“Should I?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily.”
“I mean, I’ve heard of your family, obviously. But I don’t really follow gossip, or whatever.”
“That’s what I mean. I like that.”
Just having him say that, his statement, unleashed a hundred butterflies in her blood. She glanced back to the view jerkily, finding it hard to draw breath.
“Does that mean you don’t want me to know?”
The prolonged silence had her glancing back towards him.
“No,” he said, finally.
Her heart stammered.
“It’s refreshing to get a chance to explain it, that’s all.”
She propped an elbow onto the coping so she could rest her head in her palm. “Do the women you usually…see,” she said, opting for a softer euphemism than ‘sleep with’, “know all about you?”
“Most know who I am,” he said.
There it was again. The same spark of jealousy she’d felt when he’d showed her the wardrobe half-full of women’s clothes with the tags still attached. It took being a good host to the next level.
“That makes me feel kind of stupid.”
“On the contrary, why would you have known me? Our lives are very different.”
She smiled at that. “You mean, you have a private jet and I don’t even own a car?”
Something like pity shifted on his features and it sparked a deep rage response in Elodie. She’d had more than enough pity from more than enough people. In a way, she’d inured herself to it. But with Raf, it hit hard. It hurt.
“What happened with your ex?” he prompted, with quiet concentration.
Pain spread through her as she thought of Aaron, and all the dreams he’d turned to dust. “We were talking about you,” she side-stepped. “And your aunt and uncle.”
His lips tightened and for a moment she thought he might argue, but to her relief, he nodded once. “My mother died, a long time ago. When I was just a boy. Afterwards, my father struggled. He had loved her a great deal and found life without her almost unbearable. He couldn’t function as a person, far less a parent.”
Sympathy shifted through her.
“My aunt and uncle—Gianni and Maria—stepped into the breach. They took us in every school holiday, whenever they could. Their home became the epicentre of our lives—it still is, in many ways.”
“That’s who you were talking to, earlier?” she prompted, surprised to reflect on the conversation she’d overheard, and all the emotions she’d experienced since then. The hurt and anger, the feeling of betrayal that had morphed into a white-hot rush of need, and then, something like nervous excitement, at his suggestion they just focus on getting to know each other for a while.
“My brothers and cousins,” he said, gaze raking her face and then dropping for a moment too long on her lips, staying there until her bloodstream felt as though it were boiling. “I was supposed to have dinner with them, last night. The woman who was leaving my house when you arrived is Willow, my sister-in-law. She’d come to make sure I remembered the dinner, and then, evidently, I forgot.”
Relief—foolish and misplaced—surged through Elodie, to realise that she hadn’t caught him saying goodbye to a lover. How foolish. It didn’t matter if she’d ‘caught’ him or not. That he’d been with women since her was undeniable.
“You had a pretty good excuse,” Elodie pointed out.
“Something I’m sure they agree with, now they know.”
“They sounded concerned.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not a teenager. Why would this worry them so much?”
