He wanted to laugh now. Make light of it. Tell her she was being ridiculous. He didn’t have the energy.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, sliding himself off the bed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m still breathing. Today must be my lucky day.’ He used every last ounce of reserve energy he had to stand straight. The muscles in his abdomen rippled in response but he kept his expression neutral.
‘Well, are you going to go back home? I can call us a cab,’ Hayley suggested, getting to her feet.
‘I can call a car,’ he responded, taking the pulse monitor from his finger. ‘You should get back to Angel.’
‘Right, yeah, I should probably do that.’
Hayley’s tone had his stomach squeezing hard. This was the right thing to do. The only thing. He gritted his teeth together.
‘Have I done something wrong?’ she asked.
He couldn’t look at her. He didn’t want to see the hurt expression he knew she would be wearing. What was he doing? This was practically killing him. He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Then what the hell is going on here?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oliver, last night I thought?—’
‘Listen, Hayley, last night, it was fun and?—’
That had been overly flippant. He didn’t want to hurt her. But maybe hurting her was what it would take.
‘Fun.’
She had spat the word out. Those three letters felt so sharp. Each letter spiked his insides like a shard of ice. He looked at her then, out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t realise now but he was doing it for her and she would one day see that. Because the second he had started to care, instead of arranging a date, he should have backed right off. Now, at the hospital, after this latest dramatic and unwelcome visit… he wasn’t prepared to put her through anything like that again. And the one thing he could guarantee was therewouldbe a next time.
‘I’ve got a lot of business stuff going on at the moment so…’
‘Of course you do,’ Hayley said. She got to her feet, stuffing the clutch bag under her arm. ‘And business is so important when seconds ago, you were wired up to a heart machine.’
‘Hayley—’
‘No, there’s… something wrong with you… in the head. I have no idea what it is and I don’t want to know.’ He watched her wet her lips. ‘I thought last night… you were someone different. The guy I’ve got to know away from the captain of industry mantle and the power suit. The one who makes me laugh, the one who fights me for the last word.’
Her words were hitting every part of him like tiny poison darts sent to deliver a killer dose. He wanted to stop her. He wanted to smother her mouth with his and kiss her like he had last night. Show her how much she meant to him already. But he couldn’t do it. It would be a selfish act and he had to be more unselfish than ever in this situation.
‘But now I know it was just an act and I’m still just as naïve as I was all those years ago when I fell for the charms of another man.’ She sighed. ‘But at least he didn’t pretend to be someone he wasn’t.’
He swallowed. She couldn’t have been more right about that. Not evenheknew who he was. He had an idea of who hewantedto be, but with time running out, did it even matter any more?
‘There’s something you should know,’ Hayley stated, flicking her hair back and adjusting her bag under her shoulder.
He looked at her directly then, giving her his full attention.
‘I’m helping your mother organise the McArthur Foundation fundraiser.’ A sigh left her. ‘I didn’t tell you because it’s only just happened, quite spontaneously, and I knew that’s where your mother had asked you to speak and how much you loathed it. And I thought if I keptthatandthiscompletely separate, it could somehow not collide together and I could make it work.’ She sniffed. ‘But now I realise there is nothisand perhaps I should have focused on more ofthatand right now, I definitely know I should have run the other way the second you asked me what my wish was.’
She was organising the McArthur Foundation fundraiser? His chest tightened all over again. Why would she be doing that? And sheknewhis mother? It gave him all the fuel he needed to hold onto his clenched jaw and his decision to end this.
A tear escaped her eye and began to slowly slide its way down her cheek. ‘Goodbye, Clark.’
He watched her turn towards the door then she walked through it, disappearing from sight and slipping right out of his life.
