Insecure (Love Triumphs 1)

She was a silhouette in the doorway, huddled in her silk robe.

“Go back to bed.” He turned towards the city. He didn’t want her to see his face. “I won’t bother you. I’ll sleep in the office.”

He flinched when her hand came down on his shoulder. “Come inside, please. I don’t want to be apart from you any more tonight.”

He stared out at the city. It was resting, easy and quiet, but it could be a terrifying place. It had been that weekend they’d met. It had thrown them together and now it was a silent witness to them coming apart. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed against his back. He shifted, his hands coming to her forearms. “I’m wet. It’s cold. You should go inside.” He’d intended to unclasp her but she kissed his shoulder so he gripped her arms to stay upright. “Cinta.”

There was only one decision he could make if he wanted to quell the rampant terror in his heart and have her back securely in his arms, in his life. “I’ll give it up.”

She laid the side of her face on his back, her whole body now pressed to him. “You can’t do that. You can’t hold me responsible for taking your dreams away. You’ll only grow to hate me.”

He was vain and arrogant and ignorant. Ipseity was the foundation his adult life was built on; giving it up would undermine him, fill him with resentment and change who he was. He could no sooner give it up than he could stand to lose Cinta. This was a deal-breaker he had no experience negotiating.

He turned and pulled her to him, and she came, pliant and accepting despite everything. “Tell me what to do.”

She lifted her face, damp now, tears on her cheeks too. He forgot himself and kissed her, and when her lips accommodated his, he sank into the kiss, settling her closer, shielding her from the rain. Would that he’d shielded her from his ambition when he’d had

the chance, like she’d tried to do for him, explaining why second best was all she could offer, until she’d made room for him to come first. He couldn’t give her anything less. But anything less was the death of Ipseity.

She had no instructions but she had willing lips and roving hands. She gave him everything her body had. Her sighs and murmurs, her soft caresses and her biting fingernails. She was wet clinging silk and slippery silken, fragrant skin. She was unending arousal and pleasure that pressed the pain down, levelled it out and hid it in waves of mindless release.

He took her standing braced against the balcony rail, and they were loud, demanding of each other, hurting one another good in the drive to be one, to wipe out separateness. He took her again on the hard floor of the studio where they tumbled when his legs gave out and it was slower, kinder, but still coloured hot by madness and loss.

He would’ve slept then alone on the hard floor, but she offered her hand and led him to the bedroom, saying, “Stay with me.”

The words made the walls of his chest tear because it was already morning and day would bring its tidy personality and force them to face the muddle. He slid into bed beside her and she rolled to face him. She ran her finger over his eyebrow, the one that ruined his poker face and gave him away so often. She traced his lips. He could see her measuring, evaluating what came next.

“Maybe it’s best if we take a break for a while.”

He let the weight of that sit. “We’re opening an office in Silicon Valley.” He didn’t say he’d have to go, he didn’t have to. He didn’t have the right to make her dump her own life and go with him.

She smiled, her palm against his cheek. “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to make it.”

He shook his head. He knew exactly how slim their chances were. They were a long way from payday and anything could happen between here and there. He’d done nothing to be proud of, and that she could still think it, say it, after tonight, made his throat close up.

She kissed him, the softest brush of pretty lips and he strained to get the words out. “It’s me who’s proud of you, though why you’d want my opinion now, I don’t know. You were magnificent when I met you, so strong and focused, but you had that severity, that sadness from too many parts of you denied. You’re not severe anymore, you’re whole, you’re stronger and lighter and more and more brilliant to me.”

He’d made her cry again. He pulled her to his chest and she gave him a watery smile. “When you get around to it you can say the nicest things.”

But he’d wrecked his chance to learn to do that more often. He stroked her hair, damp from the rain, and he held her like he used to when he didn’t know this end was written for them.

He lay awake for hours, feeling her breathe, and when she stirred he let her roll away. And she took part of his heart and all of his hope with her.

39: Forget

Jacinta knew he’d gone before she woke. She dreamed it in a palette of bruised colours and hard-edged shapes with no proper form that dripped and splattered cold, and rose up as menacing black shadows before they sealed tight on her arms and legs, making them heavy and impossible to move.

She woke up sobbing.

She loved Mace, but she wasn’t strong enough to hold their relationship together when he’d wandered so far from the idea of permanence. She had to make a choice. She could stay with him and wait until he had time for them, hope that when he did, they’d both still want to be together, or she could move ahead with her own life. She couldn’t do both. And her own life was about to restart.

It took her a long time to get out of bed and she had no desire to leave the loft. Mace had left a note. He’d be home as soon as he could get away. They should talk. He loved her more than he’d ever have the words to say. He was sorry he’d ever given her cause to doubt it. He would find a way to make it up to her.

That only made it worse, because she knew what was coming and he didn’t. The regular trickle of apologies, the broken promises, the separation, wretched loneliness and anxiety. Then resentment, anger, blame and ultimate disinterest.

Oh, he was wiser after last night, but she’d seen this from a long way off, when the possibility of her return to work was a distant hope. And she’d watched the marriage breakdowns of dozen of career track colleagues, men and women like Aaron, who failed to juggle work and partners, whose relationships went sideways into affairs or ended bitterly in division and divorce.

When Mace got home, he insisted on cooking, acting as thought they’d find their way again, but he was uncertain with her, craved her closeness. He didn’t understand how much his life was about to change, how little say in it he’d have if he wanted to succeed. And he did want that, you could see it thrumming in him, the hunger, the determination to build his dream. She could never make him choose. She’d eat the broken promises for dinner, stomach the resentment, and carry the weight of the blame first.