The Lie(42)

She’s slowly undoing me, thread by thread. I stare at her in near awe, this wondrous creature who wants to spend time with me. This rare and beautiful being who says I make her happy, maybe as happy as she makes me.

“Whatever do you see in me?” I ask her quietly. I can’t help it.

She tilts her head, frowning at me. “I see you. What do you see?”

I suck in a breath through my teeth, the words hesitating in my mouth. I let them go.

“Everything,” I tell her with a pure ache in my chest. “I see Natasha. I see everything I shouldn’t want. Everything I do want. Everything that makes the world keep turning on its axis. You have no idea what you do to me. No idea.”

She leans forward, eyes pleading. “Then show me what I do to you.”

“You’re leaving,” I whisper.

“Show me,” she says more urgently. “Show me.”

I oblige her.

I grab her face in my hands, my fingers pressing into her soft cheeks, and I kiss her. It isn’t gentle. It is hard and feverish and wet as my lips crash against hers, as our tongues flow over each other, uninhibited. The fire inside is spreading everywhere, filling every hollow part of me. I let out a moan into her mouth as she returns my kiss with wild desperation, her hands holding my biceps tight, her nails digging into my shirt. My cock twitches in my pants, nearly a surprise, and I’m suddenly aware of how acute my desire for her is.

I slide my fingers into her hair and she moans softly, the thread around my heart spinning and spinning.

My lust is growing, unparalleled, and I’m very close to losing control of my body, of my spirit, and just handing it all over to her.

But I’m married and she’s leaving me.

And whatever it is I want from her, it can’t continue like this.

I break away, my lips aching from her absence, and we both stare at each other, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to catch my breath and compose myself. “I’m sorry. That was wrong.”

“Was it?” she asks softly. Then it’s as if she catches herself. She shakes her head and leans back from me. “Yes, of course it was wrong.”

“You’re leaving,” I tell her.

“And you have a wife.”

“But I don’t want her to be my wife anymore,” I say, shocked at my admission. I exhale loudly and rest my head on the steering wheel. “I never wanted it like this. A f*cking mess. I would have gone on in my marriage for many more years without knowing I was missing something.”

“Eventually you would have woken up,” Natasha says. “The human heart isn’t meant to be caged by someone who doesn’t feed it.”

I turn my head, still pressed against the wheel, and manage to smile wanly at her. “That’s very poetic.”

“It’s true. You owe it to yourself to make yourself happy, especially when you’re with someone who isn’t happy either.”

“What are you saying?”

She raises her brows. “Well, I’m saying…what are you going to do when I’m gone?”

I shake my head, staring absently out the window at the trees that line the estate. “I don’t know.”

“Go back to the way things are with her? You said yourself there is no fixing it.”

“There isn’t…but…I would do it for Hamish.”

“That’s not the right answer.”

“Well, it’s the only answer I have right now,” I say gruffly. “You should understand. Your father left you with your mother.”

“I was ten,” she snaps at me, “and I had to put up with a childhood of fighting and crying and name calling and parents who didn’t speak to each other except for yelling. I just wanted my parents to be happy, so I could be happy. They should have broken up way sooner. It’s just bad luck that I wasn’t whisked off to France.”

I sit back and run my hand up and down my face, trying to make sense of everything. I can still taste her lips, feel my fingers in her hair. My first and last glimpses of our desire.

She takes her mobile out of her pocket and glances at it. “It’s getting late. We should probably head back now.”

“Aye,” I say with a sigh, turning the key. As before, it starts without a single cough.

We are both silent during the drive back, the tension between us ebbing and flowing, as if we keep trading thoughts between something wonderful and terrible. The kiss was both of those things.

When we get into the city, there isn’t a lot of time for me to say goodbye to her. I wish I could spend time at her flat, talk some more about what happened before I leave. I’m too afraid to leave the words unsaid between now and Monday. Time alone, to think about what happened, could be damaging for either of us.

I park the car on the street and twist in my seat to face her. I want to tell her to email me later, or even text me. Just to let me know she’s all right, that I’m not as horrible as I think I am.

I open my mouth but she looks at me point blank and says, “Brigs. I’m in love with you.”

A hundred crashing cymbals go off in my chest.

“What?” I whisper, hardly believing my ears. My heart is drumming so bloody fast.

She bites her lip and nods. “I’m sorry. It’s true. And I wasn’t going to ever tell you but I’ve got nothing to lose except a week of employment.” She smiles as if to herself. “I love you.”