He’d found out later that she’d immediately forwarded all the flowers, toys and gifts straight to the sick children’s ward.
Well played, he’d thought with a sigh. But he wasn’t done. He’d contacted Mildred and she’d sent him via courier the jewelry bag he’d left in his office. He’d sent it to Fairholme, again anonymously.
A few days later he received a thank-you card from Mrs. Pollifax, stating that the earrings had been sold and the money donated to the housekeeper’s favorite charity, an animal shelter on Long Island.
He’d ground his teeth, but doggedly kept trying. Over the next week, he sent gifts addressed to Letty. He sent a card congratulating her on the baby. On Thanksgiving, he even had ten pies from her favorite bakery delivered to her at Fairholme.
Pies she immediately forwarded to a homeless shelter.
As the rain of November changed to the snows of December, Darius’s confidence started to wane. Once, in a moment of weakness, he drove by Fairholme late at night, past the closed gate.
But she was right. He couldn’t even see the house.
After the pie incident, Darius gave up sending gifts. When she continued to refuse his calls, he stopped those, too. He kept writing heartfelt letters, and for a few weeks, he was hopeful, until they were all returned at once, unopened.
His baby son was now four weeks old. The thought made him sick with grief. Darius hadn’t seen him. Hadn’t held him. He didn’t even know his name.
His wife wanted to divorce him. His son didn’t have a father. Darius felt like a failure.
In the past, he would have taken his sense of grief and powerlessness and hired the most vicious, shark-infested law firm in Manhattan to punish her, to file for full custody.
But he didn’t want that.
He wanted her.
He wanted his family back.
Finally, as Christmas approached, he knew he was out of ideas. He had only one card left to play. But when he went to see his lawyer, the man’s jaw dropped.
“If you do this, Mr. Kyrillos, in my opinion you’re a fool.”
He was right. Darius was a fool. Because this was his last desperate hope.
But was he brave enough to actually go through with it? Could he jump off that cliff, and take a gamble that would either win him back the woman he loved, or cost him literally everything?
The afternoon of Christmas Eve Darius got the package from his lawyer. He was holding it in his hands, pacing his penthouse apartment like a trapped animal when his phone rang. Lifting it from his pocket, he saw the number from Fairholme.
His heart started thudding frantically. He snatched it up so fast he almost dropped it before he placed it against his ear. “Letty?”
But it wasn’t his wife. Instead, the voice on the line belonged to the last person he’d ever imagined would call him.
“IT’S YOUR VERY first Christmas,” Letty crooned to her tiny baby, walking him through Fairholme’s great hall. She was already dressed for Christmas Eve dinner in a long scarlet velvet dress and soft kid leather bootees. She’d dressed her newborn son in an adorable little Santa outfit.
She’d asked Mrs. Pollifax to make all her father’s holiday favorites, ham, plum pudding, potatoes, in hopes of tempting him to eat more than his usual scant bites. They’d even brought the dining table into the great hall, beside the big stone fireplace, so they could have dinner beneath the enormous Christmas tree.
Letty wanted this Christmas to be perfect. Because she knew it would be her father’s last. The doctor had said yesterday that Howard’s body was failing rapidly. It would likely be only days now.
Her heart twisted with grief. Her only comfort was that she’d tried her best to make his last few weeks special.
A lump rose in Letty’s throat as she looked up at the two-story-high tree, decorated with sparkling lights and a mix of ornaments, old and new. Some of them Letty had treasured since childhood. And now they were back here, where they belonged. Funny to think she had Darius to thank for that. If he hadn’t found her in Brooklyn and stopped her from taking that desperate bus ride out of the city, the ornaments would have been long lost to a junk dealer or the landfill.
Without him, she wouldn’t be here now. Her father couldn’t have come to Fairholme for his last Christmas, nor would her baby be here for his first one. It was because of Darius.
She missed him. No matter how much she denied it. No matter how she tried not to.
Every time some thoughtful gift had arrived at the house, she’d pictured how her father had looked in the hospital, so pale and alone. She’d remembered how Darius had taken her love for granted, and selfishly lied. She’d told herself she was done loving someone who could never love her back.
But as the gifts tapered off, and the phone calls stopped, and the letters stopped arriving in the mail, she hadn’t felt triumphant. At all.
“I hate him,” she said aloud. “I never want to see him again.” She wasn’t sure she sounded convincing, even to her own ears. So turning to her son, she held out one of the homemade ornaments. “Look!”
“Gah,” the baby replied, waving his little hands unsteadily.
“You’re so smart!” She let him feel the soft fabric of the dove against his cheek, then put it back on the tree before he tried to eat it. “Your grandma Constance made that,” she said softly. “I just wish she could have met you.”
Her six-week-old baby smiled back, Letty would swear he did, even though her father continued to rather annoyingly claim it was only gas. Letty knew her own baby, didn’t she?
Even though Darius didn’t.
The thought caused an unpleasant jolt. She’d thought she was doing the right thing to exclude him. She couldn’t allow such a heartless man near her baby. Even if he was the father.
But Darius hadn’t even laid eyes on their baby, or held him, or heard the sweet gurgle of his voice or his angry cry when he wasn’t fed fast enough. Darius had already missed so much. Six weeks of sleepless nights, of exhaustion and confusion.
But also six weeks of getting to know this brand-new little person. From the moment her son had been placed in her arms at the hospital, Letty had felt her heart expand in a way she’d never known before.
Darius didn’t know that feeling. He didn’t know his son at all. Because of her actions.
Two weeks ago, her baby had been irritable and sleepless at midnight, so she’d wrapped him in a warm blanket and put him in the stroller to walk him up and down the long driveway, behind the gate. Then she’d seen a dark sports car driving slowly by.
Darius! She’d practically run to the gate, panting as she pushed the stroller ahead of her. But by the time she reached the gate, the car was long gone. For long moments she stared through the bars of the gate, looking bleakly down the dark, empty road, hearing only the waves crashing down on the shore. And she’d realized for the first time how empty the house felt without him, even with her father and her baby and all the household staff. She missed him.
No. I don’t, she told herself desperately. And if she hadn’t filed for divorce yet or hired an attorney, that was only because she just hadn’t had the time. Taking care of a newborn, caring for her father and decorating for Christmas would be enough to keep anyone busy, wouldn’t it?
Letty’s lips twisted downward. She’d said things that would never be forgiven. She’d made her choice clear. She’d used his every olive branch as a stick to stab him with.