She sits back on her heels with a furious look. “And you’d beright, Klaus. I’m a journalist, and it’s my job.” With a disgustedscoff, she turns away again. “You could’vehelped me. Just think what a very different conversation we’d be having right now if instead of being a patronizing asshole, you’d seen me as a partner.”
The truth of what she’s said sinks through me and shimmers away, like a key dropped into deep waters, unrecoverable.
“My heart was in the right place,” I assert. “I couldn’t risk you! Please try to understand. Some mistakes…” My heart wrings in my chest. “Some you cannot come back from if you make a poor call.”
“It’s notyourchoice what I risk, Klaus!”
“I panicked and was buying myself time—please understand,” I all but beg. “You’d asked, that same weekend, about the rumors of Emerald stealing engineering designs from Allonby, so I thought, ‘If she gets a tip about that, she’ll chase it.’ There was no validity to the suspicions, so it seemed safe. A dead end, but one that would take time to pursue.”
“Well, thanks for being aheroand saving me from my assumed complete lack of self-preservation,” she mutters, pushing past me in the bathroom doorway. She stomps to the suitcase and dumps the contents of her arms into it with a clatter.
“In retrospect it looks condescending—I know.”
“Ya think?” she drawls, thick with sarcasm.
“I tried to tell you, that evening in Barcelona… I was in the process of confessing everything. But you stopped me, again and again.”
She glares up at me. “What kind of a delusional asshole says ‘My lies areyourfault, because you didn’t let me take them back later’?”
I rake my hands into my hair with frustration. “That’s not what I mean.”
She zips her suitcase shut and it sticks halfway. Sitting on it, she completes the job, then regards me critically.
“I’m gonna tell you something, Klaus. For most of my life, my greatest fear has been abandonment, because of my parents leaving. But their sin was actuallythe lying. It turned out they didn’t abandon me voluntarily! And I wouldn’t have spenteighty percent of my lifethinking they had if they’d been honest.” She stands and pulls the suitcase upright. “Instead, they ‘protected’ me. They may not have chosen the abandonment, but what they did choose was the goddamned lie.”
My horrible mistake is spread between us like a tar pit I can’t possibly cross. I’m afraid to say what’s in my head—it’s far too naked—but if ever there were a time for complete honesty, it’s now.
“I wish I’d been brave enough not to mislead you. All I could see was the danger to you, and the fallout of my past failures.” I go to the bed and sit, staring at my hands, knotted together as I lean on my knees. “I wasn’t able to save Sofia, because… I hung back and didn’t insist on her seeing a doctor,for yearswhen they might have caught her illness. I thought I was sparing her feelings—I didn’t want her to think that having children was critically important to me. With this situation, with you…yes, I knew I was making a choice for you. I acknowledged the arrogance of that, but I fucking did it anyway, becauseI can’t lose you.”
I meet her eyes. A flicker of hope rises in me that what I’m saying makes some sense.
“I can’t help what my life has made me,” I tell her with intensity. “When I’ve erred, you’ll certainly always get an apology. But I make no apologies forwho I am.”
One corner of her mouth lifts wryly. “Men always say that like it’s a virtue.”
Returning to the closet, she scoots her feet into sandals.
“You know what really stands out to me?” she goes on. “How much effort it took you to make up the phony evidence. Writing fake emails, blocking out the ‘names,’ hunting down a few useless blueprints to attach. Must’ve taken hours to get it just right. Which makes me think…” She cocks her head with a stinging smile. “What elsewould you expend that kind of energy on to deceive me down the road?” She extends the handle of her suitcase with a snap before dragging it out of the bedroom.
I leap up to follow. “Talia.Wait, please.” I dash to stand between her and the suite’s entryway. “Don’t go—not like this. I’ll sleep on the sofa if you don’t want to share the bed. You can leave in the morning if you’re still upset.”
Her laugh is harsh. “If I’m still upset?Yeah, okay. You’re right—you know how women are! Silly weaker vessels. I should take a Valium like some fifties housewife and lie down until my ‘fit of hysteria’ passes.” She sidesteps around me.
“Where will you go? The hotel is full.”
“I’ll text Phaedra and take a car to the paddock and stay in her motor home.” She yanks the door open and, as I see the yellow daisy sticker on her suitcase, which she uses to tell it apart from others at the airport, the memory hits me full force: The first time I noticed that sticker was twenty months ago in Abu Dhabi, the night we met.
Weakly, I repeat my plea. “My impulse to protect you was pure. The thought of losing you—”
“This is how you lost me.This.” She looks back, framed in the doorway. “I’d hoped you were different.”
I reach for her. “Tell me what I can do. I’m deeply sorry. I know words are inadequate, sotell me what to do. I’m listening.”
She scrunches her lips to one side in an expression of pained regret and backs through the doorway. “Read ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ fromThe Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer. But you won’t be doing it for me. Do it for yourself, and whoever you date next.” She turns and starts down the hall. “You could use some educating.”
22
LONDON
