The seconds stretched on, and I wanted to say, ‘You shouldn’t be here. We agreed not to do this to each other.’ But I truly don’t think I’d have been able to persuade my tongue to form those words. It felt wonderful and terrible seeing him again and I was hungry – no, starving – for just a glimpse of his face. Although what I saw didn’t exactly comfort me. Mel had been right. If there was a contest for who had the most impressive dark circles beneath their eyes, it would probably be a draw.
A scrape of a chair made me tear my eyes from Rhys and I saw Simon getting to his feet.
‘I think I’ll pop out and get us some coffees,’ he declared, blatantly ignoring the takeaway cups on each of our desks that were still hot enough to be giving off steam, and slipped out of the office. Maybe I smiled weakly in his direction, or maybe I just meant to. To be honest my eyes were having a hard time looking anywhere except at Rhys.
When we were eventually alone, I finally remembered how to make my vocal cords work.
‘What are you doing here, Rhys?’
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking uncertain. It was a look I’d never seen on him before, nor the broken one currently in his eyes. Guilt as powerful as a wrecking ball struck me. I had done this. I thought I was making it easier for him to leave, and look what I’d achieved. I didn’t think it was possible to hate what I’d done any more than I already did, but it turns out there were sub-basements in hell that I hadn’t even begun to explore.
‘I know I promised not to bother you again.’
‘Bother’ hit me like a poison dart. Did he really think I’d wanted for a single minute to never see him again? I was trying to make things easier. But all at once I wondered if the price I was making us both pay was too steep.
‘I won’t take up too much of your time. I know you must be busy.’
Busy thinking about you. The words were right there, and for one dreadful moment I thought I’d actually said them out loud. But Rhys was still standing on the other side of my desk. He wasn’t crushing me in his arms. His lips weren’t frantically seeking mine. His tongue wasn’t making mine wish it had never said all those awful lies.
‘I can spare a couple of minutes,’ I said, which sounded as prissy out loud as it had in my head.
He gave a ghost of a smile.
‘I don’t know if Mel mentioned that we’d run into each other recently?’
I nodded. I got the impression he was waiting for me to say something, but my lips felt as though they’d been superglued together. Beneath the desk my hands were tightly clasped, as though I couldn’t trust them not to reach across the space between us and pull him to me.
‘Then she probably told you I’m booked to leave in two days?’
‘Yes, she said.’
I saw the shaft of pain that knowing his departure was imminent still hadn’t prompted me to reach out to him. If he only knew how many times I’d summoned his number onto my phone screen and been on the verge of pressing the Call icon.
‘There’s something I wanted to give you before I left.’ His lips twisted in something that was almost a smile. ‘Kind of a farewell gift.’
I noticed for the first time there was a flat package tucked beneath his arm.
‘What is it?’ I asked, eyeing the package as suspiciously as though it was a bomb. I still hadn’t freed my gripped hands to take it from him.
‘It’s just something of mine that I didn’t want to pack into storage with the rest of my stuff. I thought you might like something to remember us by.’
As if there would be a single day for the rest of my life when I would ever forget him.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said, reciting the words by rote, like a well-trained child at a party.
His eyes softened. Almost as though he knew that beneath the desk my nails were digging into my palms, leaving tiny half-moon wounds in the flesh.
Very gently he set the parcel down on my desk.
‘Don’t open it yet. Wait until I’m gone.’
Gone, as in out of my office – which looked like it was about to happen – or gone to the other side of the world, which was scarily imminent? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe it was best that he didn’t witness my reaction to his gift.
‘The rest of my things are in storage. I’ll have them shipped out when I find somewhere to live.’
His words hung in the air between us. I knew what they meant, and I struggled not to let the reaction show in my eyes. He wasn’t moving in with Annalise and Tasha.
‘I’m going to look for a place where I can wake up and see the ocean.’