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“Yes.” Now she looked at him but her smile was too shiny bright. “And when I walked in, I met Leonie.”
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. He turned half away, scrubbed a hand through his hair, turned back. “I tried to call and tell you. A hundred times. She arrived completely out of the blue. I had no idea.” He stared at her helplessly and she smiled wanly, shrugged.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” He searched her face. “What did she say to you? She’s said something? Tell me?”
“We had a drink, a chat. She said you guys were trying to patch things up.”
It burst out of him, “No, that is categorically not true.” His hands fisted at his sides, his molars grinding to dust. “It’s a fucking lie. You have to believe that.”
“When I thought about it logically, I did think she might be exaggerating.”
“Lying. I’ve told her it’s over between us.”
She sighed heavily. “The thing is, Oliver, I’d already made up my mind. To leave. Before Leonie said any of that.”
“Leave? Leave where?” Bewilderment tightened like a noose around his neck.
“To the UK. I’ve brought my flight forward.”
“To when?”
“Later today. I got a cancellation.”
Oliver scrubbed his hands down his cheeks. “What are youtalkingabout?”
“Maybe we should sit down for a minute so I can explain,” she said, and touched his arm. He followed her in a daze, and sat on the leather couch. Felicity sat next to him.
Oh, this was fucking madness. Yesterday, Leonie, today, Felicity. The rug being pulled out from under him by two very different women, for very different reasons. Or were they the same reasons? Either way, she was leaving, it seemed.
When she took his hand, he jumped.
“You and me, this whole thing, it’s been so much fun Oliver.” Her toying with his fingers did his brain in. “I can’t tell you how much fun. But… it’s a fairytale, it’s not ever going to work.”
“We—we don’t know that.”
She tugged her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. “We’ve known each other for two months. And we’ve had the most incredible time, I’ve enjoyed it in so many ways. Somany.” Her eyes warm and wistful told him exactly the ways she meant. “But, what happens when I go back London?”
He drew in a rasping breath. “I—”
“Maybe I can guess. We’ll make plans, firm at first, then as time goes by, the idea of meeting up will seem less important, the pull less insistent, the dates will keep getting put off.”
“No—not at all, we’d—I’d definitely—” Now he had no idea what he was saying. He just wanted to stop her being so… so rational.
“Okay then, maybe you’ll come to London. And for a few days it will be beautiful and… then you’ll find out just how truly disorganised I am, like, I mean I often don’tdoanywashing until I’ve run out of clean knickers completely.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “I’ve even gone to Marks & Spencer to buy new ones when it gets really dire… And you’ll realise my cooking isalwaysawful, and eating takeaway gets tedious after a while.”
He shook his head.
“Oliver, the fact that we haven’t even discussed seeing each other again, it says something, doesn’t it?”
He swallowed, tried to level his tone, but still his words came out as a croak. “I was trying to let things take their course… not plan too much. I thought that was the best approach.”
“It was.”
“Then can’t we just progress like that? Let this thing between us unfold… see where it takes us?”
“We could, but… the problem is, I’d rather not delay the inevitable. The tailing off… the calls becoming less frequent, both of us having less and less to share. Perhaps it would be you, maybe it would be me. Either way our lives will run along different paths on different sides of the world and eventually there will be nothing much to say to each other. And I—I want to remember this as the most amazing love affair, unspoilt by what life will inevitably do to it—tous.”
