to Montauk and send you back there. But she didn’t deserve your selfish histrionics back then and she doesn’t deserve them now. So let’s say you and I agree to put up with one another until you’ve calmed down and I can safely pass back the burden of responsibility to her.’
‘What are you talking about? The only person responsible for me is me.’
She felt the words but could barely say them—they wedged in her throat like hot bricks. Everything hurt...everything ached. But she kept her face to the side. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her so weak and vulnerable.
The car sped on.
Calls were placed and received.
He demanded and instructed and rattled off orders that made her head spin even more. A mechanic to check out his car, a pause on a half-dozen meetings, a bunch of flowers and a tennis bracelet to some woman whose shelf life had expired.
‘Address?’ he barked at one point.
She jumped but refused to look round.
‘Give me your address, Stacey, and I’ll get your stuff picked up. Unless you’ve got a better idea?’
Still she stared out of the window, the wonder of this whole unfolding drama making her feel more and more incredulous, more and more disorientated.
‘Am I too rich to deserve basic manners from you? Is that it? Is it only poor people who are worth bothering about?’
‘I can’t believe that I ever bothered about you, that’s for sure. I might have made a lot of mistakes back in the day, but thinking you were anything other than a giant egotistical hypocrite was the biggest.’
He barked out a laugh.
‘Still at it, Stacey? Still opening that mouth and firing out your poison darts? You still think that’ll fix all your problems, honey?’
‘Don’t “honey” me. I’m not your honey.’
‘Ain’t that the truth? You’re no one’s honey, are you? That would require you to be soft and sweet. You might look like butter wouldn’t melt, but all you want to do is bite people’s heads off. You know, I’ve been with you less than three hours and already I can feel my cortisol levels are sky-high. I live a pretty full-on life, and yet I haven’t felt this much stress since the last time I saw you—ten years ago—do you know that?’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I was responsible for your stress levels. How selfish of me! To bounce off your car and then insist that you drive me to your fancy hospital with all those super-friendly people who made me feel so at home. And then I beg you to make me stay overnight in your house while you threaten me with my mother! I am beyond inconsiderate.’
‘This sarcasm is a new and even more unattractive trait.’
‘Even more unattractive than I already am? Wow. I’ve hit pay-dirt!’
‘Enough!’
He had stopped the car outside a huge pair of gates. He pulled on the brake so quickly that she slammed back in her seat. For a second they both froze, and in the startled moment that followed she thought she saw a flash of concern and an apology hovering at his mouth. But he shook his head and growled, unbuckled his seat belt and swivelled right round to face her.
‘That’s just about as much as I can bear to hear. What the hell’s got into you? You know damn well that you were the most attractive girl I ever knew.’
Stacey stared, shocked. Marco’s jaw was fixed and tense, his lips an angry line. His eyes blazed. In the still of the moment all she could hear were their breaths, shallow, panting, slightly out of synch.
He was so close now that she could see faint lines around his eyes—lines that had never been there before. Lines from laughter and sunshine that she had never shared with him. Lines from good times in faraway places with people she would never know. She’d made him laugh once. They’d had so much to laugh about back in Montauk.
There was no laughter now.
Tension. Tight across the breadth of his shoulders and in the thick column of his neck. She noticed now the full bloom of his masculinity—the man who had once been the boy. The boy she had once loved.
‘You are a very attractive girl,’ he added, his voice quieter now, a mere imprint of those deep, fierce tones. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, Stacey. I thought your hard edges would have rubbed off by now. But seems like you’ve got more and more jagged and angry with the world.’
With each word his voice softened. Her defences began to crumble. She could take everything the world could throw at her when it was hostile. She could defend and attack in equal measure. She was a match for anyone—male or female—and she never, ever left anyone in any doubt as to how they measured up in her eyes.
But she could not take kindness. It undid her at the very foundations. All her strength was sapped away, like a finger pulled from the dam.
The tears finally sprang and tumbled one after another in hot, wet streams down her cheeks.
His eyes filled with concern.
‘You’re crying,’ he said softly. ‘Stacey, I’m sorry. I’ve never seen you cry.’
‘Yes, I’m crying—and I never cry. I never cry!’ she sobbed, furiously rubbing at her face and gulping back the sobs that threatened to choke her. ‘I was fine—and now look at me. I don’t need your help. I don’t want you. I don’t need anyone and I don’t need you to contact my mom. She doesn’t need to know any of this. It’s fine. I’m fine.’
She rubbed and rubbed and gulped and sobbed and her nose began to burn. She searched in her little purse. But she didn’t have a tissue—she was never that organised. She wasn’t like her mother. Her poor mother who’d crumple if she thought anything had happened to her.
‘I haven’t contacted Marilyn. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not all monster, you know. Here.’
She looked through the blurred shapes that were all her eyes could see and saw Marco offering her a pure white linen handkerchief.
‘Take it,’ he said when she turned away. ‘For God’s sake, it’s only a piece of cloth. Come here, then.’
And he cupped her chin in his hand and began to dab her eyes and her cheeks. She smelt the spicy blend of his cologne and felt the gentle press of his fingers with every touch. She felt strength. She felt kindness. She couldn’t bear it.
She pulled away.
‘I hate you, Marco,’ she sobbed into the linen square. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I hate you so much.’
He sat back. She could hear him laugh in between blowing her nose.
‘Plenty do, sweetheart. Plenty do.’
‘We both know that’s a lie,’ she said, giving her nose one final blow. ‘Unless you’ve had a personality transplant in the last five minutes. Those nurses were all over you like a rash. It kind of made me want to hurl.’
He
