CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
E LODIE SAT RIGID in the corner of the car, repelled by her own cowardice. Ramon was terrifyingly silent for the entire journey but she knew there was no escaping the coming reckoning. It was her own fault for lying for so long. Now he knew things she’d hoped she’d never have to admit to anyone ever .
As soon as they got home he went to the kitchen and poured a large glass of water.
‘You want one?’ he asked huskily.
‘No thanks.’ Her throat was too tight to swallow.
He leaned back against the counter, gripping the glass with white knuckles. ‘I’m sorry my family tried to humiliate you. It was cruel. I’ll talk to them. They went too far.’
There wasn’t just anger in his eyes but worry. She gripped her hands together as shame swamped her.
‘Callum shouldn’t have been there. Shouldn’t have said any of that.’ Ramon coughed. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
He drained the glass and set it down. ‘Is what he said true?’
That Ramon was the ‘husband of her dreams’?
‘That you have fertility problems,’ he whispered.
Right now she was more afraid of telling the truth than she’d ever been of lying, but she had to reassure Ramon. He was wide-eyed and ashen. Too late she remembered that his mother hadn’t told him about her cancer symptoms.
‘No.’ Her mouth gummed. ‘Not true.’
‘You’re not unwell?’ he pushed. ‘You’re really okay.’
‘Yes. Healthy,’ she mumbled. ‘Truly, I’m fine.’
He jerkily shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘But you told Callum you—’
‘I lied.’
He expelled a huge breath. ‘Why?’
Elodie stared hard at her tightly laced fingers and hated herself. ‘Because I didn’t want to sleep with him. I told him I had a lot of pain with an irregular, difficult cycle. That was an excuse he could accept.’
Ramon was silent for so long that she had to look up, needing to see how angry he was.
‘You should have been able to just say no,’ he breathed.
‘I was his wife .’
‘Elodie—’
‘I was young, okay? I didn’t know how to assert myself then. Callum said he loved me, he promised that he’d help me handle Dad. He had me on some pedestal, said he would be patient and that I’d feel more for him given enough time, and I got swept up in believing him because I wanted to. I thought he was my knight, you know? A guy who could cope with my father while also being someone he approved of. I was a childish fool .’ She flushed. ‘And Callum only loved the idea of me, not the reality of me because I just disappointed him.’
Ramon muttered something unintelligible but Elodie shook her head—he’d asked and she wouldn’t stop now. She’d tell him.
‘We didn’t sleep together until after the wedding,’ she said angrily. ‘It wasn’t great, and I soon made those excuses because I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t...’
‘You didn’t want to hurt his pride so you lied about your health ?’ Ramon looked shell-shocked.
‘I thought it was just how I was,’ she mumbled.
‘That you didn’t enjoy sex?’
Ramon’s incredulous expression burned her to cinders.
‘I know I’m an awful person,’ she said. ‘I know it was my fault. I know it was awful to lie.’
‘You never should have had to.’ Ramon’s mouth pinched. ‘And was it really a lie? Pain isn’t always physical...it can be emotional too.’
Elodie winced. ‘I think he genuinely thought we could make it work. He wasn’t violent. He just wanted me to be something I wasn’t. I could never please him, but he tried—’
‘I cannot believe you think you have to defend him.’ He breathed in sharply. ‘You did what you needed to do to survive. Anyone would.’
She twisted her hands. Did he not think she was terrible for lying?
‘So when you met someone you did feel turned on by,’ Ramon asked, ‘you couldn’t resist?’
She froze on the edge of the precipice she’d dreaded. As determined as she’d been earlier, this truth made her very vulnerable. She was terrified of his reaction. That it would lead to her rejection .
‘Elodie?’ Ramon’s brain creaked, struggling to process the weight of what she’d just told him. Why hadn’t he asked? Why had he avoided even thinking about this? Of course her first marriage hadn’t been great, otherwise she’d have stayed with the guy. Of course she’d run out on him when she’d met someone she’d actually wanted .
‘That is what happened, isn’t it?’ he prompted.
She said nothing. She wasn’t just reluctant to reply, she was basically paralysed.
He moved towards her, urgency driving him as an outrageous suspicion hit. An impossibility. But now he remembered that time in her escape room when she’d breathlessly questioned what he was doing when he’d dropped to his knees. He’d thought she was acting it up, but maybe she’d really not known. Maybe she’d really not had a man do that before.
Not possible. Just not possible.
‘You fell for another man, realised what you’d been missing out on, left Callum for him—no?’ Ramon pressed, really wanting that to be right.
She stared at her locked hands again.
‘ When did you meet the other man?’ he growled.
Her head turned from him. ‘Callum could accept that we weren’t intimate in private, but he insisted I show him affection in public. He insisted on more and more—like how I dressed and what I said and stuff. Eventually I told him I wanted out. He resisted that idea. I thought my only choice was to run.’ She cleared her throat. ‘They tried to make me come home. Dad was furious. Callum went kind of crazy. I got desperate. I figured he’d stop coming after me if I was a complete...’ She spread her hands, then knotted her fingers together again. ‘If I was with other guys it would put him off.’
Ramon stared at her fixedly. So she’d become a party girl to push away her possessive husband. All those photos of her dancing with all those guys had been a performance. And she still hadn’t actually answered him properly. Had there ever been a guy she’d actually wanted ?
‘How many men have you slept with?’ he asked bluntly.
She went rigid. ‘That’s irrelevant.’
‘I disagree.’ It wasn’t the number that concerned him, rather her ability to answer. Honestly. ‘What’s your body count?’
‘Define body count.’ She glared at him angrily. ‘Because right now I’m very close to murdering you.’
The most preposterous notion had taken hold of Ramon only he was suddenly certain it wasn’t that far-fetched at all. ‘I’m not talking a few kisses on a nightclub floor. I want to know exactly how many men you’ve taken to bed.’
‘Well, you can want all you like, I’m not telling.’
Right. He suddenly felt murderous himself. ‘Would it really kill you to be completely honest with me? Just this once?’
‘Why does it matter so much?’ She whitened. ‘Will you even believe me if I even tell you? If I admit to the sanctimonious, perfect Ramon Fernandez himself that I’ve only slept with my ex-husband and the current one?’ She stepped forward. ‘That’s right,’ she spat. ‘ Two . You and him.’ She dragged in a broken breath and pushed back on him in true Elodie style. ‘How many women have you slept with?’
This wasn’t about him. He’d never hidden the truth so deliberately. ‘So your supposed infidelity, the reason for your divorce—?’
‘You don’t have to go all the way to be unfaithful,’ she snapped. ‘I was unfaithful.’
No. She’d enacted an escape plan. Because her first husband had resisted her leaving and her father had pressured her into returning, she’d acted out. But it had been an act. She hadn’t cheated at all.
He gaped at her—so incredibly hurt and he didn’t know why. She really was into role-play. He just had it all back to front.
‘You engineered everything so they’d think poorly of you. So others would judge you. All your wild partying ways and supposed promiscuity, all those photos—a new partner every night, dancing with so many different men.’ Bitterness filled him. This made sense now. This made total sense. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t realise sooner.’
‘How could you have?’
‘You blush , Elodie. The first time I took you to bed you barely knew what you were doing. No wonder you didn’t—’ He broke off, registering the humiliation welling in her eyes.
But then she blinked and lifted her chin. ‘Didn’t...?’
Of course she would fight on.
Ramon didn’t finish the thought aloud. He was too bitter. Too bloody broken .
Everything he’d believed was in ruins. He’d thought they were alike in what they wanted, in their ability to see this stupid marriage through, that they were mutually experienced enough to handle this affair. But he’d just begun to think that maybe there was more between them. Hell, he’d actually tried to understand her past infidelity. But none of it was as she’d portrayed. She hadn’t even been unfaithful. She hadn’t been anything like what she’d said she was.
And maybe all he really was to her was the first guy she’d actually got off with. He sure as hell couldn’t be anything more when she’d shared so little of her real self with him. Indeed, she’d only told him the truth tonight because Callum’s outburst had caught her out.
It was like when he’d caught his father with that assistant. When Cristina had revealed her affair with his father and the truth about Jose Ramon. When he’d bullied his mother’s doctor into breaking his patient confidentiality clause and admitting to him that she had end-stage cancer.
Once more the world he’d thought he’d known was in ruins and it shredded him. He couldn’t stand that Elodie had held back on him this whole time. She hadn’t chosen to tell him the truth. Hadn’t trusted him. Hadn’t cared enough to open up.
But he had. He’d really started to think differently about his future with her. But who knows how long she would’ve gone on letting him think things that weren’t true?
The realisation pressed on his chest. An anchor, drowning him.
‘Why are you so bothered about a stupid number?’ Her breathing shortened. ‘It shouldn’t matter. I thought that you were happy to take me as I am.’
‘But you’re not as you made yourself out to be.’ How could he believe a word she said now? When she’d held back from him even in the one place where he’d thought they were completely intimate.
‘You said yourself my past is my past.’ Her voice rose. ‘What does it matter if it isn’t as colourful as everyone else thinks. It’s not their business and nor is it yours and—’
‘I don’t care who you have or haven’t slept with!’ he roared. ‘ That is not the issue!’
‘Then what is ?’ Elodie cried.
This was going so much worse than she’d feared. But of course Ramon didn’t care how many men she’d slept with. It was irrelevant. He wasn’t jealous or possessive because he didn’t really care about her . He’d never considered an actual future with her and never would.
‘It’s the lie that matters,’ he said shortly.
But he’d just accepted the fact that she’d lied to Callum. So when was one lie okay and another not? And she hadn’t so much lied as much as not spoken up. ‘Your pride has taken a hit because you didn’t know every last little thing about me?’
He stared at her. He looked dreadful—not just angry, but deeply bitter. ‘Honesty matters to me, Elodie.’
‘Really?’ Her emotions slipped and she called him out. ‘You’re the one who entered a fake marriage purely to keep control of some property you don’t even want.’
‘The honesty required was between us .’
But honesty took trust. Which took time. ‘You didn’t even tell me about that island at the beginning. Nor would I have expected you to. And you shouldn’t have expected me to tell you everything either. Relationships don’t work that way,’ she said.
‘Do we actually have a relationship?’
She hesitated, suddenly terrified about how to answer that. ‘We have a partnership . We are in the midst of an affair. We’re physically intimate...’ She didn’t know how else to define it. ‘Trust needs to be earned , right? I don’t trust easily. You don’t trust at all —’
‘How can you say that? I told you things I’ve never told anyone . And you let me. You listened. Empathised even. You let me think...’ He trailed off.
She froze, hating his anger. She had to try to explain why she’d been quiet—why she’d been so afraid . ‘I needed you to think I could handle it. That I knew what I was getting into. If you knew what had really happened, you would have had such power over me. I couldn’t let anyone have that—’
‘Because you didn’t trust me.’
‘I didn’t know you then.’
‘And nothing has happened in the last few weeks to make you change your opinion—maybe believe that maybe you could begin to trust me?’
She breathed, unable to answer. The fact was even though she’d wanted to, she’d been too scared. She’d worried he mightn’t react well. She’d been right to worry. Because he wasn’t. He was prickly and doubtful and he wasn’t going to believe her if she said any of what she truly thought and wanted now.
‘And you still don’t,’ he said softly. ‘You’re still playing your part. Bulletproof, brave Elodie. So self-sacrificing.’
She wasn’t. She was selfish. She’d wanted Ramon. She’d wanted this affair with him. She still did. In fact, she wanted more . But he was furious and pushing her away so quickly, so easily—and that told her everything.
‘I’m used to betrayal, Elodie. And I knew you played games. But I thought that at least in bed you were honest with me.’
She had been honest with him there—she hadn’t held anything back. It had been impossible to. Couldn’t he feel that? Defensive, she pushed back hard because this was just hurt pride for him. ‘Does it make you feel guilty to know I wasn’t as sexually experienced as you thought? Because don’t. It was good, Ramon.’
‘You don’t need to pacify me with half-truths Elodie. I’m not him. You don’t need to protect my feelings.’
Because he didn’t really care? Right. ‘You think I was lying about that just then?’
‘It’s what you do.’ He nodded.
He didn’t believe her. Wouldn’t ever.
‘You pretend to be something you’re not and fool everyone around you in some sort of warped protection mode so you can escape any possible threat,’ he said.
‘While you’re perfect?’ she flung back at him, so hurt she sought to wound with her words. ‘A workaholic who can’t stand emotional intimacy. Who basically uses bodyguards and assistants as human shields so no one can possibly get close. You’ve virtually shut yourself in a panic room because you’re afraid of getting close to people and you don’t even want to escape.’
He turned white. ‘At last I know what you really think of me.’
Because of course he believed that —the worst thing she could think to throw at him in the fury of her hurt. ‘No, you have no idea. None .’
Because it was only coming to her now—belatedly and disastrously. Because facing his anger like this was the last thing she ever wanted. Because she couldn’t stand to feel as if she were less than in his eyes. To have him lose faith in her. But the three feet between them was an insurmountable gulf. And this had become so much more than a game to her. This had become everything . At the worst possible moment she realised how deeply she’d fallen in love with him. Panicked—lost in a maze of her own making— she was the one locked in a room from which there was no escape. Not without pain. Not without leaving her heart behind.
Ramon had prised her open so effortlessly, yet how could she tell him that now? He wasn’t going to believe her. And more than that, he didn’t want it.
The last month had meant little to him. He’d probably only taken her with him on that trip because he’d not trusted her to stay home alone, not because he’d really wanted her there with him. She’d been such a fool. It had always and only been a hot affair for him—nothing more.
‘Yet you’ve nothing else to add?’ he asked heavily. ‘Okay, Elodie. You win.’
She stared. Unmoving. Uncomprehending.
‘You’ve secured Ashleigh’s freedom but at heart you’ve always wanted your own. You have it. Immediately.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Go home. It’s over.’