The Lie(16)

Though you did once. The last time you ever spoke to her.

“Should I go?” she asks, forehead furrowed. Worried. Prepared to walk.

Let her go.

“No,” I say quickly. I straighten up. “No. I’m sorry. This is just…you’re the last person I thought I would see today. I just need to process this. That’s all. Because…well…it’s you. You know? I mean, bloody hell, Natasha.”

But maybe she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. How I’m feeling. Maybe I’m a fleeting image from her past, dust on a negative. Maybe she hasn’t thought of me at all in these four years and I’m just another man she’s met on the way.

It can only be for the best, I think.

She nods, her face softening. “I know. I don’t know what to say either.”

I quickly look behind me at the classroom. Thankfully there isn’t a class after. “Do you mind, I need to grab my stuff from the classroom. You’ll stay right here? Do you have to be somewhere?”

Her expression becomes pained, torn. But she shakes her head. “No, I’m done for the day.”

I give her a grateful smile and move quickly down the hall and back into the empty classroom. I snap up my notes and my computer, shoving them into my briefcase.

Then I stop and place my hands on the desk, leaning against it, and hang my head down. I take in a deep breath through my nose, and when it comes out of my chest it’s shaking. My legs are trembling, the world is spinning, spinning, spinning on a terrible axis.

Holy f*cking hell.

To rise from the ashes only to have them rain on you from above.

It’s her.

Her.

Her.

I try and catch my breath. I know I can’t hide in here forever, that she’s out there, waiting for me. I need to hold it together, to calm my heart, to ignore the pangs of sorrow, of regret, of guilt, that are trying to rear their mighty heads.

I run my hands over my face and straighten up.

I can do this.

I grab the briefcase and head out into the hallway.

It’s empty, save for a short Asian kid shuffling along, texting.

She’s gone.

“Natasha?” I call out softly, walking down a few feet and looking around. There’s no point in calling out for her again.

She’s gone.

Like she was never there at all.

And maybe she wasn’t.

Maybe my mind is so battered, so bruised, I conjured her up.

A real life ghost.

A figment of my imagination.

Goddamn it, I’m so bloody f*cked up if that’s the case, and I wouldn’t put it past me.

I don’t even know if I’m relieved or disappointed.

All I do know is that for a few seconds, I thought I was looking into her eyes.

They may have been the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.

I wonder what she saw in mine.





CHAPTER FIVE

Brigs

Edinburgh

Four Years Ago



A knock at my office door. I grin to myself because I know that knock. Silly, rapid, nonsensical.

She came after all.

“Come in,” I say, peering at the door.

It opens and Natasha pokes her head in, smiling broadly.

That smile is better than any bloody drug. I immediately feel the weight on my shoulders lift.

“I have a surprise for you?” she says in that adorable, husky voice of hers.

“Well, the fact that you’re here when you didn’t think you’d make it is enough of a surprise for me,” I tell her, though honestly I’m intrigued by what she has to say.

“It turns out Freddie’s party was a colossal bore,” she says, exaggerating her voice to sound like a high society charmer. “So I thought I’d bring the party here,” she says, stepping in the rest of the way and raising her arms. She has a case of brown ale in one hand and Chinese take-out boxes in the other. She raises her chin proudly. “Do I get the award for the best research assistant already or what?”

“You win all the awards,” I tell her, grinning as she comes on in and plunks the items on the desk. “I really thought I was in for the long haul here tonight,” I tell her. “Though I can’t promise you this won’t be anything less than boring. Freddie’s may have been the better option.”

She pulls a chair up to the desk from the other side and sits down, reaching for chopsticks. “Well, you, Professor Blue Eyes, are anything but boring.”

I laugh. “I’m sorry, what did you just call me?”

She shoots me a sly grin. “Professor Blue Eyes. Didn’t you know it’s what everyone calls you here?”

“Oh, that’s rubbish,” I say dismissively.

“It’s true,” she protests, grabbing a take-out box and flipping it open. “Whenever someone here asks me what I’m doing, I tell them I’m your research assistant, and they always go, oh Professor Blue Eyes, what a dreamboat.”

I narrow my supposedly famous eyes at her. “Bloody hell, stop pulling my leg.”

She laughs. “Okay, well maybe I just call you Professor Blue Eyes. In my head. But I promise you, if it’s in my head, it’s in everyone’s head. Girls and guys.”

I try to keep smiling but it’s hard because, shit, this is flattering. And not in a good way flattering. I’m flattered in a way I shouldn’t be. Then again, I’ve been working with Natasha nearly every day now for a month, and I’m becoming increasingly aware that I’m feeling a lot of things that I shouldn’t.