Next morning, I pick Lily up at her friend’s and tell her I’ve got a very special surprise waiting for her back at home. Well her still-sleepy little eyes instantly light up at this and she plays a guessing game with me the whole way home. Barely even notices the straggled, now seriously depleted group of photographers still outside the house, far fewer of them than yesterday, now that the story’s already reached a natural climax and started to abate, thank God. She doesn’t even ask me why we’re using the garden gate at the back to get in today, to avoid the bastards.
Just before we head inside through the patio door, I bend down to her.
‘Sweetheart?’ I whisper in her little ear.
‘Remember I promised you I’d go to the ends of the earth to find your daddy for you?’
Suddenly, she looks brightly, expectantly up at me, shoving a fistful of her curls out of her forehead.
‘Well, he’s here darling and he can’t wait to meet you.’ Then scooping her up into my arms, I lead her inside to the kitchen, where Jake is standing nervously, waiting for us.
‘This is him, Lily. I’d like you to meet your dad.’
Jake beams and instinctively reaches out to take her from me, with a half-fearful look on his face, as though wondering if she will really want to come to him. But he needn’t have worried. Lily’s beaming now and practically leaps into his huge arms, clapping happily, overjoyed to hear that one magic word. ‘Daddy’.
‘I KNEW it!’ she squeals delightedly at him as he cradles her tightly. ‘I KNEW that one day you’d come for me! I always said! Wemember Mama?’
It’s beyond doubt one of the happiest days that I can ever remember. Not once do I even bother looking at a single paper, ego-Googling or checking out what shite is being said behind my back online, but for whole minutes at a time, I astonish myself by temporarily blanking out everything that’s going on in my life outside of these four walls. Just like that. Block out all the pathetic, sneering ‘sure, didn’t that one have it coming to her all along’ articles in the tabloids, even though my story has by now lost a lot of its heat. I’m not quite sure how it’s happening, but I somehow even manage to block out the fact that I’ve effectively mortgaged my whole future. Not to mention the very real possibility that my career is over and from here on in I’ll be lucky to end up covering the Charleville Community annual egg and spoon race for their local newsletter.
Because to see Jake and Lily together really would bring a lump to your throat. Even Helen keeps alternating between beaming at the pair of them, then dabbing a Kleenex at the corner of her eyes, unable to believe what she’s seeing. Lily basically hasn’t and won’t let Jake out of her sight, constantly clambering all over him, insisting on parading all her toys out to him, then later on in the afternoon, even showing him how to bake cupcakes. This of course, involves Lily running and squealing all round the kitchen like an overexcited little puppy, managing to get just about every pot and saucepan in the whole place covered in thick, gloopy sugary-pink food dye. At one stage, I look up to see her and Jake both covered from head to foot in flour and with big pink splodges all over the pair of them. Then Lily hugs his leg, leaving flour all over his jeans, Jake scoops her up for a kiss and I look on with the stupidest, happiest, most idiotic beam plastered all over my face.
I can scarcely believe it, but for the first time in years, I’m actually happy. We eat, we laugh, we tell stories, we watch a movie, we do all the little things that make up the best parts of family life together. And it’s beyond wonderful.
Much later that evening, I leave Jake and Lily sprawled out on the sofa together as Lily introduces him to the delights of ‘Swek and Pwincess Fiona … my favouwite movie EVER!’ Helen’s tidying the mess that’s in the kitchen and Lily is way too absorbed in explaining what the Kingdom of Far Far Away is to her new best friend to even notice me slip out the door and quietly head upstairs. I can only feel Jake’s eyes burning into the back of my head as I leave, but otherwise, I’m all clear.
I head into the study and with trembling fingers switch on the computer. And there it is, waiting for me; today’s online issue of the Post, the first one I haven’t edited or had any hand in or part in years. There’s a very discreet announcement on the front page, saying as simply as possible that, ‘Owing to unforeseen circumstances, the Post will now be edited by Seth Coleman, former Managing Editor.’
Short, succinct, to the point – and at least for that small mercy, I’m grateful.
Then, like some kind of masochist, I can’t resist delving deeper. A bit like a Pot Noodle, I know this’ll kill me, I know it’s bad for me, but I just have to. Two seconds later, I Google my own name to see what else is being said, and am just about to start scrolling down the first page, the first of about twenty by the looks of it, when next thing there’s a firm knock on the study door, making me almost jump out of my seat.
Jake, arms folded, shaking his head at me. Smiling that gorgeous half-crooked smile I love so much.
‘Thought I might find you here,’ he says, coming up behind me, putting his arms round me and gently massaging my neck. ‘Come on then, switch it off, love. None of that matters now.’
‘But I just wanted to …’
‘No, and I’m not even listening to you,’ he says firmly.
‘Please, if I could just read what The Chronicle is running with today …’
‘I’m turning it off. Now.’
‘It would set my mind at rest to know how bad …’
‘No, it wouldn’t. I know you, it would keep you up till five in the morning pacing the floorboards with worry. Come back downstairs, Eloise. You don’t need this. None of it.’
With that, he leans a long arm over me, switches off the computer and gently steers me out the door.
I give a long drawn-out sigh, then gratefully look back up at him, smiling.
Hours and hours later, when Lily’s safely tucked up in bed – after Jake patiently read her a minimum of about six stories – Helen very tactfully slips out to meet a pal of hers, leaving just me and Jake alone, curled up together in front of the TV.
Wordlessly, he pulls me towards him before I’ve even got time to react; he’s gently caressing the tip of my ear, his kisses light as air. Then he moves down, expertly kissing my lips and neck, his skin so soft and tender and now his huge, warm body is slowly stretching out on top of mine, but what’s completely knocked me for six is the huge swell of desire that’s sweeping over me … Next thing I can feel his chest hot against mine, as his hands run through my hair, neck, and then slowly, teasingly onto my breasts, opening my shirt and cupping them in his warm, rock-hard grip.
It’s as though he’s tantalising me like a maestro now and without wanting to, without even meaning to, I find myself responding, craving for nothing more than his lips on mine, wanting him to press me even closer to him …
Next thing, the gentle sound of footsteps on the back stairs, the patter of little-girl feet.
‘Mama? Are you in the kitchen? Are you awake?’
In a second, Jake and I have leapt apart, and detangling ourselves like a pair of courting teenagers caught making out when they were supposed to be babysitting. I’m just hastily rebuttoning my blouse when a second later, Lily waddles into the kitchen, in her adorable little pink pyjamas, trailing her blankie behind her, hair like a bird’s nest and rubbing her sleepy eyes. Then she sees that Jake is still here and instantly lights up.
‘Daddy! Daddy’s still here too! Yay!’
‘Sweetheart,’ I say, clambering up to scoop her into my arms, my whole face flushing like a forest fire. ‘What are you doing out of bed? Aren’t you tired?’
‘No Mama, I was having dweams about all the places I want my daddy to bwing me. Happy dweams.’ Next thing, she’s wriggled out of my arms and is straight over to Jake, clambering up to cuddle into him.
‘Where would you like me to take you, honey?’ he grins at her and the heart almost stops in my chest at the sight of how astonishingly alike they are. Same hair colour, same eyes, same broad build, same everything. There is absolutely nothing of me in this child, it’s quite astonishing. She’s one hundred per cent Jake.
‘The park, Daddy!’ she tells him, snuggling up against him as he wraps his arms protectively around her. ‘Tomorrow! I want you to meet my all my new fwiends. And you have to come to my birthday party too … There’s gonna be a chocolate fountain!’
‘Only if you tell me what you’d like for your birthday present first,’ he tells her seriously. ‘Birthday presents are very important, you know.’
She screws up her nose for a minute, thinking, then lights up.
‘Okay, I know ’sactly what I want. Mama, come and sit here now!’
Smiling, I obediently do as I’m told and sit on the other side of her, while she grips my finger in one of her chubby little hands and Jake’s in the other.
‘This is what I want,’ she beams and it strikes me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen my little girl so happy.
‘I made a wish for a pwoper family and now look! My wish came twue!’