This had always been going to happen—always!
But it was one thing to know that and another to feel it. To feel the empty place where he had been. To know that he would never come back to her. Never hold her in his arms again...
She felt her throat constrict, her face convulse. Slowly, with limbs like lead, she sat up, pushing her tangled hair from her face, shivering slightly, though the mid-morning sunlight poured into the room.
She looked around her blankly, as if Marc might suddenly materialise. But he never would again—and she knew that from the heaviness that was weighing her down. Knew it in the echo of his voice, telling her he did not want to take her with him. Knew it with even greater certainty as her eyes went to an envelope propped against the bedside lamp...and worse—oh, far worse—to the slim box propping it up.
She read the card first, the words blurring, then coming into focus.
You were asleep so I did not wake you. All is arranged for your flight to London. I wish you well—our time together has been good.
It was simply signed Marc. Nothing more.
Nothing except the cheque for ten thousand pounds at which she could only stare blankly, before replacing numbly into the envelope with the brief note.
Nothing except the ribbon of glittering emeralds in the jewellery case, catching the sunlight in a dazzle of gems. She let it slide through her fingers, knowing she should replace it in its velvet bed, leave it there on the bedside table. It was a gift far too valuable to accept. Impossible to accept.
But it was also impossible not to clutch it to her breast, to feel the precious gems indent her skin. To treasure it all her life.
How can I spurn his only gift to me? It’s all that I will have to remember him by.
For a while she sat alone in the wide bed, as if making her farewells to it and all that had been t
here for her, with him. Then, at length, she knew she must move—must get up, must go back to her own bedroom, shower and dress, pack and leave. Go back to her own life. To her own reality.
The reality that did not have Marc in it. That could not have him in it.
I knew this moment would come. And now it has.
But what she had not known was how unbearable it would be... She had not been prepared for that. For the tearing ache in her throat. For the sense of loss. Of parting for ever.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this! To feel like this!
The cry came from deep within her. From a place that should not exist, but did.
No, it was not supposed to be like this. It was supposed to have been nothing more than an indulgence of the senses...a yielding to her overpowering attraction to him...a time to be enjoyed, relished and revelled in, no more than that.
She should be leaving now, heading back to her own life, with a smile of fond remembrance on her face, with a friendly farewell and a little glow inside her after having had such a wonderful break from her reality!
That was what she was supposed to be feeling now. Not this crushing weight on her lungs...this constricted throat that choked her breath...this desperate sense of loss...
With a heavy heart she slipped through the connecting door. She had to go—leave. However hard, it had to be done.
Two maids were already in her room, carefully packing the expensive clothes Marc had provided for her—an eternity ago, it seemed to her. She frowned at the sight. She must not take them with her. They were couture numbers, worth a fortune, and they were not hers to take.
She said as much to the maids, who looked confused.
‘Monsieur Derenz has instructed for them to go with you, mademoiselle,’ one said.
Tara shook her head. She had the emerald necklace—that was the only memory of Marc she would take, and only because it was his gift to her. That was its value—nothing else.
On sudden impulse, she said to the two young girls, ‘You have the clothes! Share them between you! They can be altered to fit you... Or maybe you could sell them?’
Their faces lit up disbelievingly, and Tara knew she could not take back her words. She was glad to have said them.
It was the only gladness she felt that day. What else had she to be glad about? That tearing feeling seemed to be clawing at her, ripping her apart, her throat was still choked, and that heaviness in her lungs, in her limbs weighing her down, was still there as she sat back in the chauffeured car, as she was whisked to the airport, as she boarded her flight.
He had booked her first-class.