“That I’m disappointed crap worries me more than if you’d green lighted his slow and painful death. He is desperately in love with you. And I am appallingly, disgustingly jealous. You do know that, right?”
She searched Dillon’s eyes for the truth. He’d scalp anyone who came after Mace and he’d become a good friend to her as well. “He couldn’t keep his promise to be here, that’s all I know.”
Dillon kissed her forehead. “Anything I can do?” He inclined his head towards Alfie. “Want me to get rid of rock star hair?”
She smiled. “Rock star hair helped me get ready for this. Don’t tell Mace about the painting.”
“I won’t be able to tell him anything because if I see him before you do, he won’t be able to hear through the bandages.”
He kissed her again, and released her, gave Alfie the evil eye and the night was done. Julian turned the spotlights off. Margaret had disappeared but they could hear her off-key singing.
Alfie offered his arm. He was smart enough not to remark on Mace’s absence. “Supper, my shout?” he said.
Her feet were sore and she was horribly hungry. She was miserable and felt like crying and that was ridiculous, she’d just sold out her first exhibition. She could go home and work herself into a temper, break things, or sob till her eyes bled while she waited for Mace to front with his excuses, or she could celebrate with Alfie. Very little Mace could say would make up for his absence and she was in no mood for his excuses.
She chose Alfie.
38: Insecure
He was scum. And there was nothing Mace could say or do that would make a difference to Cinta. She’d asked for one night, one block of time for something important to her and he couldn’t get his life together enough to make that happen. Worse, he was a coward. Once he knew he’d screwed up, he let events unfold around him without trying to control them and it was midnight before he left the office.
He could have insisted he needed to go. He’d said it, mentioned Cinta’s show, and Anderson had looked at him as though he’d asked permission for a bathroom break he wasn’t eligible for.
There’d been shouting, both of them. Anderson was furious, demanding answers on an expense report, insisting on a conference call to India and another to London, and Mace hadn’t shouted loudly enough, hadn’t simply walked out. Anderson raised a real issue, it had launch funding implications, and fuck, Mace needed it fixed more than he wanted to look at paintings he’d already seen, eat food off toothpicks and stand in a room full of strangers trying to make inane small talk.
But he’d had the option to pack up and walk away. They weren’t saving lives, they weren’t solving world hunger, and he didn’t take it, and now, sitting in the dark in his car, he couldn’t understand why.
He’d made a clear-cut choice between Cinta and Ipseity and he’d told her in the strongest language possible she was unimportant to him, that she was second best.
What did that make him? An out and out bastard. Not the kind of man he wanted to be. Not a man Buster would be proud of. A low, twisted, lying fuck incapable of getting out of his own car to deal with the impact of his actions.
And yet he hadn’t been blind to the consequences. He understood the risks and he’d consciously made the choice to solve the clamouring urgent problem in his face and ignore the crisis he was nurturing. He’d had a hundred gentle warnings from Cinta and he’d acted as if every one of them was meaningless, as if her patience was endless, her love without defeat.
He was a fireman fiddling over a spot blaze while the whole forest went up behind him, cutting him off from safe ground.
Once she’d been the fire and he’d been intent on putting her out. Tonight he’d all but smothered the light and heat they’d shared to ash.
He got out of his heap of shit car and locked it. The alternative was sleeping in it, or going back to the office, crashing in a hotel, and if he did any of those things it was the signed death certificate on his relationship, and he knew that as well as he knew he was powerless to defend himself against anything she might say and do.
But for all that, he simply couldn’t believe she wouldn’t understand and she wouldn’t wait for his life to be less storm-tossed by the flood of new and unaccountably critical and unexpected demands he got hit with daily.
It wouldn’t always be this way. It’d settle down to something smoother. The kind of life they could have together if he actually made it would be extraordinary. They only had to hold tight and ride it out together till the rough patch was over. In the context of things, that’s all this was, a patch of the coarsest sandpaper, some serous singeing.
And they were strong enough to withstand that.
He had to believe it.
Inside the loft lights blazed and music played. Alanis Morissette’s aggressive break-up song, You Oughta Know. He’d half expected—hoped, like the yellow cur he was—Cinta would be in bed and he wouldn’t have to deal with things till morning brought both of them distance. He’d sleep on the couch in the office and cook her breakfast, go in to work late.
He stood in the doorway for long enough to realise she was playing the song on repeat. His head was spinning from lack of sleep, from the breadth of his own duplicity and the knowledge this was a dying deal he was ill equipped to resuscitate tonight.
He was so fucked.
She was in the studio, he could smell oil paint. She stood in front of an easel wearing her yoga pants and his old singlet. Her arms and feet were bare and it was way too cold for that. Her hair was curled and loose, reflecting the light, tangled down her back, her skin had a sheen from some moisturiser she’d used. He’d never gotten to see her dressed up. He hadn’t been here when she was getting ready to help her laugh her nerves away. He had no idea how she got the paintings to the gallery or what it took for her to choose which ones to show, which parts of her soul to bare in public, because that’s what all her work showed. He knew nothing about art, but he knew each painting carried a little piece of her essence, a part of her whole.
He’d lost forever that first chance to watch her shine amidst her work, to see her process its reception. He hadn’t looked in her eyes and told her he was proud of her, excited for her and scared for her. He hadn’t told her he loved her for no reason, with no agenda, in such a long time she must surely doubt he still did.
Speech had never been his thing, but he’d always been around to show Cinta what she meant to him. She’d learned to hold him accountable for his actions when his words didn’t come. And tonight his actions made him deplorable. Unforgiveable.
He waited in the doorway while Alanis ground out her kick-arse lyrics again. Cinta was painting over a canvas with primer, returning it to a fresh surface. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d made a mess and she was cleaning up to start again.
His hands shook to touch her but he was cut off from that privilege. He should go to his knees and beg her for another chance, but his feet had grown barnacles and stuck him to his spot by the door.
“I waited up for you.” Her voice, plain and unemotional, stung his skin. She didn’t turn, kept working. “I’m not going to yell at you.”
Why didn’t she pick up her blade and knife through the part of him that chose to treat her so needlessly cruelly? Maybe then he could understand himself enough to know what to say.
“I’m not even angry anymore. I’ve had hours to get over that. I’m disappointed. I’m hurt, but what makes this whole thing worse is I understand. You did what you had to do. I can’t shout at you for doing what I know I might’ve once had to do to someone.”
She turned her head, a half glance in his direction. “I’m assuming all your limbs and faculties are intact and in working order and you didn’t get drafted into a last minute plan to save the world from certain destruction?” She waited a beat. “Didn’t think so. I took your lack of ability to phone or text me as proof you’d been abducted by aliens. Good to see you made it out alive.”
Jesus. Her anger was so
buried and blue hot it was keeping her warm. He made a sound, unconscious, more distressed animal than human.
“Don’t even try to talk, Mace. Because I don’t think you understand the problem. You think you let me down. You think you got caught up and prioritised badly, and now you’re guilty as hell and don’t know what to do about it, because you do know abandoning me tonight was a deliberate, stupid, thoughtless thing to do, on top of the way we’ve been drifting apart. You’re wondering why I’m so calm and because I am, you’re even more confused, because if I was shouting and crying and breaking things you could rock in here and take control and use that incredible body of yours to bring me back down and make me feel okay again.”
He moved into the room. He wanted to see her face, but he was wary of coming too close. She dipped her brush in the paint and continued whiting out the canvas.
“No, don’t talk, Mace. That should make this easier for you. The problem is I knew how much I could hurt someone if I loved my job more than them. I knew it would be impossible to continually justify choosing work over a partner. So I didn’t do that. I didn’t risk anyone else’s heart. Of course, I didn’t risk mine either, until you.”
She put the brush down and moved to face him. She’d been crying. The whites of her eyes were pink. He turned to sand; a sculpture that looked like a man but had no substance and would blow away to nothing from the lightest breath of air. She saw all the coarse grains; all the imperfections and the fragile, crumbling makings of him.
“I knew you were dangerous from the start, I just didn’t know how that would affect me. Now I do. I thought I was strong enough to hold our two halves together. Now I’m not sure I if I am.” She turned back to the easel. “I deserve better. We both do.”
Mace separated; his heart and his lungs, his head and his body, falling away to nothing, no beat, no air, no thought, no action.
“I don’t know where we go from here. Our merger is dysfunctional. It might be smarter to spin off our separate interests so we don’t lose more than we’re prepared to.” She picked up a brush. “I don’t ever want to hate you, Mace, but we can’t keep going like this.”
He hung on to her words, their cold efficiency, their accurate diagnosis. It wasn’t that simple for him, and he’d fight to change her mind, but she’d taken the ground from under him with her businesslike manner and shaken it like a picnic rug. He was tipped over and all in pieces, left without a solid footing to reason from. Everything she’d said was true.
“Do you still love me?” The words clawed up his throat and cracked his jaw to get free.
She spoke without hesitation. “Yes, I do, but you have to be in my life for that to mean anything.”
God. Fuck. It wasn’t over. “It won’t always be this way. We won’t be a start-up forever.”
“No, but we’re talking years, not months, like this.”
Right again. As much as he wanted to deny it. He’d need to be away from her for months when they set up the new office and she didn’t know that yet. He was reduced to begging, and from his weak position he had no real chance of convincing her, but he did it anyway.
“I’ll do better. The business will cope. I can hire a more senior development team.”
“You know that’s not realistic.”
“You’re talking yourself out of us. I’m still here. I’m wrong. I’m so fucking wrong, but I love you and I’ll find a way to make this good again. You can’t give up on us.”
She abandoned the easel and came to stand in front of him. “I didn’t give up on us, you did. My show sold out tonight. If you were still here you’d have asked. If you loved me,” her voice cracked, caught loss in its tone and went soft, “you’d have chosen differently.”
He closed his eyes. Hers were wet. She stood so close he could smell her floral perfume under the caustic paint fumes. He’d forfeited his right to touch her, but if she touched him, maybe they could find their way back.
But in the stillness she moved away. He was alone. The music stopped. Other people witnessed her triumph tonight; other people had seen her vulnerability, her warrior brave, and her creative essence. Had someone loved her better tonight, and for all the nights and days he’d been a ghost? He followed her into the other room.
“Are you fucking Alfie?” The words came as sharp as the thought, as an arrow of torn pain.
She sighed. “No, but in the interest of full disclosure, I went to dinner with him tonight and he kissed me.”
“Did you kiss him back?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck! Why?” As if he deserved an answer.
“You have a demanding mistress, Mace, and she’s a dream you don’t want to give up. I was angry and lonely. I just wanted a kiss to feel good for a moment on a night that was spoiled because you weren’t there with me.”
Christ, that was a fatal knife slash to his jugular, but bleeding out was too good for him.
She left him standing there, went to the bedroom and turned off the lights. She knew he wasn’t going to come to her easily there. Holding her at night had taken all his confusion and irritation and smoothed them away. He wasn’t fit to hold her and everything he faced now, he’d set in motion. There was no surprise, no place for anger, just the wretchedness of having reached an inevitable conclusion of his making.
He needed air. What was in his chest was foul and suffocating. He went to the balcony and wrenched open the doors. Cold night and open sky, the smell of soft rain on the sleeping city. He breathed deep and let the spray sprinkle him. When the front of his shirt was stuck to him he took it off.
He’d hit the hanging punching bag enough times to have split one knuckle before he realised he was doing it. You didn’t get to change what other people did because it hurt you. Otherwise there would be no accident taking his mother away, or the illness that got to her first. Now he couldn’t breathe for another reason. He could hit that bag till his hands broke. It didn’t bring Buster back and it wouldn’t bring Cinta back either. The bag swung at him and he stopped it, hugging it, he held on and leant his head against it. His face was damp, rain, sweat, tears like acid on his cheeks.
“Enough, Mace.”
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.
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