She saw it then, written all over his face. The truth. That was exactly what he’d thought and he didn’t like it. Who would?
‘Well, yes. It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘That’s not fair,’ she told him. But she wasn’t entirely certain about that herself.
‘I didn’t mean you. I meant it wouldn’t be the first time it happened to me. I’m sorry I said you always ran away. That was not fair either.’
The last thing she expected was an apology. Nor to hear the vulnerability he buried deep inside. She hadn’t thought about his past relationships. It had all seemed so glamorous when she looked him up online. She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I thought…after Simon…after he died…’
Something flickered in his eyes, something dark and bitter, not angry exactly. ‘Oh. Simon.’ The words were flat and Ari winced.
She met his gaze firmly. There was no point in denying it. ‘Yes. Simon.’
It always came back to Simon. She couldn’t help that. Even now, she couldn’t escape him. He’d come back as Ankou and he didn’t seem any better at letting go than she was, despite his letter.
Rafael shook his head slowly, as if clearing a headache. When he spoke, she could tell he was trying to be kind. But all the same, the words he said… ‘Simon left you, Ari. Simon was an idiot. Just because he died doesn’t change that.’
‘Don’t you dare—’ she began, anger simmering.
‘Of course I dare,’ he replied. ‘You keep pushing me away, falling back to Simon, to a man who let you go to another country, who let you run away, who wouldn’t give up anything for you, and in the end gave you up. He was a fool. And so are you if you can’t see it.’
She wanted to scream at him, to tell him he was wrong, to defend Simon’s memory but…but she couldn’t. Because he wasn’t wrong. None of what he said was wrong.
Just like this morning. Simon had been there, just long enough to make her leave Rafael, and then he was gone.
A rush of air came from her lungs, like she was a deflating balloon.
Chastened, Ari took a step towards him. ‘Then why come after me?’
He smiled, such a sad broken smile, one of long and bitter experience. ‘I didn’t want to let you go. Can’t you see that? Not for anything.’
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
The seconds crawled by, tormenting Rafael as Ari just stared at him, open-mouthed. As he had made his way back to the room that morning, expecting to find her still there, still angry but hopefully less angry and ready to make up, he’d felt a glow of something he had never really experienced before, a satisfaction, a sense of all being right in his life for the first time ever. He felt different. Everything felt different.
And she hadn’t been there.
He knew why instantly. Guilt. It had to be guilt. She had run away again. This time from him.
Laure, of course, denied all knowledge. ‘You asked me to find her some clothes,’ she’d snapped. ‘So I did. What was I meant to do? Sit on her?’
His sister had been stirring, but he’d find out what that was all about eventually. She probably just didn’t approve. She hadn’t approved of Jacqueline either. But this time she was wrong. So very wrong.
While they made love, he knew Ari had been his and his alone, perhaps for the first time ever. Simon’s ghost had been banished, if only for a short while. And now it was back. Not Ankou, not that dark spirit. But the man who had hurt her so badly.
Ari chewed her bottom lip, folded her arms in front of her, and for another dreadful moment, he thought she was just going to tell him to leave anyway. To say his sister had been right. That she wasn’t interested. To tell him not to mention Simon and to go to hell.
‘You’d better come in. I’ll talk to Jason first. Give me a second.’
Well, it wasn’t the warmest greeting, but it wasn’t an outright dismissal. He’d take what he could get. He allowed himself to breathe again.
He locked his car, waited, and he could still hear their voices inside, bickering as only siblings could. But at least they sounded like they cared about each other underneath it all. He was never sure with Laure. She was their mother’s daughter.
And he was going to have to confront her about this. Enough meddling in his life. Enough acting the bitch. Jacqueline had told him as much, but he’d never listened. Even Elena had implied it and she rarely had a bad word to say about anyone. Now, for the first time, he truly wondered. Had he been so caught up in the business and everything else that he’d failed to see that his sister delighted in sabotaging his life? So did his mother, for that matter. They were…well, they had always been difficult. Mémé had tried to warn him too.
He had always told himself it didn’t matter. He didn’t trust easily. His whole life had been a lesson in not trusting.
Ari had her own trust issues.
