She frowned. “So why didn’t you?”
His Adam’s Apple jerked as he swallowed. “I met you.” Something shuddered in her chest. “And my self-control was as non-existent that night as it is now. I knew I should have resisted you. That dinner was an exercise in restraint for me – if you knew how I felt, how long it had been since I’d been intimate with a woman, the things I was thinking about you, and yet I sat there and made small talk for two or three hours, and all the while my body was burning alive.” He shook his head in a gesture of anger.
“Still, I intended to resist you. As the night wore on, I felt relief. It was almost over. You would leave. I’d triumphed over desire. I hadn’t broken my marriage vows.”
She sipped her own wine, mainly to relieve the aching dryness in her throat. “And then I asked you to come home with me.”
“And any willpower I possessed evaporated as though struck by lightning.” He grimaced. “God, I wanted you, Elodie.” He shook his head. “I wish,” –
“Don’t say it,” she groaned. “If we hadn’t had that night, we wouldn’t have Jack.”
He nodded curtly, as if drawing himself back to the point at hand. “I wasn’t sleeping with other women then, and I’m not sleeping with other women now.”
She lifted her eyes to his, relief sagging in her belly.
“I wasn’t on a date last night. I was with my brothers. Once a week, we go to Yaya’s house – it’s a tradition we had when my grandfather was alive and we cherish it now, in his honour.” His expression grew taut. “He basically—,” then, he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. He was important to me. To us.” His voice was gravelled. “That’s where I was. Not with another woman.”
A rush of giddying relief spread across her. “Oh.”
But when she looked at Fiero, whatever pleasure she was feeling was swallowed by worry once more, because his face was forbidding, his manner tense.
“I like sleeping with you.” He shook his head. “Such an insipid expression for how I feel.” He turned to face her bodily, but made no attempt to touch her. “I crave you constantly. My body aches for yours, just as it did that night in London, three years ago.” He drew in a breath, as though preparing himself for what came next. “It’s not meaningless, but sex is all this can be.” He lifted a hand to touch her cheek then, and the softness of the contact contrasted with the harshness of his words was her undoing.
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I am.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Every time I look at you, I see what you took from me.” So simple. So sad. “And I can’t forgive that. I can’t look beyond it, even when I can see that you thought you had your reasons.Christo, I wish I could.” He lifted a hand, curling it around her cheek. “Don’t you think I wish I could just forgive and forget?” He shook his head, the futility of their situation landing against her like a boulder. “I’m so sick of being angry about this. You are a wonderful mother – our son is lucky to have you. But you kept him from me, Elodie. You kept him from me.” His voice cracked a little and her heart smashed into a billion pieces.
She opened her mouth to explain but he lifted a finger, pressing it to her lips, his eyes dropping to her mouth so her chest felt like it was going to explode. “I know why. You’ve told me. But that doesn’t change the facts. You tried to tell meonce, two years ago. For two years you have raised our child, every day making that choice again and again to keep him a secret from me. I believe you tried to tell me, and I believe you thought you were making the right decision, but it doesn’t change how I feel. I wish I didn’t, Elodie. This is driving me crazy.”
Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away.
“If you hate me so much, how can you bear to touch me?”
“I don’t hate you.” The words were hoarse.
“But you don’t like me either.”
He was quiet, his eyes scanning her face.
“I wish I could make sense of this,” he promised huskily. “I wish I could give you the answer you want. But I won’t lie to you Elodie, my conscience won’t allow that. I won’t sleep with you and pretend it changes what’s in here.” He pressed a hand to his chest.
“How can you say that? As though sex is somehow completely separate from everything else?”
“It is,” he insisted. “If we agree that it is,” as though it were so simple. “You were right to address what’s happening between us. I was letting my anger about Jack cloud my behaviour. I don’t want to hurt you, Elodie. You’re the mother of my child and regardless of what you’ve done, and regardless of the decisions you made, we are bound together in a way that matters to me. I would lay down my life for yours, because of Jack. I will fight for your happiness because Jack deserves his mother to be happy.”
He moved closer, just a tiny bit, but enough for his masculine fragrance to tease her nostrils. “If you say you can no longer sleep with me, knowing how I feel, then I will respect that. This is your decision. I am telling you now what I want – and you must decide for yourself.”
Her heart jerked. “What do you want?”
“I want to be with you.”
“To sleep with me?”
He dipped his head forward in silent agreement. “But I can make you only one promise: it is, and always will be, just sex.” A determined glint shone in his eyes. “Not meaningless,” he stroked her cheek.
“But not meaningful either?”
He was silent.