Though her hotel and flights had been arranged, any problems had to be dealt with by the travel agent, Rosa had told her. Meg must not, under any circumstance, make contact with them. She must not be linked to them in any way—not just to protect them, or even Niklas, they had warned her, but to protect herself.
And she registered the danger but tried not to dwell on it, just tried to deal with a life that had changed all over again.
There was another row with her parents—a huge one this time. They had no comprehension as to why their usually sensible daughter might suddenly up and take off to Brazil.
‘Brazil!’ Her mother had just gaped. ‘Why the hell do you want to go to Brazil?’
They didn’t come to the airport to say goodbye. Still, there was one teeny positive to the whole situation: Meg barely noticed the plane taking off. Her thoughts were too taken up with the fact that she was on her way to see Niklas.
And she barely noticed it a second time, when she transferred at Santiago and knew she was on the last leg of her journey to see him. Shortly after take-off the stewards stood, and after a little while she was offered a drink.
‘Tonic water …’ Meg said, and then changed her mind and added gin.
‘Off on holiday?’
She turned to her friendly fellow passenger, an elderly lady who had cousins in São Paulo, she told Meg.
‘Yes …’ Meg said. ‘Sort of.’
‘Visiting family?’
‘My husband.’ How strange it felt to say it, but she was, after all, wearing his ring, and her documents were in her bag, and she might have to say the same thing at Customs, so maybe she’d better start practising.
‘Brazil first and then three weeks in Hawaii …’
‘Lovely.’ The old lady smiled and Meg returned it. Just as Niklas had that first day, she wished her neighbour would just keep quiet.
She could hardly tell her the real purpose for her visit!
Instead she ordered another gin.
It didn’t help.
She cried as they descended over São Paulo—she had never seen anything like it. Stretched below her was a sea of city, endless miles of buildings and skyscrapers. The population of this city alone was almost equivalent to the entire population of Australia, and never had Meg felt more small and lost.
The final approach was terrifying—more so because of all he had told her about it, more so now that she could see just how closely the cars and the planes and the city co-existed, more so because she was actually here.
Bizarrely, her eyes searched for him after she’d cleared Customs—a stupid flare of hope that this was a strange joke, that he was testing her, that he might be waiting with flowers and a kiss. Perhaps she might once more feel the thorns press into her skin as he teased her about the lengths she’d go to for just a couple of hours with him.
It wasn’t a joke, though. It wasn’t a game. There was no one here to greet her.
Meg exited the airport and tried to hire a taxi, but she had never seen a taxi queue like this one. She was exhausted and overwhelmed as once again Niklas pushed her out of her comfort zone.
The driver’s music was loud, his windows were down, and he drove her through darkening streets into Jardins. Everything was loud there too. The city pulsed with life. There were food stalls on the streets—unfamiliar scents came in through the windows of the car whenever they stopped at traffic lights—and it was more city than she could deal with. Which made sense, Meg thought with a pale smile. After all it was the city Niklas was from.
All Meg wanted to do was to get to her room.
Dishevelled, confused, tired, after they pulled up at a very tall hotel Meg paid the taxi driver. The second she stepped inside she knew she was back in his world.
Modern, cosmopolitan, with staff exquisite and beautiful.
It was a relief to get to her room and look out of the window at the bewildering streets below, to fathom that she was actually here—that tomorrow she would be taking another taxi to visit Niklas in prison.
Meg scanned the confusing horizon, wondered as to his direction, wondered if he had any inkling at all that she was even here.
Wondered all night how she could stand to face him tomorrow.
‘Hi, Mum …’ She rang not because they had insisted she did—they were hardly talking, after all—she rang because, despite their problems, Meg loved her parents and wanted the sound of normality tonight.
‘How’s Brazil?’ Her mother’s voice was terse, but at least she spoke.
‘Amazing,’ Meg said. ‘Though I haven’t seen much of it …’
‘Have you booked any trips?’
‘Not yet,’ Meg said, and was quiet for a moment. She didn’t like lying, especially to her parents, but she found herself doing it at every turn. Tomorrow she would be ringing her parents again to tell them that she had changed her mind about Brazil and was going to spend the rest of her vacation in Hawaii—how would they react to that?
More than anything Meg just wanted tomorrow over with, so that she could lie on a beach and hopefully heal once and for all. She hadn’t dared risk putting her divorce application in her luggage in case it caused questions at Customs, but the second she landed home it would be posted.
Her heart couldn’t take any more of him.
‘How’s Dad?’
‘Worried,’ her mum said, and Meg felt her heart sink—because she hated that they were worried about her. ‘It’s going to cost an arm and a leg to hire a new lawyer …’
Meg knew her mum didn’t mean to hurt her, but unintentionally she had. The business was always the biggest thing on their minds.
‘I’ve told you that I’ll work for a couple of months when I get back. You don’t have to rush into anything. And you don’t need a full-time lawyer; you can contract out. We’ll go through it all properly when I get back.’
‘You are coming back?’
And Meg gave a small unseen smile, because maybe it wasn’t just about the business. As difficult as they could be at times, they did want what they thought was best for her, and they did love her—that much Meg knew.
‘Of course I am. I’m just taking a few weeks to sort out my head—I’ll be back before you know it.’
It was impossible to sleep. She was dreading tomorrow and seeing him again, dreading the impact of seeing him face to face. It was emotionally draining just thinking about him, let alone seeing him.
Let alone having sex with him.
If Meg slept, she didn’t sleep much, and she was up long before her alarm call. She ordered breakfast, but her stomach was doing somersaults and she could hardly manage to hold down a small piece of bread and grilled cheese.
The coffee she was more grateful for.
Had she not loved him, she doubted she could do this.
But had she not loved him she would not have married him in the first place and wouldn’t be in this mess.
Except she remembered his cruel words from that morning long ago and knew that love had no place in this.
She gave up on breakfast and lay in the bath, tried to prepare herself for what lay ahead, but had no idea how. As she picked up a razor and shaved her legs she did not know if her actions were for his pleasure or for her pride. It was the same with the body oil she