‘Wasting your time?’
‘Don’t sound so horrified. Although I’m guessing this is the first time any woman has said something like that to you.’
‘How can having fun bewasting time?’
‘I suppose,’ Erin said thoughtfully, ‘I was in a deep freeze when it came to men…and then this thing happened between us. And it was terrific and I had a lot of fun but I realised that to come back here, to return to reality, and then to just awkwardly carry on having fun that was going nowhere would be doing myself a disservice.’
The ground under Raffaele’s feet, that rock-solid confidence in himself and his impregnability when it came to his emotions, was shifting.
He refused to let go of the philosophy of total independence that had ruled his life for so long.Absolutely refused.But inside, his heart was no longer playing ball with his head. ‘You’re saying you want some kind of a long-term relationship with me? A ring on your finger? Marriage and two-point-two kids?’
‘No!’
Yes!
Raffaele didn’t know how close he’d got to the truth, that Erin couldn’t be with him because he wasn’t into commitment. He just thought that her parents were to blame. In reality, Erin secretly suspected that they might be happy for her to be having fun…might actually agree with Raffaele if he showed up on their doorstep bringing tales of adventure and excitement.
What would he do if she were to tell him the truth? Thatshewas the one who wanted too much, that she’d had her fun and now it was time to move on because here, back in the real world, those snatched moments of joy would quickly become a growing groundswell of the pain of unrequited love.
They stared at one another in momentary silence.
‘In short, you believe you deserve better than me,’ Raffaele said heavily.
Erin’s heart constricted. She gazed at his downturned mouth, the lowered eyes fringed by those thick sooty lashes, eyes that were so good at concealing what he didn’t want the world to know.
That there was a well of emotional insecurity inside him, the legacy of cold, distant parents who might not have been cruel but had been emotionally neglectful. The boy whose heart had sealed up had become the young man whose one attempt at love had failed. Now here he was before her…the adult who had locked his heart away for good because the lessons he’d learned had been just too hard.
He was right.
She did deserve better. She deserved to love a guy who could actually return her feelings. When she tried to picture this mythical creature, her mind went blank.
‘I know what I want,’ she said, tilting her chin, voice firm, ‘and yes, it’s someone who really does want the whole deal and that’s what I intend to do now. Dave was a creep and for a while I decided to think that all men were creeps. It was easy and lazy to take a step back from dating, in case I just so happened to run into another man like that—I know that now. But those days are gone, thanks to you.’
‘Good to hear I’ve been useful.’
Erin heard the cynical edge to his voice and could already sense the distance he was putting between them. Pride was slamming into place and his desire to find an explanation for the inexplicable was being ruthlessly stamped out.
‘I have some holiday saved,’ she said, ‘quite a bit, as a matter of fact. Of course, if you want me to train my replacement up, then I’m happy to oblige but—’
‘I think I can handle that myself.’
He moved back to his leather chair behind the desk, establishing the boundaries between them, returning to his role of boss and relegating her once again to her role as his secretary. Putting a full stop to anything else that had existed between them.
‘I’ll spend the day making notes on the accounts for whoever replaces me…contact names and so on…’
‘Whoever replaces you will survive fine without notes.’
Raffaele was still reeling. Through his shock and angry bewilderment, he was already being forced to acknowledge just how deeply Erin had burrowed inside him. He didn’t know what to do with the tumult of raw emotions brought to the surface by her casual dismissal of him as a guy she’d justhad a little fun with.
He’d seen her walk through that door unexpectedly and his heart had lifted. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, projecting to when she’d be back to take up her new role…and to pick up where they’d left off.
When she had appeared in the doorway to his office, he’d felt a wave of intense satisfaction that she was on the same page as him.
That surge of pleasure felt like a lifetime ago now.
He couldn’t believe that he’d patted himself on the back at the arrangement that was now in place, one in which they could carry on seeing one another, sating this weird, powerful need that was driving them both, without the awkwardness of being within the same four walls.
And it wasn’t as if he had created a superfluous role to accommodate their affair! He’d simply done what he’d been thinking of doing for a while, promoting her to the level of her potential.
