It was unspeakably erotic.
Now, she saw it differently, of course.
Elodie had dated before, but never seriously, never for long. She didn’t like the way boyfriends seem to expect her to have endless time to binge watch Netflix shows on weekends when she’d had work to catch up on. She hadn’t liked the way they’d silently disapproved of the hours she kept, the long days, the constant presence of her phone at her side, her willingness to let it make incursion on any time of her day or night.
She’d had no real experience to speak of. Not with someone like Fiero Montebello. He’d overwhelmed every single one of her senses.
Or maybe it was that losing her parents as she had, so unexpectedly and in a way she couldn’t absolve herself of guilt from, had woken her up in some way.
She’d made wholesale changes to her life almost immediately, unable to believe the decisions she’d made, the ways she’d treated them. She’d sworn she wouldn’t let life pass her by, that she’d do what they’d always wanted her to – get out and see the world.
Meeting Fiero had been in the midst of the ‘gap year’ they’d wanted her to take, which she’d refused to have any part in. Mum, you don’t get it. This internship is like a one in a billion chance. I’m not going to stuff it up to go backpacking and stay in feral hostels.
She cringed now at how dismissive she’d been of their wishes. How unwilling she’d been to listen to them, to see that there was wisdom in their experience, and to recognise that they knew her better than she knew herself. Life is a marathon, Rosie. Your career will wait. Go and explore. Open yourself up to new opportunities.
Rosie. Her lips curved in a wistful smile.
Her mother had always used her middle name, only calling her Elodie Rose when she was in trouble. Otherwise, it had been Rosie, and every year, there’d been a beautiful bunch of roses on her birthday.
Roses just like the ones she’d looked out on from the hospital as she’d recovered, roses that had almost seemed like a sign from her mother, a hug, an embrace, a reminder that they were still with her.
Not in a spiritual way, so much as the way all great parents were with their children, always and for all time. They were a part of her soul, her decisions, her life – their biology had informed hers, and their attitudes had shaped who she was. And now, they were a part of Jack.
Her eyes swept shut as she pictured her son, their son. She and Fiero had created him; he was a reflection of them, even when he looked as though he had been cast solely in Fiero’s image. She knew she was in him, in his smile and laugh, and that her parents were there too.
She’d given him her father’s name, so he’d grow up to know of them, to understand his grandparents had been wonderful people, even though he’d never get to meet them.
A small sigh parted her lips, and then a noise had her eyes bursting open and shifting towards the noise – to her left.
And her mouth went dry, her heart began to pound hard against her ribs, adrenaline screamed in her ears.
Just a metre or so across, there was another little Juliette balcony, this one occupied by Fiero. He’d taken his jacket and shirt off, so he wore only jeans, slung low on his hips, and in his hand he cradled a single scotch tumbler.
He was watching her unashamedly and unapologetically.
A thousand things occurred to her, all at once.
If she reached her hand out and he did the same, they could touch. Her fingers could brush his.
His bedroom must be there, on the other side of the wall to hers, so close.
He was so beautiful, physically perfect, strong and vital.
Her breath was rushed, her lungs too tight.
She couldn’t speak. Words were beyond her.
“It’s late.” His voice was gravelled.
Her pulse sped up.
“Is it?” The words were too fast, too high-pitched.
His half-smile was derisive. “After one.”
She nodded, turning to look back inside, as though she could see her bedside table from where she stood.
What could she say in response? That she couldn’t sleep?
And let him wonder why?
“I like late nights.”
His eyes glittered in his handsome face. “Do you?”
She nodded jerkily, turning her attention back to the view of Rome, the sparkling lights, but now, she barely saw it. Every single part of her was absorbed by this man, swallowed up by his nearness beneath the spectacular starlit night.
“I didn’t know you were there.”
“I’ve been here all along.”
She swept her eyes shut. “I meant, I didn’t know your bedroom was there. Beside mine.”
Nothing. Silence.
And when she turned to look at him, his expression was impossible to comprehend. “You say you were going to tell him about me?” The words travelled through the evening air, landing against her with a dull thud. She nodded, anguish on her features.
“Yet you gave him your name. Not mine.”
She blanched visibly. “Yes.”
“So he wouldn’t know about me?”
“So the press wouldn’t know about him,” she responded tautly. “Montebello isn’t exactly a name you give your kid if you want them to fly under the radar. Plus with his looks, it wouldn’t take anyone long to put two and two together…”
“So you were actively hiding the truth of his identity?”
“You make it sound so sinister.” She lifted her fingertips to her temples. “Neither of us meant for me to fall pregnant, right?” She stared at him, waiting for him to respond. When he didn’t, she shook her head. “You were so careful with protection, Fiero. This wasn’t your fault.”
“Christo, my fault? You see our son as something you want to blame someone for?”
“Don’t twist my words. That’s not what I meant. But you don’t bear any of the responsibility for this, for him.” She swallowed. “I chose to have him, to raise him. That was my choice.”
He glared at her, his expression forbidding. She was making it all so much worse. “You think I would ever have dodged this ‘responsibility’?”
“No,” she sighed. “But I wasn’t going to foist it on you, Fiero. It was quite clear that all you wanted from me was sex, and then discovering you were married…”
A muscle jerked in his jaw and something in his expression shifted, so for the briefest moment she felt like perhaps she was getting through to him, like maybe he understood. But his next words were a growl.
“And if he asked about me?”
She blinked, unspeaking.
“He is only two, but before long he’ll start nursery school, make friends, and realise that he’s missing a father in his life. What then?”
“I would have told him about you,” she promised.
“And if he wanted to meet me? To know me?”
She swallowed. “I would have let him. I wanted that too, you have to believe me. Just not…”
“Not what?”
“While he was young. While it was all so fresh. Your marriage –,” his face was like a thunderclap, making her stumble a little in her sentence. “It had all just happened. I thought it would be harder for your wife to forgive all this if I arrived, nine months after that night, clutching a pink, screaming newborn.” She swallowed, so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t register the look of complete grief that stretched his face taut. “But a five year old, a ten year old, by then it would simply be water under the bridge.”
He drank his scotch and moved to the edge of the balcony, so they were less than a metre apart. She could see everything on his face, every feature, every shift of emotion, everything.
“And I would have missed five times what I have now.” His words were thick with recrimination.
His grief did something to her, pulled at her heartstrings and her conscience, so she heard herself saying, “Do you want to talk about it? Now?”
His expression shifted,
a look of something like anger morphing into something like frustration. “No. And yes.” He dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on her. “I knew you for one night, but I would have sworn on my deathbed that you were the last person alive capable of doing something like this. Of keeping something like this a secret.”
It was pleasure and pain, all in one. His judgement destroyed the praise.
Tears filled her eyes. Before she could ask him, once more, to try to understand, he took a step back.
“It’s been two years. One more night isn’t going to change things. Go to sleep, Elodie. Tomorrow, you can start telling me all that I have missed.”
He turned his back and disappeared, leaving her with a heart that was broken and changing, filling with emotions she didn’t want to examine, with feelings she didn’t want to comprehend.
Six
FIERO WAS NOWHERE TO be seen the next morning. Knowing he was in the room just beyond the wall of her bedroom meant Elodie tossed and turned all night. It had been tempting to hole up in her room the next day, to avoid the need to see him, but that would be childish – not to mention pointless. This was his home, she couldn’t hide from him forever. And deep down, she knew she didn’t really want to.
Dressing carefully, brushing her hair until it shone and putting on enough makeup to look like her normal self – to hide the fact she’d barely slept – she finally went downstairs, keeping a watchful eye out for Fiero as she went.
Except he wasn’t there! ‘At work’, the housekeeper informed her with a smile, before going back to the business of dusting the skirting boards.
A rush of relief filled her, and she kept herself occupied with Jack, chatting to the nanny, trying not to think about Fiero even though – in his house – he was everywhere she looked. She felt his presence without wanting to, and she hated how much he filled her mind, how often she thought of him and the anguished look on his face whenever he spoke of the years he’d missed out on with their son.
Once Jack was settled into bed, Elodie had a light supper – some grapes and cheese – then took a mineral water onto the terrace. An infinity pool disappeared over the edge, towards Rome.
She sat at the edge of the water, dangling her lower legs in, her skirt bunched around her thighs. It was here that Fiero found her, when he arrived home just before eight.
He was still wearing a suit, and as she lifted her face to his, her heart kerthunked painfully in her chest at the sight of him – so handsome, so strong, as though he’d been cast from marble and granite.
“I’m sorry I missed Jack.” He strode across the terrace, coming to stand beside her, his hands on his hips, eyes fixed on the ancient city. It was bathed in pinks and oranges now, glowing as the sun dipped down beyond the horizon.
“He went to bed early.” Her words were soft; she cleared her throat and forced a tight smile. “We had a big day.”
She felt the intensity of his gaze. “You should still be taking it easy.”
Her heart rolled through her. Concern? She hadn’t expected that. She lifted her eyes to his face but saw nothing there, just a mask of cool disdain. It wasn’t concern then, so much as a repetition of what the doctors had said; a faithfulness to the rules that had been laid down.
“I had a call with Tokyo,” he explained abruptly, rubbing his palm against the back of his neck, his long fingers massaging the flesh there. She couldn’t watch him, it felt too personal, and yet she couldn’t look away. Heat spread through her veins like bubbling lava.
He crouched down then, his expression taut, his features a mask of control. “You put my name down at the hospital, when you were pregnant with Jack.”
“When I delivered him,” she nodded.
“Why?”
She turned away then, looking out over Rome. “There was no one else.”
Breath hissed from beneath his teeth and her eyes jerked to him again.
“If anything happened to me, I needed to know he’d be looked after.”
His eyes pinned her to the spot and saw right inside her heart. “But only if something happened to you. Only as a last resort.”
She bit down on her lip. “I’ve explained that. I can’t keep saying it. You might not agree with my decision but surely you can at least understand why—,”
He stood up then, pacing across the terrace, his back to her, his spine stiff.
“I do.” The words were quiet, so she had to strain to hear them. He whipped round to face her, his eyes showing his torment. “I understand that you thought you were doing the good and noble thing. But you weren’t. You were jealous of my wife, and angry at me. You thought I’d cheated on Alison with you and you didn’t think I deserved to know about him.”
“No.” Her eyes were haunted. “I was angry but I would never have kept your child from you for that reason. I was thinking of her, of your wife, and how little she deserved to have a stick of dynamite thrown into her life.” She remembered the way she’d felt then so vividly, it was like a dream from which there was no escape. “I was thinking of how complicated our baby’s life would be, how layered with arguments and unpleasantness from birth. I was thinking of the impossibility of it all, and determined that he wouldn’t become a pawn, or an object of hatred and resentment.”
He didn’t speak.
“Surely you can see why I thought that would be the case?” She implored him. “It wasn’t like I thought you or your wife would welcome him with open arms. Nor me. What if you or she tried to…” she looked away, the words difficult to form.
“What, Elodie?” He insisted, and when she lifted her gaze back to him, he had his hands on his hips, his face locked in an expression that was unforgiving and furious.
“You were married, wealthy, prominent in the business community. I was a nobody, on my own in a foreign country. I couldn’t afford to fight you for him.”
“The day in the hospital, you implied that you could.”
Danger rushed through her but having such a monumental lie between them, she needed to be completely honest now. “I have some money, but not enough. As you said, you’d hire ten lawyers for every one of mine. I was alone, pregnant, hormonal and terrified, yes, okay? I was terrified of what would happen.”
“So you took the easy path and kept me from him.” The words were thrown at her, harsh and searing.
“The easy path? Do you think for one second any of this has been easy for me? Raising a little boy on my own, looking at him and seeing you, carrying the guilt of my decision every day,” her voice cracked. “Whenever I see other families, dads with their babies, I would think of you, imagine you and him, and it felt as though my heart had been torn into pieces. Do you think I didn’t realise the importance of what I was doing? Separating you from him?” She shook her head angrily. “But so far as I knew you were married, and there was no easy way to ignore that. I couldn’t see what our life would be like – his and mine – I didn’t know he’d be welcomed, and there was a part of me that felt it was better for him to be a secret than to be unwanted.”
“He is my son,” he shouted, and then tilted his head back, staring at the sky, his chest moving with the force of his breathing. “I would always have wanted him.”
“I know that now.”
“You would have known it then, if you’d put aside your fears and come to speak to me.”
A tiny sob escaped her because he was right. But how could she have known he would feel like this? Everything she knew about him to that point made it impossible to believe he would act in her best interests – or those of their son.
He shook his head, his expression like an iron mask. “There is no sense discussing it. Neither of us can change the past, even if we wanted to.”
“No,” she agreed with him there. Her voice grew soft, cautious. “But you can’t keep banging me over the head with it, either, Fiero.”
At the use of his name, they both shifted a little. It was such a distinctive name, the sounds so familiar to her, names
she had cried into the air on that night they spent together. “If this is going to work, you have to let it go. You have to accept what I did, and who I am.”
His eyes narrowed.
“We made a child together. A beautiful, intelligent little boy, and you’re in his life now, regardless of the decisions I made then.”
“But if you hadn’t been hit by a van, Elodie?”
She nodded jerkily, surprised by the rush of fear that assaulted her. “I know.”
“You don’t know.” He moved back towards her, crouching down at her eye level once more, so she could see the torment in his features. “All I can think about is ‘what if’. What if you hadn’t been hit by the van? What if you were taken to a different hospital? What if you had died and our son was sent somewhere with someone else, and I never knew about him. You say it is in the past but the decision you made will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Stricken, she dropped her head, but his fingers caught her chin, lifting her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You cannot keep hiding from this. You think you can tell me you are sorry, that you can apologise and I will forgive you. I can’t. Not now, perhaps not ever. Our son deserved better.”
Tears sparkled on her lashes. “Please don’t say this. All I have done has been for Jack…”
“In some ways, perhaps. But you cut me out of his life, and nothing makes up for that. I’m not beating you over the head. I have no interest in that. My anger isn’t a vindictive punishment, it’s not petty revenge. It’s how I feel every time I look at him and see what I’ve missed out on.”
She nodded, her eyes sparkling with unwanted tears.
“You chose to come here, to my home, to live with me…”
“To stay with Jack,” she reminded him.
“Yes. But that means me as well, and as part of that you get a front row seat to how I feel, what I think about you, to how your decision has affected me. If that makes you uncomfortable, then you can leave, anytime.”
Her throat was raw. “You know I can’t do that.”
“So put up with this. Put up with the fact that I am going to take time to deal with your duplicity, to reconcile the woman I thought you were with the decisions you made, and the consequences of those decisions. My intention is not to hurt you, Elodie.” His words cut her deep though, exposing her heart and her soul. “But hurting you may well be an unavoidable by-product of how I come to terms with what you did. I can’t help that.”
Billionaire Baby Daddies: A five-book anthology Page 24