Page 79 of The Refusal

Kate reaches over the table to pat my hand, and I want to snatch it away. My time with him feels like a piece of beautiful porcelain I’ve fumbled and dropped.

“He only lost it when you wanted to deny you were in a relationship. And what you told me about your trip? None of that smacks of someone who doesn’t care to me.”

I try to give her my best skeptical face, but I can’t bear the spark I get hearing this from someone else. I look down at my lap and smooth my hands down my jeans. Hong Kong was … he was …

“Aren’t you justifying your reaction to yourself a bit here?” she says softly.

“He turned on me, Kate.”

She bites her lip and puts her hand on my arm. “Yeah, I understand why you see it like that; I just …”

Damn her calm reassurances. “Okay, super psychologist, why haven’t I heard from him if he’s so keen?”

“Perhaps you hurt his feelings? It sounds like he wanted more to me. He probably thought this meant you didn’t?”

“Don’t be daft, what woman wouldn’t want more with Janus Phillips?” I lean forward. “He basically took me apart in bed and put me back together. No woman in her right mind would turn that down.”

She leans over the table and whisper-hisses, “Yes but you wanted to deny it all, Jo.No onewould take that well without a lot of behind-the-scenes reassurance, and he’s a high-profile, somewhat egotistical guy.Come on.”

I groan into my hands. I gave him no reassurance at all. I lost my temper and backed off. Pretty much exactly the same thing—I realize with a sudden horrified clarity—that he did.

“Did you say anything about how it might work—you know, after you’d dealt with the press article?”

The window is misting up now, obscuring the chaos of a Manhattan commute in the rain. I am the queen of self-sabotage.

“Goddammit.”

“Call him, Jo. I think you need to apologize.”

43

Janus

People are in the building, but you wouldn’t know it. They are nowhere near my office. They have scattered like beads dropped on a floor. The very idea of not being disturbed should fill me with joy, but I want something—someone—to rail against, somewhere to park the agitation outside my body. Something to stop me thinking about the glittering jewel I had in the palm of my hand that I threw in the sewer, among the rats and the rotting toilet paper. I linger on the calendar on my monitor; it’s a sea of meetings.Seven days. Raised voices seep in from Maddie’s office; I’m sure I hear the wordasshole. The blinking cursor on my screen is at the end of the line of text in an email written all in caps. The short sentence contains three swear words.

I spin my chair to stare out at the ocean of buildings outside the window, the background of blue, a shimmer of spring creeping in. Why did she want to deny we had any kind of relationship? I get her desire to protect her reputation, I do, and perhaps I didn’t handle that particularly well, but am I not good enough for her to findsomesort of compromise? Okay, being involved with me comes with a certain level of scrutiny—I know it’s a big ask—but isn’t she prepared to pushanythingaside for me?

Fabian has been a rock in a storm. I’ve been over at his place every other day sitting at his spare screen in grim silence. He’s dealt with me with his usual stoicism: getting me involved in all his coding, asking no questions, and ignoring my surliness. I assume he’s still working on my security with Jo, and I reckon he’s been talking to her, but he hasn’t done it in front of me. He’s given me space to talk when I want to, which is not at all. After snapping at him one too many times last night, he casually mentioned it might be a sensible idea to chat about things: to “get the turmoil out of my head.” What irony. He’s the king of turmoil.

“I just don’t see a solution,” I said.

“To what?”

“Jo.”

This got me a long sigh. “Can’t you protect her better, Janus? Can’t you do something positive about this situation? It’s bullshit, man. It’s not like you. You’re the one who doesn’t let anything stand in his way; you’ve never been put off by little words like ‘impossible.’”

I frowned at my screen and turned to look at him, taking in his scowl. Was I prepared to admit to the nausea rolling through my body? To him? He was way off the mark. With everything else, I took the risk because what’s the worst that can happen? I lose my company and have to start again. I have a hundred ideas I could turn into something decent. But losing Jo? This woman who’s so dazzling I don’t see anyone else? This woman who deep down I think was made for me? It’s a fucking mess.

“I’m fucking terrified,” I said then, feeling sick to my stomach.

He laughed. “Yeah I know, man, but that’s your superpower: You do stuff even though you’re terrified.”

What? “No. Hell no. You don’t understand. I’ve never been in a situation where, if I mess up, I can’t recover it. If I lose Jo, I won’t find another woman like her. I mean … I don’t want to find somebody else. What if I’ve already lost her? What if she never wants to talk to me again? Fuck. I’m just …”

He gawped at me.

“What?” I screwed up my whole face.

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