“Yes, doctor. Our deepest thanks,” Raf echoed, moving a hand protectively to Elodie’s back as he guided her to sitting, and supporting her as she stood up off the bed.
Because of the babies, she reminded herself. If she’d been the goose that had laid the golden egg before this, she was certainly that now. She had to remember that everything Raf said and did was because of her pregnancy, not her. His marriage proposal, his protective instincts, the way he’d looked as though he was about to pass out when he’d thought something was wrong with the baby.
It wasn’t because of Elodie; she couldn’t forget that.
He didn’t speakas the car cut back through London, and nor did Elodie. Instead, she sat beside him, staring out the window, so he couldn’t even see her face, couldn’t see a damned hint of her features to know how she was feeling, and he didn’t trust himself to ask.
One baby had been an immense complication. How did she feel about having two? Or was she simply relieved, first and foremost, as he was, that everything was fine with the pregnancy?
He’d held his fear in, on the drive to the hospital, but deep down, he’d believed it was all about to come tumbling down, and it had left an abyss of doubt in his mind that he could only nowstart to consider. The thought of Elodie losing the pregnancy, of how that grief would saturate her, him, their lives. Of how their lives would no longer need to be intertwined, and what that would mean for both of their futures.
In the space of a few short weeks, Elodie had become a stable part of his life. He couldn’t even imagine her leaving, no longer being in his space.
But it was the baby that had bound them—or babies, as it turned out to be. The pregnancy was why he’d proposed, the pregnancy was why she’d agreed to live with him, and suggested the whole parents-with-benefits arrangement.
And he’d gone along with it, too selfish to consider the risks to her, to worry if it might be exposing her to problems. He knew from Marcia’s supposed pregnancy that sex was academically fine. Indeed, her libido had gone crazy, which he now knew was out of a desperation to conceive for real, so her deception would never be discovered.
He forcibly dismissed the other woman from his mind and focused instead on Elodie. As the car slid into his garage, he turned to face her but still had no idea what to say. Raul cut the engine and Raf was moving quickly, stepping around to Elodie’s side and lifting her out of her seat as soon as she’d undone her seatbelt.
“I can walk,” she said, calmer now, her face a more normal colour, her eyes no longer sheened with tears and panic.
“You are on bedrest,” he reminded her.
“That doesn’t mean no walking.”
“Elodie, just—don’t argue with me now,” he implored, and she glanced at his face and then nodded once, so he moved through the house with relief, carrying her to his room and laying her gently on one side of the bed.
“I…can be in my room.”
“I intend to watch you, Elodie. If you need anything, I’m here.”
“Raf,” she looked scandalized. “You can’t shadow me for two days.”
“Want to bet?”
Her lips parted in surprise, but he held a hand up, forestalling whatever she was going to say. “Are you hungry?”
She remembered then that she had been starving, before the stress of this had started. “Actually, I am,” she said, her throat shifting as she swallowed.
His eyes met hers, and emotions pulsed deep inside of him, emotions he didn’t understand, or recognize, but accepted were now a part of him. “Twins,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, eyes wide. “I guess it explains why my clothes are already too tight,” she suggested, so he realized, for the first time, that the button of her trousers was undone. He’d missed that detail. He’d taken pleasure in the soft rounding of her stomach, the physical signs of her pregnancy. An assurance he hadn’t really needed, yet had somehow taken comfort in. But he should have organized more clothes for her, had a whole wardrobe of pregnancy options delivered, to cater to this. Wasn’t that part of his obligation? Part of his duty to take care of her?
Yet it settled in his gut with a sense of dissatisfaction, as though it wasn’t quite enough. But what was?
“Stay here,” he said, aware that his stern voice would match his expression. “I’ll be right back.”
Her lips compressed, as though she’d been going to argue. He left before she had the chance.
Raf returned minutes later,with a platter of hard cheese, fruit, nuts and bread, which he placed on the bed beside Elodie. “I have a risotto re-heating. It won’t take long.”
A smile tugged at her lips despite the maelstrom of emotions storming through her. “I don’t need a risotto and this,” she pointed to the platter.
“Then don’t eat the risotto,” he said. “It’s there, as an option.” He placed a mineral water on the bedside table, then came to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, several inches away from her. Despite everything they’d been through that day, Elodie’s body went onto high alert, wanting—needing—him to reach out and touch her. It wasn’t sexual, so much as a need for comfort and reassurance, for a desire to just be close to him.
For her heart to be close to his.
Ice sledged through her veins as she recognized the impossibility of what she wanted.
