His words recoil in my stomach, acid swirling. I don’t want to be someone’s problem, their job. I don’t want him to have to live like that.
‘I don’t want you to have to shoulder that kind of responsibility.’
‘Think of it this way: if you weren’t famous, Dennis wouldn’t be around. Then it would, it would be my res– job to keep you safe.’ He stirs the tomatoes and salts the water.
‘If I wasn’t famous, we wouldn’t be here,’ I point out. ‘Wewould never have met at Eric Lancaster, and we definitely wouldn’t be in a PR relationship if I didn’t have a reputation to overhaul.’
‘Have you ever heard of the invisible string theory?’ He puts a crisp in my mouth before eating one himself.
I shake my head.
‘It’s this idea that two people who are destined to be together are made up of all these invisible strings that lead them to each other.’ He takes my hand, seemingly unable to keep the smile off his face. ‘It can just be for a best friend or a pet – or, even, like, a hairdresser.’ He swallows. ‘But it can also be your life partner… the person you’re supposed to be with.’
I suck on my cheeks, folding my arms across my chest. ‘Do you think that’s us?’ I croak, my voice quaking.
Luc nods quickly. ‘I do.’ A squeeze of my hand, the clamminess squelching between us.
My eyes fill with water, and I’m unsteady on my feet.
‘I can see you freaking out.’
‘Not at all.’ It’s a lie. I worry my lip and scrape my other hand through my hair. My voice is dry.
‘Sienna, I need you to know I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving,’ he whispers, his own voice shaking. ‘I know it scares you, that you leave people before they can leave you.’ He takes a deep breath, his eyes darting over my face. ‘That’s not me. I’m not going to do that.’
‘What are our invisible strings?’ I ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if we hadn’t met on Eric Lancaster, what else– what other strings are pulling us together?’
‘I don’t know,’ Luc admits. ‘They’re invisible. It could be– it might just be something like if you weren’t famous, we would’ve used the same bus route, shopped at the same supermarket, or your brother could’ve been my colleague.’
I wince.
‘None of these things ha– needed to happen because wedidmeet on Eric Lancaster and things have been keeping us together ever since,’ Luc says.
‘You were engaged,’ I blurt. ‘How– why would you get engaged if you thought we were destined to be together?’ My stomach hardens.
The tomatoes scream at us from the pan, and Luc breaks our connection to lift the lid, letting the steam out. The smell makes my mouth water.
The silence between us lands on my body, tar in my lungs pushing down my breath. I know I’ve said the wrong thing, bringing up Rose. Luc presses his fist to his lips, his brow furrowed. There’s nothing untrue about what I said – Lucdidget engaged. There was a time, in the grand scheme of things not that long ago, that he promised to love another woman for the rest of his life. Of course, it’s going to be confusing for me to stand here with him saying things like we’re destined to be together in that context.
Especially when our time is running out.
‘I did love Rose.’ Luc’s voice breaks the silence like a blunt knife.
I swallow hard, trying to stop my tears. I already knew that he loved Rose – obviously he did, they were engaged – but the confirmation makes my shoulders droop, eyes water.
‘And I’m not going to say that I’ve always loved you more because I don’t– I’m not sure that would be completely true,’ Luc continues.
My stomach drops.
‘Or fair, to her or you.’ He turns away from me, pretending to be interested in the garlic on the chopping board. ‘I’ve loved you both a lot – in very different ways,’ Luc admits.
I hunch over, clutching my stomach, unable to look at him.
‘Rose was lovely,’ Luc continues. ‘She gave me a very stablelife.’ He inhales deeply and looks at the ceiling for a few moments. ‘But I’m not sure that I was everinlove with her.’ He takes my hand again with both of his, running his thumb over the freckle which marks the end of my index finger. ‘When she left, it didn’t hurt me as much as I thought it would. It hurt, but it was survivable.’ He shakes his head. ‘I could… go to work, get on with things – nothing like the pain Istillfelt that you’d l– left.’
