The walk back to the glide-train station was a blur as she was lost in the sphere of her own emotion. The hollowness in her chest and stomach was so intense that she never knew betrayal could take on a physical pain. She’d heard of people being so devastated by their romantic miscarriages that they felt physically ill. She’d thought such things were dramatised but this… this was dreadfully real.
By the time she was on the train and returning to the Clio, she was burning with a mixture of embarrassment and rage. Not just anger but hot, searing rage. How dare Mecca string her along like some kind of lovelorn puppet in order to better position himself? He’d done this before and had identified Kaley as the kind of idiot that he could try again with.
She was still steaming when she entered the room, holding onto her anger even though it was difficult upon seeing his face. He’d kept his distance instead of meeting her at the door in an amorous embrace, likely because he’d felt her anger. Let him feel it. He deserved no less.
“I was refused on the spot,” she said while storming past him so that she didn’t have to look at his face. She could feel her anger threatening to turn into hurt, where she would likely lose all ability to communicate because her tears would sap her words away. “They didn’t even bother processing the form. It was humiliating!” she shouted, because being loud helped her hold onto her fury.
“I am sorry,” Mecca said quietly.
“They refused me because someone else had already applied for you. Another woman. How come you didn’t tell me about her?” Kaley demanded. She risked looking back at him and found his expression maddeningly calm yet sad.
“It pains me to speak of her,” Mecca replied after a moment.
“Because you love her?” Kaley shrieked, emotions bubbling over the surface and making her act in a way that her reasonable mind was shocked at, yet couldn’t rein in. There was too much hurt to deal with. Her volume was getting away from her and even though she was aware that the walls weren’t perfectly soundproof, she didn’t care as much as her logical, reasonable self was telling her she should.
“Yes!” he said, his voice raised also. It was enough to stun Kaley to stop screaming back and stare at him. He moved close to her, stopping an arm’s distance away. “Yes, I loved her. I loved her and she said she loved me. We were planning on leaving this world together, or if not that, at least for her to come here and organise for me to be assigned to her, so we could be together.”
Kaley was stricken. He’d been through this before with some other woman, kept it from her and was now admitting he felt deeply for someone else. She wasn’t special to him, she’d been kidding herself!
Kaley looked at him with an expression that felt hideous on her face. She was too stunned to reply.
“The very first hurdle she faced, she returned to me, said it could not be done, cried for two days and went home.” His voice was deep and coarse, the words raw and bitter. “That was how I learned the depth of her love for me in exchange for the love I risked feeling for her. She grieved for me then moved on with her life, while I was assigned to the next tourist and had to pretend I felt nothing.” Mecca looked at Kaley sternly. “Is that what you want, someone who does not appreciate the risks that comes with love? Do you want someone who does not understand the consequences or the significance?”
“I want someone who tells me the truth,” she said as tears striped her cheeks. Damn it.
“I have not lied to you. I told you from the beginning that—”
“You didn’t tell me about her,” Kaley spat, the words sounding venomous and ugly and she wanted to stop.
“No, and you have not told me of the men you slept with before me.”
“Because that’s none of your business!” Kaley replied, shocked.
When Mecca replied, his tone was subdued. “How is my past different to yours? Is it because you are a mistress and I am a slave?”
Kaley deflated, her anger expelled. She was still hurt and uncertain but the jealousy had disappeared and taken the rage with it. Her eyes were burning and she could feel her chin wobbling, but she could keep the tears at bay for now.
“I feel tricked,” she admitted finally. “I want to believe I’m special to you but now I can’t.”
“Being the second woman I have fallen in love with makes you a great deal more special than the first,” Mecca said. Kaley stared at him for a long time, trying to work out how.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know the pain that comes with loss and rejection. I have been discarded by someone who I gave my entire self to, who I was willing to risk everything for. Because of that pain, I shielded my heart and vowed I would not put myself in the same position again. Yet here I am. For you.”
Such beautiful words. Such beautiful, lovely, charming words from an insightful slave who specialised in making women feel like they were important. Even if his dedication was true there was still the question of his motivation.
“You’re supposed to love your mistresses, isn’t that your duty?” she asked. Her words sounded cold and hurtful, but it was a genuine question.
If I can’t trust my own feelings then I can’t trust his either.
“The women of Femme believe men cannot love, they can only experience devotion. Love is too complex an emotion for a simple man to process.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, exasperated.
“Do you believe that you are only the second woman I have fallen in love with?” he asked her. Kaley nodded as this wasn’t what she questioned. “And even if it was my duty… if I truly love you now, does it matter how it began? Is it not enough that I love you so deeply that thinking about you lightens my heart, being near you makes me feel like the impossible can be achieved and being with you makes me forget I am merely your slave? You visit my world, but you have become mine.”
She was astonished. She could feel her resolve melting away. He was gifted with eloquence, his plea causing different kinds of tears to prickle in her eyes. He was right. It didn’t matter that he’d experienced love before because she’d had her love affairs too, however brief. Her depth of feelings for Mecca was no less important than if he’d been her equal on Earth. The sensation of being unreasonable returned and she felt bad for not talking to him about it calmly instead of screaming accusations that he hadn’t denied but beautifully explained.
It would be criminal not to forgive him.
“There’s one more way I can try for us to be together,” she told him, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around him. She pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heartbeat. “I’ll have to find your mother.”