“I made a mistake.”
“Christo, si, you made a mistake. And now you’re asking me to forgive and forget.”
She swept her eyes shut, knowing what a monumental task that would be for him. “For Jack.”
“Yes, for Jack.” He ground his teeth together, and she was conscious, out of nowhere, of how close they were to one another. His long fingers were curled around her wrists, and every time he sucked in a breath his chest moved forward to brush against her nipples.
The last thing she’d expected to feel for this man ever again, and especially in that moment, was desire, but there it was, turning her blood to lava and her knees to jelly.
Something in the air around them shifted, changing so that she was conscious of him in a way that was all-consuming and definitely not one-sided. She saw the way his eyes changed, his pupils flexing, his lids lowering; she saw his lips part and felt his warm breath fan her temples and her own lips mirrored his, separating and pushing a soft breath from her lungs.
“You should have told me about him.” And despite the anger he’d thrown at her, the fury, the threats, her stomach looped because she felt what was at the root of everything he’d said and done: devastation.
He was devastated.
She sobbed, but he lifted a finger to her lips, and she gasped in surprise, the touch totally unexpected.
“Stop crying.”
She shook her head a little. “I can’t.”
His hands cupped her face then, holding her completely still, and her hands, now free, dropped to her side. “I will never forgive you for keeping my son away from me.”
His words were like acid and his touch was like silk. She couldn’t fathom how she felt.
“But it appears I cannot make the same decision you did. I will not push you out of his life.” Her heart turned over in her chest.
His thumb padded over her lower lip and her heart rabbited against her ribs for another reason now. Despite the seriousness of this conversation, she could barely concentrate.
“You and Jack will move into my house.” The words were devoid of emotion. “For six months, you will live with me, to see if we can do it your way – and raise him together.”
It was more than she’d expected. Different to what she’d hoped and yet it made a strange kind of sense. “We’ll live together?”
His eyes flashed. “For Jack’s sake, yes, but you and I will remember the truth, Elodie. We will know what we think and feel, no matter how much effort we go to for the happiness of our son.”
His head dropped a little lower, his eyes scanning hers. “You will know that when I smile, it means nothing. That my anger and hatred for your decisions are still inside of me, weighing down on me with the pressure of every single day of Jack’s life I have missed.”
Salty tears clogged her eyes.
“You will know, when we look at Jack and laugh, like normal parents, that it’s a lie.”
Her lips parted on a gasp, or perhaps the start of a plea, a desire to make him stop talking like this. “And you will know that if I kiss you, Elodie, it is because of the same chemistry that drove us together that night, and nothing more. You will know that I will never like you as a person, that I will never forgive you for your decisions.”
She didn’t get a chance to speak. His lips claimed hers and she moaned, knees that had been jelly for long, aching minutes giving way so she would have collapsed to the ground if it weren’t for his arm clamped vice-like around her back, holding her to his body, binding them together.
And they were bound together. By their son, and by something else, something that lodged inside Elodie and refused to let go.
Chapter 4
“DON’T.” She shook her head but didn’t pull back.
She didn’t want to.
Her brain was screaming at her to put some distance between them but her body…oh, her traitorous, treacherous body. Everything shook and trembled inside of her, and her hands were lifting and tangling in his hair of their own accord. She remembered this so well – the feeling of her body pressed to his. The height difference meant she had to push right up to be able to reach, but his hands curved around her waist and lifted her the rest of the way, holding her to him, her feet off the floor, as though it was the only way they could exist.
His words were still hammering inside of her, the disdain he felt for her evident in every single one, but her body was desperate, hungry, and for a moment, she willingly pushed away common sense and simply existed. She felt rather than thought.
His kiss dominated her.
It was only afterwards that she realised it was a punishing kiss, designed to draw submission from her, to show her his pain, even when it was a pain she already understood. But punishing or not, the kiss swirled the waters of her soul so she was whimpering into his mouth before she realised it, and only just stopped herself from moaning, ‘please’, into the room.
Her intense need was a wake up call.
With a fierce burst of reason, she pushed at his chest, separating them now, her feet finding the floor physically and metaphorically, shock at what had just happened causing her to lift trembling fingers to her lips as though she could wipe his kiss away.
It was some very small consolation that he looked as shocked as she felt.
“Don’t,” she said again, but this time, she meant it. “Don’t you dare kiss me.”
Whatever surprise he felt was disguised quickly enough. He lifted a single brow, regarding her with arch mockery.
“I mean it, Fiero. God,” she spun away from him, her stomach in knots. “A minute ago you were threatening to keep me out of my son’s life. How dare you follow that up by…by…”
“It won’t happen again.” His words were curt and the rustling sound of fabric alerted her to the fact he was moving. She spun around to see him at the door.
“My driver will bring you home when the doctor discharges you.” He hovered just inside the door, staring at her with a wave of resentment.
“What?” She muttered, when he continued to stare without speaking.
“I will not raise my son in a war zone.” The words were grim. “If we cannot find a way to live together peaceably then this deal is off.”
Her heart fluttered. Meaning he’d make good on his threat and ship her off, fight her for custody. My son. I will not…Everything was coming from him. His perspective, his feelings. How had he made her the villain in all of this? She’d had every reason to believe the worst of him. She’d chosen to be a single mother rather than destroy his marriage – wasn’t that worth something?
Evidently not. His expression was shuttered. “I’ll see you later.”
The words dropped into the room like dead weights. She shuddered, spinning away from him, her pulse racing, her heart heavy.
How was this possible?
Her eyes chased the familiar shrubs and bushes that were visible from her window but she drew no pleasure from them today. There was only misery.
How could they ever make this work?
She closed her eyes and there was Jack, his dimpled face as familiar to her as her own. She closed her eyes and saw their son and she knew that, somehow, they would. Because failure simply wasn’t an option.
The night they’d met, she’d been captivated by Fiero. She’d never known anyone like him, and more than that, he’d offered her kindness at a moment when she’d badly needed it.
Six months after her parents’ death, on their wedding anniversary, she’d gone to the London hotel they’d had their wedding dinner at, intending to dine in the restaurant and honour them with a glass of the finest champagne.
Only she hadn’t reserved a seat, naively, and the restaurant had been full to capacity.
On the brink of walking away, Fiero had been there, a spare seat at his table, and he’d offered it to her.
He was handsome. Unbelievably so. But while she noticed his looks – only a blind woman would fail to notice them – it was so much more
than that. She’d taken a seat but it had been more like being sucked into the orbit of a shining star. His accent was light – hints of American mingled with upper-class British and the husky softness of an Italian lilt that had sent little explosions going in her veins. Then there were his stories – light-hearted and amusing. Charming.
She’d had years to reflect on that, and she saw now, with the kind of cynicism that came as a result of disappointment, that his charm was nothing other than a practiced seduction. His stories designed to entertain without enlightening, so he talked and yet she learned very little about him. He’d grown up in Italy, but moved around a lot – my grandparents raised me and my grandfather had business interests all over the world. Little sentences which meant nothing to Elodie but which, once she googled him and learned who he was, understood in greater detail.
To Elodie, their dinner had been the start of something incredible – where her parents’ marriage had begun, she’d felt her own heart burst to life, and on the basis of a few hours over a candlelit dinner, she’d suddenly seen a whole future, she’d seen a man she wanted to know inside and out, in every way.
If she hadn’t felt that, she would never have invited him back to her flat. She’d have never let her guard down.
He’d been so different to anyone she’d ever met.
He’d been special, and he’d made her feel special, even when she saw now that she’d been just another woman in his bed, a notch on his bedpost.
Disgust and anger exploded in her chest, and they were emotions she was grateful for, emotions that would be essential to surviving the next few months.
And then what?
Their son was two. It would be years before they were no longer bound together in the same way. Years before she wouldn’t have Fiero as a fixture in her daily life.
Damn it. Anger was still there, but so was something far more dangerous, something she wished, more than anything, she didn’t feel. Desire surged inside of her, their kiss still tingling on her lips, overwriting memories of the night they’d spent together and the powerful way his body had claimed hers.
She groaned quietly, shaking her head.
This would be a disaster.
This would be a disaster.
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel as he sped out of the private hospital’s gates, his gaze focussed on the road in the distance, his mind absorbing everything that had just happened.
He cursed into the confines of the luxury car, his body filled with adrenaline and a deep, resonant ache for the woman he had, over the past six weeks, come to hate with every fibre of his being.
Every moment he spent with their son caused that hatred to deepen, every smile, every laugh, every word, showed him only what he had missed, and why.
His hands gripped the wheel more tightly, until his knuckles glowed white, and he swore once more, the curse ripping through the car with a satisfying volume.
His anger and resentment had made him want to do the unforgivable right back to her. How tempted he’d been to remove her from his life, from Jack’s life, to give her a taste of her own medicine. It would have been wrong, and he knew that, morally repugnant and not in their son’s interests, just as she’d said, and yet the temptation had been there to do whatever the hell he could to show her his pain, to let her see how wrong she’d been.
Instead, he’d offered for her to damn well move in with him.
That wouldn’t be such a disaster except for their kiss, which showed him very clearly that no matter how little he thought of her and her actions, he still wanted her. He wanted her in a way that made no sense, and he bitterly resented that fact. Elodie Gardiner was the most captivating woman he’d ever known, but her lie was something that ate through him like acid. Perhaps if he hadn’t already known the pain of infertility, of a stillborn son, the loss of a child, perhaps he could make allowances for her choice. Perhaps he might even acknowledge that there’d been an element of bravery in her decision to raise their son on her own.
But his heart had been cut deeply by his experiences and Elodie’s choice was like fresh pain being scored over old. He had to remember that, even when he looked at her and wanted to forget all this, when he wanted to simply lose himself in the passion she could arouse, in the needs she sparked to life deep in his soul…
She wouldn’t show it, but Elodie was exhausted. Since the accident, she’d been sleeping more – something her doctors had assured her was part and parcel of any injury, let alone one like hers. But the afternoon had taken its toll.
Arriving at Fiero’s house, being shown around by the nanny Emilia, spending the afternoon with a very excited Jack – who wanted to show her every little thing he had found to love in this enormous, palatial residence, and most of all, pretending she wasn’t utterly panicked by what she’d agreed to.
But she knew it wasn’t as simple as that. She’d had no choice but to agree with this, no choice to fall in with his plans. Losing Jack wasn’t an option. Her tummy squeezed at the very idea.
She’d known enough loss, she’d felt the cold hand of loneliness, and worse, regret. Regret at the part she’d played in her parents’ death, regret that she hadn’t spent enough time with them in the years leading up to it. Regret that she’d let her professional ambitions overrule any sense of family obligations.
Had they known how much she loved them? How grateful she was for them, every day? And for the sacrifices they’d made so she could live her best life?
A lump formed in her throat and she blinked to clear the tears from forming in her eyes.
Parenting was full of rewards but it was also full of sacrifices. Living here with Fiero would cost her but it was the right decision – for Jack.
She ran a hand over his thick hair, trying not to think how much like his father he was, and then pressed a kiss to his brow. He didn’t move. He was completely, sound asleep. And yet she lingered a few moments longer, reluctant now to move through the house.
When Jack had been awake, she’d felt a sense of belonging and rightness. But now? At night, while Jack slept? A feeling of being an intruder, unwelcome and unwanted, shifted inside of her, so she spent longer than was necessary tidying his room in the dim light cast from the hallway.
When she couldn’t possibly delay any longer, and her stomach was groaning in complaint at the fact she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, she made her way downstairs.
She knew there were housekeepers and domestics who came to the house during the day, but at night, it was deserted. The nanny Fiero had hired for Jack, and who would apparently remain for the foreseeable future, had her own suite of rooms adjoining Jack’s, including a kitchen and sitting area, so Elodie imagined she didn’t come into the main house much at all.
Meaning Elodie was, to all intents and purposes, alone. With Fiero.
Goosebumps formed on her skin and her fingers trembled a little. She jammed them into the pockets of her jeans, making her way to the kitchen. She’d just put some water onto boil and gathered the ingredients for an easy pasta when a noise alerted her to the fact she wasn’t alone.
Fiero strolled into the kitchen and her pulse immediately skyrocketed, her eyes devouring him where he stood. He was wearing dark denim jeans, a white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a suit jacket, navy blue in colour. She swallowed, but her mouth was so dry she could barely form words.
His eyes were coldly mocking, and the heat in her veins turned to ice. She jerked her head away, fixing her attention on the assortment of vegetables she’d been about to chop.
“I’m going out.” He walked past her and pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge, then two glasses. He half-filled both.
“Oh. Okay.” The disappointment was absurd. Minutes ago she’d been tiptoeing around, terrified to see him again. Now that he’d announced he was leaving she felt a wave of desperation. What had she expected? A welcome dinner? He’d made his feelings clear.
“Did you – want to eat before you go?”
“I’ll eat at the restaurant.” He slid one glass towards her and lifted his, his gaze locked to her face in a way that was disconcerting and caused adrenalin to spike through her at the same time.
“Right. Of course.”
She lifted her wine glass for something to do and took a sip.
“Do you still live in Earls Court?”
The question surprised her. It was conversational. Did he mean for them to truly try to make some kind of friendship out of the ruins of this situation?
“I…yes. I had been planning to move out of London a bit, to find somewhere bigger and cheaper, but the landlord ended up offering to convert the flat next door for me, so we had loads of space. It’s much bigger than when…that night… when you were…” Her eyes swept shut, mortification at the fact she’d invoked that night warring with the certainty she’d been babbling.
“Axel, my landlord – he’s really more of a friend, actually – has kept the rent reasonable. We’ve been very lucky there. Our expenses aren’t huge. And I inherited a bit when my parents died.” Grief perforated her, as it always did when she thought of them, and how much they’d missed. How much Jack had lost in not having them to know and love. Her mother would have spoiled him silly.
“I see.” His eyes were narrowed when she risked a look at his symmetrical face.
He didn’t speak for several moments and the silence was far from comfortable. It pulsed around them, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say or do to break it.
He took another drink of his wine, then placed the glass down between them, his finger tracing the rim of the glass. “There is so much I don’t know.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. “What do you mean?”
A dark emotion flashed in the depths of his eyes. “How old was he when he said his first word? Took his first steps? Does he get nightmares? Is he a happy child? Does he like clowns? Dinosaurs?” His eyes were loaded with accusation and she felt it, all the way down to the pit of her stomach.
“There is so much I don’t know, and you are the only person who can give me these answers, but talking to you—,” He shook his head and pain lanced her. “I hate that I have to ask you questions like this about my own son. I hate that you’ve done this to me.”
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