Chapter Nine #3
Raffaele heard the sound of her shuffling in her office, clearing her stuff out. He could picture her so clearly, could see the soft curve of her neck, the slenderness of her arms, the delicate bone structure of her face with those freckles that had appeared from nowhere in the heat of the sun.
He slammed his fist on his desk, strode restlessly to the window and looked down at the streets below. From here, he had a bird’s-eye view of the people entering and leaving the building. He felt nailed to the spot.
Erin had left her office. He’d heard the quiet click of the outer door closing. He wondered whether she would say anything to any of her colleagues, or whether she would just disappear into a future that no longer included him or anyone else she had spent the past four years working with.
His heart hurt. He only had himself to blame. That was what came from being foolish enough to lower your guard.
He remained where he was, looking down, waiting to see her hurrying out and away from his orbit.
He wanted to tear himself away, return to the pile of emails waiting for him, but he realised that ever since this three-dimensional, fascinating, sexy, addictive woman had entered his life, work had taken a back seat.
But what would staring through a window do for him?
Except ratchet up his levels of frustration?
Frustration and basic incomprehension. He had made her an irresistible offer.
They still wanted one another. To him, her reasoning for walking away, for dumping him because he’d served his purpose, made no sense.
But then again…
Raffaele frowned and thought about them both, thought about his own life experiences and about hers.
His formative years, spent cocooned in wealth but lacking the joy of loving, demonstrative parents, had toughened him and his doomed love affair had snuffed out any last remaining dregs of hope that love was for him.
He realised with a jolt how little real interest he had ever taken in the backstories of the women he had dated in the past. He had entered all those relationships with his emotions sealed off and, unable to share anything of himself, had never sought to discover anything about his partners.
He wined and dined them and pleasured them and then when it was over, he walked away intact.
But he had found out about Erin. He had begun to feel…things stirring inside him, like small shoots wanting to grow.
But as she had made perfectly clear, he’d never been her type.
She was someone whose entire background had geared her towards the eventual goal of a long-term relationship.
Where he was content to have fun until the fun ended, she wasn’t.
Their intense physical connection had made her realise that she wanted more.
Who could blame her? He was cut from completely different cloth.
She did deserve better than him.
All told, it was a good thing that she had broken things off. However disoriented he felt at the moment, he would and could never be the straightforward kind of guy who wanted the neat house and the picket fence and the apple tree in the back garden.
Raffaele stared sightlessly down for a few seconds.
His heart picked up pace.
Yet what might it feel like to have had her love? To have seen that soft smile turn to him with tenderness as well as passion? To see love in her eyes as well as desire? To know that she had his back?
He gritted his teeth in frustration. He’d tried all that in the past and it hadn’t worked. He didn’t have it in him to return that depth of feeling. He was too conditioned by his past, however weirdly she’d made him feel.
About to swing away from the window, something caught his eye.
The navy blue outfit, so severe considering it was summer.
The glossy chestnut hair tied back in her attempt to look professional.
How could she not know that when he saw that, he also saw it loose and tumbling as she moved beneath him, flushed with lust?
Erin…and next to her…
Raffaele squinted, his entire body stilling at the figure by her side and then freezing as she fell against the man standing in front of her and was enveloped in an embrace that brought a surge of primitive jealousy exploding in his veins.
He spun away and walked to his desk and sat down, everything inside him in turmoil as he replayed in his head what he had just seen.
Best forgotten, he told himself fiercely.
She’d made her choice and he would never beg for anyone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Erin pulled back from Colin, shocked at how easily she had blurted everything out to him.
She’d been hurrying out of the offices with her few possessions in a carrier bag and there he was, coming in as she was going out, and the second he had seen her white face he had pulled her to one side and asked her if she was okay.
And the floodgates had opened. A few concerned words from a guy she barely knew and she had burst into tears.
‘This isn’t me,’ she sniffed, rummaging in her bag for the packet of tissues she always kept there. ‘I don’t blab and I don’t… I don’t blub either. And I really, really don’t share the sort of stuff I’ve just shared with you. I… Please, you must promise me that you won’t say a word.’
‘Of course I won’t. You forget I’m a lawyer.
Lawyers are very good at keeping their own counsel.
I kind of knew something was up between the two of you,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘Not sure how but it was a feeling I got when I glanced over at one point at that party at his house and saw the body language between you. Erin, want to go somewhere and talk?’
‘I… No… I should go back home. I need some time on my own.’
‘Sure?’
‘You’re very kind, Colin.’ She struggled with a smile and he laughed ruefully.
‘I’m not convinced that that’s such a great thing to be. What do they say about nice guys finishing last?’
‘There’s everything right with being a nice guy. You’re just the sort of man I should be looking for.’ Erin was oddly comfortable saying that.
‘But sometimes life doesn’t work out that way.’
‘No.’
‘Will you do me the enormous favour of keeping in touch?’
‘Of course I will. I’ve made loads of good friends here and as soon as I’ve got my act together, I’ll be in touch with all of them.’ She sighed. ‘In the meanwhile, I shall take a little time out of London.’
‘Erin…this probably won’t do you much good but…he’s a guy who breaks hearts.’
‘I know. Don’t worry. This heart will mend.’
But would it? And if it ever did, how long would it take?
She was mentally and physically exhausted by the end of the evening.
It had been a long day. Life had changed irrevocably in a matter of hours and even though she’d thought she’d braced herself for it, even though she’d spent those last few days on that yacht knowing that she would be handing in her resignation as soon as they returned to London, she still found that she was unprepared for the enormity of the decision.
Should she have accepted Raffaele’s offer? Would another month or so made such a difference? Would her heart have hurt any the less?
He had offered her riches beyond her wildest dreams. A promotion that would have taken her physically out of his orbit, so that she wouldn’t have had to see him on a day-to-day basis.
She could have carried on there once their situation had come to an end, continued with a high-flying career that would have sorted all her financial problems and given her the sort of job satisfaction she could never have found anywhere else.
Had she been stupid not to have bitten his hand off for that job promotion?
But no.
A clean break was what was necessary. Anything else would have been the equivalent of the alcoholic thinking that just one drink a day would be okay.
The shock to her system would fade but if she’d chosen to stay, bumping into him now and again…seeing some woman click-clack her way up to his office in passing… Well, she would have lived in a state of semi-permanent misery.
A little break would do her good and when she returned to London, it would be time to start hunting down another job and getting back to the dating scene!
It sounded good, she tried to tell herself. She couldn’t wait.
It was after ten in the evening, when being alone with her thoughts was driving her crazy, that she phoned her parents.
‘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…’