I shook my head. He frowned and asked another question. “Why not?”

I pulled self-consciously at the hem of my blouse. I’d been wearing it all day, and it was starting to feel a bit clammy. “I’ve just been busy,” I answered, then hastened to add, “With the agency, keeping everything running smoothly. You hardly get a moment to yourself when you run your own business.” And have a five-year-old to take care of, my conscience put in.

King stared at me, and the silence lasted for a long time until I had to break it. “What about you?” I whispered, and now it was his turn to become self-conscious.

“I haven’t, I mean…some of the women here, they try with me, but I’m always…I’m never really present enough, you know.”

What he said caused my protective instincts to kick into high gear. “They never tried to be with you against your will, did they?”

King’s eyes flared at my question, and he hurried to correct me. “God, no.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “So you haven’t?”

He shook his head, and my heart ached for him. He really had been imprisoned. So alone. It shocked me to realise that I might have preferred for him to have someone. Don’t get me wrong, I hated the idea at the same time, because in my heart he belonged to me and no one else. But the fact that he hadn’t had any companionship shone a stark light on his suffering. I would have wanted him to have a moment of relief amidst the turmoil, even if it did make me jealous as all hell.

We shared a moment of deep, intense eye contact, and then I heard music begin to play from inside the circus tent. It was a sound check, and light, tinkling piano drifted all around us. King’s expression morphed at the very sound of it, and I knew he was remembering how much he used to love playing.

“I told you that Elaine started playing again, didn’t I?” King stared at me. I cleared my throat. “Well, not for audiences or anything like that. Just at home. I think it’s therapeutic for her. You should think about….”

“I’m not playing the piano again, so please stop pushing.”

“I’m only trying to help you,” I whispered.

“You are helping me. Just by being here, you’re helping. Trust me.”

I swallowed. “Okay.” A pause. “Will you at least consider seeing a doctor? That cough doesn’t sound too pretty, and if left unchecked, it could turn into something nasty.” It already sounded like it had turned into something nasty, but I was just so desperate for him to go and get checked out that I’d latch on to any reason.

He stared at the floor. “I told you I didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, you did,” I said, losing my gentle tone. “And do you know what else that tells me? It tells me that you don’t care about yourself enough to worry that you might be badly sick, and that is the scariest fucking thing, Oliver. The scariest.”

He let out a dark, miserable laugh. “Look at me, Alexis. Everything about me should tell you that.”

Now I grew upset, my voice shaky with unshed tears. “But I want you to care.”

I saw his self-hatred wriggle its way into his expression. It was awful to look at, so ugly. I wanted to kill it dead, but it had been corrupting him for years. You didn’t kill corruption like that in a day. What he believed to be true had moulded him to hate himself.

“It’s hard to care for something that’s already falling apart,” he said vehemently.

I stared at him, suddenly pissed off at the way he spoke. “That’s a fucking cop-out, and you know it. Just because something’s broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. It’s just takes guts, guts and a whole lot of effort. But clearly you don’t want to even try.” My words were a challenge, and I desperately needed him to stand up to them, counter them. I saw the flash of temper in his eyes and knew what I’d said had riled him.

He leaned forward, his expression sharp and his gaze narrowed. “There’s broken, Alexis, and then there’s irrevocably broken. Maybe I’m the latter. Maybe trying is futile.”

The way he hissed his words made me stand quickly from the table, my stool scraping harshly at the plywood panels that had been set down to create a makeshift floor. “You’re not irrevocably broken until you’re dead, King. You can try — you just don’t want to.” My voice quivered as my anger was slowly overtaken by self-pity. “Perhaps you don’t think I’m worth it.” A single tear fell down my cheek, and King rose from his seat. The hardness in his expression had vanished, and in its place was remorse. He reached out to touch my cheek, and I stepped back.

“Alexis, I….”

“When you speak like that, when you hurt yourself with alcohol, you’re being cruel to both of us. You know that, right? Don’t think you’re the only one suffering here. When I told you I care for you a great deal, I was telling the truth. Every bit of damage you do to your body, you might as well be punching me in the gut at the same time.”

My words made him flinch. “That’s not true.”

“It is true! I know how I feel.”

He grew incensed again and pulled at his hair. “Yes, but you don’t know how I feel. You don’t know how hard this is.”

I shook my head at him. “Another fucking cop-out. The Oliver King I used to know never backed away from a challenge. He relished them. Challenges were what he lived for.”