“You don’t need to. Listen to me,” and now he was moving, his hands pressing to her hips, as if he needed to hold her to get her to understand. “You are having my baby, and I will support the both of you, for the rest of your lives.”
“I don’t want that.”
He shook his head. “It’s not optional.”
And if he’d had any lingering doubts about her motives, the fire in her gaze would have extinguished them completely. She lookedfurious.“I don’t want your money.”
“You need it.”
“I don’t!” she countered.
“Listen to me.” He kept his voice level, as though he were calming a wild animal. “This is not something we have to finalise now. Suffice it to say, I will ensure you have the option ofnotworking for as long as you want to be at home with our child. I will make sure you have a roof over your head—ideally with me—and that our child is safe. I will make sure you are driven in a car that is safe?—,”
“Raf,” she said, shaking her head, but he moved his hands then, linking them behind her back.
“I know Marcia wasn’t really pregnant, but to me, she was, and I lost that baby. I grieved that baby. I know for damn sure I will not risk anything happening to our child. With my last cent, and my dying breath, I will fight for them. Please don’t argue with me on this score, Elodie—it’s not a fight you can win.”
CHAPTER 10
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN a lot easier to argue with him if she could pull her thoughts together clearly, but his arms around her waist made it impossible to do anything butfeel.Not just his touch, though that was causing her pulse to fire erratically, but also his grief, his decency, his hurt. The way he carried the responsibility for his ex-wife’s actions, admitting to his part in her decisions, even when, from Elodie’s perspective, the lying had been inexcusable. Like Raf, she could still understand the desperation the other woman had felt.
Suddenly, the way his family had grilled him on Elodie’s pregnancy made so much sense, she couldn’t hold it against Raf or them. In fact, she was glad he had people in his corner, who wanted him to be safe. Who were worried about him.
She inhaled a deep breath; it smelled of orange blossom and Raf. Her insides clenched in recognition, and her eyes lifted to his and clung there. Overhead, the sky had shifted from the hues of dusk to an inky black, and the stars were beginning to sparkle against the velvety backdrop. It was the most magical setting, and it was doing something strange to Elodie. Or maybe that was the man in front of her, who’d just stripped his soul bare for herto see, even though she recognized that went against the grain for him.
Elodie couldn’t say what was happening to her, only that she was suddenly walking a dangerous path. Not just of believing Raf, but of liking him—two things that were huge warning signs for her, after what she’d gone through with Aaron. After all, he’d been her safe choice, the man who’d never hurt her. A friend first, and everything else after. Yet he’d used her and discarded her when it suited him.
“You know, I was in a similar situation, in a way. Except, I was Marcia,” she admitted with a twist of her lips. “Looking back, Aaron never really wanted to get engaged, much less married. I was the one who just presumed that we were moving in that direction, because that’s what’s meant to happen, right?”
“It’s not the same,” Raf murmured, so close she could feel his words rumbling in his chest. Her hands moved of their own volition to his chest, pressing to his heart. She closed her eyes on a wave of feeling, of connectivity. She knew she’d have to break the contact, but for now, it just felt so good—so right—to stand like this, every part of her locked into him.
“Isn’t it?”
“Did he tell you, from the outset, that there would be limits to the relationship?”
Elodie considered that and shook her head after a moment. “But he showed me.”
“All the while, he had his hand out for your hard-earned money,” Raf said with obvious derision.
Something inside Elodie flared with gratitude—that he understood what she’d been through and felt as angry about it as she had been.
“He was selfish,” she admitted.
“Understatement.”
She laughed then, a soft sound, but Raf moved quickly, one hand shifting from behind her back to her chin, tilting her face to his, so that sense of connection exploded into something else entirely. Her breath snagged in her throat and her heart began to race far too fast to be safe.
“You deserved better.”
She clamped her lips shut, hating the way his words were zipping through her chest cavity like a pinball, lighting up every single part of her. Hating the way warmth seemed to flood her body and make her all soft and gooey.
“I really thought he loved me,” she said softly. “I’m just glad he broke it off before the wedding…”
He nodded slowly, but she could see something in his eyes, thoughts he was holding back.
“We both had regrettable experiences,” he said, slowly. “That makes it hard to trust.”
She shifted her head slightly, in a half-nod.
