Page 60 of The Book of Lost Hours

“All right,” he said after a long, tense pause. “Well, crisis averted for now. Don’t slip up like that again.”

Moira promised she wouldn’t and returned to her desk, struggling to remember how a normal person should sit.

But whenever she glanced up at Jack through his office window, her pulse raced with terror.

He was watching Amelia in Ernest’s office with a kind of intensity she had only ever seen once before, on the day he had first come to see her in the psychiatric ward.

By the time Ernest’s meeting was over, she knew what she needed to do. She should have done it a long time ago, before things had gotten to this point. She should have never agreed to go out with him at all, should have known it would only put him and Amelia in danger.

“Ernest, I need to talk to you,” she said, standing the second he came out of the meeting room.

“Now?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“It’s about Jack’s promotion,” Moira said.

His expression faltered slightly. “Oh. Okay. Shall we…” He extended a hand to the hallway.

Moira followed him that way, feeling Jack’s eyes on them as they passed. She took several deep breaths, adopting a cold, resolute expression. When they got out of earshot, Ernest turned to face her.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes. Well. No, not really. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Jack was offered the new CIA director role.”

“Yes, I heard,” Ernest said warily. “I actually…”

Moira cut him off, barreling on with it before he said something that might change her mind. “He’s asked me to transfer to the New York office for a while. And I said yes.”

Ernest blinked several times. “You… you did?”

“Yes. We won’t be able to keep seeing each other. I’m sorry.” She started to turn away.

“Wait.” Ernest caught her arm, letting out a laugh of nervous confusion. “Can we talk about this?”

“The decision has already been made,” Moira said, her voice trembling despite her efforts to keep it steady. She couldn’t look at him.

Ernest held very still. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. I’m leaving and you’re staying. It would never work. It… it’s better if we end things now.”

“Moira, I…”

She shut her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ernest. I have to.”

“But why? Why do you have to?”

Moira clenched her jaw. “There’s no reason for me not to go.”

“What if there was? What if…” He paused, reaching into his pocket. “I, uh,…” He cleared his throat and held something out to her. “I was going to give you this tonight. After dinner. I had it all planned.”

She looked down at the ring box, unable to stop herself. “Ernest…” she said helplessly.

“Please, Moira. I don’t want to lose you. I know we’ve not been together that long but I… I feel like I’ve known you my whole life somehow.”

“Ernest, I can’t. I already told him.”

“Then tell him you changed your mind.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

“Because why? I thought you and I had a good thing going here. I thought you felt the way I did about where things were going. I thought… I thought I meant something to you.”

“You do. Of course you do.”

“Then why are you doing this? I need a real reason because none of this makes any sense from where I’m standing.”

She shut her eyes. She couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t listen to this. It was right there in front of her.

Everything she’d ever wanted. A life married to Ernest. With him and Amelia, the three of them a family after all they’d been through.

It took everything she had not to reach out and take it.

But she couldn’t do that. She opened her eyes and said the only thing she knew would put an end to this for good.

“I’m sleeping with him.”

Ernest’s face fell. He let go of her arm. “You what?”

“For a few months now. It just happened. I’m sorry.”

There was silence. Ernest was giving her a look so full of hurt that she swore her heart was cracking into pieces.

She shook her head, forcing back the tears. “I’m sorry, Ernest. I am. But… I can’t. Please try to understand.” She walked away from him and returned to her desk.

Ernest stayed where he was in the hall, watching her as she began typing up a memo. After what felt like ages he called out for Amelia to come with him. The two of them left the office.

“Whoa…” Shelley said when he was gone. “Did he just propose?”

“Shut up, Shelley,” Moira snapped.

Shelley closed her mouth.

Moira managed to hold it together for the rest of the day, forcing herself to focus on whatever task was at hand. Filing memos. Typing up notes. Listening to Brady and Collins drone on and on in a meeting.

Azrael was wrong , she thought to herself. Living was not the most dangerous thing after all. Loving was.

She made it until everyone else had gone home for the night, leaving her with just Jack and Shelley to contend with. When Jack came out of his office, leaning beside her desk with his coat and hat in hand, Moira didn’t look at him, eyes focused on what she was doing.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine,” Moira said. Her voice cracked, betraying her.

Jack put his hat on his head and sighed. “Come on, Donnelly. Let’s go get you good and drunk.”

“What?”

“Best cure for a broken heart is a lot of whiskey.”

Moira considered him warily. Did he want something from her?

She searched his face but found nothing but sympathy.

Eventually, she gave in. She let him pull her to her feet and help her put on her coat.

She let him slide his arm around her shoulders in a proprietary manner, calling out to Shelley to tell her to lock up for the night.

She let him open the car door and help her inside, not stopping to ask where he was taking her. Not caring.

He took her to his own apartment. An opulent, utilitarian-looking place, void of any semblance of personality but filled with plenty of money. Jack was the kind of person who bought the most expensive furniture available as a way of making up for his lack of taste.

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the sofa in the living room.

As he took her coat from her, Moira noticed the way he let his eyes linger. She wondered if she had made a mistake coming here. He removed his own coat as well, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows as he began preparing drinks at the bar cart.

“You did the right thing,” he said.

“Did I?” Moira said distantly.

“I told you all along that you’re too good for him. The man can’t think for himself. Always cowering in his father’s shadow, playing off his indecision by calling it ‘morality.’ As if he’s so superior to the rest of us.”

Moira accepted the glass of whiskey Jack put into her hand.

“Ever had whiskey before?” he asked, sitting down on the sofa beside her. Too close for comfort.

“Never cared to try it,” she said.

Jack smiled at her. “This will be fun then,” he said, clinking his glass against hers.

She took a drink, wincing at the burning feeling. She liked the distraction it gave her from other forms of pain and drained the whole thing in a few gulps.

“Do you have more?” she asked.

Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise and handed her his own glass. She polished that one off, too, coughing on the last of it.

“Damn, easy there, tiger,” he said with a laugh.

Moira leaned her head back on the sofa, drawing a deep breath. “I’m a fool,” she said.

“Oh, come on now, none of that. You’re not a fool. You’re human. You were just trying to do what everyone does at some point in their life.”

“And what’s that?” Moira asked glumly.

“You were trying to have it all. To relive the great love of your early days without realizing that love like that doesn’t exist once you grow up. People are too complicated. Life is too complicated.”

“Have you ever been in love?” Moira asked, smirking at the very thought of Jack Dillinger swooning after some girl in a poodle skirt. The alcohol was already hitting her.

Jack returned the smirk, reaching out to toy with a strand of her hair. “Love is for suckers,” he said. “You know, we’re a lot alike, you and me.”

Moira laughed bitterly until she realized he was serious. “How?”

“We both carry a burden. Only we know how truly fragile it all is. We’re the only two people in the world who see the whole picture.

It all could vanish in a heartbeat, everything we’ve ever held dear slipping right through our fingers.

It makes you want to hold everything as tight as you can, but at the same time…

it’s impossible to want to hold on to anything at all.

So you push it all away. And before long you find yourself standing alone, watching the illusion that we call reality change with every passing day. ”

Moira looked at him in surprise. He wore an expression the likes of which she’d never seen before.

A heavy, almost mournful look, the arrogant mask cracking to reveal the weight of all that he carried beneath it.

A lifetime’s worth of knowing too much, compounded by the isolation he’d foisted upon himself out of fear of it all being taken away.

But then he blinked, meeting her gaze, and the shadows lifted. As if they’d never been there at all.

Jack took the glass from her hands and set it on the coffee table beside the other.

“I’ve been looking into apartments in New York. I was thinking we could get you your own place this time. No more boardinghouse.”

“Really?” She didn’t want to think about New York.

“Sure. You’ve been working for me for, what, four years?”

“Something like that.” Moira shifted positions. Her shoulder brushed against Jack’s chest. When had he gotten so close?

“I figure that’s enough time to fully acclimate to the way things work out in the world. Plus, if you’re in an apartment, you’ll have a lot more privacy.”

“Right. Privacy.” Because that was what she needed after a lifetime of isolation.

Jack let out a sigh. “Look, I know this is hard right now. But you’re gonna be all right. You have other options.”