Best Fake Day (16 page)

Her mother had insisted she wanted to be cared for at home to spend her last days with her family. They spent many hours in this room with her. Ellie singing her the songs she’d practiced during her lessons. Izzy reading to her, or showing her the photographs that always made her mother smile. Her father never smiled at that time, or since.

Izzy was starting to wonder if living in the past
was
a good thing. She wouldn’t be like her parents. After all, she wouldn’t be married to the man she wanted. She wouldn’t be feeling that mutual love her parents had felt. The man she wanted didn’t want her in return. And she didn’t want to live in the past anymore. She wanted her happily ever after. She had to put Jack behind her and move on.

And to do that she needed some answers.

The journey to her father’s nursing home went by in a blur. She signed the visitors’ book with a scrawl that in no way resembled her name and dashed down the corridor to his room. To her frustration he wasn’t there so she decided to try the day room. What she saw had her stopping in her tracks.

It wasn’t the fact that Joyce, another resident, had her hand covering her father’s, and she was smiling up at him in adoration that stunned Izzy the most. It was the huge broad smile on his face that did that. For a moment Izzy thought her heart had stopped beating. She almost felt like an intruder.

When her father saw her, the twinkle in his eyes faded as fast as his smile.

“Isabel,” he said gruffly before sliding his hand free from Joyce’s.

“Hello, Isabel dear,” Joyce said as she rose from her chair, concern wrinkling her brow. “I’ll leave the two of you to chat,” she said softly, as she took hold of her walking stick and left the room.

Izzy froze. The look of guilt on her father’s face filled her with dread.

“Sit down, Izzy. We need to talk.”

Numbly she forced herself to sit in the chair next to him.

“Dad, what’s going on? You and
Joyce
?”

His gaze lowered to the floor as he reached for her hand. She let him take it, wincing inwardly as she felt the fragility of his once strong hands. Although, fortunately, his stroke was a mild one it had affected his speech, so she gave him time to talk, not wanting to cause him any stress.

“I’m going to sell the house.”

Izzy felt her world spin. “But you love that house!”
She
loved that house.

“I did,” he said slowly. He stroked Izzy’s hand with his thumb as if he was trying to smooth away the hurts he could see beneath her skin. “I loved it when we were there together as a family. But we aren’t anymore.”

“But I’m there,” she replied thickly.

He shook his head and smiled softly. “No, you’re not. Not really. You’ve been travelling and you have your business. I feel you only come back because you are tied to the place. To the past.”

“No, that’s not true! I love that house. I’ve been working my backside off to get it ready for you to come home to. For Ellie to come home to.”

“It’s not home anymore. It’s just a shell. A shell that was holding all of us back. I’m not going back there. I want to stay here.”

“But you were always so insistent things stayed the same. That you wanted to keep things the way Mum left them.”

A film of moisture covered his eyes that made her own tears rise to the surface. “I was wrong, so wrong. I thought you girls needed that to feel close to your mum. I know now it was the worst thing I could have done.”

“No! It wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was. It held you back, and I know that now. We all need to get on with our lives. Me, you, and Ellie. I found it hard coping with my grief and two teenage girls. I always feel I let you both down.”

“You did a great job, Dad.”

“Hmm...well...I wished I could have made things easier for you both. Ellie had a hard time and I should have dealt with it better.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Dad. Ellie made her own decisions. She’s always been headstrong.”

“Yes, well, she had her reasons for behaving the way she did.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I know what happened the night Mum died.” Of course she knew. It was the reason why Ellie was allowed to get away with everything she did as a tear-away teen. Unfortunately it seemed to be the reason why Ellie had continued on the path of destruction.

She remembered that night well. Her mum had been in so much pain even though she tried to hide it. Izzy had snuck in and sat on the floor at the side of her bed when her father was downstairs. Her mother, too wracked with pain to notice Izzy, had heard Ellie was outside of the door, had called her in and asked—well, pleaded with Ellie to push her tray closer. So she did. Izzy watched in silence until Ellie walked away and snuck back out.

The next morning her mother’s bed had been empty. Medication had been on the tray and her mother had taken it all. Although it felt terribly wrong, because she missed her with a pain that was sharply physical, her passing was a relief.

At the time Izzy was too young to understand the ramifications of Ellie’s actions and only suspected that something terrible had happened because of the way Ellie and her father had clung to each other with Ellie’s face marred with the pain of grief and guilt. As the years went by, Izzy had often wondered if Ellie had blamed herself for her death.

The aghast expression on her father’s face, and the tight squeeze of her hand, told her she was right. She covered his hand with hers and offered him a look of reassurance though her insides were scrabbling like a duck’s legs beneath the water.

“I never blamed your sister for what happened,” he said on a voice that was now thick and slurred. Izzy blinked back threatening tears. “Had I realized that you knew, I would have explained that to you as well.” He swallowed hard. “Instead, you were the one holding us together.” Izzy opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted her. “You did. How did you find out? Did Ellie or Jack tell you?”

Jack knew?

“No, Dad. I was hiding and I saw what happened. It wasn’t until years later when I worked it out. And Jack knew?”

“Ah, Jack. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

His searching look became her undoing. When his gaze dropped to her mouth it wobbled, when it lifted to her eyes the floodgates lifted open, releasing the hot tears that spilled down her cheeks in a scalding trail.

There was no weakness in her father’s hug. Wrapped in his strong arms, Izzy buried her head into his shoulder and sobbed.

“How did you know?” she asked in between dragging breaths

“He came to see me before your trip. He told me everything. About Ellie, and about his plan. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. That’s why I haven’t been to see you recently. I knew you would guess something was wrong.”

“It’s part of my job description to worry about you girls. I’m your dad. You should come to me when you’re in trouble. You should have told me about my debts.”

Izzy stiffened. Jeez, Jack hadn’t held back, had he? She wondered just how much he had told her father. “Stress is the last thing you need for your recovery. I thought I could get us out of trouble myself. Is that the reason you want to sell the house? Because of debt?”

“No. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. What Jack told me gave me the courage to do it.”

“Is this because of Joyce?”

“No. Joyce is only part of the reason. Does...does my friendship with Joyce bother you?”

“No...yes. I never imagined you with anyone but Mum. I thought you loved each other too much to find someone else.”

His chest rose with a deep breath. “I loved your mother dearly, and I always will. But you know things weren’t always as perfect as your mother had you and Ellie believe.”

“What?”

“You can’t fix everything, Izzy.” His words iced her veins. Jack had said those words too. “Not everything in life is meant to be perfect or it’s not worth fighting for.”

Izzy frowned as her damp cheek rested against the softness of his sweater. “Is that what I’m really like? Do I have high expectations?”

“Yes, you do. But for other people. You want everyone to be happy but to the detriment of yourself. You need to be happy too.”

“I am happy.”

“So why do you look so sad?”

And then her words tumbled out in a rush as she shared the whole story, minus the one-to-one details of course.

“It’s true he did leave after I had spoken to him. It wasn’t my intention and I deeply regret it, but I caught him climbing down the drain pipe and I knew you had been in that bedroom. I was worried about Ellie, she was pushing herself too hard with her career at such a young age and I knew the attention was overwhelming her. And then you, with your doe-eyed looks aimed at Jack...I knew you were heading for heartbreak. I suspected he wouldn’t stick around for long, as soon as he’d finished his studies and had enough money to leave. I didn’t want you to pin your hopes on someone who could only hurt you.”

“Wasn’t that my decision?”

“Yes, I know. I’m afraid when I saw Jack that night I took my fears and frustrations out on him. I warned him to stay away from both of you. That he wasn’t welcome anymore.”

Izzy gasped. “But you knew how bad things were for him at home!”

“I know. I hated myself afterward, and I intended to apologize, but it was too late—he’d already gone.”

Her heart ached as she thought of the pain of rejection Jack must have felt.

“I was wrong. Very wrong. I should have let you make your own decisions whether they were right or wrong. He was a good boy and he’s a good man. Maybe the two of you...”

“No, it’s not like that, Dad. He didn’t want me then and he doesn’t want me now.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.” Was she?

“Hmm. It seems he went to a lot of trouble coming here to talk to me. About a lot of things—but mainly you. Does that sound like he doesn’t want you?”

“It doesn’t matter now anyway. It would never work between us.”

“Why? You can’t pin your hopes on your knight in shining armor to come and sweep you off your feet. Nothing is ever perfect. Sometimes the things that aren’t perfect are the things worth fighting for.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You found
your
perfect and married her.”

He gave a deep laugh. “You and your mother are so alike. She was a dreamer. We never had a perfect marriage. There is a story behind every one of those photographs. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight either. It took a hell of a lot of persuasion to get her to go on a date with me. And we had some stinkers of fights.” He chuckled. “But never around you girls, though. Boy, your mother had a set of lungs on her! She would yell at me in my workshop and then plant a big, beaming smile on her face and play dress-up with you girls. But there was never a dull moment, and it kept us on our toes and made us work damn hard to keep it together.”

“How did I ever miss that?”

“Because you were young and only saw what we wanted you to see. If you have feelings for Jack, then maybe you should go get him.”

“No, I don’t have
those
kind of feelings for him.”

“No? Then why do you look like you’ve just had your heart trampled on?”

Because...because she had! God, it was never about sex. It was about wanting him and loving him. Sure, it was all wrapped up in a bundle of sexual need, but deep in the middle of those wrappings were her true feelings.

“But what if he can’t love me back?”

“Honey, maybe he needs to be shown what love is.”

For the first time, a little shimmer of hope rose to the surface and she clung to it.

Chapter 10

Jack dropped down the receiver and threw away all hope with it. His plan was doomed. Why the hell had he thought it would be so easy?

He dragged a hand through his hair and cursed. He leaned back, shoulders sagging into the leather chair, and squeezed his eyes closed. Of course it wouldn’t be so simple that he could announce his surprise wedding, meet with Daleford to show him the wedding photographs, and then he would be signing on the dotted line. Oh no, he had announced his surprise wedding then Daleford had torn the virtual contract up by inviting him and his new wife to dinner. At his home. The house Jack wanted to buy.

Not going to happen.

No way would he ask Izzy to do that. No way would she. She loathed lies and to pretend she was Ellie would be impossible. And he wouldn’t want her to be anyone but herself. No. He would call him back and withdraw from the sale. It was over.

“Tell him we’ll be there.”

He whipped his head around in the direction of the gloriously sweet voice he thought he’d imagined.

But there she was, standing in the doorway of his office, her arms folded around the box she clutched at her chest, with a soft smile on her face. His groin sprang to attention before his mind did.

It had been a week since he’d seen her, and damn, she looked good with her hair loose around her shoulders and a vintage style dress that should have been modest and yet clung to every damn curve he wanted to touch.

His chasing-away tactics sucked and his body seemed glad. Some sensation in his chest told him he was glad. He needed to squash that sensation flat.

“No, we won’t.”

“Yes, we will. This is what you want, Jack.”

Was it? Somehow his plan seemed insignificant in comparison to the woman standing in front of him. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

He had begun to question his senses that night after he’d wanted to have her in the treehouse. Without thinking he’d dashed to see Izzy’s father and told him he wanted out of their agreement. His no-touching agreement was now impossible. He’d told him his plan to take Izzy to Italy with a warning that there was an attraction he was at risk of acting on. David had studied him for a long while before nodding and giving him a warm hug that bought tightness to his throat.

“It would mean you have to pretend to be Ellie. I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Yes, you can. It’s about time you realized that you have people in your corner who care about you.”