“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?”
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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.”