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 datinganyone,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 agoodfriend, 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 couldnotnotice 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?”