Author's note

*waves* I know, it's been a very long time since I updated this story. Sorry about that. I've never forgotten it though, and it seems you haven't either. :)

Thank you so much to the lovely readers who have contacted me to ask when I was going to post the next chapter... here it is, dedicated to you all, with a special note of thanks to Nightwing667 for your encouragement.

After all the drama of the last couple of chapters, this update is quite reflective for Tom, a pause in the action as he tries to process what has happened to him. And the angst continues for a while longer, but have faith...

Scene 10 – Near Tullycross, West of Ireland

Two months later

The only sound Tom could hear was the pounding of his own feet on the ground as he ran the trails of Connemara. Over and over again. He'd never been so fit in his life, finding muscles he'd not seen since he was a teenager.

The epic landscapes surrounding him suited his mood. The lowering clouds, the jagged hills, the glittering lakes... their wild emptiness matched the echoing void in his heart.

At first, after what had happened, he'd been in a state of shock, his body protecting him just as it would do after a car crash, a terrible accident.

But then, the pain hit. And it got worse every day. Just as it was becoming unbearable, his cousin Conor offered him a cabin in the west of Ireland. So he jumped at the chance to run away, to escape.

It had taken him surprisingly little time to close down his old life in London.

Packing up his flat, finding a tenant, putting his things into storage had not been as difficult as he expected. He didn't have to go back to the office – James had spared him that. A couple of well-wrapped boxes had appeared at his doorway a few days after their last discussion, containing his personal files and effects. All he had to show for nearly ten years of his life.

A life in ruins.

He hadn't said goodbye to anyone. Instead, he'd bought a cheap ticket to Shannon, packed a single suitcase and left the country without looking back. When he landed, he'd hired a small car to drive northwest to the wilds of Galway, where he'd been holed up ever since.

Now, he'd found a sort of rhythm to his days, allowing them to run into each other, stripping his awareness of time passing.

Each morning, as soon as he got out of bed, he pulled on his running kit and hit the trails for a five-mile route he'd come to know well. Thud, thud, thud went his footsteps over the lonely hills and valleys. Rarely seeing another human being, only the occasional eagle or flock of sheep for company. He didn't think at all during those runs - he just let his mind go blank and focused on his immediate surroundings.

Once he got back to the cabin, he had a quick shower and then made eggs and strong black coffee for breakfast. He spent the morning reading the novels that had been on his bedside table for years, the more involving and fantastical the better. He'd been working his way through the entire series of A Song of Ice and Fire, and he'd even reread The Lord of the Rings, which he had last picked up in high school.

He tended not to eat lunch, instead stopping for a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit about two o'clock. Then, he tried to sleep for half an hour or so before going for his second run of the day while it was still light outside.

Evenings were spent in front of the TV, eating soup, bacon sandwiches or beans on toast, binge-watching shows like The Walking Dead and whatever else he could find in Conor's DVD collection. Or sometimes down at the local pub for a pint or two, a plate of sausages and mash or Irish stew, and a game of pool or darts.

Anything to try and keep his thoughts busy.

But it didn't work.

Whenever his mind had a spare moment, it flew to one place.

Sybil.

He ran over and over his time with her, like a movie on an endless loop.

Every kiss, every touch. Every smile, every glance. Every passionate encounter they'd ever had. And there had been many of them during the weeks they'd spent together.

Not together, he corrected himself. What they'd had never brought them together. As he'd learned to his cost.

He couldn't get the memories of her, of fucking her, out of his mind. Memories which woke him, gasping and sweating, in the middle of the night.

In the offices, the hotels, the streets of the City of London...

On tables, up against walls, in his bed...

With handcuffs, ropes, ice cubes...

At dawn, at noon, at midnight...

And the miracle of her, the body that had completely bewitched him, the mind that had (or so he'd thought) been such a perfect match for his.

Her face, eyes half-closed, biting her bottom lip, as she came...

Her hair, tangled in his hands like a glossy rope as he pulled her head back to kiss her neck...

Her breasts, rising and falling as she rode him like a wild bull...

Her voice, its velvety tones encouraging him in his dark, secret desires, desires she shared...

The woman who had left him spellbound from the moment he saw her. Every single part of her, treasured like a jewel in the storehouse of his heart.

And the energy, the connection between them. So intense, so fierce, it ensnared them both utterly. Leaving them both so wrapped up in each other, in the mutual delight of their joining, that they were oblivious to the world around them.

To who might see them.

And that had been their undoing.

Of course, Sod's law had dictated that they'd been seen by the worst possible person. Who had ruined everything.

Then he corrected himself again. No, that was me. I ruined everything. Edna was just the catalyst.

Even now, his memories of Sybil, of what he'd felt when he was with her, were more vivid to him than his perceptions of the place he was actually in. Still surrounding him at every turn, still carved into his soul, still more real than anything he could imagine ever experiencing again.

Memories of the happiest he'd ever been, of feeling like himself more than he'd ever done before, of falling in love in a way he'd never dreamed possible.

He'd trusted to her, to them, believing in what they'd had between them. Not realising that it existed in a little world of its own, and that if he tried to connect it to the real world, he'd lose it.

Since he'd collapsed in the corridor outside her flat two months ago, he hadn't seen or heard anything about her, had no idea what was happening to her.

Until that night a few weeks ago. He'd been surfing the Financial Times website out of habit, and came across a photo from the launch party of Project Diamond.

There she was. Smiling, beautiful, sexy as fuck. Just as he remembered her.

With the arm of that arsehole Larry Grey around her waist.

And that was some of the worst pain of all. The thought that she was already happy with someone else. That she's already moved on from what they'd shared.

That, he couldn't bear to think about.

So in the end, almost as a form of therapy, he started writing down their story.

From the very beginning, that night at the launch party. How things had continued after that. And how they had ended, breaking his heart in two and leaving him bleeding, broken.

It turned into a book of sorts, although not a book he'd ever try to publish.

Not just because of all the sex scenes, which he'd written in language almost as raw as his memories.

But because of what it exposed about him.

A man with all the trappings of success, all the pieces of a life constructed so carefully, put in place one by one.

Partner in a London law firm, owner of a flat near the City, holder of a lucrative investment portfolio, with an expensive car he rarely used. All of that assembled to prove that a working-class boy from Dublin could have it all, could break into the club.

And then Sybil had come into his life, shattering it like a stone thrown through a window. Making him realise how meaningless it all was, without her.

So he'd risked it all. And crashed and burned.

And now he had nothing.

How could it all have gone so wrong?

He'd had several messages from friends and colleagues back in London, just checking in, but he'd ignored all of them, ignored everything from that life that was now gone. He only wanted one thing from it, which he knew was impossible, and if he could not have it he didn't want anything else.

So instead, he amputated that life, as effectively as he could, to try and quarantine the pain.

Other than Conor, who texted from time to time, the only people he spoke to were those in the village.

The friendly shopkeeper. She had a black cat which purred at the sight of him, weaving around his legs as he picked up his groceries.

The school children. Shouting to each other in Gaelic as they kicked a football down the street, they sometimes invited him to join their game.

The farmers at the pub. They'd been slow to warm to him, thinking him a flash city boy, but when they'd learned his family was from Galway they'd let him into their circle, bit by bit. Talking about the price of sheep, the weather, the predictions for their summer crops.

And a couple of the local girls, who had come up to him at the bar, offered to buy him a drink. But he'd always declined. The thought of it... he just couldn't.

Who knew when he'd be able to be with someone again, like that?

It would never be like that again.

I can't go on like this.

He'd realised that this wasn't sustainable. He'd never be able to go back to London and resume that life. That life was over. Maybe I should move on?

There were opportunities in New York. He'd been approached before by headhunters in his area of law, looking to expand. But he'd never taken them up, because London was where his home was. Or so he thought.

He'd realised he needed to get back to work because he needed his mind to be busy, to help him forget. He believed that over time his memories would lose their power, would become dimmer, fainter – although he'd seen no evidence of that yet. So he needed to craft a new life for himself.

And gradually, a plan for that life was taking shape.

He was well advanced with discussions with a New York firm. An offer document lay on the table that he was planning to sign the next morning, once he'd slept on it.

But he didn't know what was about to hit him.

When it came, it knocked him flat.

An urgent email from James.

Tom, you need to get back here. The client is suing. Claiming negligence, claiming they would have had a better return if you hadn't fucked up.

I know it's bullshit, so do you. I've been over your files and you did it all by the book. As close to perfect as a deal can be, like always. But we're going to have to settle – the publicity from the court case would kill us. And to do that, you have to be here too. You're the one who knows the ins and outs of all this.

Get the fuck back to London – now. Tell me where you are, and I'll send a car to pick you up and bring you back from Timbuktu if I have to.

Real life was back with a vengeance. Edna wasn't done yet, not by a long chalk. She wanted revenge for his rejection, any way she could get it. And this time she wanted nothing less than his destruction.

He was packed up in less than an hour. Dressed for travel, clean-shaven for the first time in weeks, he was waiting near the door for his ride.

Hearing a knock, he didn't even think as he opened it.

Staring into the setting sun, blinded by the light.

"Tom?"