And to see her perspective, which was a skill that wasn’t particularly innate to him.
Putting aside the issue of Jack – Fiero knew he’d never be able to move past the fact he’d been shut out of his son’s life for so long – he could understand Elodie’s feelings. Her hurt. Her accusations. How lonely she’d been, how angry.
The fact he did believe her, that she wished she’d never met him. Jack was separate to that. Jack was a blessing and they were both aware of that, but the circumstances of his conception were something both had every reason to regret.
What the hell had he been thinking that night? He’d been married. Regardless of how he dressed that up to himself, he had never intended to cheat on Alison, never intended to break their vows.
But he had.
Why?
What was it about Elodie that drove him to the point of insanity? What was it about her that made him want to put aside everything he thought and felt, everything he knew, and sink into her without conscious thought?
He stalked out of his study and down the corridor. What time was it? He flicked a glance at his wristwatch. Just after nine. He hadn’t seen her since they’d returned from the playground – they hadn’t spoken since the bench near the gelataria.
But he wanted to talk to her now, to finish their conversation – a conversation in which he knew he hadn’t come off at all well.
He knocked on her door; there was no answer. A grim line formed on his face. He pushed into his own room and onto the balcony, craning to see if she was on hers.
No.
Downstairs, it was silent. He strode through the house and onto the terrace, quite by coincidence, and heard her. The gentle splishing and splashing of the pool that signalled she was swimming.
His gut twisted. He moved towards the water on autopilot, crouching down at the edge, waiting for her to reach it. Only she didn’t break the surface when she did. She flicked effortlessly beneath the water, her body tumbling against the pool’s end, spinning her in the opposite direction. He walked along the edge of the pool, in time with her, so when she finally ran out of breath and pushed up to standing, sucking in air fast and loud, he was right there.
Perhaps she sensed his presence, because she turned to face him almost immediately, her eyes showing hurt before she could cover it, before she could force a mask of cool onto her features. His gut twisted. Desire shifted inside of him, but there was sympathy too – sympathy for the hurt she felt, and his certainty that she didn’t deserve this. A sense of helplessness expanded through him – an unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion. He couldn’t change how he felt, the anger and resentment at the choices she’d made, and without his forgiveness, she was destined to live in this state of hurt, of woundedness.
He ground his teeth together, crouching down so he was at her height.
“It’s a nice night for it.”
She shrugged her slender shoulders, water droplets running over her flawless skin, drawing the attention of his eyes for a moment.
“Yes.” Clipped. Curt. Cross.
He stood up so he could shuck his shirt and pants, stripping down to his briefs.
“What are you doing?” Alarm showed in her words.
“I told you, it’s a nice night for it.”
Consternation was visible on her features as he dove into the water, surfacing just a few feet away from her. She watched him warily, her expression mutinous, strength in the line of her features.
“I was just about to get out.” She darted her gaze towards the edge of the pool.
He ignored her. “You were right today.”
She looked back at him, uncertainty on her face.
“I did choose to keep my full name from you. I made a conscious decision not to tell you I was a Montebello.”
The sun had set, but the sky still showed a hint of the day’s glow, just a whisper of colour on the horizon, just enough to show the trace of anger on her features. She hadn’t switched the terrace lights on – in an attempt to elude him? He wouldn’t be surprised.
“Because you were lying to me. You were using me.”
“I knew we could only ever be a one-night thing,” he nodded slowly. “And I was careful not to promise you more, not to intimate there could be more, because I knew that wasn’t possible.”
“I didn’t.” The words were hollow. “I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do casual sex. I had no idea you were planning to make me…to make me feel like that…and then disappear into thin air.”
Her statement was ridiculously buoying. It shouldn’t have been, but the fact she didn’t engage in casual sex, that what they’d shared had been unique and special to her, couldn’t help but affect him. It was machismo and beneath him but that didn’t change the fact he was glad.
“It wasn’t enough not to ‘intimate’,” she whispered, accusation heavy in the syllables. “You should have told me.”
He felt the power of her words, the force of her rightness, but it wasn’t a completely fair observation. “I presumed you understood.”
“Because you thought I was like you.” Her words smarted.
“I don’t do one-night stands either, cara.”
Her eyes seared his at his unintended use of the endearment.
“Sure you don’t.” Sarcasm was obvious.
“Sex is better when you’re with one partner for long enough to understand each other. I like to get to know a woman completely, to understand her.”
She recoiled as though he’d slapped her and he swore under his breath at his insensitivity. He made it sound as though Elodie was just another woman, one of many, who he was in the process of learning to play like an instrument. In reality, she was so different to that, and always had been.
This was a mess.
How could he make her understand?
“Alison was one of my best friends. I’ve known her a very long time. Her grandfather and mine were in the war together. They were best friends.”
Elodie’s breathing was audible, her features strained, and he knew she was fighting a war of her own, wanting to walk away from this but also held in place by a morbid curiosity. Her eyes were so beautiful; feline in shape and the most fascinating colour. Her long lashes were wet and spiky. He could lose himself in those eyes.
“One day she came to me in a complete panic. Her grandfather had developed a gambling addiction – she had no idea until it was too late. He’d lost everything, and they were in debt. Serious debt. I offered to help her; she refused. The plan to marry was something that just happened. I figured it would be the only way I could get her to see sense and share in my wealth.” He clamped his jaw together, frustration exploding through him. “If she’d been reasonable from the beginning it wouldn’t have come to that, but she’s so damned stubborn.” He shook his head angrily.
Elodie was silent, spell-bound, but there was anxiety in her face and he hated that. His throat felt as though it was lined with razor blades.
“We got married. I didn’t realise that it wasn’t just a business deal for her.”
“No?”
“She was in love with me.” The words were scathing. “We were friends, and had been since childhood.” He raked a hand through his hair, his features showing his pain.
“You have no idea how guilty I felt to realise that she thought our marriage might lead to more. That maybe I was in love with her too.”
“You weren’t?”
He shook his head. “I loved her – I still do – but I wasn’t ‘in love’ with her. There’s a difference.” He explained. “Unfortunately, it was too late to do much about it, once we were married.”
He swallowed, that awful time in his life one he didn’t like to think about. But it had taught him a valuable lesson about relationships – it was why it seemed vital to be brutally honest with Elodie now, to explain what he wanted so she didn’t start to hope for more than he was willing to offer.
“So you’re saying it wasn’t a real marriage?”
He ground his teeth together. “It became real.” He focussed beyond Elodie, on the twinkling lights in the distance. “I wanted it to be real, for her. I wanted her to be happy, and I thought if I could be a real husband to Alison…she deserved that.”
The pale column of Elodie’s throat shifted as she turned away from him, swimming to the edge of the pool. The moon was up now and it bathed her in a milky half-light, so she looked more ethereal than human, like a fairy sent down from the heavens to torture and intrigue him.
“So you did love her?”
He shook his head. “My feelings for her never changed, but we became intimate. We held hands, we kissed, we slept together.” Shame filled him and he couldn’t look at Elodie, he felt as though she was the woman he’d betrayed, when he hadn’t even known her at that stage!
“I wanted it to work. Our marriage meant the world to her, and to our grandparents. It was important.” A muscle throbbed at the base of his jaw. “About a year after our wedding, she fell pregnant.”
He felt the air ripple as Elodie jerked her face towards his. “What?”
He nodded slowly. “We had a beautiful little boy, Andreo. But he was stillborn, Elodie. He was…so quiet, frozen in her arms.”
Elodie’s eyes swept shut. “Oh my God. Fiero.” Anguish deepened the words. “I’m so sorry, for both of you.”
His nod was curt, but not because he was dismissing her words, because he was being broken anew by them. “It was…terrible.”
Such an insufficient way to describe that hellish state of his life.
“I can only imagine. No, I can’t even imagine.”
“Alison was destroyed. It took a long time to get past it, in any kind of way. A long time before she could look at me. And then, she became obsessed with falling pregnant again. It was all she could focus on. I tried, Elodie. I wanted to give her another baby, but there were so many miscarriages. So much heartbreak, and by the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sleep with her. I couldn’t be with her seeing her grief and knowing I was the cause of it. We destroyed each other, in a way.”
Her eyes were wet from the pool but he was sure he saw tears fill them and he cursed her gentle heart then. He didn’t want to layer fresh pain onto her. This wasn’t her loss to carry.
“The writing was on the wall for months before we agreed to end it. We were wrapped in this cycle of torture. It was a nightmare, Elodie. I wouldn’t wish that marriage on my worst enemy.” He expelled a long sigh.
“I reconciled myself to never having children. I presumed there was something wrong with me. And then I saw Jack and Christo, Elodie, he was so like that little boy of mine, the little boy who was born without breath. Their noses and lips, their chins, their faces are so similar.” He swallowed another curse, but anger beat a path through his body, as it always did when he thought of the child he and Alison had lost. What cruelty could extinguish such a beautiful life before it had been given any chance to be lived?
“I didn’t tell you who I was that night not because I was worried you might discover that I was married and I wanted to cheat on my wife with you. It wasn’t really a conscious decision, looking back. It’s just…you were like an island in the midst of everything else. What you and I shared was so different to my normal life, and I liked that. I didn’t want to poison what we shared with my grief and my loss, with the hell that was my marriage. I was selfish, si, but only because you made me feel alive for the first time in years and I wanted to hold onto that at any cost.”
Her sob was like torture. He stayed where he was, even when his body was urging him forward. He’d told her what he wanted and she’d pushed him away; he wouldn’t prey on her sensitivity and kindness to satiate his physical needs, even when he acknowledged they were all bound up together. Physical, emotional, mental, sensual.
“Why couldn’t you have children?”
His jaw tightened. “I don’t know. Alison was averse to the idea of fertility testing. She refused to believe there was a problem despite all the evidence to the contrary.” He shook his head. “I went anyway and was told my side of things worked fine. I didn’t believe it. It felt better to believe I was at fault somehow, because then perhaps I could fix things.”
“Did you consider adoption?”
“I considered everything but she was determined. She wanted our son. She wanted another Andreo.” He paused, taking a breath to calm the torrent of emotions that always flooded him when he thought of the child they’d lost. “It just wasn’t going to happen though.”
Elodie was crying openly now, silently but obviously. “I’m so sorry you went through that,” she whispered, the words landing around him with a strange comfort. Platitudes had been offered at the time and none had helped, but her words did something, knotting inside of him, tying parts of his soul back together.
And then, a moment later, “I’m sorry for Alison as well.” She shook her head, sympathy contorting her beautiful features. “When I was pregnant with Jack, I was so terrified of something going wrong.” She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know if there’s anything that could be worse.”
“Nor do I,” he agreed, the words made hoarse by the depth of his feelings.
She was still against the pool edge but they were closer now. He realised he’d moved towards her without intending to.
“Did you,” – he struggled to finish the sentence.
“Go on.”
“Did you think about not having him?”
Her face blanched, and her eyes widened. “No, Fiero. Never.”
He couldn’t say why, but her assurance did something else, stitching other parts of him together. “It must have been hard, discovering you were pregnant.”
“I have always seen Jack as a blessing,” she promised, lifting a hand to him so her soft fingers splayed across his chest. His heart thumped as though it was hungry to speak to her through their joined flesh.
“Is she still in love with you?” The words were strangely bleak. Then again, it wasn’t really so strange, not given the sombre nature of their conversation.
Thinking of Alison though brought a smile to his lips. “No.” He thought of how she’d been the last time he’d seen her and there was relief as well, relief that she’d found a better life for herself. “We filed our divorce papers shortly after my grandfather died.” He pictured Gianfelice and the familiar yearning filled him – the gap that the Montebello patriarch’s death had left in his life was one that would never be filled. “That was when you must have seen her, by the way. I was trying to work out how you could possibly have seen Alison at my house, given that she moved out before I met you, but she came to stay for a few days around the time of the funeral.”
Elodie’s eyes swept shut. “You looked so close. Like a perfect couple.”
“We weren’t.”
She bit down on her lip. “I wish I hadn’t just assumed…”
He could see her guilt and it cut through him, so he wanted to brush past that, to ease her pain in some way. “Of course you assumed,” he was surprised to hear himself say. “Alison was like my sister. After what we went through, we’ll always be close. You saw that when you looked at us. We weren’t a couple, but we’re bonded by the loss we experienced. She’s the only person on earth who understands the sense of impotence, the depth of pain.”
Elodie scrunched up her face, looking away from a moment as she steadied her breath. “I wish I’d…”
He interrupted her with a guttural noise of rejection. “There is no sense wishing.”
She nodded, her eyes awash with emotion. “I know. I can’t help it.”
Her regret did something strange to him. Anger that had lodged like a stone in his chest the day he’d discovered Jack was shifting, morphing. He ignored that, unable to contemplate it. He simply needed to explain – she deserved to know the truth about his marriage, about Alison, about everything.
“Our break up was amicable. We both knew it made sense; it was the right
thing to do. We retained lawyers as a matter of form, more to handle the administration of it all. I ensured she had a generous payout – it seemed like the least I could do. The hardest battle was ensuring she would accept it.” He grimaced. “A month after we filed the papers, she told me she’d met someone else.”
“Oh?” Elodie lifted one brow inquiringly.
“Her divorce lawyer,” Fiero laughed, and it felt good, the relief welcome after such darkness and pain. “Bram Carlisle of Carlisle, Duggan and Duggan.”
“I’m happy for her,” she said, the words ringing with authenticity.
“Yes. She is with someone who deserves her,” he quipped, but Elodie shook her head, a frown on her beautiful, cupid’s bow lips.
“You shouldn’t do that. You deserved her. This wasn’t your fault.”
He listened to her but didn’t quite believe what she was saying. “I should have found a way to help her that didn’t involve getting married. I didn’t understand how she felt about me, or what she wanted. I didn’t bother to think about that. To me, it was just a business deal, a merger; a way to get her to accept my help.”
“Which speaks volumes about your generosity, nothing else.”
His breath felt ragged in his lungs. “You’re defending my actions?”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking,” she agreed. “You were just trying to help a good friend.” The hand on his chest lifted to his face, curving around his cheek and her eyes bore intently into his. “You lost as much as she did, and more.” She swept her eyes towards the water and her throat moved as she swallowed, hard. “You lost two years of Jack’s life on top of everything else…” her sentence trailed off into nothing.
And what could he say? What could he offer? Nothing. No platitude to brush away her concerns. She was right. He’d lost Andreo, he’d lost Jack’s infancy. If he focussed on that, it hurt like hell.
But she was upset and he hated that, too. He pressed his thumb and forefinger beneath her chin, lifting her face to his once more. “You are an excellent mother. I’m glad Jack has you.”
Her lips parted and his eyes dropped to them on autopilot. It took every single fibre of willpower in his body to resist plundering her mouth with his own, to resist taking comfort in the only way he knew how.
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