Page 33 of Christmas, Actually

‘Oh well…’ She cleared her throat. ‘Someone called Graham.’ She brushed some of the sparkles from her dress – this didn’t feel like a glittery moment anymore.

‘That’s my twin brother,’ Liam said gruffly, reaching for the card and opening it. As soon as he did, the humour that had been lighting his face disappeared. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, I suppose I should have expected that. It’s not the first time he’s sent me a card and… I know he wants to speak to me. I’m just not sure I want to do it.’ He toyed with it, opening and closing it, staring into space as jolly music began to play on the TV and they both ignored the film.

‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ Clara asked gently and watched Liam’s hands still. Then he turned to look at her, his eyes dark and unfocused.

‘I suppose –’ He cleared his throat. ‘– they say a problem shared is…’ He sighed.

‘Whoever they are, they’re right. About that at least. I might not be able to help but maybe if you talk it out?’ Clara said softly scouring his face, letting her eyes roam over every inch. Liam looked tired, but it didn’t detract from how gorgeous he was.

It wasn’t just the angle of his chin, his eyes or full mouth, it was the corners and edges of his face, the places that held onto joy and sadness. She could almost see where his skin had adapted to accommodate his experiences, absorbing the grief or laughter, turning it into shadows, arches and lines. For a moment, Clara thought about reaching out and stroking Liam’s jaw, but she stopped herself, unsure if he’d want her to or whether the act would crack the moment wide open, making him pull away without confiding. And she wanted him to, wanted to know what had happened. Suspected Liam needed to get it off his chest before it suffocated him.

‘I don’t know where to start,’ he admitted after a long pause, closing his eyes for a moment before they opened again and fixed on her, like he was using her as an anchor. ‘Okay, yes, I do, but I warn you this story hasn’t got a happy ending.’ He drew in a long breath, then let it out, his chest rising and falling under his clothes.

‘That isn’t always bad,’ she replied. ‘Because sometimes you get to follow your sad endings with a new start.’ Clara wasn’t trying to jolly Liam along, or make him feel like his pain didn’t matter. She was speaking from experience. She was in the middle of a sad ending, but also hadn’t felt so hopeful in years.

‘Mia was never what you’d call conventional.’ His forehead creased as he started to explain. ‘She was beautiful and wild; you never really knew what she was going to do next. I loved that about her at first. She was the yang to my yin. I’ve always been a bit…’ He swallowed. ‘I don’t know… sensible, straight, predictable even.’

Clara wanted to tell Liam he wasn’t anything of the kind. He was funny and loyal, hardworking, honest and sexy as hell. But she kept her mouth shut because he needed to talk – and she knew better than anyone that it wasn’t always easy to see who you were or to understand how others might see you. Knew that what really mattered is how you saw yourself.

‘She made me see the world in a different way,’ he continued, and it was like his eyes had blurred over as he moved into the past. ‘It was exciting at first and I fell quickly. Fast and hard like you do when you’re in your twenties and don’t know any better.’ His mouth pinched. ‘Then she fell pregnant and I was so happy, I wanted to get married.’ He looked stricken. ‘She wasn’t so keen, but she went along with it because…’ He shook his head slowly his mouth arching downwards as if he were trying to solve a particularly tricky puzzle. ‘I honestly don’t know. She doesn’t have any family, none she keeps in touch with anyway, so then it was just her and me, and Graham.’ His mouth twisted. ‘He’s my only family, at least he was until…’ He shook his head again and Clara could see pain move across his face before it settled itself into the creases again where it clearly felt at home.

‘He hurt you,’ she said sensitively.

His eyebrows rose. ‘Yep. They both did. I don’t know what happened, how it happened I mean. I only know Charlie was just a toddler and Mia was always so distracted, always wanted to be somewhere else. She hated being a mother, hated the early mornings and late nights, the washing – which was endless.’ His lips curved as a flash of humour crossed his face. ‘Still is. She hated everything about our lives and after a while I think she began to hate me.’ His gaze was fixed.

‘I tried to help as much as I could, to take on the chores, but it made no difference. I asked what I could do, but she insisted there was nothing. She told me she’d just never seen herself as a wife or mother. Had never wanted to join what she called the boring adult world. That she’d made a mistake.’ He paused. ‘She never connected with Charlie – he just didn’t factor in her list of things that mattered.’ He sighed. ‘At some point she turned to Graham and well…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t think I’d have ever known about it – about them – except that Mia decided to come clean. I think she wanted to hurt me. I’m not sure why.’

He swallowed a great gulp of emotion. If Clara could have given it a colour, she would have guessed it was black, a great big gloopy aura of unhappiness and disappointment, a sludge that was still clinging to him.

‘Are they still together?’ Clara asked quietly.

He shook his head. ‘No. It was just the once, at least that’s what she told me and I’ve no reason to think she was lying.’

‘So, what happened?’ she whispered.

‘Mia wanted to leave. She didn’t want the life we were living – her words.’ His voice was rough. ‘She didn’t want the life we’d created together. She said she felt she never got to be herself. She missed the parties, she missed being free. She said we suffocated her and she needed space. That’s when she told me about Graham – or what she called my perfect family – explained that blood wasn’t all that important when you came down to it. Said even Charlie would let me down eventually.’ He shut his eyes.

‘I’m—’ God, what words would be the right ones to use? How could you soothe or make things better when faced with that? ‘Sorry,’ she said, feeling inadequate and so filled with sympathy it was difficult to breathe.

‘To this day, I don’t know if I was more upset about Graham or her,’ Liam said thoughtfully. ‘I barely even noticed when Mia left, she was home so infrequently by then. And when I received the divorce papers six months after she’d gone – along with a letter saying she was sorry, but she wasn’t coming back – I signed them.’ His mouth straightened into a hard line – a physical ending, an abrupt full stop. ‘And that was that. I haven’t missed them. Not Mia anyway.’ His shoulders sagged then, as if he’d just expunged a weight and Clara reached for his hand, folded it between both of hers. It was cold and she picked it up and pressed her mouth to it trying to offer comfort because she didn’t have the right words.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘That’s just⁠—’

‘As awful as having a fiancé cheat on you and then try to make you believe you’d got it all wrong?’ Liam said, gazing into her eyes. His were clear and bright and filled with sadness – but there was humour there too and connection. Something inside her stirred. ‘Or having someone behave like you don’t matter, like you’re not important and have nothing to offer even when you’re beautiful and clearly brilliant?’

She cleared her throat, absorbing the compliment – the too-kind words. ‘It’s not the same… I’m not married, I don’t have a child. Hudson didn’t have an affair with my brother. Not that I have one…’

‘He kissed your best friend. Actually, your only friend in New York,’ he murmured. ‘This isn’t a competition, Clara. It isn’t about whose hurt is worse. We’ve both been betrayed and we’ve both survived.’ He smiled suddenly, the sadness disappearing as it was banished back into the corners of his face. ‘I admire you for that.’

‘I admire you too,’ she said huskily, feeling a weight lift as her whole body heated. He shifted on the sofa and their knees knocked and sparkles fluttered onto the floor. Liam pressed a fingertip onto her skirt and showed it to her.

‘Doris.’ His mouth tipped with affection.

‘And Christmas,’ she said. ‘Now we’re both covered in it.’ She smiled back goofily.

Liam dropped his hand and his gaze returned to her face. Clara felt a rush of excitement in her stomach – her throat began to close and her skin heated, rocketing up the temperature chart.

‘I feel like this is the first Christmas I’ve noticed in years. Like nothing’s really touched me in so long,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve played Mr Christmas, enjoyed it, wrapped presents, heard what adults, children and their pets want and played my part.’ He filled his lungs with air – and it was almost as if he hadn’t breathed properly in a long time because his body shuddered and his chest puffed out. ‘I thought everything was fine, but I’ve been going through the motions. I had no idea how I really felt until you came along.’