The Sister-In-Law(65)

I remember Jamie stirring next to me and opening his eyes and, realising it was me, he smiled. ‘I’ve always had a bit of a thing for you,’ he said. ‘Even on your wedding day, I envied Dan taking you back to the hotel bedroom.’

I told Jamie that he mustn’t talk like that. ‘That can’t ever happen again,’ I said.

And it never did. But even now, I think about the sexy smiles that start in his eyes, the way he says my name, unfamiliar, yet intimate, and the way he brings the sunshine with him from wherever he’s been.

The following day, I felt dreadful, conflicted, guilty, yet over breakfast with the family, no one would have guessed. Jamie was teasing me, throwing the kids in the air, charming his mother, making everyone laugh, and I was joining in. I wonder even now if Jamie did have feelings for me, or if he was just another opportunist, a womaniser like his brother.

And when he left only a couple of days later on another adventure, we all said goodbye to him, as we had many times before. He’d changed me in ways he’d never realise – but I knew I hadn’t made a dent on him. Did I have feelings for Jamie, had I fallen a little bit in love? Perhaps, but once he’d left I cleared my head, tried to move on and do the right thing – work on my marriage.

After Jamie had gone, I felt able to confront Dan about what I’d heard. He was contrite, said the woman, Carmel, was a random air stewardess, a silly, stupid girl who’d got obsessed with him. He said he’d just told her he was leaving me to placate her.

I didn’t really believe him, but after a while it was too hard not to. If I faced the fact he was a lying cheat, I’d have to do something about it and I didn’t have the energy for that. For now I had to stay put. He’d never done anything like this before and swore he never would again and after a while I felt ready to forgive. But I found it harder to forgive myself. My hypocrisy, my own betrayal, tied me in knots. What I did was ignited by Dan’s phone call, but that was no justification. But, whatever happened, I knew I had to live with this – I could never tell him, or anyone else. Jamie and I had agreed that. The fallout would have been colossal on so many levels; it would involve the whole family and ultimately my children. My marriage would be over, the Taylors would excommunicate me because they’d see it all as my fault, not Jamie’s, or Dan’s. In Joy and Bob’s eyes, this could never be due to the careless, selfish ways the Taylor boys got their kicks.

So there we were, having returned from Greece, trying to recover from Dan’s affair with ‘the stewardess’, as Joy referred to her. Our marriage was still rocky, and I was secretly recovering from the emotional turmoil of a one-night stand with his brother. I couldn’t bear to be near Dan, and he naturally assumed this was my reaction to his betrayal, but actually it was the guilt of my own betrayal.

As if that wasn’t difficult enough, I was back on the night shifts, juggling two kids, trying to be present for Dan and our marriage. And then I realised my period was late.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





When the pregnancy test was positive, I knew from the date that the baby might not be Dan’s. But after many sleepless nights I decided it would cause more harm than good to tell anyone. I had to keep it to myself forever, because the alternative would destroy the family. I would love this baby as much as the other two – and so would Dan.

It was an easy pregnancy, my third, and I knew the ropes. I pushed Jamie to the back of my mind, only ever allowing myself to think of him as Dan’s brother, nothing else. Until, not long after Freddie was born, Jamie turned up on my doorstep one afternoon. He’d just returned from his latest travels, Dan was working and Violet was at school, so it was just me and the boys. I’ll never forget, he stood in the kitchen while I made coffee and he just said it: ‘I know.’

I pretended I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but he wasn’t buying it.

‘Clare, Freddie’s mine, isn’t he?’

I considered a lie in those few moments. I thought about saying I’d done the maths and it was out of the question, after all only I knew the dates. But despite telling myself I could keep this hidden, when confronted I couldn’t bring myself to lie about something so big.

‘He could be yours,’ I said slowly. ‘I wasn’t even sure you’d remember that night, let alone tie it in with the pregnancy.’ I added. ‘I’m sure there have been hundreds of women since?’

‘None of them match up to you,’ he’d said. ‘You know I’ve always liked you, from the first time Dan brought you home…’

‘Don’t,’ I said, stopping him from saying any more that couldn’t be unsaid. This felt so wrong in the middle of the afternoon, the boys taking their nap, almost time to collect Violet from school. But even so, I felt like we were back on dangerous ground, and if we weren’t careful it could happen all over again. So I told him firmly that it was more likely to be Dan’s, and he mustn’t even allow himself to think it might be his. Since Dan’s affair with Carmel the air stewardess, we’d been focussed on making our marriage work. I couldn’t let this destroy us.

‘Imagine what it would do to you? To Dan, to the family?’ I’d said.

He agreed. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, Clare. I guess I just needed to know if I have a child, if he’s my boy – you know?’