Off Limits

by Clare Connelly

  ‘We’ve been sleeping together for over a month. We had sex in Clint-bloody-Sheridan’s home office. Did it never occur to you that some time, somehow, it would come out?’

  ‘I never thought about it,’ he dismisses. ‘Or I sure as hell would have been more careful.’

  I change tack, folding his admission into a part of my brain that will later want to analyse all that is being said and done.

  ‘Why is this a big deal?’

  My eyes stare into his even as he looks away. I see every flicker of emotion on his face, and it’s a little like watching a ship sink all the way from shore. I can’t reach him. He’s being devoured by an ocean that I cannot cross.

  ‘Apart from the gross invasion of my privacy?’

  I dismiss that immediately. ‘You’re a big boy and you’re used to that. What else?’

  ‘It’s too much.’ He shakes his head with weariness, running a hand over his stubbled jaw. ‘Gemma, look... I have a thing this morning. I’m already running late.’

  His sentence sits between us like a little row of tiny bombs. I can’t help the look of disgust that crosses my face. ‘A thing?’ I ask, scorn deep in my tone.

  ‘Yes, a thing. A breakfast.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  I lift a hand to his chest. He stands there for a moment, a tight smile stretched on his face, and then he steps back, dislodging my touch, breaking our contact.

  His voice is coldly authoritative. ‘Don’t feel you need to rush off. You can let yourself out when you’re ready. Hughes will...’

  ‘Fuck Hughes!’ I shout, moving behind him. ‘You aren’t getting rid of me like that. God, Jack! I have put up with this for long enough. You blowing hot and cold. You want me one second—then we fuck and you’re nowhere to be seen.’

  That same muscle twists in his face, and it might as well be a bullseye for how badly I want to slap it.

  ‘So we were photographed leaving a party? So people think we’re an item? Well, guess what? We are.’

  He steps back as though I’ve given in to temptation and cracked my palm across his cheek.

  ‘We’re sleeping together. Working together. We know each other inside out. What’s the big fucking deal?’

  ‘I can’t do this right now.’

  The louder and more screechy I become, the calmer he seems. And that just makes me even angrier! It’s like a horrible hamster wheel and I don’t know how to get off.

  ‘We have to talk,’ I snap, my voice quivering like an arrow striking a tree.

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  It’s a softly spoken confession that fills me with more fear than it does relief.

  ‘But not now. I really do have a thing this morning, Gemma.’

  But I know his diary, his movements, and I can’t for the life of me remember a single entry for today.

  ‘What? What thing?’

  He looks away from me, guilty, and, God, I am fuming. Is he lying to me? To get rid of me? Is he so desperate to avoid having an adult conversation about what our relationship’s become that he’s inventing reasons to get rid of me?

  Fine. I’d rather go than beg him to love me—which is what I feel like doing.

  But just when I’m about to flounce off like a teenager in a strop, at the very last minute, he says, ‘It’s Lucy’s birthday.’

  Boom! The bombs explode and, predictably, I reel.

  ‘I always have breakfast with Amber on Lucy’s birthday. Given this—’ he gestures with outrage towards the papers ‘—I think it would be in poor taste to be late.’

  ‘It’s Lucy’s birthday...’ I say with a nod, but inside my stomach is turning and my heart is shrivelling.

  Had I noticed the glass before? My eyes find it easily now. A single Scotch glass on the edge of the table.

  My eyes sweep shut.

  He sleeps with women to forget Lucy. And that’s what last night was.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Panic is like bile in my mouth.

  ‘That’s why you needed to see me last night,’ I say thickly. ‘It wasn’t about me at all, was it?’

  And I was so sure we were moving to another level—that he sought me out because he needed me. Because he missed me.

  But it hadn’t been that at all, had it? It was about Lucy. Always Lucy.

  His eyes are swirling with anguish and emotion. But I don’t care. I grab the belt of the robe and loosen it, pushing it off as I walk back into his bedroom. My clothes are strewn all over the place, where we flung them the night before, and they’ve landed haphazardly—the roadkill of our passion; the pathway to his penance.

  I pull my dress on without bothering with underpants; my fingers tremble. He’s standing in the doorway. I hear him before I see him, but I don’t pause. I slide my shoes on.

  ‘God! I’m such an idiot! You needed to forget. You needed to obliterate all your grief and whatever and that’s why it had to be last night. Right?’

  He doesn’t answer my question, but mutters, ‘Can this wait until tomorrow?’

  Obviously it’s just about the worst thing he can say.

  I clench my teeth together and nod—because while I’m fuming I know better than to make any rash decisions.

  ‘You’re an asshole,’ I mutter, pushing past him, taking satisfaction from the way my shoulder jams against his chest as I pass.

  I stalk towards the front door but then change my mind and spin around, moving back towards him. My hand pushes at his chest and tears sparkle in my eyes. I push him and then I lift up on my tiptoes and I kiss him. Hard.

  My mouth punishes him and I sob into the kiss, hating him, hating Lucy, hating it all so much but needing him to understand.

  I rip myself away, my breath dragging ferociously from my lungs, my eyes whispering warm droplets from their corners.

  ‘That is about you and me. Nothing else. No one else. It’s us, Jack. Got it?’

  He is infuriatingly immovable. His hands on his hips, his breathing even.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he says softly, like a plea, and I nod.

  But I know what tomorrow will bring.

  Tomorrow is the dawning of a new day; tomorrow will be our end.

  * * *

  She is everywhere I look, despite the fact no visible sign remains. She’s in the rumpled sheets of my bed, the towel I dry myself with after the shower, the toothbrush next to mine in the bathroom vanity unit. She’s in the half-drunk coffee on the bench and the pool of coffee beside it, from where she presumably slammed it down.

  I didn’t noticed at the time but she must have been angry to do that. Gemma doesn’t waste coffee.

  My expression ghosts with a smile but I blank it.

  I find myself standing in front of the newspapers once more and I look at Lucy. It’s like I’ve been stabbed through my heart, a pain familiar to me. She was so happy on our wedding day; we both were. How could we have known what darkness was in store?

  I press a finger into the page, as though I can touch Lucy’s hair in real life if I press hard enough. But she’s just a collection of black dots on cheap grey paper.

  Fuck.

  My finger moves to Gemma’s face and lingers there, just beneath her chin. It’s a larger photograph—almost half the page. The way she’s looking at me... My gut twists and my throat aches.

  Fuck.

  The way I’m looking at her! How did I let it go this far? What madness has overtaken me?

  I curl my fingers around the newspaper’s edges and fold it back together, then collect them all into a stack that I carry to the wastepaper bin.

  I get rid of them, and wish I could do the same to this mess.

  I have to end it.

  Gemma deserves better than this—to be jerked around by a man who can never give her what she wants. She wants my heart and it’s no longer a part of me. I gave it to Lucy... She took it away with her.

  The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

&n
bsp; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

  * * *

  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.’

  I move closer towards him, my voice a whisper. ‘I know that anyone who has been in love would want their partner to be happy. Not to live out their life in a hollow, empty wasteland as some kind of sick tribute.’

  He squares his shoulders as I speak, as though he can make my words bounce off. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  It’s so arrogantly defeatist that I almost laugh. But I’m weary. So weary now. Deflation has set in and is sucking my energy.

  ‘What are we doing, Jack?’

  He turns to face me slowly. ‘I’ve been asking myself that same question.’

  ‘What do I mean to you?’

  I look at him as he sweeps his eyes shut, the truth apparently not something he’s ready to communicate to me.

  ‘You’re my in-house,’ he says, with so much gentle concern that I feel tears sting the back of my throat. The use of my actual job title makes everything worse, somehow. ‘And my lover.’

  I am very still while his words sink in. ‘You can’t compartmentalise me. I can’t be your employee at work, your lover after hours and nothing in between. It doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ he demands with husky urgency. ‘This is good. Those things are good.’

  ‘But I want more.’

  ‘That’s all I have,’ he says honestly. ‘It’s all I can give you.’

  A muscle jerks in his jaw and I lift my finger to touch it lightly. ‘You’ve already given me so much more. Don’t you see that?’ I say gently.

  ‘It’s not possible.’

  His eyes are dead ahead, his jaw locked. I know Jack Grant—I understand him. I know when he’s made his mind up and when it’s useless to argue. I see his determination and in it is the answer I have been waiting for.

  It is the end.

  And yet knowing that and truly accepting it are two different things.

  ‘How can you think this is just sex?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I should have been more careful. I’ll never be what you want.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ I push, approaching the precipice of what we are.

  He meets my eyes; there is bleak reality in them. It breaks my heart.

  He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. ‘I’m not your boyfriend. I don’t want to be. And I don’t want us to get more serious. I just want to fuck you.’

  Oh, God. The pain is like ten thousand blades running over my spine. It’s unbearable and yet I revel in it, because somehow I feel I deserve it. It makes it easier to accept the truth.

  My head jerks upwards. My eyes are clouded by grief. ‘So that’s it?’

  His expression shows that he too understands the inevitability before us. ‘Yes.’

  His voice is pleasingly roughened by emotion so I know he’s not unaffected.

  I don’t trust myself to speak. Not for a moment. I wait, counting to twenty in English, French and Russian, and then I reach into the neoprene case for my laptop and pull out the crisp white piece of paper I printed that morning.

  ‘This is Carrie Johnson’s CV. She’ll be in at lunchtime to meet with you.’

  He frowns, as if the sudden change in conversation has surprised him. As though he expected me to argue for longer, to fight for what we were.

  ‘What for?’ He doesn’t look at the CV.

  ‘For my job.’

  A second passes while we both absorb the reality of that.

  ‘She’s excellent. Highly qualified. You’ll like her.’

  His face drains of all colour. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Obviously I can’t continue to work for you,’ I say with quiet determination, zipping my laptop case. My fingers are shaking, making a mockery of my calm delivery.

  ‘Stop. That’s bullshit, Gemma. Utter nonsense.’

  ‘That you think so underscores why I need to leave.’

  Fuck it. Tears are rolling down my cheeks now but I don’t bother to check them. What does it matter?

  I stuff the laptop into my handbag with relief.

  ‘You’ve worked for me for two years. You can’t just...because we...you can’t quit this job. You can’t quit on me.’

  Quit on him? The nerve! He’s the one who’s quitting. I bite my tongue. More tears are stinging my throat and I don’t want to indulge them.

  ‘I can’t work for you, Jack. Not for another minute.’

  He’s truly aghast. ‘Why the fuck not? We’re a team, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah. In bed. In the boardroom. But not in real life. No, thanks.’

  He waves the résumé in the air. ‘I don’t want this...Carrie Whoever.’

  ‘You’ll need someone, and she’s got what it takes to put up with you. She’s got killer legs and a great rack. You’ll probably get her into bed in a week or so.’

  Jealousy rings in the statement. I don’t care about that either.

  ‘Christ, Gemma.’ He drags a ha
nd through his hair and it spikes in a way that makes my stomach roll. ‘Don’t do that. You’re making it seem like that’s all we were...’

  ‘No. That’s what you did,’ I say angrily. ‘You just said it. We’re lovers. We work together.’

  He tilts his head back, a growl escaping his lips. ‘At least stay for the week. Let’s just let the dust settle on all this...’

  ‘I can’t.’

  I’m emphatic; my life depends on his acceptance of this.

  ‘Why not? It’s just a week. Seven days.’

  ‘It’s so much more than that. It’s all of me. It’s my heart. Don’t you get it? This might have been just convenient sex for you, but to me... It’s everything. I’ve fallen in love with you, Jack. I love you completely.’

  I wait. And a part of me waits in hope. In the desperate, unfounded hope that he will say it back. That he feels it, too.

  But he says nothing. He stares at me, and I stare at him, and finally—well beyond the time I should have given him—I lift my bag onto my shoulder and walk out of my office. I keep my head bent and I don’t even acknowledge Hughes when I pass.

  I’m so fucking done.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We need to talk.

  THE MESSAGE BUZZES into my phone at three the next morning. I stare at it, my heart pounding, tears leaking out of my eyes. They make me angry.

  I delete the message and turn my phone off.

  When I wake up I’ve almost forgotten about it. I make my coffee, switch my phone on and it buzzes immediately.

  Four messages from Jack.

  You can’t just ignore me.

  I was surprised yesterday. I didn’t handle it well.

  Meet me for lunch today.

  Please.

  I turn my phone off again and leave it at home when I head out. After being tied to Jack—tied to my phone, my emails, my laptop—for the last two years, I’m looking up. Finally. And seeing.

  I walk from Hampstead through Regent’s Park to the British Museum. I don’t think I’ve been in since I was a teenager, and strolling amongst the exhibits now gives me the perfect dose of perspective. Seeing the ancient Egyptian tombs, the mummies so perfectly preserved, the sarcophagi all shining and morbidly beautiful, I am reminded that I am just one person.