“Leaving me.”
Raf’s features didn’t shift. Only the steady pulsing in his throat showed that he had heard. “And what did you say?” he asked, finally.
“I can’t remember.” Elodie reached for a piece of pear but held it between her forefinger and thumb. “I was already starting to feel weird. I just wanted to get back here, to your place.”
His eyes closed at that. But when he opened them, they lanced right through her. “He said he’d made a mistake, but did he also ask then to fix the error?”
Her lips parted at how easily he’d intuited the gist of the conversation. She stuffed the pear in her mouth and nodded quickly.
“He wants to get back together?”
Elodie toyed with her fingers, nodding once.
“To get married?”
She looked at him beseechingly. “As if anything on earth would tempt me to forgive him, after what he did.”
Raf stood then, fairly jackknifing off the bed, as though an electric shock had run right up his spine. He paced to the other side of the room and stood there a long moment, before turning to face her.
“What do you want, Elodie?”
The question was the last thing she’d expected, and it caught her completely off guard. The truth of her heart was hammering through her, but he looked so imposing and closed off, she couldn’t trust herself to say anything.
“You’ve had two guys beg you to marry them today. So? Who’s it to be?”
She shook her head, rejecting his question, hating the way he’d phrased it. “You didn’t beg me,” she reminded him. “You calmly suggested it, because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Whereas he’s proposing out of love.” His tone was scathing though. “This, from the absolute jackass who broke your heart not six months ago?”
Heat flooded her cheeks, and Raf visibly shifted his features, shaking his head once. “Let’s—not talk about this right now. You shouldn’t be upset.”
“Not talking about it is going to upset me more,” she promised. “And you have no right to be annoyed. I told him no. I told him I wouldn’t meet up with him. I told him there was no point coming to London.”
“But what if you’re wrong?” Raf said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You made it quite clear this afternoon that you don’t want to marry me. I find it hard to believe your ex wasn’t somewhere in your mind when you were making sweeping statements about marrying for love.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shocked at how much she hated the idea of marrying Aaron now. Even when once upon a time, he’d been the sum total of her life’s wishes. Her whole world had blown wide open, the boundaries of it expanding, so all she could think of now was Raf, and their babies. Their little family.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
He held her gaze steadily, and Elodie found she couldn’t possibly look away, even when her heart was palpating and her insides were twisting. There was something in his expression that hinted at comprehension. Realisation. Her heart leaped into her throat, as she worried that maybe he’d guessed her feelings.
“Excuse me,” he said, moving towards the door. “I’ll get the risotto.”
He left before she could call out that she was no longer hungry. Grief and frustration were taking up all the spare space in her body, after all.
CHAPTER 18
HE HAD KNOWN THINGS were getting out of hand for a while, but this was incontrovertible evidence that he was in way over his head. First, his marriage proposal, that despite what he’d said, had been far more complicated than simply wanting to do what he thought was right. And then, the response he’d only just managed to keep a lid on, when Elodie had told him about Aaron. Hot on the heels of feeling as though he might lose her altogether, along with their baby, to know that her ex was still in the picture made it seem as though every constant in his life was now wobbling precariously out of his reach.
Because how could he stand in Elodie’s way? She wanted the whole, perfect, loving family, the sort of thing he didn’t believe in, and simply couldn’t offer. She wanted more than he could give, and everything she deserved.
He might not love her, but there was no way he’d stand in her way. Not if that was what she wanted.
If he insisted on following the path they’d agreed to from the outset, he’d be holding her hostage, stopping her from pursuing the life she wanted, and there was no way he could live with that.
He had to set her free.
He had to stand up and do the right thing, even when it felt very, very much like the wrong thing.
