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‘Please just let me go now.’
I was wrong. There is a way I can make this better for her—or at least stop making it worse. I can leave her alone, just as she wants. I’m making it worse by trying to talk to her.
‘Okay.’ I lift my hands in the air, knowing I need to respect her boundaries here. ‘I’ll go. I just want to say again that I’m sorry. I wish I could feel—’
She nods jerkily. ‘I understand. It’s okay.’
It’s not okay. I broke my own damned rule and Jessica got burned. I should have known better than to go along with this. Two nights work, two weeks are a whole different ball game.
‘Goodbye, Zach.’
I stare at her, my lungs barely able to function, but then I nod. ‘Goodbye, Jessica.’
Her shoulders slump as she walks away and it takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to chase after her, but I don’t. I stand there in the pouring rain and watch until she’s out of sight and, when she is, I feel only a consuming sense of emptiness.
* * *
‘I still don’t understand why you had to bring your flight forward.’
‘I have an urgent meeting with my team.’
‘On Boxing Day?’ Jemima says sceptically.
‘I can’t help it,’ I lie, zipping my suitcase shut with an emphatic sweep of my arm.
I have never found anything harder than I did today and, for once, my family wasn’t to blame. The hardest part of the day was acting like my normal self when my heart has been shattered into ten billion tiny pieces.
‘Maybe I can come see you in a month or so?’ she suggests, surprising me. I turn to face her, frowning. Jemima has only been to London a few times since I’ve lived there, and usually when Simon has business. ‘A girls’ trip,’ she insists and I nod, because if it’s just Jemima, then the idea has infinitely more appeal. Though right now, it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for anything.
An hour later and I’m in a cab on my way to the airport, completely numb. I wasn’t able to stay for the family lunch, in the end. I couldn’t hold it together. I need time and space and I need to be by myself. I keep my phone switched off as the car powers through the streets of Singapore, desperately trying not to think of Zach. That’s easier said than done though—I fear he has become a part of my soul, and I will never liberate myself from him again.
* * *
‘You’re drunk?’ Dimitrios is looking at me as though he doesn’t know what to make of me.
‘Merry Christmas to you too.’
He frowns. ‘It’s almost midnight. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
Behind him, Annie appears, her features showing worry. ‘Zach? Don’t just stand there, come in.’ She steps to the side, gesturing into Dimitrios’s home. It’s like something from Santa’s grotto in here—trees, lights, music, the works. He’s pulled out all the stops for Annie, just because she likes Christmas.
And because he loves her.
Because they’re married.
Because that’s what you do when you’re married and in love.
Fuck love.
I move into the living room without being invited, making my way to the bar and pouring a measure of Scotch. Before I take a drink I catch the look Annie and Dimitrios throw one another, a look of total confusion.
Fuck.
‘Zach, what’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’ I hear the word slur from my mouth and inwardly groan. ‘Can’t I come to wish you a Merry Christmas?’
