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 forone 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.
6
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.”