His arms tightened and she enjoyed the sensation of captivity, the weight, the heat, even though it burned to have her breast flattened against his ribcage. He curled himself around her and kissed her hair, her temples. His hands smoothed her back. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, even his faint smell of fresh sweat. Grant. Her lover. Her love.
‘You’ve had so much to go through alone. But after Robbie—’
She pressed still closer. ‘I knew I couldn’t drop anything else on you after Robbie. I saw the way you shied away from any detail about Ginny’s cancer. But I’d gone through every scan and therapy and operation with her so there was a certain comfort in there being no nasty surprises. I coped. I’ll continue to cope.’
‘My poor darling.’ He made a little space so that he could study her chest. ‘Which…?’
‘The right.’
Tentatively, he touched it through her white T-shirt. Then slid his fingers gently through the scoop neck to run his fingertips across her flesh, making her shiver.
Relief took ten years from his face. ‘No mastectomy?’
She smiled, although her heart wrenched. ‘No, darling.’
‘Did radiotherapy do the trick? I guess you haven’t had chemo.’ He stroked her hair, plaited back from her face and little curls frizzing around her face from the heat.
She took his hand and kissed it. She could lie to him. He wouldn’t realise straight away.
They could have time together. A little oasis of pleasure and love. A week. Two weeks. She might even return with him to England for a while and keep up the pretence for precious months.
But she loved him too much for that. ‘I’ve had no treatment.’
His movements stilled. Panic flashed into his eyes. ‘I thought it was the sooner the better? Isn’t that what they said to Ginny? She had radiotherapy to shrink the tumour and—’
‘And then a double mastectomy,’ she finished for him. ‘And more radio. And chemo. And she went on Tamoxifen to keep the cancer at bay. But up it popped in her neck and they dug it out there. And now it’s on her lung and she’s having more chemo. She’s lost her hair again. But—’ she took a deep breath ‘—I don’t have the same kind of cancer as her. I have IBC. Inflammatory Breast Cancer.’
He was shaking. She could feel him thrumming as if he were an idling car. Sweat oozed into the creases of his fingers. In his eyes she saw the same despair as when he’d known there was no hope for Robbie. ‘Is that an OK form of breast cancer?’
She shook her head.
He cleared his throat. Sweat popped up across his cheeks. ‘So why aren’t you having treatment?’
She kissed him again. It might be the last time.
She couldn’t look him in the eyes. ‘Because there’s no point.’
His hands clenched around hers until she thought her fingers would splinter. ‘No point?’
Tears left prickly little trails on her cheeks as they plopped in quick succession onto her chest. The words hurt her throat as she forced them out. ‘IBC is rare. It’s all the bad things, Grant! Aggressive, fast-growing, invasive! So I’ve refused treatment.’
‘But chemo—’
‘Chemotherapy’s oversold. It’ll slow things down a bit but at what cost? You’ve seen Ginny! Losing her hair, can’t keep anything down, exhausted, sleeping twenty hours a day!’
Suddenly he was shouting, right in her face, lips drawn up like an animal’s. ‘You can’t refuse treatment! You don’t know how much time they can give you unless you let them try!’
And she was shouting back. ‘I am refusing treatment, I have refused treatment! Because I’ve watched my sister die by degrees over the last three years while they cut things off her and out of her. Yes, she’s had three years but how much of that has she spent being miserable? It was the same for Mum! At least, this way, I’ll enjoy some of what I’ve got left!’
His eyes blazed with pain. ‘I can’t let you die.’
‘You can’t do anything else.’ She lifted his hands and kissed them rapidly, desperately. ‘I’m not alone, others choose this. It’s a gentler way, Grant. They call it the South of France Option. I just made it the Malta Option because I’m happy here.’
He lurched to his feet. ‘So you’re going to do nothing?’
Her heart was hammering. ‘Not quite nothing. I’ve got an exercise plan to keep me strong. I swim and walk every day, I eat loads of fruit and avoid dairy. I bought some drinks through the Internet that have had amazing results in a few cases.’
His voice dropped. ‘You’re not telling me you’re fighting aggressive breast cancer with herbal tea?’
Exhausted, she let her head drop back. ‘It’s about as much use as anything else.’
Slowly, he backed away.
‘So I’m supposed to just watch you die?’
Fresh tears squeezed out from beneath her lids. ‘I came here so no one has to watch.’
Then he’d backed right across the room and was at the door to the apartment. The door opened and he stepped through it.
She didn’t even watch him leave. He’d watched his child die and he wouldn’t be able to see her go, too. She understood. She understood!
Her tears dried and she watched the sunlight fade from the day, listening to the rumbles and hoots of the traffic on Tower Road and voices on the stairs as other, happier people came and went.
It was midnight. And a tapping at the door.
‘It’s me.’ His voice was low.
She’d been reading in bed in a white nightshirt, too tired to sleep. She let him in. He was a good man and it would rip at his conscience if she made him leave without saying goodbye.
He took her delicately in his arms, stroking her rippled hair back from her face.
‘Is there pain?’
She nodded. ‘Some.’
His fingers moved to her top button and flicked it open. ‘I’ll rearrange my work so that I can stay with you.’ Two more buttons. His hands were unsteady.
Her heart leapt but still she tested him with a protest. ‘You had so much time off last year for Robbie!’
A fourth button and a fifth. He pushed the shirt from her shoulders. It slid, slowly, down her arms. Baring her to his gaze. ‘You’re beautiful. I love you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Just let me stay.’
Hope soared. ‘We could go home to England; you don’t like Malta! The heat—’
‘—is not important. If the Malta Option is what you want and all I’ve got left of you, then that’s what I’ll take.’ He stooped and touched a kiss like a butterfly to her breast. The one that was red and swollen and ridged.
The tears began again. But she was not entirely sad. They’d have to talk about the sensible stuff and the bad stuff. But not yet. First they were going to enjoy what they had.
‘You’re a wonderful man.’ She put her cheek against his collarbone and let herself enjoy the thud of his heart where their bodies touched. ‘Truly. I always find something extraordinary in Malta.’
Victoria Connelly