All around could there have been a more satisfying conclusion? No.
He’d been so pleased with himself. He’d enjoyed imagining her happiness at what lay ahead of them. Not just a continuation of this compelling, addictive relationship but a promotion for her that would come with a hefty salary increase, more than enough for her vacate her sad rented accommodation and to think about buying somewhere without sacrificing the financial help she was committed to giving her parents.
But now…
How wrong he’d been about everything. For the first time in his memory, he’d had the rug pulled from under his feet and he didn’t know what to do about it.
The one thing he wasn’t going to do was beg. He would deal with whatever was going on inside him later, in solitude. He had access to huge resources of inner strength. He would call upon them in due course to combat the tsunami of frenzied, inexplicable, tumultuous emotion rushing through him.
‘When?’ he asked in a roughened undertone, as she remained hovering indecisively in front of him.
She’d effectively dumped him. No fuss, no warning. So why was he bothering to prolong the conversation?
Because he cared. Jesus, how and when had that happened? How and when had heallowedthat to happen?
‘When what?’
‘When did you decide that the deal on the table wasn’t going to do?’ He scowled at his own weakness.
Erin sighed and reddened.
Was this going as expected? Sure, she’d known that his pride would be hurt but she’d figured that he’d recover fast and shrug it all off.
Shehadexpected him to try to talk her into staying. That was why she’d had theholiday time left outstandingon the tip of her tongue, as a way to wriggle out of spending more time in his company, which would have meant more time absorbing him, breathing him in, falling harder and deeper in love.
It stung to realise just how disposable he thought she was.
Her defence mechanisms swung into place and she looked at him coolly and distantly.
‘When you made that offer… I knew that I wasn’t going to take you up on it.’
‘Right.’
‘I guess it put things into sharp focus.’One hundred percent true.
‘Understood.’
‘There was also a part of me that felt…as though you were paying me, somehow, to continue with what we had because you weren’t quite ready to end it.’
‘Paying you?’
‘You can hardly blame me for thinking that.’ But her colour mounted at the outrage in his voice and it made her feel small that she had even harboured that treacherous thought, even thoughit made perfect sense.
Although, she now thought, didn’t it make just as much sense that she might havewantedto see the worst in him? Because doing that gave her the courage to walk away?
‘I told you that was something that was already on the cards. It was a well-deserved promotion. When have I ever lied to you?’
‘You haven’t but—’
‘But you decided that it would be a good idea to turn me into the bad guy? I thought you knew me better than that, Erin.’
‘Raffaele…’
He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture but for a few seconds, she remained where she was, dithering, filled with a sickening sense of deep loss.
It was devastating for her to think that she would leave this man forever and with the impression that, for all that he’d told her about himself—and it was probably more than he realised—she’d never really known him at all.
He shrugged, his face cool and remote and striking at the very core of her.
