Secrets in the Snow - Emma Heatherington Page 0,104

I know what he is saying is true. I know that he’s been living a lie with Rachel and that she is bleeding every ounce of time she has bargained with him for business reasons before their big deadline. I know he wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him.

‘I’m struggling, Aidan,’ I sob. ‘I want this just as much as you do, but I don’t know how to fully give myself to you when part of me is still so full of fear.’

And deep down I know that I’m not really angry at him. Instead I’m angry at myself, for allowing the demons of my past to continue to choke me. I long to give in to him as my heart so desires to, but my head is working overtime with reminders of a flurry of mistakes from my past. Jude is haunting me, I know he is. He is reminding me that he hasn’t totally gone away and that he probably never will. The scars he has inflicted are still raw and, despite all the love I have for Aidan and how much I know I want him and need him in my life, I fear those wounds from Jude haven’t been healed as much as I thought they had.

‘Just give me a little more time,’ he pleads. ‘I’ll show you everything you need to see to trust me. I’ll do everything you want me to do. We’re so close to being together properly, Roisin.’ I stand there helpless and frozen on the spot as Aidan breaks down right in front of me, holding his hand to his eyes as he pinches back tears, but the way his breath catches when he tries to speak tells me his emotions are no longer in his control.

‘Do you know how much I longed to find someone like you?’ he asks me, crying now in the rain, his gorgeous mouth unable to disguise the pain we’re both feeling as he tries to find the right words. ‘Do you know how many nights I wished I’d a proper relationship, one that didn’t make me feel lonely in a crowded room, one that I felt complete and content in and where I knew I’d my best friend in the world by my side? I wished for you, Roisin! Don’t do this to us and destroy what we had over some old insecurity, when we’re this close to being together in the way we’ve always dreamed of. You’re breaking my heart and I know your heart is breaking too! Please! Just let me prove it to you. Give me one more chance, please!’

The pain I’ve been denying for so long now scalds me inside again and I feel tears spill uncontrollably from my eyes at how unfair this is. I want to be with him so badly, but I can’t let my guard down again. I want him to hold me, I hunger for his arms to hold me tightly. I yearn to rest on his chest right now and let the world pause for just a few more blissful moments of heaven, but that will only set me right back to the start of all this, and I’m trying to heal myself.

‘This is what love is meant to feel like,’ I hear Jude’s voice from years ago before we were married, when he too was filling me with lies about his ex-wife who he was still meeting up with right up to our wedding day. ‘All my mistakes from before just disintegrate when I look at you. We are meant to be. We are perfect.’

I really did believe that we would be Mr and Mrs Perfect from the sincerity of his promises. I believed him when he said we were yin and yang. We were Jude and Roisin, we were everything.

But very soon we were nothing. And in the end, we were a big fat lie.

‘And Jude is gone for ever,’ I hear Mabel whisper to me now. ‘So why are you letting him control you from beyond the grave? He doesn’t deserve that power, Roisin! You don’t deserve this and neither does Aidan. Let Jude go! Let him go once and for all and live the life of love you’ve always longed for.’

I can’t breathe. Aidan reaches out to touch me again and I wince and gasp for air, shaking my head as flashes from the past come back and grip me in a fist of