Sighing, he went to check on Holly. After finding her sleeping like an angel, despite his fears that she wouldn’t after viewing totally unsuitable horror crap, Jason paused on the landing, wondering how it was that things seemed to be falling so badly apart. Not just his business, but them, their marriage. Did Karla feel the same way? She’d given up her acting degree to be with him. He’d wanted to be with her, more than anything, but… what had happened to the friendship they’d shared? Their determination not to become like their parents: his constantly arguing, hers barely speaking? They’d promised themselves they would never fall into the same traps as other people, that they would stay invested in each other, never become indifferent or contemptuous of each other. They had planned to scale mountains together, literally, both preferring activity holidays to lying around on the beach. Granted, they couldn’t have done that when the kids were younger, but they’d intended to once Holly and Josh were older. They’d both wanted the same things, to do the same things. He’d been training as a skydiving instructor when he’d first met her. Karla had wanted to skydive. She never had. She’d wanted to learn how to scuba dive, sail, windsurf and abseil. Yet, they’d made no plans, which was largely down to him, he reminded himself guiltily, because they couldn’t afford to.

She’d planned to pick up her acting career, once Holly was born, and then Josh. She’d never done that either. Her father would have forked out her fees; her mother would have had the kids. Yet Karla had turned down both offers. She rarely left the kids with her mother, in fact, which Jason didn’t quite get. Diana loved them, and Josh and Holly both adored her.

Jason loved the children. With his bones, he loved them. He hadn’t done what he’d wanted to with his life either, but he would never have missed out on fatherhood in exchange for indulging his extreme sports hobbies and business dreams. As long as Josh and Holly were healthy and happy, he told himself it didn’t matter, but suddenly, with the company looking more and more likely to fold, it did. Mostly because it was becoming glaringly obvious that Karla wasn’t any happier with the way things were between them than he was. She was an incredible mother, always putting the kids’ welfare above everything else. Her job was okay, she’d said. She was obviously good at it, getting promoted to office manager and personal assistant to the chief executive, which had brought in some much-needed extra income.