Page 43 of The Heir Apparent
“What are you reading?”
“Nothing much.”
He wrapped a hand around my ankle, pulling me down until I was flat on the bed. He was still damp from the shower as he crawled on top of me. Absently, I dragged my nails down his back. I kept reading.
“I love when you wear my shirt,” he said into my neck.
“You’re all foamy.”
He climbed out of my arms and went to spit in the sink. I rarely spent the whole night at his place, though I had not allowed him in the barn since the morning Jack saw us. Even after all these years, I was still paranoid that a photographer would snap me going into Ben’s building and lie in wait until I came out again at dawn.
“Hey,” he said from the bathroom, “I’ve got that conference in Launceston this weekend. Why don’t you come?”
I put the medical journal down on my chest. The collar of my shirt was wet with droplets that had fallen from his hair. I imagined hiding in a Launceston hotel room so none of my senior colleagues would see me there, eating room service because it was too small a town to go anywhere without being spotted.
“This weekend? I can’t.”
“You’re not rostered on.”
It was riddling day at the vineyard that weekend. The Jennings still did it manually, even though most growers usedmachines now. They insisted you could taste the difference, so every season, we all filed into the shed to rotate row upon row of sparkling wine, each bottle requiring a quarter of a turn to coax the sediment up the neck.
I hesitated. “I promised to help on the vineyard this weekend.”
There was silence in the bathroom, and I waited for him to come out. Choosing manual labour with Jack over a weekend in a hotel with him was bound to cause a fight. Finally, I heard the light switch and Ben walked in, his trousers back on as if we weren’t about to go to sleep. There was a challenge in his eye.
“Just blow it off. I’ve got a nice room and everything.”
I sat up on the bed. “I can’t, I promised.”
He stared at me for a while and then he walked to the glass doors that led to the balcony. It was too dark to see anything but our own reflection. I usually insisted he draw the blinds at night, convinced a photographer would somehow get into the building across the street,Rear Window–style. When the blinds were up, I could feel the shiny black lens of the camera trailing over my skin.
“I think we should stop doing this,” he said to his own reflection in the glass. “You’re too young.”
I was very still. He lived on a busy block in town, and we could hear people laughing and staggering out of the pub below.
“Okay,” I said. “Didn’t seem like I was too young for you three years ago, though.”
He turned to look at me, his hands in his pockets. He was wearing the same expression he did when he pronounced a patient dead.
“I know. But you’re not really getting any older. I think maybe you’re always going to be like this.”
I stared at him. Then I got off the bed. With my back turned, I took off his shirt and put my own clothes back on. Even as I had chased him, I always believed I’d be the one to walk away first. He was sleeping with his student, after all. I’d pursued him and then judged him for giving in to me.
“You shouldn’t leave this late,” he said quietly. “Just stay here.”
“My car’s downstairs, it’s fine.”
I knew his eyes were on me as I gathered my things: my favourite hospital shoes, Mum’s watch on the table, the toothbrush I left under his sink. I cleaned up like I was fleeing a crime scene, pushing everything into my bag.
“Are we really not going to talk about this?”
I hoisted the bag onto my shoulder and avoided his eyes. The beat of my heart was methodical but peculiar. “It’s fine. You’re my boss. It always had to end.”
He put a finger under my chin so that I would look at him. “Have you ever had a real conversation in your life?”
I squirmed away from his touch, hotly embarrassed. There was something about the silence that made me think of home. Mum and Papa’s unspoken rage over the dining table. Louis’s eyes glancing at the clock on the mantel again. My queasy heart.
“I’ll see you at work,” I said.
