But it has to be done. I can’t die with this book unwritten, with these truths buried among my bones. It needs to come out. Someone has to know the truth.
“You can’t be serious.” His hands part, flex, then find each other again, his fingers closing over a wedding ring, which he rolls around his finger. Simon never wore his ring. I should have asked him about it, during one of the hundred times that I noticed it. I should have taken it out of his bedside table and waited to see how long it took him to notice. After he died, I gave mine to a homeless woman, her eyes unmoving as I dropped it into her cup. Sometimes I wonder what she thought when she dumped out her change and saw the diamond. I wonder, when she pawned it, if questions were asked, if the police were called. Mark’s hands move. “You should travel. Do everything you always dreamed of. Sit on a beach and sip umbrella drinks. Get massages every day and read. Hire some Italian to rub lotion on your feet and screw you into next Sunday.”
I have to smile at that. “You have an unnatural fascination with Italian men, you know that right?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m serious. The Italian Stallion… then that slutty little novella set in Venice, the one where both guys—”
“The only thing you’re proving is how much you obsess over my books,” he interrupts.
I snort, and the change of topic feels good, the corners of his mouth turning up, a bit of levity in the air. “Do we have a deal, Mr. Fortune?”
“A million dollars?” He raises his eyebrows and glances away. “I need to think on it overnight.”
“What is there to think about?” I can’t lose him. Not now. Not when I’ve wasted an hour on this meeting, and several more setting it up. Plus, a part of me likes him, his rough edges and quiet manner. Even if he did ignore my rules and seems uninterested in my novel. It is surprising, given that I don’t like many people. In fact, I don’t really like anyone. I push forward the contract, the one Kate prepared, nineteen pages long, with nine of the pages devoted to my “requests.” That’s what Kate is calling my rules, though requests is a terrible substitute, one that poses the items as negotiable, even though they are absolutely not. “Here’s the contract. You’ll get a million dollars for something you can knock out in a couple of months. Write quickly, and you could be out of my hair even earlier than that.” I smile, and he doesn’t return the gesture, pulling the contract closer, our levity of earlier already gone.
“I’ll think on it.” He pushes to his feet, and I watch the contract follow him, the paper folded in half and tucked into a back pocket, a terrible vehicle for such an important item. He isn’t going to think on it. He probably won’t even read the contract. I’ve lost him, and I don’t know why.
“One million five.” I’m pathetic, and desperate, and I never realized that until now. I follow him, my hand tucking a bit of hair behind my ear, and he turns, his eyes meeting mine. His shoulders sag a little, and, if I thought my weak negotiation would empower him, I was wrong. He reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder, the weight of it heavy, the squeeze of it doing nothing to reassure me, a dump of fuel on my fire of internal panic.
“It’s not about the money, Helena.” He releases my shoulder and smiles, a grin that doesn’t meet his eyes, his steps toward the front door slow.
“Then what is it about?” I call after him, clutching the chair rail.
He stops, but doesn’t turn. “I haven’t said no yet.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He turns, and the afternoon light hits his face, the weathered skin almost pink in its light. “I have a daughter,” he says slowly. “Her name is Maggie. She’s nineteen.”
“Good for you.” My daughter’s name is Bethany. Three weeks ago, I should have lit ten candles on her cake. I straighten, and when I lift my hand from the chair rail, I am still standing. “What does that have to do with my book?”
“I wouldn’t want her to spend her last months, stuck in an empty house, working on a book with someone like me.”
“That’s not for you to decide.” I step forward, and suddenly I don’t like this man. “It’s not really any of your damn business.”
“My name’s on this contract, it’s my business.” He lifts the pages, and I suddenly wish I’d added another short and simple request to it. Don’t be an asshole.
I open my mouth to tell him off, and instead, the truth falls out. “The book is about my husband and my daughter. They’re gone. I’m dying. I’m sorry that you don’t like it, or my agenda for the next three months, but this is what is important to me. Their story… it’s all that matters to me.” I turn my head, looking back at the table where we sat, my jaw clenching with the effort it takes to keep my tears at bay. If I look at him, I will fall apart. If I say another word, it will be a sob.
He steps toward me and kindness isn’t what I want. I can’t…
I can’t.
MARK
She’s breaking. He can see it in the rigid grip of her stance, the clench of jaw, the tremble of her entire frame. He can feel it in the air, the rough pain that emits, and this is so much deeper, so much stronger, than her own mortality. In that news, there had been no emotion. In this, she is a raw current. He doesn’t know when it happened, or how, but grief is a song he is well versed in.
There are few ways to comfort a person like this. He was her, gripping his mouth so hard he left bruises, when they told him about Ellen. He was her, in the middle of a hospital hall, when the orderly touched his shoulder, asking to get by. He was her, when he smashed the man against the wall, when he sobbed into his chest, then tried to punch him, again and again, for no reason at all.
He steps closer, and she flinches. She blinks, and tears fall. He wants to hug her, he wants to cry for her, but he doesn’t know her, and that is the problem.
“Stop.” She lifts a hand, and he does, watching as she closes her eyes, steeling herself, swallowing everything. It can’t be healthy, that inhalation of emotion. Then again, maybe if he had inhaled more and drank less, he’d be in a different position, with a lot less regrets. “I’m fine.”
It’s a lie if he’s ever heard one, but she is stronger when she turns her head, her gaze meeting his, her chin raising. “I’m fine,” she repeats, almost as if to convince herself.
Silence grows between them, the hallway suddenly warm, and he reaches back, touching the contract in his pocket, the terms unimportant now, everything rooted in her confession.
“Will you help me?” The words are dead, spoken by a woman who has given up hope.
“I don’t know.” He needs to think, needs fresh air and sunshine and to be out of this miserable house. He needs to drink, to fight, to climb onto a stallion and gallop so hard he loses his breath. He needs to live, and to forget, to abandon this girl and her death wish, her depressingly realistic book. Then, he thinks of his daughter. If she is ever in this situation, if she ever needs help… will he be there? And if not, who will? Who will spend those final months with her? Who will help her with the most important tasks she has left?
In that light, he really has no choice.
HELENA
“Okay.” He pulls something out of his back pocket and it’s the contract, his steps slow as he walks forward and flattens it against the wall. I watch, and feel the tears start to clog my throat. I’m terrible today. I haven’t cried in years, yet I’m now welling up like a fountain. He flips to the last page and holds the paper there, the other hand pulling at a pocket on his shirt.
“You’ll do it?” My heart skips when he pulls out a pen. He crosses out Marka Vantly and writes in his true name, his handwriting tight and messy, the scrawl of his signature even worse. “There is a lot in those pages,” I say. “You might want to read it—”
“I don’t care.” He caps the pen with his mouth and returns it to his pocket, holding out the paper to me. “I’d like half of the funds up front.”