Page 53 of The Couple Behind the Headlines

He’d been having a lot of those lately. Seven of them to be precise. Because he’d thought that he’d had a rough time of it when Imogen had first told him she was leaving, but this … This was infinitely worse.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About their last encounter, their last conversation, and, fuelled by the excoriating disappointment that nothing he could do would persuade her to stay, the dreadful things he’d said. The more he thought about it, the more it hurt. And the greater the guilt and shame he felt.

‘You know,’ said Luke, shooting him a disturbingly probing look, ‘the last time one of us lost that badly was me. Just after I’d met Emily and had my life thrown upside down.’

‘Was it?’ said Jack, glancing around the bar of the squash courts in an effort to avoid the question in Luke’s eyes.

‘It was.’ Luke paused, then added, ‘So I’m guessing your mood has something to do with Imogen.’

Her name struck him square in the chest and he nearly doubled over with the pain of it.

Dammit, why did it still hurt? It was over. Imogen was leaving and he’d be alone once again. Which was actually for the best because it was safer that way. Besides, he was used to it, so he was fine.

Or at least he would be soon. With the intensity of a relationship such as theirs it was bound to take longer than a week to get over, but he’d succeed eventually. He had to.

Rallying, Jack sat up and took another gulp of beer. ‘Seeing as Imogen and I are no longer seeing each other you couldn’t be more wrong.’

Luke paused, his glass hovering an inch from his mouth as his eyebrows lifted. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘That’s a shame. I liked her. Emily liked her.’

He’d liked her, too. More than liked her …

Jack grunted and determinedly didn’t think about that. Or about the dinner out the four of them had had and the way Imogen had effortlessly got on with the two people he cared most about in the world.

‘So what happened?’

His jaw clenched. ‘I don’t particularly want to talk about it.’

‘Fine.’

As Luke lapsed into silence in that annoying way he had Jack brooded and bristled and then eventually gave in, the perverse urge to talk about it too insistent to ignore. ‘She’s leaving,’ he said when he couldn’t stand it any longer.

‘Leaving?’ Luke echoed, his eyebrows shooting up.

‘Going to study in the States.’

‘I see. Right. Well, good for her.’

No, it wasn’t. ‘I asked her to stay.’ His jaw tightened and his chest squeezed at the memory of how weak he’d been. ‘She said no.’

‘And?’

It was a good thing he hadn’t been looking for sympathy because if he had he’d have been disappointed. ‘What do you mean “and”?’

‘Well, what was your counter offer?’

Jack frowned. ‘Counter offer?’

‘Surely you didn’t leave it at that? Didn’t you ask if you could go with her or something?’

‘Of course I didn’t.’ The idea of begging her to let him go with her smacked of desperation and he wasn’t desperate. At least not that desperate.

‘Why not?’

‘Because she made it pretty clear that I wouldn’t be welcome,’ he muttered.

‘Really?’

Jack scowled into his beer. ‘And even if I was, I can’t just leave everything here.’ It was impossible.

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