Page 83 of Kiss Me at Christmas
He took a deep breath, “I only—”
He was cut off by the perky waitress, who practically danced the orders to the tables, placing a tray with two coffees and a plate piled high with pastries down in front of them.
“Hi!” she addressed Harriet brightly. “Lovely to see you actually sitting in, rather than dashing in and out like the Road Runner being chased by Wile E. Coyote.”
Harriet smiled at her. “I am perpetually cutting it fine.”
“Nothing wrong with that!” the waitress trilled as she unloaded the breakfast things and pranced back to the counter.
The interruption seemed to have thrown James, and he cleared his throat and cleaned his glasses.
“Where was I?” he asked.
“You got as far as ‘I only,’ ” Harriet said helpfully.
“Right.” He replaced his glasses and took a breath in. “I only—”
Harriet’s phone rang on the table. Ali. She picked it up without a second thought. Across the table, James’s lips thinned to a flat line.
“Morning, everything all right?”
“Yeah, sorry to bother you,” said Ali. “Frederick Mercer’s mum wants to discuss a plan of action after his ADHD diagnosis, and she’ll only speak to you. Can I book her in for ten forty a.m.? It’s your only gap today.”
Harriet rubbed her forehead, “Um, yeah, of course, that’s fine.” She ended the call and settled back in her chair expectantly.
“Do you ever not answer your phone?” James asked tightly.
“It’s my job.”
“It’s borderline obsessive.”
“We’re not here to discuss my foibles,” she retorted, and was pleased to see him shift in his chair with a chastened expression. He took a sip of his coffee, then cleared his throat, twice.
“I only found out about Lyra, about having a daughter, in January this year,” he began. “I had absolutely no idea that there was even a chance that I might have a child somewhere in the world until she emailed me. She’s been living in Edinburgh all this time.”
Okay, now he had her attention.
“That…” She wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Must have been a surprise.” This put a slightly different spin on things. But she still couldn’t fathom why he wouldn’t have told her.
“You have no idea.” He gave a nervous chuckle and rubbed his hand through his hair. There was a vulnerability in the action that she hadn’t seen before. “Talk about turning life on its head.”
“That’s what kids generally do.”
“Except normally you get a warm-up period—you know, you have nine months to get used to the idea of being a parent and then you grow with them, learn as you go along. You don’t just wake up one day and find you’ve got a twenty-five-year-old daughter.” He raised his eyes to the heavens as though looking for spiritual guidance. Harriet took a big bite of a cinnamon whirl; she needed the sugar.
“FYI,” she said around a mouthful of pastry, “pregnancy and birth don’t prepare you in any way for the all-encompassing hostile takeover of your life that is parenthood. I’m just saying. Knowing everything I know now, having a ready-made adult rock up at my door would be a piece of cake.”
James rubbed his brow. “Not for me.”
“Okay, so I appreciate it’s a big adjustment, but I don’t understand why you were keeping it a secret.”
“I wasn’t.”
Harriet blustered out an indignant huff, sending pastry crumbs across the table. “I beg to differ. I told you about Maisy that first night in the bar. At any point between then and the myriad times I must have talked about her since, you could have mentioned that you had a daughter too. Instead, you’ve turned it into this whole big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me.” His petulance knocked the rise out of any sympathy she might have been feeling.
She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. James stirred his coffee and took a sip, then placed his cup back on the saucer, turning it so that the handle was at a perfect right angle to him.
