Off Limits

* * *

He’s at my desk when I arrive the next day, looking immaculate in that blue shirt that makes me throb with the desire I partly want to cave in to. But I’m too angry, too sad, too hurt.

Grandma called me earlier, to enquire about my ‘friend’. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the first ‘friend’ I’d had in years was about to put an end to things. Or that I was. That things had run their course.

‘Coffee?’ He nods to the mug in front of him.

I shake my head. I’m pretty sure I’ll be ill if I eat or drink a thing.

‘How was breakfast yesterday?’ I ask, not meaning it to sound bitchy but suspecting it does.

‘Fine.’

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t fine, but Jack doesn’t want to talk about it. And if Jack doesn’t want to talk about it, then that’s that.

I drop my handbag onto the floor with more force than is necessary and reach down, pulling out my MacBook case.

‘I was blindsided by the press.’

‘You and me both.’ I move back to the door and click the lock in place.

‘I’ve been careless. I shouldn’t have let things go this far.’

‘Bullshit,’ I snap, a frown pulling at my whole face. ‘Neither of us could stop this. It is what it is. We’ve worked together for two years—I know you. I’m not one of those women you bring home for a quick fuck.’

‘You’re not that,’ he agrees, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that supercharges my blood. ‘But there’s no future for us.’

The words are spoken clinically, almost as though he’s rehearsed them.

‘Why not?’ I’m not going to give in to my breaking heart and let him end this. Not just because he’s afraid.

‘This was never meant to be serious.’ It’s a short declaration.

‘So? That doesn’t change what we are.’

‘Lucy—’

But I cut him off, shaking my head abruptly from side to side. ‘Lucy and you... I don’t want to infringe on that. I’m not asking you to renounce your love for her. I think you can love me, too. I think you can stay true to what she means to you and still make room for me.’

He clenches his jaw. ‘I married Lucy for life.’

I nod slowly, my heart whimpering somewhere near my toes now. ‘Even though she passed away?’

‘Yes.’

He is so certain, so intractable.

I try a different approach. ‘What would Lucy have wanted?’

He clears his throat and turns away from me. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I think it does,’ I say with quiet determination. ‘If you’re going to invoke this woman as your reason for shutting this down, then I think you should at least pretend to consider what she would have wanted.’

‘Lucy had only months to come to terms with her condition,’ he says. ‘She didn’t grapple with how I’d live after she died.’

‘Bullshit,’ I dismiss angrily.

He’s resigned. Frustrated. Tired. ‘You didn’t know her, Gemma.’