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begging him to take her back. She couldn’t see them, but she knew that all five of their – Christian’s – staff were hovering outside the office door right now waiting to hear her do just that.
    ‘I don’t want money,’ Maggie said eventually, her voice sounding tight and strange in her own head. She felt bewildered, lost. This wasn’t what break-ups should be about, was it? They should be about grief, about anguish. It should be catastrophic for them both, not a cold conversation about money. She focused on a sentence and spoke it carefully. ‘I … I just want to know when I can pick up the rest of my stuff; my CDs and some personal things. I thought maybe we could talk then, have dinner—’
    Christian interrupted her, his eyes softening for a terrible, hopeful moment.
    ‘Mags, look. The thing is, going over it again and again … is not a good idea. We’ll just end up tearing each other apart.’ He paused, glancing down at his knotted fingers. ‘I just think that it’s better to make a clean break of it. And you should have some money. I’ll see to it, OK?’
    Christian studied her face for a moment and then looked quickly away. She was still beautiful to him. She was still there in his heart and his head, but that was just it. She was everywhere in his life, and he couldn’t live like that. He couldn’t lose himself in another person so completely. He needed space and his own identity. Louise was the quickest way of getting it.
    ‘Fine,’ Maggie said, picking up her bag as she stood up. And then, just as she was about to leave, something in Christian’s eyes melted all of her resolve into instant desperation, and she knew that she’d do anything and say anything if there were the faintest hope that she could save their relationship, save her own life. Maggie stood close to him, ignoring his silent pleas for space, and looked up into his eyes, just as she had in the moment before they first kissed.
    ‘It’s just …’ she said desperately, ‘it’s … that I thought you loved me. I thought we loved each other. The two musketeers, remember? It’s just, how can this be happening when only a few weeks ago we were laughing about growing old together, talking about having kids to run round after us? You were there with me, Christian. I can’t believe you were putting it on, I can’t believe you don’t love me any more. If you didn’t love me any more then I’d have seen it. I knew
something
was happening, but I can’t believe that you just stopped feeling anything …’ Maggie stared at him, at a loss for words, and Christian shook his head, searching for something, anything, to say that would help her, that would make her feel better about this.
    ‘We can’t go back, Maggie, it’s impossible. I know it’s all my fault, I know I’ve ruined it and I’m sorry. But we can’t go back after this, not after I’ve lied to you for so long …’
    Maggie took a step forward and clasped his hands, forcing him to look at her.
    ‘But we could! We could go back. I don’t mind. Are you certain that this is what you want? Is this really it? Six years, everything we’ve built up, thrown away because of her? Doesn’t it all mean anything to you?’
    Christian gently detached his hands from hers and settled them heavily on her shoulders.
    ‘You know, Maggie, I’ll always love you. In fact maybe that
was
it, yes – we loved each other too much.’ He grasped on to the concept with both hands, grateful he’d stumbled on something to say that wasn’t too cruel, too difficult for her. ‘What we had
was
special, yes, but I felt like it was suffocating me, all the emotion every day. The weighted significance of everything we did together, all the things that we were meant to be, the perfect couple. It … it was burying me alive. Lou was a way out of that, an escape route. I’m not proud of it, Maggie. I do … care about Lou, but to be honest, when it began it was because I couldn’t think of