She felt as though he were running through a thousand options of what to say. To fight with her, to bring her home.
Carefully, finally, he asked, “Is your plan to stay here for long?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Only she knew she couldn’t go back. Not without Raf, and they would never live together again.
He nodded slowly, his eyes shifting to look at the room. To really look at it. “I’ll organize a security detail to come out here.”
“Raf, come on. That’s so not necessary.”
A muscle jerked at the base of his jaw. “It’s my job to protect you.”
She flinched, hating to be reminded of the sense of duty that drove him—duty rather than love. Responsibility rather than passion.
“I don’t need protecting out here. I’ve lived in this village almost my whole life. Mrs Jenkins next door would bash anyone who tried to hurt me with her croquet mallet.”
He didn’t react with amusement. “They’ll sit out the front, in a discreet car. You won’t know they’re here, but if you need them, help is at hand.”
“Raf—,”
“Elodie, I’m doing my best here. I’m trying to give you the space you need even when I feel like throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you all the way back to London. No, to Italy.Cristo,in Italy, didn’t everything make sense? Wasn’t this easier there?”
She froze, because of what he was saying, but how he said it—like a man who had been pushed to the brink. Like a man who was suffering. And maybe he was. Raf liked control, he liked predictability, and Elodie had removed both from his life. In Italy, there’d been the illusion of those things, but it had all been an illusion. They’d been pretending.
“Italy wasn’t real,” she whispered.
“How can you say that?”
“We were playacting. Ignoring our real world and responsibilities, getting caught up in the idea of becoming parents.”
“We are becoming parents,” he groaned, moving towards her then, lifting one hand as if to press it to her stomach before jamming it into his pocket instead.
“Italy was a fantasy,” she said, because she needed to hear and accept that.
He clamped his lips together, biting back whatever argument he’d been about to make. And God, she wanted him to argue with her. To tell her she was wrong, that Italy had been the real version of them, and this? That this was the wonky world which made no sense. She wanted him to reassure her that they could go back to Italy and pick up where they left off, simply being happy in one another’s company.
But how could that be? Now that she knew the truth of her heart, the depth of her feelings, how could she pretend everything was easy and casual?
“We can’t go back,” she whispered.
A muscle jerked low in his jaw, and for a second, she clung to the hope he might argue, might push for her to return. But after a beat, he simply nodded once. “Then if you’re to stay here, at least let me make you safe.”
“I am?—,”
“It’s either this, or I move into your parents’ guest room.”
Her eyes widened. “They don’t have a guest room.”
Exasperation was evident in his features. “Then I’ll sleep on the damn couch. I don’t care. If you won’t let me hire people to protect you, I’ll do it myself.”
The thought of this giant of a man curled up on the couch almost made her laugh, despite the breaking of her heart. “Have it your way,” she said with an imitation of a nonchalant shrug.
“Good.” He didn’t go though. Not right away. He stood there, staring down at her, and the whole world stopped spinning, the air between them thickened with heat and need, with tension and unspoken words. It was on the tip of her tongue to do something stupid and tell him she missed him in a way she couldn’t ever explain, but then, he reached out and lightly touched her cheek, his fingers moving over her skin in a barely there way.
“Please take care of yourself, Elodie.” He dropped his hand, then turned and left. She waited until he’d closed the front door behind himself to let out the sob that was heavy in her chest.
He had thoughthe’d known agony before. He’d thought he’d known the kind of hurt from which it was almost impossible to recover, but the sense of aching emptiness that was growing inside of him, day by day, week by week, was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
How could he miss Elodie so much, after such a short amount of time? He’d gone his whole life without knowing she existed, and then, suddenly, she was all he could think of.
