I don’t care that I don’t get to enjoy much of the aftermath of my climax. Because in all of this, Camille is my priority. I want her to feel what I just felt, and I want her to look me in the eye when she does. I want her to see how I feel about her, read if off my face, where this all-encompassing love I feel for her is impossible to hide.

It doesn’t take long for her to start trembling underneath my touch, before she throws her arms around me with a sigh of desperation and says into my ear, “Don’t go. I’m not sure I can live without this anymore.”

The rest of the night passes in a haze of fingers touching, claiming, driving down deep. In a mess of tears and words spoken that we would, perhaps, never say in daylight.

I drift off somewhere in the middle of the night and wake up groggily to the jarring sound of my phone alarm. And then the time has come for me to go. To leave this bed, this house, this city and this woman for too long a time.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Charles de Gaulle airport is marred by the same kind of chaos as when I arrived in Paris six weeks ago. I remember the version of myself who stood trembling next to the baggage claim belt, so eager to see Camille that my body started shaking uncontrollably. That version of myself didn’t have room in her heart and brain to think about this moment, which was only six short weeks away. This dreaded moment of saying goodbye. But this will not be goodbye, or at least only a temporary one. It’s an until later. Until I Skype her as soon as I get home, when I’ll be so jet-lagged I’ll be calling her at all hours, and we can dance the time zone tango effectively for a while, until my body adjusts to Sydney time and I’ll have to spend my days with her asleep on the other side of the world.

After I’ve checked in we try to find a quiet spot to have one last coffee and talk, but half the population of France seems to be flying somewhere today, and the airport is so busy, we’re forced to huddle in a corner and have our last kiss while dozens of people scuttle past.

“We’ll always have last night,” Camille whispers in my ear.

“Find me a job soon. I’ll take anything to be with you. I’ll make tea at the BBC World News office. It doesn’t matter.”

“Shall I start shopping around that video we made in Sydney? That should get you work straightaway.”