Did he need any further proof that this man had spent the night?
He swallowed a curse, hooking the bag over his shoulder. Jack was at Axel’s feet now, and as Fiero watched, the other man crouched down, holding a hand up. Jack high fived it excitedly.
“See you in a few days, little buddy. You got your train?”
“Uh huh.” He lifted it from his pocket. “Here it is. Choo choo.”
“Good. You hold onto it and I might have another one next time I see you.”
“Percy?”
Axel grinned. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Fiero watched as the blond tousled Jack’s hair with a familiarity that was clearly born of regularity. Regular contact, regular affection.
Fury zipped inside him.
“Bye, Ax-man.” Jack hugged Axel and Fiero froze.
He stood locked to the spot, a frown on his face, his eyes sweeping over the scene. Then, he turned to study the flat once more, as an unpleasant suspicion began to form in his mind. Was it possible this man lived here? Had Elodie moved on that completely, already?
And so what if she had? Didn’t she deserve that? A chance to be happy with someone who could return her love? Was he really going to resent her that?
“Let’s go, Jack.” Fiero stalked towards the door, barely able to meet the other man’s eyes.
He held a hand down to Jack, breathing easier when the little boy put his own in Fiero’s.
“Tell Elodie Emilia will bring him back tomorrow some time.”
“She knows that.” Axel’s disapproval was apparent in every word he spoke.
Fiero narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure she does.” Only the presence of Jack stopped him from doing what he wanted to and giving the other man a hard shove in the chest.
He didn’t bother to say goodbye as he left.
It was either very bad timing or very good timing that Elodie turned the street corner right as Fiero emerged holding Jack. His eyes picked her out of the crowd instantly and without a moment’s hesitation, he carried Jack to the car and passed him to his driver. “Buckle him in, Paul.”
“Yes, sir.”
Elodie hadn’t spotted him yet. She was walking down the street, her head bent, so he had a moment to study her, to see her, and he drank the sight of her in even as blood was pounding in his ears, anger impossible to fight.
Had it really been a month since he’d seen her? She was instantly familiar, but not. There were subtle changes, something was indefinably different about her.
A smile lifted the corner of her lips as she approached her door, and it was the final straw. Was she smiling because of him? Axel? Acid rolled through Fiero.
Had he inadvertently created the perfect situation for them to explore a budding romance by taking Jack out of the equation so often?
The idea revolted him, it was something he fought with every fibre of his being. Before he knew what he was doing, or what he intended, he strode towards her, and perhaps it was the manner of his approach but she lifted her head, absentmindedly looking in his general direction before startling when her eyes slammed to a stop on his frame.
She stopped walking and stood completely still, the small smile on her lips falling away instantly.
“Oh my God.” She bit down on her lip in that way she had and an ache formed in the pit of his stomach then spread through his whole body.
He had no idea what he’d planned to say to her but face to face with Elodie Gardiner, Fiero found himself momentarily lost for words, so all he could do was stare, emotions firing through him.
“What are you doing here?” Her question was like a blade slicing through his chest.
“I came to collect our son.”
“Where’s Emilia?” The question was immediate. “Is she not well?”
Fiero didn’t want to tell Elodie the truth – that he’d chosen to come because he’d wanted to see her, to prove to himself how over her he was. He was livid, and he couldn’t say why. He had no right to feel anything for Elodie, nor to care if she had started to date her landlord. What business was it of his?
And yet the idea of her going upstairs to spend the day – and night? – with Axel filled Fiero with an undeniable rage, so he didn’t take the wise course of action and walk away.
“I met your friend.” The words were clipped, but laced with derision.
Elodie’s expression shifted slightly, a hint of anger sparking in her own eyes. “Ax?”
“Ax,” he repeated, the word infused with disgust. “I have to tell you, I’m not that happy with a stranger playing the part of daddy to my son.”
Her jaw dropped. She stared at him with undisguised disbelief. “Jack has known Ax all his life. Longer than you,” – she wisely chose not to finish that sentence but she didn’t have to.
“And whose fault is that?”
“Mine,” she snapped, but with exhaustion, and her eyes dropped away from his, her lower lip unsteady, so he felt a sharp burst of worry that she was going to cry. And despite his rage, he didn’t want her to cry. He shook his head, but it was too late. When she lifted her face to his, he saw a single tear tracking down her cheek and regret moved inside of him. “It’s my fault, okay?” She sucked in a deep breath and before he could speak, she added, “Where’s Jack?”
“In the car.” He looked over his shoulder. “With my driver.”
She nodded, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Well, have a good night.” She made to spin away but Fiero couldn’t let her leave. He reached for her, grabbing her hand to turn her around. A jolt of electricity fired in his veins.
“Don’t go.” The words were hoarse.
“Why not?” Another tear slid down her cheek. “What do you want?”
He wanted for her not to cry. He wanted to somehow stop time and strip away the last month of their lives, to go back to the way things had been the day before she’d left Italy.
But that wasn’t possible. “Are you sleeping with him?”
She recoiled as though he’d pushed her in the chest. “Axel?”
“Yes, Axel. The man who seems so comfortable in your apartment.”
“How dare you?” It was a whisper, but there was strength in it, strength and anger. “Do you think you have any right—,”
“No,” he interrupted, his own voice tortured. “And yes. Jack is my son. If you’re spending serious time with another man, if Jack is spending time with him, I think it’s fair that I should know.”
“Jack loves Axel. They’re great together.”
It was in no way helpful.
“There were wine glasses in your sink. Did he stay over?”
“What are you, a detective now?”
“Unless you’ve taken up daytime drinking…”
“You have absolutely zero right to stand here and ask me this.” She glared at him with fire and fury zipping from her slight frame. “I haven’t seen you in almost five weeks, after you pretty summarily dismissed me from your life. And now you show up out of the blue and act like you’re jealous or something?”
Fiero looked down the street, unsure how to respond to that.
“You don’t want me but you don’t want anyone else to have me, right? What a chauvinistic, selfish – do you think I should just spend my life single and pining for you?”
He whipped his head around to face her. “So you are seeing him?”
She glared at him and then took a step backwards, freeing her hand from his. He hadn’t even realised he was still holding her.
“Elodie?” Her name was a plea on his lips, but she wasn’t budging.
“Go to hell, Fiero.”
It wasn’t until Jack was asleep that night that Fiero had any opportunity to give their conversation more thought. No, it wasn’t that. He’d forced himself to push it to the back of his mind during the day, because he’d wanted to concentrate on Jack, but once the little boy was fast asleep, Fiero found he couldn’t get Elodie off his mind.
He’d gone to
her apartment to see her and to prove to himself that he was glad things between them had ended, and instead, he felt like he’d been slammed in the solar plexus.
He swore under his breath, pacing to the balcony and staring out over Kensington Gardens. The evenings were getting cooler and the sun was down, so only a hint of light could be seen, coming from the old fashioned lamp posts that ran through the street.
She hadn’t answered his questions, and she’d been right not to. She had an excellent point – he had no business asking about her private life. He had no business expecting her to tell him whatever he wanted to know. She’d offered herself to him on a silver platter and he’d backed away as quickly as possible.
Because he couldn’t forgive her.
He wouldn’t forgive her. How could he? He’d already missed so much of Jack’s life, and that was her fault. It was her decision that had led to him being absent.
If it were only that, perhaps he could move past it. But even now, the only reason he knew about Jack was because of a freak accident. If she hadn’t been hit by that truck, his son would still be out there, a stranger to him.
Pain shifted inside of him.
Panic, too.
Because he couldn’t forgive Elodie, but the idea of living his life without her in it was like being pushed into a sea of lava. The pain was immense. What was the alternative? To find a way to get her back in his life even though he couldn’t forgive her? That wasn’t fair on her. It wasn’t fair and it would hurt her in the end and he couldn’t do that.
So there was only this.
Separate lives, and that meant she could date whoever the hell she wanted.
He prowled back inside, his legs restless, his chest hurting.
Logically, he knew it was the right decision, but Christo, the idea of that man being in her home right at that very moment was suffocating. He hated to imagine her being with someone else, but she was right on that score too. It was chauvinism, nothing more. It didn’t mean anything.
None of this meant anything, just as he’d said all along.
In the middle of the night though, Fiero awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed, and it was as though someone had poured ice water on him. He woke up, and the first thing he thought of was his aunt Camilla, who’d been exiled when she’d married a Middle Eastern prince. He’d never met the woman, and he barely thought of her, but at a few minutes past three o’clock, his mind went to his aunt and everything else seemed to click into place.
Fourteen
“HANG ON A SECOND,” she called, looking around for her robe. She couldn’t find it, nor could she remember – at this hour – where it had been left the night before.
The banging started up again and she muttered an oath before pacing through her apartment in just her camisole top and a pair of yoga pants, risking immodesty over her neighbours being woken up. It was only just gone six, and still dark outside – way too early for anyone to visit.
She glanced through the peephole and her heart leaped into her throat at the sight of Fiero on the other side. Without hesitating, she wrenched the door inwards, her pulse accelerating. “What is it? Is Jack okay?”
He stared at her for several seconds before shaking his head. “Jack is fine.”
Relief spread through her, but not for long. If Jack was fine, then what was Fiero doing at her apartment? She’d barely been able to function yesterday after seeing him so unexpectedly. Just when she thought she was getting on with her life, he had to show up and remind her of how incomplete she felt, of how much she missed him, how much she was hurting.
And with his pseudo jealousy, as though he had any right to care who she spent her time with? Not that she was even remotely interested in dating anyone, but that wasn’t his business!
She wished she’d taken a few extra seconds to locate her robe. Standing in a barely there singlet and hip-hugging pants, she felt ridiculously exposed, given how intimate they’d been.
“So?” Her voice conveyed impatience even when there was a huge part of her that wanted to stand still and stare at him, to drink him in after so long without seeing him.
“Can I come in?”
She glanced over her shoulder then back to Fiero, and the look of thunder in his face almost made her laugh – not a happy laugh, so much as one of weary mania. He was jealous again. He thought Axel was there? Damn him! It was possessive and wrong, given that he didn’t want a bar of her.
“It’s not even half six, Fiero. What do you want?”
“It would be better to have this conversation in privacy.”
“I’m not inviting you into my flat,” she said firmly, tilting her chin defiantly, her eyes daring him to contradict her. “How did you even get through the security door?”
He held up a folded piece of newspaper. “Someone propped it open.”
Elodie closed her eyes, cursing her downstairs neighbours and their constant losing of keys.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
His eyes narrowed. “This won’t take long.”
“What won’t?”
His eyes ran across her face, his expression inscrutable.
“Fiero? It’s early. What do you want?”
He spoke at almost the exact same time she did. “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”
It was the last thing she expected. “What?”
“I had no right to ask you about your personal life. I lost that right the day I encouraged you to leave Italy, the day I told you we’d never be more than…”
“Sex,” she supplied, barely able to meet his eyes.
“Si.” But the word was dark, angry. “But Elodie, the idea of you and him, or you and anyone else, my God, I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me until yesterday, I don’t know why – I suppose I just thought, with how you said you loved me, that you would always love me, that you would never…”
“Never be with anyone else?” She demanded indignantly, even though in her heart, she suspected he might be right.
Heat slashed his cheeks.
“Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?”
He frowned. “I don’t…”
“It’s hypocritical,” she added. “I have no doubt you wasted no time getting back on the horse, so to speak, finding a willing body to push me right out of your mind. But if I decide to date a really nice guy, who I’ve known for years, who is a good friend, who cares for me and adores Jack, you think you have any place to object?”
His frown did something funny to her tummy, little bubbles popped through her veins as she stared at him, distracted as always by his physical beauty, even when she wished she could not notice that, even as she wished she could feel rage towards him.
“I haven’t been with anyone else,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s only been a month, Elodie. Do you think you’re so easily replaced?”
It floored her. She gripped the door tighter, to stop her body’s instinct to push it wider.
“I came here yesterday to prove to myself that I’m over you and instead, I feel like I’ve had the exact opposite experience.”
Her heart began to stammer; she struggled for breath. Words felt like an impossible ask, so she stayed quiet, staring at him in utter confusion.
“Do you remember I told you about my grandfather, and how he exiled my aunt?”
The change in conversation was a little confusing but she nodded.
“Until this morning, I never realised exactly how like Gianfelice I am. How I was about to make the same mistake he did, a mistake I know he spent his whole life regretting, and not knowing how to remedy.”
Still, she couldn’t speak, so she stared at him, waiting, her brain hurting almost as much as her heart.
“He was so angry with her, he chose to act in anger rather than love. He sacrificed everything for that anger and darkness, including his relationship with her. He refused to see her, even at the end when she was dying, because he would not let himself forgive and move on.
He ruined his own life, Elodie, as I think I might be ruining mine.”
Now, she made a sound, a strangling noise. Hope was starting to dance with confusion, so she wondered if he was saying that he wanted to move past the fact she’d kept Jack a secret, but there was confusion too, because it was all so messy, so difficult to see how they could do that.
“I miss you.”
The words punched holes in her heart. She stood completely still, staring at him.
“I miss you so much I feel like I’ve cut a part of me out. I miss you in a way that is impossible to endure.”
It was too much. She shook her head. “I don’t believe you, Fiero.” She swallowed, and now, she took a step inside her flat, the prospect of keeping him on the landing seeming somewhat childish given the tenor of their conversation. She noticed the way he looked around when he entered, as though he might be expecting Axel to be in evidence.
“You can’t care for someone and push them away like you did me.”
“I panicked when you told me you loved me. I was so angry about missing out on Jack’s first two years that I focussed on that instead of what a gift you and he were, on the fact I’d been given a second chance. God, Elodie, you were a second chance, it was a gift to think I could have another go at making things work with you. That night – three years ago – you smiled your way right into my heart and I can see now that you never left. I have never forgotten you, I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head, moving away from him, into the kitchen. She needed space. “You can’t stand there and claim that you were in love with me all along…”
“I don’t think there’s a definition for what I feel for you, what I have felt for you since then. You are, quite simply, an indistinguishable part of me. I came here yesterday so self-righteous, so certain I could see you and be civil and then go back to my own life, compartmentalised from yours, that our separation would be normal and easy. Instead I felt as though a bomb had been put under my skin.”
Billionaire Baby Daddies: A five-book anthology Page 33