Page 27 of The Hidden Daughter (The Lost Daughters #7)

PRESENT DAY

Charlotte had been silent almost the entire last hour of the journey to the hotel at Sognefjord, feigning tiredness from such a big week, but she knew that there was no way she could spend a whole weekend with Harrison and not tell him that she knew.

But then she also didn’t want to be the one to bring it up, in case it ruined everything.

It was a dilemma that was sending her crazy as she tried to figure out when the best time to bring it up would be.

There’s no good time to bring up the fact that his wife died. Which, now she thought about it, was probably why he hadn’t told her himself. When exactly could he have slipped that into their conversation, even if he’d wanted to?

But by the time they’d checked into their adjoining hotel rooms, it was Harrison knocking on her door, the look on his face telling her that he knew something was wrong. Clearly, she didn’t have a very good poker face.

‘Hey,’ he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘I just wanted to check that everything was—’

He stopped talking, clearly having noticed the pained expression on her face as she stared back at him.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ she blurted, hating that tears filled her eyes the moment she said it. She’d been so determined not to get upset or even say anything at all, and they’d barely had time to unpack before she was welling up.

‘They told you, didn’t they?’ Harrison said, running a hand through his hair and looking away as he took a step back. ‘I should have recognised that look in your eyes, I’ve seen it a thousand times before.’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘You know what you said to me, that very first day we went exploring? You refused to let me pity you for what happened with your mum, you even told me off for a look I wasn’t even giving you.’

She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I did.’

‘You know why I’ve loved being here?’ he asked. ‘It’s because no one gives me that look here. I ran from it, and now it’s caught up with me because someone told you my story before I was ready to share it myself.’

Charlotte forced herself to look at him then. ‘You know what, you’re right, it should have been you telling me. But I don’t pity you, Harrison, I just wish I’d known your pain, that’s all.’

‘And would you have treated me differently if you’d known I was a widower?’ he asked. ‘Would you have even wanted to spend time with me?’

Charlotte opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Because he was right; she would have looked at him differently. But she did jump when he slammed his hand into the door before storming the few steps to his own door, not having ever seen him angry before.

‘They love you, Harrison,’ she called after him. ‘They were only trying to protect you.’

‘Yeah?’ he asked as he turned, his eyes haunted as he shook his head. ‘Well, it was my story to share, and I would have told you when I was good and ready.’

Charlotte stood there until he disappeared, his door slammed behind him, and she quietly closed hers and went to stand at the window.

The view was magnificent—their rooms faced the fjord, and it seemed as if nature stretched for miles – —but she couldn’t even see it.

All she could see was the pained look on Harrison’s face, and all she could feel was the pain in his heart.

Because he was right; she did know what it was like to receive those looks of pity, knew what it was to run from them, but now she understood that the people who’d looked at her that way weren’t judging her.

Now, with hindsight, she could see that it was their way of showing that they cared, just like she did now. She didn’t pity Harrison, but her heart was breaking for him.

A thud, followed by two more, echoed out on her door, and Charlotte made her way back across the room. She was just wondering if it was someone from reception, when she swung the door open and found Harrison standing there again.

But this time, he didn’t look worried or sad. This time, he looked angry.

‘My wife died two years ago,’ he said, as she took a step back and let him in. ‘Her name was Elly.’

Harrison shut the door behind him, and she stood in front of him as he spoke, his eyes locked on hers.

‘When I met you, it was the first time I’d met a woman that I could imagine being with.

I’d spent two years refusing to even consider the idea of being with anyone else, but you?

’ He shook his head. ‘You’re something else, Charlotte.

You’re beautiful and talented and funny, and I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since that very first time we had coffee.

It was like you walked into my life and changed the way I thought about the world. ’

She stood still, too afraid to move in case she ruined the moment, knowing that he needed to get it all out and wanting to hear what he had to say.

‘I don’t want to be the guy whose wife died with you, Charlotte. I just want to be a guy who likes a girl, as simple as that.’

Charlotte took a tentative step forward, and then another, before slowly lifting her hand until she’d placed it gently against his cheek.

When he didn’t move away, she took another step, until they were almost touching, parting her lips as she stared up at him, before letting her gaze fall to his mouth.

They stood a second longer, breathing, not moving, until Harrison closed the gap and kissed her.

First their lips barely touched, hovering together, and the next thing she knew Harrison was walking her backwards until they were tumbling onto the bed, her legs tangling with his and his kisses consuming her.

Charlotte and Harrison didn’t emerge from her bedroom until much later in the afternoon, and although she wasn’t convinced their excuse of both being tired and needing a nap was believed, Louisa and Luke were too polite to suggest otherwise.

And now she and Harrison were taking a walk along the water, just the two of them again.

Harrison surprised her by reaching for her hand, linking their fingers as they wandered.

‘About earlier…’ he began.

‘If you’re going to apologise for storming into my room and kissing me, there’s no need. Trust me when I say that it’s going down as one of the highlights of my adult life.’

They both laughed, and Harrison lifted her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. ‘Just so we’re clear, I’m fairly sure you kissed me.’

Charlotte tried to appear shocked, but it only made them both laugh all the more—he was kind of right. Although she recalled him being the one who’d taken charge from that moment on.

‘In all seriousness, though, I was going to tell you, it just hadn’t felt like the right time,’ he said.

‘I mean, when is the right time to tell someone that your wife died? It wasn’t at coffee, and it most certainly wasn’t when I was getting to know you on our little day adventure or when we were having dinner. ’

‘I get it,’ she said. ‘When I left home and went to London, it was like a fresh start for me. No one knew that I was the girl with the mum who’d run away. Everyone just accepted me for who I was when they met me, and it was like I’d left all that baggage behind.’

‘Did she leave your dad for another man?’ Harrison asked.

Charlotte decided to tell him all of it, from the very beginning.

‘Let’s just say that my mum was amazing until she wasn’t.

When we were young, she was vibrant and fun, she took us on adventures, she was my everything.

’ Charlotte took a deep breath and stared out at the water, knowing she needed to tell Harrison the whole story—the true story—not the story she usually told anyone else who asked.

‘There were little signs that things weren’t right, which as a child go unnoticed, but I think, no I know, that my dad blamed himself for not doing something.

One day, we’d have this mum who’d bake for us and make homemade popcorn, dancing around the living room and singing songs with us, and the next day she’d stay in bed and my brother would look after us while Dad was at work. ’

‘She suffered from depression?’ His words were spoken softly.

‘I think so,’ Charlotte said. ‘We never had a name for it then, and sometimes she’d go weeks without having what we called an episode, but it was after my baby sister was born that things changed.

’ She inhaled and slowly blew it out. ‘She died when she was nine months old, and I don’t remember much about her, other than that Mum was in hospital all the time with her.

Dad spent longer and longer at work each day.

Mum was never there, or if she was, I don’t remember it, and Erik, my brother, became almost like a parent to me.

But every time I think about those years, I realise how young he was, and how unfair it was that he had no one to look after him. ’

They stopped walking and Charlotte stared out at the water, leaning into Harrison when he put his arms around her and scooped her back into his body, his chin resting on her shoulder, their cheeks gently touching.

‘Before Mum left, we had this week or maybe even more of her being happy again. The house felt bright, the kitchen smelt of cooking and the bathrooms were scrubbed clean. But then she was just gone. We left for school one morning, and she made our lunches and kissed us goodbye, and when we came home, she’d left.

Her clothes were gone, her cosmetics had disappeared from the bathroom, and the only thing left was the scent of her favourite perfume clinging to the air. ’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That must have been so hard on you. On all of you.’

She sighed. ‘It was the beginning of the end for me and my dad, but I guess it’s the reason my brother and I are so close. We’ve been through a lot.’

‘Which is why you found coming home so hard,’ Harrison said. ‘And there I was telling you to go and see your dad, as if you’d just had some petty argument.’

Charlotte turned in his arms, folding herself against him, her cheek to his chest.

‘I’m so pleased you did, because you were right. If something had happened to him and I hadn’t seen him, I would never have forgiven myself. It’s the same reason I went to my mother’s funeral.’

‘You never saw her again? After she left?’

‘I never saw her again,’ Charlotte said.

‘We found out that she’d fallen in love with a man, we don’t even know where they met, and she just disappeared from our lives.

It was as if losing her baby was too much to bear, and maybe it was just easier to walk away from all of us than face loss, day after day.

And even now, when I try to tell myself that she must have had mental health problems that were never treated, it doesn’t help the little girl who lost her mum.

In a way, it would have been easier if she’d died, because at least then I’d have been able to grieve her.

We would all have been able to, instead of feeling as if she’d never loved us in the first place. ’

Harrison kissed the top of her head and held her in his arms, and she almost felt as if she’d been saving her story to share with him. Because here was a man who understood true loss, who knew what it was like to lose someone he truly loved.

‘When I lost Elly, my entire life was turned upside down. I didn’t know who I was without her—it had been Harrison and Elly for so long that it had become my whole identity,’ Harrison said, his voice low.

‘Time does help, but it doesn’t heal. Not really.

Sometimes I still get so angry that she was taken from me, that she didn’t get longer to just walk this earth and see the world. ’

Charlotte leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. ‘If you change your mind about this, about us being—’

‘No,’ he said, his voice husky as his hands splayed at her waist, holding her in place. ‘You’re one of the only things I’ve been sure about in two years. I don’t regret anything that’s happened between us.’

She glanced up at his mouth, feeling that pull towards him, that energy that seemed to ignite between them. ‘Good,’ she said, standing on tiptoe and grazing her lips against his.

This time when they kissed, it was softer, less urgent than before, and Charlotte looped her arms around his neck.

‘No secrets,’ he whispered, as he broke off their kiss and gently pulled her down to the ground beside him. ‘You can tell me anything.’

‘No secrets,’ she whispered back, dropping her head to his shoulder.

But as she sat, staring out at the fjord, content in Harrison’s company, her mind was suddenly drawn to the secrets Amalie had been keeping, and she reminded herself that she needed to call her grandmother to find out if Amalie had told her any more of her story.

Especially as she sat on the banks of the fjord, the water lapping nearby—perhaps in the exact same spot that Amalie had once sat with her beloved Oskar.