Something like pain tore through her. It was a kind offer to include Lauren but she didn’t really belong. This wasn’t her family, they weren’t even her friends. She was working in the house and sleeping with Raf, but both those things would stop – and soon – and then she’d never see any of these people again. What was the point in pretending?
“No, thank you.” Without realising it, her voice assumed an air of cool distance, reminiscent of when she’d first come to work at Villa Fortune.
“You should have dinner with us,” Raf’s voice was dark, husky, a silent entreaty in the tones of his words.
She shook her head, a plea in her eyes. “I was just looking for my book. I’ve reached a crucial chapter. Good night.”
It was very good luck that a moment later he saw a paperback casually discarded on an end table in the salon. Raf grabbed it and held it in front of his chest. “Lauren’s book. I’ll just deliver this. I’ll meet you on the terrace.”
Before either could respond, he turned and left the room, moving quickly through the house towards her bedroom. At the door, he paused before lifting his hand and knocking. A second later he pushed the door inwards. Lauren was standing near the window, her shoulder propped against the frame, her eyes trained on the view beyond.
He smiled when he saw her, the same smile that came easily to him when Lauren was around.
“I found your book.”
“My what?”
He held it out. “This. You were looking for it?”
She frowned. “Oh, right, yes.” She nodded, pushing away from the window and walking towards him. “Thank you.”
But she was distracted, barely even noticing he was there. “Were you on your way to my room tonight?” He teased, waiting for her reaction.
Her eyes flew wide and she shook her head, then looked to the ground. “I didn’t know Alessia and Max would be here.”
“Nor did I.” He closed the distance between them, putting his arms around her. “Relax, you’re not in trouble. It isn’t as though the school principal found you stealing supplies or something.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “I wasn’t prepared to answer questions. I didn’t want to risk her finding out…”
“I know. Come to dinner. I promise, I won’t give the game away.”
Lauren shook her head. “It’s too risky.”
“What risk? You think we can’t sit at a table together without someone guessing we’re having sex?” Frustration made the words gruff.
Her eyes showed surprise and then something else. She stepped away from him, moving back to the window, her fingers moving to the ring she wore on her right hand. He’d never paid close enough attention but now that he looked at it, he could guess the significance. A wedding ring.
Something rolled through him – something unpleasant. She was no longer married, but this visible sign of another man’s possession, a token of love she still wore six years after his death, did something strange to Raf’s equilibrium. And that damn near bowled him over. Why should he care that she still wore his ring?
“Were you coming to my room to spend the night?”
She bit down on her lower lip. “Yes.”
“Good. Then let me get rid of Max and Alessia as quickly as possible and we can pick up where you almost left off. Deal?”
She turned to face him, and it was obvious that her thoughts were running away with her.
“Lauren? What is it?”
She lifted a hand to his chest, pressing it there. He sensed she was about to say something, but then she shook her head and smiled, and it was a smile of genuine happiness. Only her eyes showed a lingering hint of trouble. “Nothing. I’ll see you later.”
He caught her chin and lifted it, kissing her slowly, but not slowly enough. He wanted to savour the moment, to enjoy everything about it, but it wasn’t the time.
“Later,” he promised, pulling away, and his eyes showed that the kiss had been only the beginning.
A thousand things exploded inside Lauren as she lay curled against Raf, their bodies fitting together perfectly, his rhythmic breathing so reassuring, so familiar, his strength comforting her even when she didn’t know why she needed it, his powerful arm wrapped around her body, keeping her locked to his frame.
She didn’t know what time it was, only that it was late and she’d been trying to sleep but her mind wouldn’t shut off. Briefly, things had felt normal. When they’d made love, she could forget, she could push everything out of her mind, but now, the doubts were back, the questions, the obvious point they were nearing.
She had to leave. But not right away, surely?
She could stay a few more days. Maybe a week?
And then what? What would that change?
She expelled a soft sigh, wishing she could make better sense of what she wanted. Or what she didn’t want. Nothing was easy. This thing with Raf was supposed to be fun – she’d come into it knowing it would end, and they’d agreed to end it ‘with no regrets’. So why did the idea of leaving him now fill her with a dull ache in the region of her heart? Why did she feel like she was preparing to say one of the hardest goodbyes all over again?
Why did she feel –
Her heart skidded to a stop.
Why did she feel like she’d been struck by lightning?
Because she had been.
She groaned softly and squeezed her eyes shut, reality seeping into a head and a heart that were oh so reluctant to accept it.
How could this be possible? She didn’t love Raf. She couldn’t love him. She loved Thom. He was her husband. He was the man she’d promised to love for the rest of her life. How could she have betrayed him by falling in love with Raf?
Another groan, because it didn’t matter how badly she wished it hadn’t happened, the answer was so blatantly obvious. She loved Raf. She loved everything about him – his body, his mind, the way he made her feel. She loved spending time with him, and being with him. She simply loved him.
And that was a disaster.
They’d made each other a promise right at the start – when this was over they’d go their separate ways. He’d told her again and again that he didn’t want a relationship. She’d been stupid and fallen in love with him but she knew he didn’t feel the same way about her. She’d had a thousand and one indications that was the case, not to mention his bald confirmation of the fact.
Everything about this was impossible. She refused to allow it. This was temporary. Nothing lasts forever. She had a life and a job, many things that would call her away from Italy.
She had to leave – and soon.
“Good morning.” Lauren stiffened at the sound of Raf approaching. She wasn’t ready for this. Yaya’s face broke into a smile of pure joy; she held a hand out.
“I didn’t expect to see you out here.” He dropped a kiss to Yaya’s head and took the empty seat at the table, helping himself to a glass and pouring orange juice into it. “Good morning, Lauren.”
His eyes showed amusement at how they’d spent the night, and the fact it was their secret; she couldn’t respond in kind.
“Raf, I need your help,” Yaya interrupted, reaching over and putting a hand on his.
“Of course, what is it?”
“Help me change Lauren’s mind.”
His grin was just a flicker but Lauren saw it and her belly squished in response.
“I don’t know if I’d be any good at that,” he murmured. “Lauren? Do you think I’m able to change your mind?”
He was flirting with her, teasing her, but Lauren didn’t rise to the bait. She kept her attention focussed on Yaya, so Raf did the same, shifting his gaze to the older woman’s face.
“What are you two arguing about?”
“Not arguing, exactly,” Yaya said with a shake of her head. “But she’s determined to leave me now that I’m not – as it turns out – dying.”
“What?”
He was surprised. Lauren dropped her gaze, guilt at the way
this had unravelled filling her.
“That’s what I said,” Yaya humphed. “I would have stretched out my recovery if I’d known it would mean Lauren’s departure. Why can’t the other wretched nurses leave?”
Lauren shook her head. “Because you’ll still need rehabilitation work and medical monitoring. What you don’t need is me.”
She couldn’t look at Raf. She couldn’t meet his eyes, she couldn’t even turn her head in his general direction.
“Surely that’s for Yaya to decide,” Raf said, the words quiet but with an undercurrent of stone.
She held her ground. “Actually, it’s not. I’m not a companion, I’m a counsellor,” she said gently, for Yaya’s sake. “I have a lot of people trying to book me.” She spoke without hubris, it was a point of fact. “And I’m sorry to say, they need me more than you do right now.”
“Now that’s not fair,” Yaya shook her head. “You’re making me feel bad when all I want is the pleasure of your company for a little longer. A week or so?”
But even that wasn’t possible. Knowing how she felt about Raf and the situation they were in made her need to escape – immediately. It was bad enough that she’d betrayed Thom by caring for someone else, but it would be so much worse if she let anyone discover the truth. She had to leave while this was just her guilty secret.
“One more week.” Raf spoke with all the command of a dynamic CEO used to having his every wish obeyed.
Lauren’s heart pricked. She felt tears burning her throat. “I can’t.” She directed the words to Yaya and simply hoped Raf would understand. A quick glance in his direction showed his lips compressed, his eyes locked to her with that same intensity she remembered from when they first started this.
“Oh, dear.” Yaya sipped her juice then put a hand on Lauren’s. “You’ve really made up your mind?”
Lauren couldn’t look at Raf. “I’m afraid so. I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Wait.”
She’d known he would follow. Of course. She couldn’t just drop a bombshell like that and expect he wouldn’t have something to say. She just wished he’d wait. Breakfast with Yaya had been excruciating. She thought leaving Raf would be the hard part but it turned out, Yaya had got under her skin too and the idea of disappearing from her life, from all of their lives, was horrible to contemplate.
She kept walking, her head dipped, crossing the threshold of the house and turning left, moving to the salon without having any idea where she was going.
He caught her at the doors, his fingers wrapping around her wrist, drawing her to a stop.
“Damn it, Lauren, wait.”
She stared up at him, the mask of impatience on his face cracking something inside of her. How could she have let this happen? Foolish, stupid her. She should have stuck to her original intention of ignoring him. This had all been a mistake.
“Yes?”
“Yes?” He repeated with a look of cynicism. “Seriously? ‘Yes’?”
She expelled a soft breath, her heart hammering against her ribs.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me what the hell happened between yesterday and today?” He frowned. “You were upset when you ran into Alessia. Is that it?”
If only he knew! Alessia had no part in this. It was simply her comprehension of her own heart. “This isn’t personal.”
“Of course it isn’t. You don’t do personal.” The words were scathing, and they hurt more than he could ever understand.
“Nor do you.”
“Wrong. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do love. I don’t do happily-ever-after. But I do personal.” He let the words sink in, each like a little bomb detonating under her skin. “And leaving without having the decency to broach it with me is worse than I would have expected.”
She opened her mouth, the unfair accusation digging into her. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?” He pushed, his body so close she could feel heat emanating from him. She swallowed, the act difficult given the lump in her throat.
“After I’d told Yaya. When I saw you next.”
“But not last night?” His eyes narrowed. “That’s why you were quiet when I brought the book to you, right?”
“No,” she shook his head. “I only made this decision today.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re running away from me.”
She couldn’t answer. She looked up at him as though she were drowning.
“You’ve been running away from me this whole time.”
“No,” she had to deny it. “I’ve been running to you some of the time as well.”
“Not really. Sex, sure, but heaven forbid we get intimate in any other way. Sleeping in my bed was too much for you. Because it felt ‘real’?”
“You don’t want real either!” She went on the attack out of a sense of self-preservation. He was right, she was running away, but not because she didn’t care about him! “Come on, Raf. Don’t put this all on me. There must be a part of you that’s glad I’m leaving?” She braced for his confirmation.
“We’re not done,” he said simply.
Her heart stammered. “No?”
“Cristo, no. Do you feel like this has run its course?”
She was half-pleasure, half-pain. Pleasure because he wanted her to stay and that was rewarding but pain because he had no doubts this would run its course and she didn’t want that.
“Stay a little longer, cara. Yaya wants you to. You know it would be a simple thing to agree.”
Not simple, no. Complicated and messy, and inevitably difficult. “She doesn’t need me.”
“Need? What about want? She wants you to stay. I want you to stay.” He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her where she was. “And you want to stay.” He kissed her then, a kiss that demanded submission, a kiss designed to draw from her the agreement he sought. She couldn’t give it. Her heart ached. She wrenched herself free, pulling her face away on a heavy sound. Fire stole through her soul.
“No, Raf. I want to leave. I’m done here.”
He stared at her with a thousand emotions in his eyes, but not one of them looked like love. He wasn’t capable of it. She should have realised that sooner – what other explanation was there for a grown man who spent his life going from city to city, avoiding relationships like the plague. They were both broken in vital ways – this had been doomed to fail from the start. Maybe she would have realised if she’d been hoping for love, but it hadn’t been on her radar. She’d been thinking only of guarding her own feelings, not trying to guess what his were.
“Just like that?”
She couldn’t love him without understanding him and she understood him well – the pain his mother’s desertion had spread through his soul, a pain he’d never really got over. But why should he be feeling that now? He didn’t love Lauren. His ego was smarting, that was all. She’d be a fool if she let herself hope there was something more in his reaction. But what if…?
“What do you want from me, Raf?”
The question brought a frown to his face. “Isn’t it obvious?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I want you to stay. Yaya wants you to stay.”
Specificity was vital. “So you want me to stay for her?”
“I don’t want you to leave her because you’re running away from me,” he said firmly. “If that’s it, then I’ll go. She shouldn’t have to lose you because of what we’ve had going on.”
Lauren’s heart stretched inside of her. He didn’t love her. He could flick a switch and walk away, just like he was accusing her of doing.
“What do you want, Lauren?”
She pressed her lips together, blocking the words from emerging. She wouldn’t tell him what she really wanted. She closed her eyes and thought of Thom and tears filled her eyes. What had she done?
“I want to leave,” she said on a watery sigh. “I want to go home to England, to another job, to people who need me more
than Yaya does.”
“So you can go and wrap yourself in more death and doom and gloom?”
Her heart twisted.
“You need to stop doing that.”
She flinched. “What do you mean?”
“You lost someone you loved, years ago, and since then, you’ve spent your entire life paying a macabre homage to death. No wonder you can’t get over him. I’ve never known anyone so determined to douse themself in loss.”
His words cut through her. She stared at Raf, ignoring the fact he was only saying what her mother, and Thom’s mother, had said – albeit more gently – on numerous occasions.
“I do what I do because it’s important.”
“Bullshit. You do what you do because it lets you keep living out your own loss. You do it because you’re terrified of living your life.” He expelled an angry breath. “It is important work, si. But you’ve paid your dues. You’ve helped a lot of people over the years. Now it’s time to help yourself. Can’t you see that you deserve that?”
She took a step back, shaking her head, her heart in tatters. She loved him and that gave him a unique power to hurt her. He wouldn’t realise, of course, how these words, coming from him, were uniquely able to cut through her.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You’re having fun with me so you’re running away to wrap yourself up in a new patient, to feel more grief, more sadness, because you feel like that’s a way to honour Thom. But is this really how you want to live your life?” He closed the distance between them. “Because I’ve got news for you, Lauren. This isn’t living. You’re existing, but it’s not life.”
She shook her head, pain lashing her. “You don’t understand. You have no right to comment –,”
“Fine,” he snapped, his nostrils flaring, his chest moving with the force of his breath. “I won’t comment then.”
“And you have no right to talk! You’re a professional loner! You travel from country to country, indulging your ridiculous adrenaline sports, pushing everyone away just like you’ve accused me of doing!”
Nothing Lasts Forever (The Montebellos Book 4) Page 14