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‘Stop it,’ Sienna breathed. She was crying now, silent tears spilling down her face as she shook her head vehemently. ‘Stop saying that,’ Sienna choked out, taking another step forward. ‘Don’t you dare say that about yourself.’

Before Robin could step back again, Sienna reached out, her long, cold fingers cupping Robin’s wet cheeks. She pulled Robin’s face up, her dark eyes blazing through the rain with an intensity that burned.

‘You are not a fuck-up,’ Sienna whispered fiercely.

Sienna didn’t give her a chance to argue. She leaned in and pressed her lips firmly against Robin’s.

For a fraction of a second, Robin’s world stopped. Her hands instinctively lifted, her fingers catching on the wet fabric of Sienna’s blazer, pulling her closer as her brain short-circuited.

For a few seconds, they stood wrapped together on the wet pavement, the commute disappearing around them.

Then, reality slammed back into Robin’s chest.

She’s just pitying you. She’s trying to fix you.

Robin broke the kiss, pulling her head away. She uncurled her fingers from Sienna’s jacket and stepped out of Sienna’s grip.

‘No.’

Sienna stood frozen, her dark eyes searching Robin’s face. ‘Robin... please.’

‘I can’t,’ Robin whispered, shaking her head as she backed away. ‘I’m sorry, Sienna. I really am. It’s not gonna work. Go back inside and un-quit. Get your job back.’

Robin turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Sienna standing alone in the rain.

Forty-Seven

Sienna stood motionless on the wet pavement.

Robin was gone. Swallowed whole by the evening commute.

I’m just like your ex. I’m just like my dad. I’m a fuck-up.

Robin’s broken confession echoed in Sienna’s head. How could someone so vibrant, so effortlessly alive, look in the mirror and see a disaster? How could Robin look at Sienna—a woman who had spent her entire life hiding behind risk models—and see someone ‘too good’ for her?

Sienna had spent weeks trying to talk herself out of how she felt. And in doing so, she had built a wall so high that Robin believed Sienna couldn’t love her. But Sienna had known, somewhere, this whole time, Robin was a person who pulled her in. Robin was a person she wanted to know. Robin was a person she wanted to be close to.

Robin was a person she could love.

Sienna wiped a mixture of rain and tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. Her instinct was to chase Robin down to her flat, to break down Robin’s door, to reason away Robin’s doubts until she gave in and let Sienna kiss her again. Let her get close. Let her make it right.

But Robin was long gone.

Sienna reached into her coat pocket, her fingers cold and stiff as she pulled out her phone. The screen was a wall of notifications—missed calls from Gemma, frantically flashing messages from Dora, and thousands of social media alerts blowing up her feed over the prematurely ended broadcast.

She opened Robin’s chat instead, intending to say everything she couldn’t even say to herself until today. I want you. I need you. I love you. Her thumbs hovered over the glass, ready to type it out, type out a dozen reasons why Robin was wrong, why she wasn’t a screw-up, why Sienna wasn’t letting this go.

I can’t. I’m sorry, Sienna. I really am.

Robin’s sad eyes flashing through her mind. Pursuit wasn’t what she wanted; she’d been clear. So what else was there to say?

Sienna locked her phone and slipped it back into her pocket. She’d fallen in love with Robin somewhere in all this madness, and she knew it now. But loving Robin meant respecting her wishes, even if every inch of Sienna’s soul rebelled against it.

Sienna flagged down a passing black cab at the edge of the kerb, and yanked the door open, stepping inside. She was going home to figure out what the hell to do now that she’d fucked everything up that mattered to her.

Forty-Eight

Six Months Later