Chapter Nine #2
‘No! Raffaele, I haven’t told my parents about us although I’m pretty sure you’re right.
I’m pretty sure they’d be horrified. I’m leaving because what we had was great and it was fun but I want to move on with my life and that life doesn’t have you in it.
If I stay here, having this fling with you, I’m going to soon start thinking that I’m wasting my time. ’
‘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 be wasting 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? That she was 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 just had 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.
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 he allowed that 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.
She had expected him to try to talk her into staying. That was why she’d had the holiday time left outstanding on 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 though it made perfect sense.
Although, she now thought, didn’t it make just as much sense that she might have wanted to 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.
‘One last thing,’ he said, ‘and this from the guy you thought had fabricated a job opportunity as some kind of coercive piece of bribery…’
‘Raffaele, please…don’t. I…’
‘You won’t see me again. We’re done and dusted. But the job is still yours for the taking.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the job I offered you…still stands and it has nothing to do with whether we were lovers once or not. It stands because you would be good at it and you deserve it.’ He stood up, bringing the conversation to a close.
‘You can think about it and let Human Resources know if you’re still interested.
If not, you can rest assured that the reference you get from me will be of the highest order. ’
‘Thank you,’ Erin whispered, tears stinging the back of her eyes. She spun around before they could start streaming down. When she looked over her shoulder, one last, quick glance, it was to see him binning the envelope with her resignation letter inside. He hadn’t even bothered to read it.