‘Hi, Mum?’
‘What’s wrong, Erin?’
Erin’s voice wobbled. ‘I’m coming home.’ She looked around her, looked at her rented place with its dreary four walls, as unlived in as if she’d only moved there an hour ago. ‘And I might just be staying for good…’
Chapter Ten
ONE WEEK.
One week of torture. Raffaele hadn’t been able to sleep. Worse, he hadn’t been able to work. He’d cancelled meetings. Had delegated the search for Erin’s replacement to one of the PAs who worked for his finance director and was indifferent to whatever qualifications they came with.
‘Just as long as they’re competent, can tell the difference between a computer and a microwave and over forty-five.’ Man or woman, he didn’t care.
He stared, scowling at his office door, which was shut. The adjoining office where Erin used to sit was empty. He could still remember the soft sound of her packing her stuff and the gentle click of the outer door as she’d let herself out of the office and out of his life for good.
He pushed himself away from his desk and swivelled the chair so that he was staring out of the window then clasped his hands behind his head and succumbed to yet another pointless bout of thinking.
How much thinking could one guy do? Shouldn’t thoughts run out sooner or later?
For the millionth time he thought of Colin, the guy who’d been flirting with Erin at the party he’d thrown a few weeks back. Mr Dependable Lawyer, who was probably just the sort of solid, reliable man Erin should go for.
Not him. Not Raffaele Rossi, the guy with the broken background who had only ever reliably lived up the dubious role of heartbreaker.
He was the last man she should go for, which was why he’d been good for a bit of fun but nothing more.
Had he wanted more than that? From her?
The question, which had been plaguing him for the past week, inserted itself into his consciousness once again, and Raffaele leaned back against the chair and sighed.
He knew that answer to that. Why bother fighting it? He’d tried. He really had. She’d walked out on him and he’d immediately told himself that it was for the best. He’d seen her with Colin and also immediately told himself that that also was for the best.
Women came and went and if she’d left a hole in his life then it was because she had been the one to leave prematurely, because she’d worked for him, because their arrangement hadn’t been the usual one he was accustomed to.
Blah, blah, blah.
Underneath all of that, the feelings unleashed in him had refused to go away and hadn’t paid a scrap of attention to the voice of reason.
He’d opened up his heart to Erin and he couldn’t seem to escape the consequences of that.
Each line of thought he’d taken to try to avoid that fact had crashed into a brick wall, a dead end. Now Raffaele, in the quiet of his office at one forty-five on a Tuesday afternoon, finally accepted what he’d been dodging for the past week.
Longer.
He’d fallen in love with her. And what he’d wanted in return hadn’t beenfun.What he’d wanted in return had been her love.
And now another man was on the scene.
Some guy she deserved. Who deserved her.
Raffaele banged his fist on his desk and shot up to his feet. He didn’t give a damn who deserved who, and he was done with this game of pretending that everything was just fine and that all he wanted was the best for her. Yes, he damn well wanted the best for her! Just so long as it includedhim…
Step one…he’d find Colin, do his best to keep calm and find out what she was up to, whether there was something there, some budding relationship. If there was? Well, that would change nothing. He needed to see Erin, needed to tell her how he felt, and no one was going to stand in his way.
Erin was watching telly when the doorbell went.
Her parents were out and she was guiltily pleased about that.
‘You deserve to have a bit of time out,’ she had urged them both the evening before. ‘Dad, I know you think you have to be careful with money all of the time but you don’t. Having dinner out now and again is a good thing. It’s not extravagant. Not unless you go to that place by the town hall where you have to remortgage your house to afford a starter.’ She’d laughed. They’d laughed. But it had still taken a lot of persuasion to get them to make a booking somewhere and to propel them through the front door an hour ago.
