Page 135 of Reckless Hearts
This time, I want to go with him in the car, climb onto the plane, glue myself to his side like a stubborn barnacle, and refuse to let go.
But I can’t. My job is here. My family is here. My whole life’s purpose, saving New Zealand’s endangered bird species, is here.
And Marcus has explained why he can’t ever offer me more than what we currently have.
He doesn’t want to build a home with me, a future with me. He doesn’t believe he’s capable of proper love.
So this is what we have. A relationship where he’ll leave me again and again.
To avoid Marcus being mobbed at the airport, avoid having images of us together splashed across the internet, Marcus suggests we say goodbye in his suite.
I think I would have preferred the airport. At least I would have had the incentive of social embarrassment to stop myself from latching on to Marcus’s knees and begging him not to leave me.
Now, I can’t guarantee it.
But just as I’m trying to hold it together, my hands clenched so tight my nails are leaving crescent moons in my palms, there’s a knock on the door.
Marcus opens it.
Saskia’s there, her perfectly styled hair and designer outfit at odds with her hesitant expression. She looks like she’s teetering on the edge of fight or flight.
“Hey,” Marcus says softly.
“I got your message that you’re leaving,” she says stiffly.
Marcus runs his hands through his hair. “Yeah. I gotta head back for a shoot.”
I find myself unconsciously moving closer to Marcus, as if my body is trying to steal a few extra seconds of closeness.
“How is everything with Tom?” Marcus asks Saskia.
“Well, I talked to him like you advised me to. And at the end of the conversation, I threw his entire wardrobe onto the lawn and set fire to it. That should give you some indication of how everything is.”
Marcus’s eyebrows fly up. “You’re giving the term ‘burning bridges’ a whole new meaning there, huh?”
Saskia smiles a brittle smile. “I guess I’m going to be divorced by the age of thirty. That’s one to add to the milestones, isn’t it?”
“Probably not the kind of milestone they make greeting cards for,” Marcus says.
She looks between us.
“I’m still incredibly fucked off with the two of you for keeping secrets from me,” she says. “But you know, you didn’t fuck your colleague Talia at a corporate retreat and then continue to hook up with her twice a week when you claimed to be working late, so you’ve slid down my hit list.”
“I can promise you I will never, ever fuck Tom’s colleague Talia,” Marcus says as he gives Saskia a hug.
She leans into him for a few seconds before pulling away.
Marcus looks at his watch, his jaw tightening.
“I’ve really got to get going.”
He glances over at me.
Shit. Despite wishing for an audience only minutes ago, I’d prefer not to have my sister watching this right now.
“I’ll see you in London, okay?” he says because we’ve already lined up the fact I’m going to a conservation conference inLondon in three months. He’ll be filming in Amsterdam, so we’ll snatch a few days together.
“Yeah. London,” I manage.
