Page 101 of Duplicity

‘Thank you,’ I whisper.

‘Do you know what the worst bit is?’ He screws his face up. ‘I didn’t even feel bad afterwards—I was pissed off with you for not playing along. Really pissed off and self-pitying and immature. I was so shitty to you all last week, but I didn’t regret it until I found out the truth about Tabby.

‘Since then, I’ve been recalibrating every single interaction with you in my mind and I’ve felt sicker and sicker and sicker. Jesus. When I think about the things I made you do, knowing that all the time you had no choice—no real choice, anyway, that you just had to suck up all my shit and demands so you could get your hands on that money to save your daughter’s life… God, it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I actually puked at Gabe’s when Athena told me the truth, you know? I’ve never, ever felt so despicable in my life.’ His voice drops to the quietest whisper. ‘I’m so fucking ashamed, and I’m so desperately sorry, love.’

We stare at each other across the sea of pillows.

‘I didn’t just suck it all up,’ I tell him. ‘I may not have entered into it by choice, but most of the time it was amazing.’ I give him a shy smile. ‘Obviously you know I had fun. You were there. I just—I don’t understand why you were so mean to me last week. It was like a switch had been flipped—you were so nasty and contemptuous. It felt like you hated me, or something. I’ve never seen you be misogynistic before, but last week you were.’

His face is so stricken that I almost feel bad, but it has to be said. He has to know that the particulars of our working relationship don’t give him the right to treat women like that.

‘I know, believe me, and like I said, I’m disgusted with myself. But I definitely don’t hate you, love. Far from it.’

I wait, because an explanation is still forthcoming.

He sighs. ‘Are you sure you’re up for this conversation? You’re exhausted. I don’t want to dump my shit on you if you’d rather wait till later.’

‘I’d rather clear the air,’ I say firmly. ‘I think it’s important.’

He nods. ‘I got scared, which sounds even more pathetic when I say it out loud.God. I felt us growing closer, and it freaked me the hell out, so I thought I’d put some distance between us. I was livid that you were buggering off on jury duty, because I knew I’d miss you, and it made me act out. I told myself I should put up some boundaries and remember what our relationship was supposed to be.’ He pauses. ‘Rather than what it was actually becoming, which was something real.’

We’re both quiet for a second. While I appreciate his candour, I can feel myself getting angry. I may have deceived him to the extreme, but the choices he made last week were frankly disgusting. He needs to know that when he lashes out thoughtlessly, the effect on others can be devastating.

‘So you thought treating me like the whore you bought would be an effective antidote,’ I say, my voice quivering. ‘You shot your load in my mouth and then told me to, I quote,clear off.You bent me over your desk and just left me there.’

He flinches, but I’m not finished.

‘I know we have a contract, and I’ve always tried to give you what you need to compensate for all the deception, and I know we both find aspects of the dynamic really hot. But there’s dominating me, and then there’s treating me like I’m a worthless piece of shit, like I’m not even human.’ My voice breaks, my face crumpling like a child’s. ‘And that was how you made me feel, even before you called me into that lunch meeting and ordered me to suck your friend off. You made me feel like I had no value whatsoever, aside from my holes, and I can safely say I’ve never, ever felt so devalued in my life, not even when Tabby’s father told me to go fuck myself.’ I can barely get the words out. ‘Last week was so horrible that I wanted to curl up into a ball and die. I couldn’t, though, because I had a very sick, very scared little girl to look after. But I will tell you this—I’ve never been so glad to get away from anyone as I was from you that day.’

It’s all flooded back to me. The emotions I’m reliving towards this man are so different from the ones he’s elicited today. I want to punch him and hug him at the same time. How can the same man shove his hands between my legs in front of a roomful of his friends and then wash my hair so tenderly?

‘Fuck, I’m so sorry.’ The tears course over my nose and down my cheek, soaking my pillow. He reaches out and drags his thumb over them, but it doesn’t do much. ‘I can’t bear it. I’m so disgusted. I don’t—I don’t know what the hell came over me.’

He swallows, but he doesn’t look away. ‘I’ve been an entitled shit who values the wrong things my whole life. Ask my brother. I didn’t get Gabe’s strength of character. It’s no excuse, but everything I did last week was out of self-preservation. You were collateral damage in the worst possible way, and I chose not to see what a dick I was being to you because I purposely blocked out any thoughts about anyone other than yours truly.

‘I had this fucked-up idea that you were there forme, and that I deserved to get my pound of flesh, and I did all those things knowing what a truly special person you were.’ He grimaces. ‘I think that made me worse. And I think that if I had a therapist, which I probably should, they’d say I was self-sabotaging as much as anything else, by driving away the only real thing of value in my life.’

It doesn’t take a therapist to work out that Brendan abusing me is more about his issues than my value, but it’s so fucking childish. And it’s exceedingly hard to lie here after the week I’ve had and sympathise with his poor-little-rich-boy issues. For fuck’s sake. The guy has too much time and too much money and too few responsibilities, and this is the result. Total self-absorption.

Well, maybe nottotal. He’s here, after all. But alot.

I don’t think I could have stopped my scathing rejoinder if I tried.

‘And you wonder why I didn’t trust you with my secret.’

I may as well have slapped him across the face.

‘Wow. Yeah. That’s fair. Harsh, but fair.’

‘You know what,’ I say, warming to my theme, ‘you have so many redeeming qualities. You’re so generous, and I still can’t believe you flew all the way over here. But it shouldn’t take a crisis like this for you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You were a dick to Elaine when her son was ill, too. Everyone has issues, and everyone’s struggling with something. When you’re in a working relationship like you and I are, you owe it to the other person to have some basic empathy, to wonder how your actions will affect them. I’m not just a Non-Player Character in your life, you know.’ I’m secretly proud of that analogy—thank you Tabs for the video game reference. ‘I’m a human being, and I have feelings.’

He’s crying now, too. He nods violently. ‘I know. I know. And, like I said, I think deep down I was trying to punish you. I was pissed off, and I acted out, and by doing that I hurt you and made you feel the absolute opposite of how you deserve to feel, which is valued and adored.’

He can rationalise it all he likes, but the bottom line is that he has that nasty, infantile streak in him. It doesn’t mean I hate him—not even close—but it does make it very hard to trust him with the stuff that counts.

‘Look,’ I say, because this has been bothering me, ‘I realise I agreed to stuff in that questionnaire that I wasn’t actually ready for, and that was incredibly irresponsible. I did it to get the job, but that’s on me. Like I said, most of the stuff we’ve done, I’ve loved, even when you’ve pushed me out of my comfort zone. I even enjoyed that threesome, weirdly.’ I give him a watery smile, but he doesn’t return it. He’s still crying. ‘I knew you wanted to do certain things with me that I was never going tobe comfortable with, and they’re probably things that Athena would do without batting an eye, but?—’

‘You’re not Athena,’ he growls. ‘And you shouldnothave to apologise for your limits because they’re different from other people’s.’

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