One month.
And there was nothing holding her here for even that long. Maybe she’d only stay a week? Maybe they’d talk this through a bit more and decide on a solution that made more sense than this. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, in this moment, Elodie was fine letting things unravel however they would.
Which was a disaster, because it meant she dropped her guard, and around Raf, those guards were important. If she needed any further proof of that, she had it in the form of her body’s betrayal. Of its own volition, her hand shifted to the hair at the back of his head, tangling in its lengths, feeling the coarse thickness there. She was close enough to hear the hiss of air that escaped between his teeth.
As his feet crunched over gravel, she was vaguely aware of certain features of his villa—as much as she could see in the moonlight, in any event. It looked to be sprawling and large, and a red terracotta, with a garden on one side that had the most heavenly fragrance, and fields on the other, rolling towards gently undulating hills that were silhouetted against the night sky. She could make out the shapes of pine trees against them, so it looked so quintessentially Italian, she sighed.
“My honeymoon was supposed to be in Italy, you know. I’ve never been.”
He shouldered in the wide double doors to the house, to reveal a warmly lit corridor. This villa could not have been more different to his place in London if they’d been chalk and cheese. While this did appear to have been tastefully renovated at some point, it was also an homage to rustic Italian charm, from the large terracotta floor tiles and the stucco walls, to the arched hallway that led through to an open plan kitchen. She caughtonly a glimpse of it, though, as he carried her through the villa, up a flight of stairs and then, through a doorway into what she presumed to be a guest bedroom. Large and luxuriously appointed, it brought a small smile of wonder to Elodie’s lips to imagine staying here.
He eased her down at the side of the bed, but didn’t step away, and she was glad. Though she could stand on her own two feet, having him there somehow felt right.
“I have no desire to get married, Elodie,” he said, a frown deepening on his face. “But if it’s important to you, that we be married, before the baby’s born, then of course, I’ll set aside my own feelings.”
Her lips parted and suddenly, she was back firmly anchored in the present, the desire she was feeling evaporating on a wave of panic. “Good God, no. Please don’t even suggest it. I don’t want to marry you, or anyone.”
He visibly relaxed.
“I mean, it’s not the nineteenth century. We can raise a baby without being in a relationship, right?”
She could tell by the way he hesitated that his own thoughts were more complex than he was representing, but that didn’t matter. No way in hell was she planning another walk up the aisle.
“Really, Raf. Even coming here for a month is almost a bridge too far for me. I’m giving this a try, but I’m not making you any promises beyond this: I’ll do everything I can to choose what’s right for our baby. That’s it. Okay?”
He hesitated, then nodded once. “I make you the same pledge,cara.”A moment later, he turned on his heel and left, but her heart continued to race for a long time afterwards.
He had beena haze of action from the moment she’d told him of her pregnancy. He had felt, and he had acted, and only now that she was in her room, in his villa on the outskirts of Florence, did he allow himself to stop and absorb this information. And what it meant for him.
Only then, did he allow himself to stop and think what next.
When Marcia had told him she was pregnant, the answer had been obvious. They’d been together a long time. He cared about her, even when he knew he didn’t love her, in the way his brothers and cousins loved the women they married. In truth, he didn’t think he was capable of feeling that kind of love. Not after what he’d seen their father go through and turn into.
But Marcia was loyal—or so he’d thought. She hadn’t been with him for his money, or what he could gift her—so he’d thought. He’d been so wrong about her though. Wrong about her motivations and personality, wrong about what she’d wanted from him.
He glanced up at the clock in the large, open-planning living area, with the huge wall of glass that opened onto the infinity pool with the views of the Tuscan countryside he loved so much. He breathed in a deep breath and moved towards the doors, pushing one open and stepping through it, taking in another gulp of air. To taste Italy, to feel it move in his lungs, and his blood. To know this country would exist in his child now, too.
Of course they had to be raised here. This was their home, the place they belonged. And Elodie?
He grimaced, as he replayed her emotional rawness today. She’d run the gamut of feelings. She’d been terrified, stoic, decent, brave, horrified and angry, but most of all, she’d been reasonable. Measured. She’d promised to give this a try, even when he could see it scared her.
And him? Didn’t it scare him, too?
Elodie had the power to unfasten something vital he’d stitched into his soul. Elodie had the power to make him feel things he didn’t want to feel, to desire when he sought control, to weaken when he needed to be strong. She was the only woman who’d rejected him, that he could remember. She was sure as hell the only woman who’d rejected him, and he’d been unable to forget, the only woman he’d pursued again.
When he’d woken up the next morning and reached for her, needing her with the force of a thousand suns, and found her gone, he’d been furious. Furious, disappointed, and very quickly relieved, because he never let a woman truly get under his skin.
Except shehad.Even after that night, he’d thought of her. When he’d made love to other women, he’d thought about Elodie. Had closed his eyes and pretended he was with her. Had craved her, needed her. No one else had satisfied him, so he’d stopped looking for women to take to bed, and pushed himself into work, whisky, travel. With everyone else in his family settling into family life, Raf was the lone agent, the one who could get on a jet at the drop of a hat and travel around the world to check on their foreign projects. Raf was the one with itchy feet and a mind that needed constant distraction. Raf was the one desperate to run away.
So many of his memories were bound up with Marcia, so many of his life events, his triumphs, his failures. But he couldn’t think of those times, and her, without a dark, vicious sense of fury absorbing him. She’d ruined everything with her selfish deceitfulness.
He would never forgive her, and he would never forget the lessons she’d taught him. He would never trust a woman again—even the mother of his child.
CHAPTER 6
HE WAS STILL HALF ASLEEP. That was the only rational explanation for the reason he didn’t run a mile when he saw the family FaceTime chat start calling. Instead, he swiped to answer and was met with various Santoro faces peering back at him.
“You’re in bed?” Marco drawled, shaking his head. Clearly forgetting that for quite some time he’d been the black sheep of the family, who’d partied around the clock and slept till all hours. Whereas he, Raf, had always been the golden boy, the good son, dutiful and conscientious. Until his world had fallen apart, and he’d given up on everyone and everything.
