She’d decided before falling asleep last night to drop the whole ‘this is your life and this is mine’ front and give them both a chance. Serge had demonstrated how much she meant to him. Nobody behaved that way without being borne along on strong emotions.
The fact he hadn’t been in bed when she’d re-emerged from the bathroom this morning had been the only blip on her radar. She’d wanted to leap back on him and make him prove to her all over again that she hadn’t dreamt last night.
She planned on taking him market shopping with her this morning, and couldn’t believe how much she was looking forward to it. Back home it was her favourite Saturday morning activity. Stock up the cupboards, have lunch out with friends, maybe see a film in the afternoon. It was the sort of stuff you did with a boyfriend.
She found him on the phone, pacing the long hall between the staircase and the kitchen. His attention was immediately with her, but he averted his eyes as he continued the conversation. She went on into the kitchen to collect the eco-bags.
As she turned around she realised Serge had blocked the kitchen doorway. His hair was all ruffled and he needed a shave. The phone was dangling from one hand.
Her hormones were jumping and she couldn’t wipe the happy grin off her face.
He didn’t even crack a smile. ‘I’m going down to Mick’s gym. I’ll be back around midday.’
He looked and sounded so distant—nothing like the man whose arms she had fallen asleep in last night.
The sun slipped in Clementine’s sky.
‘Then I’ve got a team of people coming over to debrief at one.’
The sun fell out of her world, and it was in that moment as she stood there clutching the bags to her waist that she realised just how deep in she was with this man.
This man who put his job before everything—or rather had chosen to today. After last night.
‘You might want to organise the day for yourself, Clementine.’
So now she knew where she stood.
It hurt. It hurt so much she couldn’t bear to look at him. Part of her wanted to yell at him. Is this too hard for you, Serge, a bit too real? But looking at him standing there, emanating power and self-control and a level of success she couldn’t even fathom, she suddenly felt horribly ordinary, with her save-the-planet hemp bags and stupid, simple morning at the market, and was glad now she hadn’t had a chance to open her mouth.
He’d want her out of the way. So he didn’t have to be reminded of how he had lost himself inside her body last night, had revealed a part of himself he didn’t want to show. It was the only explanation she could come up with, and it made her feel about an inch high.
He didn’t trust her enough to understand she would protect him. She wouldn’t be reckless with his feelings.
But he was with hers. Look at him—master of the universe, and me making nice with the shopping. She looked down at the bags in her arms.
‘I’m going marketing,’ she said, making a hopeless gesture with the bags. ‘I thought you might like to come.’
But now I know you don’t.
‘You know I have a shopper for that stuff,’ was all he said.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, And I know there are women who will sleep with you for money, but her pride was too strong. He might see her as another one of his many conveniences, but she was here because she loved him.
She loved him.
In the middle of his big state-of-the-art kitchen, with flagstones underfoot and every possible mod-con a man could want in his life, making her feel never more redundant to his needs, she realised the one thing guaranteed to break her heart.
It was just sex for him, and she began to shatter into tiny pieces.
He pulled out his wallet and in front of her started peeling off notes.
For one horrified moment she couldn’t move, and then the words came out as if torn from her gut. ‘I can pay for a bag of apples, Serge.’ And she turned around as she said it so she didn’t have to face him.
She jumped as he took hold of her hips. For a strange disconnected moment it felt as if he was going to embrace her, and instinctively her body drifted up against him as he dragged her close, all the angry heat inside of her pooling in her pelvis even as her mind shouted no. But he was shoving the money into her back pocket instead.
‘Get yourself something nice.’
He actually patted her on the backside.
He had to know what he was doing. He had to know how he was hurting her. It gave her the backbone to walk away, clutching those bags tightly to her chest. If she had the guts she’d walk away from him for ever, but she didn’t have that amount of courage. Not yet. Not after last night.
The soft reminder of who she had been earlier that morning—the happy girl who had been floating on cloud nine—manifested itself in the thought: where was the closeness and belonging and sharing? Where had it gone?