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‘You drank a lot?’ Meena asked. ‘After you got back to Australia?’
He nodded. ‘I thought it would help.’
‘Did it?’
‘Of course it didn’t. And then Charlotte died and everything was so much worse.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Guy.’ Meena said the words gently, dropping her head and forcing him to meet her eyes. ‘You’re a good man. You deserve to be happy.’
‘I’m not sure I have it in me, Meena. After I left here, and you didn’t come, my heart broke—I broke. I tried to start again. But it didn’t matter how much I tried. Because I could never feel it. It was never the same. Never real. And so I drank to try and convince myself that it didn’t hurt. Charlotte died, and it was a tragedy. But it wasn’t the same as losing you. Nothing was real, after you.’
She fell quiet, and it wasn’t until he finally looked up and saw her face that she said, ‘This feels pretty real.’
‘This isn’t love,’ he said, shaking his head. It couldn’t be. Because the implications of that were just too frightening to consider.
‘Right.’ She edged away from him slightly, caution making her wrap her arms around herself. He hated that he had sent her into self-protection mode. But it was for the best. She should be on her guard around him.
‘See! I’m doing it already,’ he pointed out.
‘I’m annoyed, Guy. Not heartbroken.’ She sat up a little straighter now, pinning him with a glare before she continued. ‘So, let me be sure I have this right. Because someone sold your girlfriend dodgy drugs, and she died due to events beyond either of your control, you’ve decided you’re incapable of having a relationship.’ Guy nodded. ‘That sounds pretty stupid to me.’
‘Well, thanks for your understanding,’ he said, crossing his arms and standing. ‘But it doesn’t feel stupid from where I’m standing. I don’t like hurting people, Meena, but I’ve been hurting you since the moment I arrived here.’
‘Do you want me to hate you?’ Meena asked, standing up to face him.
Why couldn’t she just take his word that this was a bad idea? Because if she was the sort of person who didn’t question what she was told you wouldn’t have fallen in love with her in the first place, his brain told him, providing the inconvenient answer.
‘Of course I don’t want you to hate me,’ he said.
‘Right, I’m the one who decides whether I do, and I don’t, as it happens.’ She crossed her arms and planted her feet firmly against the slight jostling of the boat and he knew that he was getting nowhere.
‘Well, you should,’ he repeated, though with diminishing expectations of her taking any notice of what he was trying to tell her.
‘I think that says more about how you feel than how I do,’ Meena suggested, her posture softening slightly, one hand reaching to touch his arm. ‘Why should I hate you, Guy? Because we disagree about the future of Le Bijou? I never expected you to change your mind about that. Not really. Not even when we made love. It was just more convenient for me to...not think about it. I won’t let you take sole responsibility for the mistakes we both made. I’m sorry if I made you think that I hate you, because I don’t.’
He shook his head. Why wouldn’t she just believe him when he said that he didn’t deserve her? ‘Please, Meena. Just take my word when I say you’re better off without me in your life.’
‘Honestly, I don’t know, Guy. What happened between us was so... I’m not sure I have the words to describe it. And knowing what’s going to happen to Le Bijou makes having those feelings difficult for me. But, after everything that you’ve just told me, I’m not sure that running from them is such a great idea either. You’ve spent seven years feeling broken from what we had before, from what happened to you after you left here. I feel like there’s more to be said. More to talk about. If we both walk away now, then everything is just as broken as it was before. We have a chance to put that right.’
‘And I’ve told you that those chances always end up in someone getting hurt.’ His shoulders stiffened beneath her cheek.
‘This is different.’
‘How?’ he asked.
Meena sighed. ‘Because we are having this conversation. Have you ever told anyone else what you told me?’
‘No.’
‘Then I doubt anyone has told you what I’m about to. It wasn’t your fault, Guy.’ She squeezed his hand and he tried so hard to believe her. ‘And what we have is different to what came before. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving you. And if you felt the same way...maybe you weren’t broken, Guy,’ she said. ‘You aren’t. Maybe things were
just...unfinished. And now we can finish them. One way or the other.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think what we did today helped things feel more finished, if I’m honest.’
‘I know.’
She looked so bloody confused about that that he felt terrible for pushing this. For making this about him, when she was the one who had just taken a life-changing gamble on him. She had chosen him to be her first—again—and he had let her down—again. And he was kidding himself if he thought that what had happened today hadn’t been life-changing for him too. Because there was no coming back from what had happened on the beach. Already he was thinking differently. Wishing differently. Trying to find a way that they could give their relationship a second chance. But he knew that it would be selfish. That any sort of relationship with Meena risked her getting hurt, and he couldn’t be responsible for that.
