35. DIANA
DIANA
In his bed, we fuck again, although perhaps fucking is the wrong word. It’s more like making love. It’s softer and more intimate, and how much it means to me, and how much I love it, terrifies me.
He lied when he said no romance, because this feels romantic and heavy and intimate, all the things I’ve always steered away from.
Afterwards, I nestle into him, my head on his shoulder, our bare legs intertwined.
“This shouldn’t feel so right,” he mutters, stroking his fingers down my arm. He looks almost dreamy as he stares down at me. His eyes are smiling, and I want to be looked at this way always.
Forever.
But at the same time, the softness in his gaze makes my stomach fall. This is wrong, and he knows it. I don’t want to reveal how unnerved I am by the way he’s looking at me, so I deliberately squint at him and say, “I’m insulted.”
He gently pushes me off and props himself up on an elbow. “You’re a sneaky little liar, is what you are. I really thought you were two different people. How did you do that?”
I puff my chest and affect a smug grin. “I’m very clever.”
He snorts. “No, seriously. How is your American accent so good?”
“My mother is from Atlanta. I heard it every day growing up, and we went there a lot for the holidays. I’d always pretend I was local. Fooled everyone.”
“Hmm. I can believe it. And the acting? The whole…” He pauses, frowning as if the right word momentarily eludes him. “Persona. It wasn’t you.”
He looks so perturbed that I want to kiss him again to make it all better. Not that I can do that, of course. We’re in too deep to repair this now. “I was head of the drama society at uni. Big into pretending to be other people.”
He flops back on the bed so he’s staring at the ceiling, seeming to consider my words. “Your videos are quite dramatic. I should have known.”
I snuggle into him again. His arm rests over my hip, pinning me to the bed, and I love how it feels; even if I tried to escape, he’d be strong enough to force me to stay. But he won’t.
Stroking my shoulder with a fingertip, he presses a kiss to my temple. “I thought about knocking on your door in the middle of the night so many times.”
My heart gives a hard thump. “But you never did.”
“No. Of course not.” He twists strands of my hair around his fingers. “But I wanted to. Every night.”
“From the very beginning?”
“Not the very beginning. I was still hung up on that other version of you. But when you looked at me in my office that first time, I felt something. I was pretty horrified at the idea I was attracted to you though.”
“Charming,” I deadpan.
He side-eyes me, but otherwise continues as though I haven’t spoken. “And then after the opera, and buying you the clothes, I couldn’t help but wonder what you might look like out of them. And more recently, yes. Every night, I wanted to knock on your bedroom door.”
“You should have.”
“God, no. I got used to tormenting myself, thinking every creak or noise in the night was you coming to find me. I think by the end, I enjoyed it; every night there was this stupid feeling of… potential. Like, maybe, tonight would be the night you’d come.
” He lets out a low breath. “But you never did.”
“I wanted to.”
He hums a half-second laugh in the back of his throat, as if the idea of us both simultaneously wanting and denying ourselves amuses him, but the smile falls from his lips as he adds, “For sex.”
“Yes.”
It sounds like a lie, but he doesn’t pull me up on it. Releasing the tight curl of my hair he’s twisted around his finger, he smooths a hand over my head. “Maybe you don’t have to leave.”
A lump rises in my throat, and I shake my head against his chest. He cups my shoulder as if he knows I’m on the cusp of breaking, and he’s trying to hold me in one piece. I feel so safe, snuggled up next to him, that the lump only grows bigger.
“We don’t have to…” He fades off.
A little burst of hope blazes in me like a single match on a dark night. “Don’t have to what?” I croak.
“We don’t have to stop. We could—”
“Keep fucking?”
His broad chest expands and then deflates on a sigh, and something in his eyes dulls, as if I’ve disappointed him. “Yes. We could do that. I don’t want to stop. I probably should, but I don’t. I meant it the night we met.”
“Meant what?”
“That you would haunt me for the rest of my life. You have. You do. Every single day. I’d rather have you.” He pulls me closer. “This physical, flesh and blood version of you, than a ghostly version walking the shadows of my mind. Tormenting me. Haunting me.”
He sounds almost poetic, and part of me wants to mock him for it, but also I get it. I understand completely. “I’d rather have this version of you too,” I say, tucking my feet tighter around his calves. “It’s been very tedious having to imagine your dick all the time.”
He laughs, and my head, still resting on his chest, rises and falls with the motion.
“But we can’t do that to Lizzie,” I say when he calms.
He threads his fingers between mine. “She’s gone, at least for a while,” he says, but there’s a hint of melancholy in his tone. “Pretending I don’t want you is miserable. I’m too old for that shit.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I purr, knowing it’ll annoy him.
He rolls his eyes, loosens his fingers from mine and strums them over my bare stomach instead. “I'm serious. I don’t want to mess around. I like you. I want to spend more time with you. But—” He cuts himself off.
“What?” I ask.
“Is there anyone else?” he says cautiously. “I assumed there wasn’t, but then I realised I have no idea if you’re seeing anyone else.”
“There’s no one else.” I sound so serious that I immediately want to take it back. To smile or wink or do something to lighten the mood, because my words resonate like a confession of something more.
Rafe circles my navel with his index finger, then dips it in and back around the outside. It’s a tantalising tickle, but I love it. It’s proprietary, like he thinks he owns my body and can do whatever he wants with it. I’d let him too. “The club,” he asks. “What about that? Do you go there often?”
“No. Only on masquerade nights.” I reach out and run the tip of my finger over his nipple, making him suck in the slightest gasp. “Does it bother you?”
His focus shifts inwards, as if he’s giving my question serious consideration. “Have you been back there without me?”
“No. There’s been no one else since that first night. Have you?”
“No. Just you.”
A warm, fuzzy feeling ignites in my chest. This is bad. Why are we talking as if this could ever really become something, when we both know it can’t?
Deep inside, where I can barely feel it, something hurts, but I’m not ready to examine it.
“What if you stay? Just a few more days.” He kisses me so softly I want to cry. “Say yes,” he murmurs against my mouth.
My heart feels like it’s going to burst, and happiness swims over the muted agony beneath. I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “No.”
He pulls back. “No?”
“All my stuff is packed.”
“So unpack it.”
I close my eyes, wincing at how straightforward he makes it sound, as though a packed bag is our only obstacle.
I take a breath, opening my eyes to find him staring at me.
“Please don’t. I’m ready to leave. And why would I stay?
For what? This thing between us can’t be more than a dirty secret.
It’s not realistic. I’m your daughter’s best friend.
I don’t want to betray her trust. I know we’ve already done that, but think about it.
You’ll be a terrible father, and I’ll be a terrible friend.
I don’t want to ruin what she has with you. It’s not worth it.”
His expression hardens. “Your conscience is a bit slow to kick in, Diana.”
“Yeah. I know. It’s a problem. I’m impulsive.
But my business is doing well. I have money.
I’m about to move out. I’m on the brink of independence.
Ever since my dad forced me to get engaged, I’ve wanted exactly this.
And I’ve worked so hard for it.” I tap the tip of his nose with my finger, and he flinches.
“I’m not going to stay here and be your kept woman. ”
I’m not going to stay here and let you love me.
He rubs a hand over his eyes, letting out a long sigh. “I’m not sure anyone could keep you.”
“Probably not.” I shrug as I fake a casual smile, but inside, the pain in my heart is so sharp that I can no longer ignore it.
I’m giving up the only person who’s ever moved me.
The only sex I’ve ever had that hasn’t been empty.
But I’d sacrifice it all up so that Lizzie doesn’t ever have to feel the pain of having a father who betrays her.
I wish she could keep the version of Rafe Bastion before he met me.
The father who always put her first. The father who dances with her on the kitchen island when she’s sad.
Who loved her exactly the way a father should. Who still loves her that way.
I’ve never had that, but Lizzie does. And I would rather die than take it from her. I’m the problem here, and as soon as I leave, everything can go back to how it was before.
Rafe will forget about me, and Lizzie will have her dad.
And I’ll have exactly what I set out to achieve: financial freedom. I’m so close to getting what I set out to accomplish.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it?
My heart pinches at the question. I wanted freedom to choose everything, including the man I give my heart to, and somehow I still don’t have that.
“I mean it,” I say to him. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want this to become a thing I have to hide when Lizzie comes back.”
“I’ve been hiding how I feel about you for far too long already.”
An uncomfortable heat creeps under my skin. “You said she was the most important thing.”
“Yes,” he admits.
“Well, then. Don’t mess things up with her for my sake.”
He says nothing, but I sense his conflict as he continues watching his finger while he trails it over my bare skin.
I’ve never been so tenderly caressed before, as if every inch of me is equally worthy of attention, and the fact that he’s doing it even as I’m telling him this has to be over is a pain I never knew to anticipate.
“Please,” I say, and his gentle caress ceases. “Swear it to me.”
“Swear what?”
“That this will never happen again.” My throat is choked as I add, “That this is the last time. It’s best for everyone.”
He swallows, examining my face, his expression serious. “Okay,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like agreement. It sounds like defeat. “No repeats.”
“No repeats,” I echo, forcing a smile even though inside, my heart is breaking.