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The up-tempo music accompanying her and Marc’s water taxi trip is a direct contradiction to Layla’s current mood.
And then her pretty-much-ex-husband has the gall to speak, and it makes everything even worse.
“So what exactly are we gonna do here? What’s the plan?” Marc asks her this as their boat glides across the harbour, purple lights reflecting off the black surface of the water. He asks her this as if they haven’t just spent the last two months completely out of touch, as if this is just another one of their missions, from a previous era of their relationship that Layla considers long buried in the sand.
“Oh. It’s not pleasant being left in the dark, is it?” she retorts. She’s being petulant, she knows that. But Marc can hardly blame her, and Layla bets he knows it, too.
He looks away, confirming her suspicion. Barely suppressing an eye roll, he tells her, “Okay. I get that you’re not happy about me leaving so quickly and coming to Cairo. I understand.”
Layla almost laughs at his audacity. How out of touch is he??
“Wait. Is that your apology?”
Marc tries to speak, but Layla presses on, thick sarcasm coating her words. “That’s good. That’s really good.”
He wears his irritation on his face and gestures between the two of them.
“You know, just so we can get through tonight, maybe let’s just give our shit a rest for a moment, and just try to strategize before we get to…to…”
She never told him who they’re meeting.
“Mogart’s?” Layla supplies innocently. It feels good, no, great, to have more intel than the mercenary she married, for once. To finally have the strategical upper hand.
“Mogart?” he parrots.
Rather than answer his question, Layla switches gears and seizes the opportunity to make her intentions very clear to Marc. She knows that if she doesn’t set up some ground rules now, there’ll come a moment when he’ll try and find a way to lean on what they used to have, what they used to be, and then exploit it without even realizing it.
“Just so you know, I’m not here to help you,” she tells him sternly. “I’m here for me, and for everyone else who would die if Harrow succeeds.”
He blinks.
“Copy that.”
Layla nods, satisfied. “Good.” Message received.
As she leans back, unintentionally (or intentionally…) creating some distance between them, Marc apparently decides that now is an appropriate time to toss out a relationship life preserver.
“I am sorry,” he tells her. “For…whatever that’s worth.” A twinge of what looks like remorse peeks through, but Layla refuses to trust it. Not after everything.
She looks away to the left, and inhales a grimace instead of gracing him with a reply.
Marc tries a different tactic, then, not comfortable with her silent treatment.
Good. You should be uncomfortable.
“So, this Mogart guy. He uh, he’s really gonna have his sarcophagus?”
“Yes,” Layla sighs, bored with Marc’s ongoing distrust in her. “I asked around. Mogart’s collection is prime gossip for those of us who deal in antiquities.”
Meaning, not you.
This time, it’s Marc who doesn’t say anything further, choosing instead to turn his attention back to the performer at the other end of the boat. Layla follows his gaze, if only because the music has seemingly increased in volume.
An older woman is rather impressively ululating along to the song, and the other passengers are gathered around her in boisterous support, the group entirely unaware of the tension over on this end of the vessel.
Still watching them, Marc breaks a smile. It takes Layla a moment to realize it, but she’s smiling, too.
Marc leans forward to rest his crossed arms on his knees and tells her, with that look on his face, “I haven’t heard that sound since…”
He pauses. “Since our wedding.”
Layla knows exactly what he’s doing, and she hates him for it…but there’s no denying that this display of quiet charisma from the man across from her was unfortunately a significant reason why she fell for him in the first place.
They share a look, and Layla realizes that it’s the first sustained eye contact they’ve experienced in as long as she can remember that wasn’t undercut by mutual indignation.
As the impromptu performance continues a few metres away, Layla makes a decision.
Actively setting aside her ire for a moment, she tells him, “You could have told me. You know? What it’s been like for you.” He looks down, shameful. “About Steven.”
I would have been there for you. I would have understood. I want to understand.
Why won’t you trust me?
“For what it’s worth, I had it under control until very recently.”
He’s trying to withdraw the emotion from his voice, but she’s his wife — was his wife — and there’s no way he’s fooling her.
“What happened?” she asks him softly, frowning slightly.
“It’s…”
The expression Marc makes, then, is one Layla’s seen many times before, whenever he’s confronted with something that inches dangerously close to the darkest part of himself that she suspects even he refuses to revisit.
“Doesn’t matter,” he finishes.
Unexpectedly, her heart breaks just a little more in that moment.
Marc’s hands are in front of him, tense and clasped together, and she reaches for them, then, not unaware of the momentousness of her willingly breaking the touch barrier.
Screw the ground rules.
“We could’ve handled it together,” she says softly.
She gently cups his hands in her own, and Marc responds by slowly allowing their fingers to intertwine. She can tell he’s still uneasy, though, by the way his hands are refusing to maintain one configuration.
“Yeah. That’s not really what I do, is it?” Layla’s meeting his gaze, or rather, looking intently at where his gaze should be, but Marc’s eyes are firmly trained at his lap. “Never really been able to just talk about everything.”
Yeah, I know.
“Anything real?” she asks, raising her eyebrows slightly, already knowing his answer.
Marc finally looks at her.
“Yes.”
“Yeah. I know,” she tells him, aloud this time. “But that…doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have.”
It was probably too much to say, and a second later, Layla knows it was, because she sees his jaw clench.
He breaks their clasped hands apart, pushing Layla’s back towards her lap. He pats them twice, and it’s like he’s telling her, “We’re colleagues, remember, not companions.”
Their temporary armistice is over.
“Yeah. Maybe. A little too late for that now, though,” he declares, leaning back, and it occurs to Layla that now he’s the one putting space between them.
She knows she should be relieved, should be glad that Marc is reaffirming their current boundaries, because she fears she was one pained look away from doing something she’d undoubtedly regret, but at the same time…
She’s not.
She’s not relieved.
She’s also not the one who served the divorce papers. Or who went off the grid without a word, only to reappear as an entirely different personality two months later. Or who has been keeping this huge, life-changing thing from the love of her life.
So, rather than voicing her agreement with Marc, because no, she doesn’t agree, it isn’t too late for them, Layla remains silent. The usual glare that’s present whenever she’s around him these days returns to her eyes. She frees an elastic from her wrist and uses it to pull her loose curls back into a ponytail, bitterly aware that her hair isn’t the only part of herself she’s pulling back right now.
Feeling deflated and more than a little disappointed, and doing her best not to show it, Layla sags back against the support beam on the boat. Marc, for his part, deliberately tries to bring their attention back to the task at hand.
She both hates him and loves him for it.
“Okay. Let’s get our story straight.”