“Kate, please…”

“Or were you doing it because you think it’s what I want? Because you always give people what they want. Because you’re scared of losing me if we don’t do this?”

Tilly stared back at her, eyes pleading. The moment stretched. “I’m scared that I’ll lose you if we do and I’m scared that I’ll lose you if we don’t.”

Kate sighed heavily. She brought her hands to her hips and ran her tongue across her teeth. Her eyes burned with tears. As she crossed the room to her bag and pulled out jeans, the pain was almost crippling.

Tilly stared in confusion. Kate swallowed. “I’m going out.”

“What?” Tilly clutched at the base of her neck. “Where? Are you going to see that woman from the theatre?”

It took every effort to peel her eyes away from Tilly’s nipples, so apparent through the thinness of her slip. Kate groaned internally as she took her blazer from the hanger. “No. Of course I’m not going to see her.”

Tilly stared like she didn’t believe her. “Then where are you going?”

“I don’t know where I’m going. I’ll take a walk.”

The walls were caving in. When she closed her eyes, the images that played beneath her eyelids were brazen. She couldn’t be in that room with Tilly, sleeping so close, lying awake and listening to Tilly breathe. And what if Tilly wanted to talk about it like she always did? Kate couldn’t. Tilly could look at her with that wide, yearning stare all she wanted, but their reality was heartbreakingly simple: Kate didn’t stand a chance of ever being anything more than Tilly’s friend. It would destroy them.

Her name fell from Tilly’s lips in a raspy plea. “Please, stay. It’s the middle of the night.”

Kate slid the room card into her back pocket. As she passed Tilly, she slipped a hand around the back of her neck and pressed her lips to her temple.

Tilly released a shaky breath, but her hands remained at her sides.

Kate pulled back. “I have my phone if you need me.”

Chapter Sixteen

Their eyes locked across the hotel breakfast room. As Kate watched Tilly’s features soften with relief, an incessant brand of guilt grasped her. Tilly looked away sharply.

At the small breakfast buffet, the clatter of cutlery and dishes only contributed to the unrelenting headache Kate had had since she’d watched the sun rise over the Southbank River from a park bench at five a.m. She glanced across the breakfast room. Perched on high stools at a bar table, her students had their faces in their phones. She glanced at her watch. Check out was in forty minutes.

As she crossed the buffet to the coffee and tea dispenser, heat crawled up the back of her neck the closer she came to Tilly. With only the selection of travel-sized cereal boxes between them, Tilly stood at the conveyor toaster, patiently waiting. Kate’s gaze tracked over her body as she fiddled with the takeaway cups. Her tight black jeans hadn’t made an appearance for weeks, and paired with the heeled brown boots, Tilly’s legs seemed to go on forever. Her thin grey jumper was warm, soft. Kate had folded it with the clean washing at least half a dozen times and she knew what the cashmere felt like against her fingertips.