Impossible to Forget(52)

And then he smiled, a restrained, slightly sheepish expression, and she finally saw him in this stranger: her Jax. She could sense her resolve to punish him melting away, but she was determined to try, at least for a while. He deserved to be given a hard time, given his lack of communication. She redoubled her efforts to look cross.

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice tentative, almost questioning, as if he were unsure what kind of reception he was about to get.

Everything inside Angie was crying out to welcome him, but she kept it all in check.

‘Hi,’ she replied coolly.

‘Sorry to just show up like this. I hope it’s okay. I would have rung, but . . .’ His sentence careered to a halt under the weight of the lie it contained, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. She let him plough on unchecked.

‘And you look great, Ange,’ he continued. ‘Really good. I love the hair. It suits you short.’

She shrugged. His new look suited him too, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so.

‘And this must be Romany,’ he said. Angie was grateful that he had used her name and not ‘my daughter’. Somehow that felt easier to deal with.

She nodded.

Romany eyed him curiously with her wide eyes, no longer the pure blue they had been at birth but not yet settled into a specific colour of their own. He put out his hand to touch her and Angie had to fight the impulse to pull her child away. His hand looked so huge next to Romany’s face that it was almost like a threat, even though Angie knew that Jax would never hurt either of them, not physically at least. He ran the side of a finger delicately down her cheek as if he could hardly believe that she was real flesh and blood.

Angie pressed her lips tight together. It felt important that he spoke first even though she had no end of things that she wanted to say to him, not least to ask what on earth he was doing descending on them unannounced and so late in the day.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, simply. ‘I let you down and I am really sorry. I know it’s not good enough, but it’s the truth. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do or think. So, I did the easiest thing and did nothing. But it was really crappy of me. I can see that now.’

Angie met his eyes with hers and stared into them, without letting any hint of understanding escape. He was going to have to beg if he wanted to be back in her life. Just turning up out of the blue when it suited him might have worked when there were just the two of them to consider, but it wouldn’t wash now. They both deserved more than that.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked. ‘Please.’

Angie was tempted to send him away just to make a point, but if she did he might disappear and never come back and she couldn’t risk that, no matter what he had done.

‘Okay,’ she said.

She turned and led him up the stairs. She could feel Romany become still in her arms as she watched him over Angie’s shoulder. The two of them would be at eye level with one another, Angie thought, father and daughter sizing each other up for the very first time. She resisted turning round to see what they made of one another.

Once in the flat, she and Romany sat on the sofa. but she didn’t invite him to join her and so he was left standing awkwardly, looking down on the pair of them.

‘So, how have you been?’ he asked. ‘You look great,’ he repeated.

‘It’s been hard,’ Angie replied simply. ‘But we’re getting there now.’

She knew how to play this now. She wasn’t going to ask him for anything, she determined. If he wanted to offer to help then she would hear what he had to say, but she wasn’t going to beg. However, it seemed that he had no such intentions.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s good. And she’s been well?’

Angie nodded.

He put a hand to his chin to rub at the stubble that was no longer there and instead ran his palm over his hair and round the back of his neck.

‘God, it’s good to see you, Ange,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you. I really have.’

‘Not so much that you’d actually do something about it though,’ she replied tartly. ‘We’ve been here the whole time, you know. You could have come before now.’

He dropped his gaze to the floor. ‘I know, but I didn’t know how it would be,’ he said. ‘Whether you’d want to see me.’

‘You could have asked. Our baby is almost two months old and you’ve rung twice. Twice!’ Her voice was louder than she intended, and she checked herself. Shouting at him would achieve nothing and might upset Romany.

‘Yes, I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s just that . . .’ He took a deep breath, his eyes now rolling up to look at the ceiling. Anywhere but at her, Angie thought. ‘The thing is,’ he continued, ‘the thing is, I met someone else. There’s someone else.’

The pain was instantaneous and real, as if someone had taken aim and fired a bullet straight into her chest. For a second she couldn’t take in any oxygen; all her airways seemed blocked and panic shot through her as she struggled to breathe. In all those times when she had thought about him and why he hadn’t been in touch, knowing she was caring for their child on her own, the possibility that he might be in a new relationship had never occurred to her. She had assumed that the silence was because he was trying to get his head around the fact of Romany, and that when he had, he would come back and they would rebuild something going forward, an understanding between them that reflected their new status as parents. She had even hoped that they might get back to something of the way they had been before, given time. She still loved him, in her own, slightly dysfunctional way. She had thought that she might love him even more, now that he was the father of her baby.