What could he say that would make her believe him. He was scared and knew if he couldn't make her see the truth; Then he was bound to lose her forever. "Yes, I have loved men and, I could love another..." Harry speaks as he stands in front of a woman.
"But, I don't love a man; I stand here now because I love you."
Tanya was holding her breath as she tried to cope with what he was saying. She had stopped at the bank to speak with her accountant.
When Harry approached her in a hallway as she was going to the other man's office.
The last time she had spoken with Harry Bright. They were involved in an affair that was between her second husband and her departure from the relationship. "Donna knows.." She responds, which only has Harry puzzled at first before he nods to her.
"I don't care who knows; It's not my concern of the past."
Her brow raised at what he had said; Didn't he know of the girl?
"Have you spoken to Donna?"
Why was she asking him about Donna? He wasn't there to speak about a fling he had several years before. He was there because of her because he knew she was a client at his bank.
"Donna Sheridan isn't involved with this Tanya; This is between you and me, and you're not listening to what I am saying to you!"
Tanya nods at first before she looks away from the man; To see if she was alone with him. "Harry, I-I didn't come here by myself."
Of course, she hadn't, the ring on her finger was enough to make it clear she was already on to the next available man with deep pockets. "Two months ago you were lying in bed with me, two months ago, I was trying to show you that we were enough for each other."
"And two months before then, you were having sex with a man named Gerald!"
Harry rubbed his eyes as his footsteps went toward where the woman was standing. "A man who left me when he realized I wasn't over you." He says low and close to the woman. His brown eyes, meeting her green when he straightens himself out. "You lie.." Tanya says as low as he had, as she met his gaze.
"Why do you think I gave into being with you without a second thought?" He asks. "Tanya, he left me...and you were all that I wanted when he was gone."
Tanya didn't know what to say in response to that. Her chest was tight, and her throat felt as if it was closing up on her. "I-I..." She couldn't get the words to come to her when a man came up behind her and touched her back. "Tanya, is everything alright?"
David Chesham had come to the woman's rescue, or so he believed. Harry knew the man from the newspaper article. At the time before the six months, she had come back into his life. He had known the man as a friend whom Tanya wasn't interested in pursuing as anything more than that. They had met just before Harry had made a spontaneous decision to seek out his first true heartbreak.
Having found her at the end of a failing marriage.
"Y-yes, of course, everything is fine.." Tanya says faking a smile as her whole body turns to David.
Robert Leigh had been having affairs with other men when Harry met Tanya for the first time in fifteen years. She about cried when Bright had told her he was seeing a man. Believing she was turning all the men she had sex with 'gay'.
It took some time and a few drinks to make her see that was far from the truth. Tanya wasn't a woman who made men gay, she was a woman that seemed to have terrible luck in love. Moving from man to man for the sake of security and things she believed he needed in life.
"Her accountant, he's at lunch, I was trying to explain that to Mrs. Leigh." Harry decided to lie as he knew Tanya wouldn't tell the man why he was with her.
She did not even try to correct Harry when David sighs and smirks. "Of course, of all the times to be gone." Tanya gives a nod at what David says before she reaches up and puts her arms around the man's neck. "We can come back another time and make the arrangements."
It took Harry a moment to step back as Tanya hold's the other man in front of him.
He couldn't move any more than a few steps as his eyes are focused on the back of her head.
'Don't let go...don't let me go!'
Tanya is screaming in his memory as they had just made love for hours on end. It had taken longer than he wanted to admit to keeping himself from falling in love with her again. Two weeks 'before', they were in her apartment making love. Fucking like rabbits because they both had longed for something that neither of them had, had for far longer than they realized.
"Is that all you wanted to say?" David speaks bringing Harry from his thoughts, as Tanya decided to look back at the other man.
"N-No, it's not.." Harry answers before he breaks into a smirk. "He wanted me to tell Tanya one more thing."
Tanya lets go of David as the thought of Harry confessing himself fills her chest with both desire and uneasiness. Watching as the man came back over to where they had been before David arrived. Only Bright leans closer so that he can whisper something to her. Tanya can feel the heat coming off of him when her eyes whelm in tears.
"Breaking up is never easy, I know. But I have to go. Knowing me, knowing you. It's the best I can do."
A gasp escapes the woman before she has time to register what had happened; While Harry Bright has already pulled back and walked past both the man and woman. Leaving without another word spoken between himself and Tanya.
David left in the dark of what was going on, as he reaches to touch her shoulder. "What was that all about?" He asks for a sigh to come and the woman to turn with tears on her face and yet smiling the moment she saw him. "I think it's time I change banks, it seems things aren't going to work out here any longer."
As David was an understanding soul, he accepted what the woman told him. While Harry was marching on through his place of work. Pulling at his tie in frustration. As he is trying to leave the scene of yet another broken dream in his life.
Two months before...
"Marry me, Tanya..." Harry says as he held the woman in one arm as she lays her head on the man's chest. "Robert doesn't deserve you, he never has, and I-I can't see you keep hurting yourself being with a man who doesn't want you." Tanya's eyes were staring off to the bed as she listens to him speak. He had always told her such sweet and innocent things. She knew it was why she had fallen for him the first time. It wasn't just the fact he adored her every moment of the day, it was that he meant everything he told her.
"You don't have to say anything now, I know it's not what you may want to hear...b-but I love you."
Of course, she wouldn't believe that. It was all the sex that was making Harry say those words. Having fucked their way through the apartment after two weeks of trying to be friends. One step into her home, and Harry had her undressed. Another step and he was worshipping every part of her body. Remembering every piece of her and taking in each new scar or way her shape had changed with age.
"Can you just tell me if you can hear me?"
Tanya's eyes moved up from the mattress and stares at the wall nearest to the bed. "I can hear you." She answers him faintly.
Tanya was torn between desire, love, and her marriage. She knew the moment Harry left out of her apartment that day. That she was going to run, and run as far as she could.
"I love you, Harry...I love you more than you could ever understand.." But she couldn't let herself ruin his life. Not like the way she was ruining her own. "I'll think about it." Harry knew it was all he could ask of her. Only he would never know what she truly thought about marrying him.
After that, he wouldn't hear from her for two months. Only to find her at his place of work, with another man. With her hand already given to the next contestant.
Present Day;
"Alcohol and ABBA will be the death of me.." Harry says with a glass of vodka in his hand and S.O.S. playing on repeat; Singing softly to himself as he sits in his apartment alone.
"When you're gone...Though I try, how can I carry on?"
