Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Toby
I’ve scripted out many versions of that confrontation with Arthur Matheson over the years. It’s been one of those fantasies lurking in the back of my head, what I would say if I ever had the chance to confront him for his behavior.
But in none of my imaginings was Harry ever by his side, shock and horror all over his face.
And I never expected I would care what Harry thought about his father’s behavior, care about the impact the revelation would have on him. I never imagined that seeing his hurt and confusion would somehow amplify mine.
Harry is not his father.
I know that. I know him.
And it’s not just the romantic stuff I know about him, either. I know the small, mundane things. I know his morning breath, the determined set of his jaw when he believes he’s right about something, the small crinkle in his forehead when something confuses him.
I know the meticulous way he stacks firewood, the way his eyes water and redden when smoke blows into them, the soft snuffling sounds he makes when he sleeps.
I know every unromantic, mundane detail about this man.
And I still love him.
Because, fuck it, there is no other word I can use to describe my feelings for Harry Matheson.
I’ve been so delusional for so long, trying to pretend my feelings for Harry were simply a product of what we went through together rather than facing the unpalatable truth.
I fell for him the same way my mother fell for his father. And like his father, he will eventually forsake me for his career.
I know this.
Yet when I hear the knock on the door, I pad down the stairs in my stockinged feet, across my polished tiles, and open my front door to the person I know will be waiting there.
Harry’s still in his tuxedo, his hair expertly slicked back, his perfectly symmetrical handsomeness accentuated by the shadows on my doorstep.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Harry?” But I can’t get any anger into my voice, only weariness.
“You never told me,” he says quietly.
“No. I didn’t.”
How can I explain that after hearing Harry talk about how his father had fought for justice against his abusive headmaster, I didn’t want to be the one to disillusion him. I didn’t want to steal his hero from him.
But equally, tonight, I couldn’t bring myself to shake his father’s hand and pretend everything was fine.
Harry and I just stare at each other.
Then he’s moving into my space, nuzzling his face into my shoulder, resting there like that’s where he belongs, like that slot was designed specifically for him.
“Toby,” he whispers.
And I can’t help turning my head to kiss his temple. Because Harry’s here right now, he’s come to me, and somehow, that helps heal the jagged, gaping wound inside me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s not your fault.”
It’s taken me a long time to come to the realization that Harry is not his father. That what he and I have together is not an echo of our parents. This is our own story.
Potentially equally as tragic, but definitely our own.
He raises his head, his mouth finds mine, and we’re kissing, stumbling up the stairs towards my bedroom, shedding clothes as we go.
It’s frantic and desperate. I’ve thought Harry and I have had fevered and unrestrained sex before, but nothing like this.
Never with this completely raw, unfettered need to connect, fingernails digging into flesh, teeth scraping across skin. Through our ferociousness and urgency, we’re trying to merge into one, erase the divisions and boundaries that exist between us.
I’m moving inside him, hard and fast, and he’s clinging to me, and I’m trying not to think about the repercussions of this moment. About the unspoken words that still linger between us.
I’m trying not to think about the feeling of wholeness that comes from being with Harry, one I’ve never experienced at any other point in my life.
In the quiet aftermath, I trace the lines of Harry’s face with my fingertips, absorbing the softness of his cheeks and the first traces of stubble along his jaw. His eyes flutter open.
“I came here to talk to you, but somehow, we’ve ended up in bed,” he says.
“Well, sex has always been our most effective method of communication, hasn’t it?” I say, stretching to kiss him again.
It’s true. Harry and I can say everything to each other with our bodies that we struggle to say with words.
Harry kisses me back, his lips lingering on mine, and it’s so familiar that my chest aches.
When I pull back, his eyes search mine. “Do you want to talk about it?” His voice is gentle.
I’m surprised to find the answer is yes.
So, in stilted sentences, I tell him the truth as I know it.
My mother, determined to save enough money to buy our own flat instead of renting, started a side hustle of refurbishing old furniture.
Our flat had been strewn with half-finished chairs, tables with missing legs, and cabinets waiting for a fresh coat of paint.
She loved the process of creating something beautiful out of the broken pieces.
Harry’s father, as the minister of state for food, farming and fisheries, had been visiting one of the Saturday farmers’ markets when my mother had used the opportunity to talk to him about how unfair the tax system was for secondary income.
He’d invited her to a series of policy roundtables, ostensibly to get her perspective on small-business challenges.
But over the months, their discussions slowly strayed beyond tax codes and regulations, and the line between professional and personal started to blur.
My mother had been attractive, witty, and intelligent. I can easily imagine how she caught his interest. And he spun her all the usual crap of being in an open marriage that he only stayed in because of his political career.
“It’s such a cliché, how it happened. Rich, sophisticated, aristocratic man meets a single working-class mother, sweeps her off her feet, only to dump her and leave her heartbroken.”
I pause, swallowing hard against the memories of my mother’s pain, her silent tears, and the way she tried to shield me from her heartbreak. Harry’s hand finds mine, his fingers intertwining with my own.
“She…” My voice chokes, but I power through. “She deserved better than being a cliché.”
“You thought I was like him,” Harry says softly.
“Yes. I did.”
“But I’m not like him,” he says with a hint of doubt in his voice, like he’s seeking reassurance from me.
“You’re nothing like him,” I confirm. “You are a much better man than your father.”
Harry studies my face intently, and then his expression softens. He picks up our intertwined hands and places a gentle kiss on my skin.
As we kiss properly, I realize I don’t just love him. I love him past what love should be. It shouldn’t be this craving, this complete and utter desire to be consumed by someone and to consume them in return.
It’s dangerous.
I know exactly how dangerous it is. Yet, I can’t work out how to turn off my feelings.
When I slowly wake the next morning, for a few moments, I’m at peace. Harry’s arms are around me and he’s gently snuffling in my ear.
But when I open my eyes, I realize it’s all wrong. It’s brighter, the light is coming from the wrong window, and the sheets are smooth rather than scratchy.
We’re not in a cabin in Finland. We’re in my flat in London.
And yet, somehow, Harry and I have found our way back to each other again.
I pull away from him gently, not wanting to wake him. Harry always sleeps with a slightly troubled expression, as if his dreams perplex him and he needs to figure them out.
He knows the truth about our parents.
He still came to me. And I still let him.
Harry opens his eyes and sees me. We just stare at each other for a few moments before his face creases into a hesitant smile.
“I gotta say, I didn’t miss your snoring,” I say.
“I didn’t miss your morning breath,” he counters.
He leans forward to close the gap between us, aiming for my lips, but I pull back.
“I thought I had morning breath?” I arch an eyebrow.
“It turns out I’m a sucker for punishment.” He brushes his lips lightly over mine.
“Well, you did join the Conservative Party,” I retort.
He laughs and then kisses me properly, thoroughly, with no teasing, pretenses, or artifice.
We are Toby and Harry, this kiss seems to say. This is us. We are back together.
Being with me will ruin Harry’s career. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
Even if I gave up politics to be with him, I have no doubt the circling wolves in the Conservative Party would use the fact he was with an ex-Labour politician, a man at that, to take him down.
He would lose the leadership, plummet down the ranks in his party to be a backbencher with no clout.
So what can happen now?
The reality of the absolute impossibility of our situation rises inside me, clogging my throat.
“Shall we get some breakfast?” I ask.
In some ways, it’s weird having Harry in my London flat. But in another, it’s so natural to be in the kitchen with him, cooking toast while he makes us a pot of tea. He’s in my borrowed dressing gown, his hair untamed, a faint mark on his collarbone where my lips lingered last night.
“What, no hare stew for breakfast?” he asks as I present him toast with butter and jam.
“Unfortunately, Waitrose didn’t have any European hare at their butchery. I did put in a complaint.”
He smirks at me. “I’m sure you did.”
“No squirrel either. It’s like they don’t understand what makes good cuisine.”
He chuckles, then takes a bite of his toast.
We linger over breakfast, talking like we used to. But it’s mainly reminiscing about our time together in the wilderness and how much we appreciate the small conveniences of modern life we never noticed before.
“I have two showers a day now,” I admit. “I never thought I’d have such an appreciation for hot water on demand and indoor plumbing, but I can’t get enough of it.”
“I was so bewildered when I got to Ashbury and first opened the pantry,” Harry says.
“You mean discovering the miracle of food that doesn’t try to run away from you,” I say.
Harry smiles. “Yes. But also, I couldn’t comprehend how there could be so much variety of food available. I was almost paralyzed into indecision.”
“Oh, I know that feeling. I’m still spending a good ten minutes staring at the contents of my wardrobe every morning, overwhelmed by the choice,” I say.
“In some ways, it was so much easier when we simply had one outfit to wear. Well, half an outfit, as it transpired,” Harry replies.
“You can’t forget the survival blanket,” I point out.
He releases his low Harry chuckle. “You’re right. We really did set the standard for survival-blanket chic.”
“I never thought I’d be nostalgic for a glorified piece of tin foil, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” he agrees.
His hands are wrapped around a steaming mug of tea, long fingers that I know so intimately, hands that have mapped every inch of my body, now curled around the ceramic with a casual grace that makes my heart ache.
I wanted to fall in love. As the plane crash unfolded, that was my biggest regret, that I’d never experienced love.
I guess I got my wish.
I already knew from observing my mother that love can break you. I just never understood exactly how much.
“I guess I better get along then,” Harry says when he’s helped me wash up after breakfast.
“I guess you better,” I reply.
He hesitates at the base of the stairs. “Do you mind awfully if I borrow some clothes?”
That’s right. He arrived here last night in a tuxedo. On the off chance my flat is being staked out by tabloid photographers, he can’t be seen leaving my flat in the same clothes he was in last night.
He’ll get caught. His political career will be ruined because of me.
The toast does a cartwheel in my stomach.
If you’d asked me before the plane crash what I would do if I had the chance to ruin Harry, I would have seized it with both hands.
I would have done the Macarena on the grave of Harry’s political career.
I would have thrown a party to celebrate his defeat, raising a toast to the sweet taste of victory.
But now I can’t think of anything worse than being responsible for his downfall. I might not agree with him, but a key part of our democracy is a functional opposition.
And I would rather have Harry as the leader of the Conservative Party than anyone else.
The throat-clogging feeling from this morning is back.
“Of course you can borrow some clothes,” I manage to say.
We’re silent as we go up the stairs together. I rummage through my drawers to find some trousers and a shirt for Harry, which I hand him wordlessly.
Harry sheds the dressing gown and slips on my shirt while I watch, the clogged feeling inside me turning into an ache.
I know his body so well. I know the curve of his spine, the dimples at the base of his back, the planes of his chest, all the parts of Harry I’ve traced with my fingers and lips.
They disappear under my clothes as he gets dressed.
I try to memorize every detail, the way the light falls across his face, the way my shirt drapes over his frame.
My heart clenches as he adjusts the collar, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
I love him so much I couldn’t live with myself if I caused his downfall. If I were the reason he didn’t get to realize his dreams.
I blindly follow him downstairs, reeling at that revelation.
Harry leans forward and presses his lips to mine, and it takes all the restraint I have not to sink into the kiss, not to get lost in Harry again.
Instead, I pull back.
“We have to stop doing this,” I say.