clara knew her own mind and she was sticking to it.

It was kind of hot, actually. Or it would have been if he didn’t sense it was going to make his life considerably more difficult.

Clara sighed and perched on the edge of the desk. ‘You might as well start talking, Jacob,’ she said, glancing down at her watch. ‘I’m leaving in...fifteen minutes, now. Whether you’ve said what you came here to say or not.’

What was so important, he wondered, that she still had to run out of here, even after the arrival of a husband she hadn’t seen in five years? Another man? Probably.

Not that he cared, of course. All that mattered to him was her professional availability. Not her personal life.

‘I want to hire you. Your firm, I mean. But specifically you.’ There, he’d said it. And, judging by the look on his wife’s face, he’d managed to surprise her in the process. The shock in her expression gave him a measure of control back, which he appreciated.

‘Whatever for?’ she asked eventually.

‘My father.’ The words came out tight, the way they always did when he spoke about it. The unfairness of it all. ‘He’s dying.’

And that was the only reason he was there. The only thing that could make him seek out his ex-in-all-but-paperwork-wife and ask for her help.

‘I’m so sorry, Jacob.’ Clara’s eyes softened instantly, but he didn’t want to see that. He looked down at his hands and kept talking instead.

‘Cancer,’ he said harshly, hating the very word. ‘The doctors haven’t given him more than a couple of months. If he’d gone to them sooner...’ He swallowed. ‘Anyway. This is going to be his last Christmas. I want to make it memorable.’

‘Of course you do,’ Clara said, and he felt something inside him relax, just a little. He’d known that she would understand. And what he needed would require more than the sort of competence he could buy. He needed someone who would give everything to his project. Who would do what he needed, just like she always had before.

And, for some reason, Clara had always been very fond of his father.

‘I’m planning a family Christmas up in the Highlands,’ Jacob explained. ‘Just like one we had one year when I was a boy.’

‘I remember you all talking about it once. It sounds perfect,’ Clara agreed. ‘And like you’ve got it all in hand, so I don’t really see why—’

‘That’s it,’ Jacob interrupted her. ‘That idea. That’s all I have.’

‘Oh.’ Clara winced. ‘So you want to hire Perfect London to...?’

‘Do everything else. Organise it. Make it perfect.’ That, she’d always been good at. She’d been the perfect businessman’s wife, the perfect housewife, the perfect beauty on his arm at functions, even the perfect daughter-in-law. Up until the day she wasn’t his perfect anything at all.

‘But...’ Clara started, and he jumped in to stop whatever objection she was conjuring up.

‘I’ll pay, of course. Double your normal rate.’ He’d pay triple to make this happen but he’d keep that information in reserve in case he needed it later.

‘Why?’ Bafflement covered Clara’s expression.

‘Who else?’ Jacob asked. ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? It’s right there in the name of your company.’ The company she’d left him to build—and which, by the looks of things, seemed to be doing well enough. He’d never even imagined, when they were married, that she’d wanted this—her own business, her own life apart from him. How could he? She’d never told him.

Well. If she was determined to go off and be happy and successful without him, the least she could do was help him out now, when he needed it.

‘Perfect London,’ Clara said, emphasising the second word. ‘We mostly work locally. Very locally.’

‘I imagine that most of the arrangements can be made from here,’ Jacob conceded. ‘Although I would need you in Scotland for the final set-up.’

‘No.’ Clara shook her head. ‘I can’t do that. I have...obligations here. I can’t just leave.’

Obligations. A whole new life, he imagined. A new man...but not her husband, though. That, at least, she couldn’t have. Not unless he let her.

Jacob took a breath and prepared to use his final bargaining chip.

The only thing he had left to give her.

* * *

This made no sense. None at all. Why on earth would Jacob come to her, of all people, to organise this? There must be a hundred other party planners or concierge services he could have gone to. Unless this was a punishment of some sort, Clara could not imagine why her ex-husband would want to hire her for this task.

Except...she knew his family. She knew his father, and could already picture exactly the sort of Christmas he’d want.

Maybe Jacob wasn’t so crazy after all. But that didn’t mean she had to say yes.

She had her own family to think about this Christmas—her and Ivy, celebrating together in gingerbread-man pyjamas and drinking hot chocolate with Merry on Christmas Eve. That was how it had been for the last four years, and the way it would be this Christmas too, thank you very much. She wasn’t going to abandon her daughter to go and arrange Christmas deep in the Highlands, however much Jacob was willing to pay. Especially not with the Harrisons’ gala coming up so soon afterwards.

‘No,’ she said again, just to make it doubly clear. ‘I’m sorry. It’s impossible.’

Except...a small whisper in the back of her mind told her that this could be her chance. Her one opportunity to see if he’d really changed. If Jacob Foster was ready to be a father at last. If she could risk telling him about Ivy, introduce them even, without the fear that Jacob would treat his daughter the way Clara’s own father had treated her.

Even twenty years later, the memory of her father walking out of the front door, without looking back to see Clara waving him goodbye, still made her heart contract. And Jacob had been a champion at forgetting all about his wife whenever work got too absorbing, walking out and forgetting to look back until a deal was signed or a project tied up.

She wouldn’t put Ivy through that, not for anything. She wanted so much more than that for her daughter. Clara might work hard but she always, always had time for her child and always put her first. Ivy would never be an afterthought, never slip through the cracks when something more interesting came up. Even if that meant she only ever had one parent.

But Jacob had come here to organise a family Christmas. The Jacob she’d been married to wouldn’t have even thought of that. Could he really have changed? And could she risk finding out?