Chapter 6 #2
Only, she’d had no idea how reluctant until she’d caught his conversation.
This is my worst fucking nightmare, but it’s my mess. I have to goddamn clean it up, don’t I?
Okay. She’d known this wasn’t planned. And it obviously wasn’t ideal for either of them. But hearing him describe it in such a clearly scathing way flooded her veins with ice.
Another man’s voice came through, his accent similar to Raf’s. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but are you sure?”
Silence. Then, “I took her to the obstetrician myself.”
Elodie closed her eyes against that—the sense that she was some problem he’d had to manage.
Someone he’d had to drag to the obstetrician’s office to get confirmation of what she’d gone to his house to tell him.
She could have hidden the pregnancy. She could have run away, home to her parents, and never let him know that they’d made a baby, but instead, she’d done what she thought was right.
And she was starting to regret it, big time.
“And, again, don’t take this the wrong way, but is the baby definitely yours?”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
Another man’s voice came in over the top, before Raf could answer.
“It’s just, the women you hook up with aren’t, you know…
” his voice trailed off, but that didn’t matter.
Elodie knew what was being implied. Raf slept with a lot of women, and those women slept with a lot of men.
She straightened her spine, irritation and defensiveness bursting through her.
How dare these unknown people discuss her like this?
Even when she knew, logically, that they were looking to protect Raf, it didn’t matter.
They didn’t know her, and they had no business passing judgement on her.
“She says so.”
A muffled curse, barely audible through the door.
“Raf,” one of the male voices said slowly. “After everything you’ve been through…”
“We’ve done a paternity test,” he said. “I’ll get the results later today. But strangely, I believe her.”
“You do?” A woman asked.
Elodie didn’t even feel a hint of warmth at the fact he had listened to her.
Not after what she’d overheard. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but when she was the subject under discussion?
Besides, these people were going to be in her baby’s life.
Didn’t she have a right to know what they were like?
“She’s not what you think. She’s different.
” Even through the door she heard Raf expel a sigh.
“I should never have gotten messed up with her. It was a stupid, stupid mistake. If I could take it back, I would, but sadly, time travel isn’t one of my skills, so I just have to live with this.
Anyway, that’s why I couldn’t make dinner. ”
It was shocking to Elodie how badly his statement hurt, all things considered.
After all, he was nothing to her, and she knew she was nothing to him.
They barely knew one another. But he’d really won her over the day before, with his whole ‘working as a team’ schtick.
He’d sounded so reasonable, and she’d actively gone to sleep thinking how nice it was to be looked after by someone else for a change.
A lump formed in her throat and she moved quickly, turning to leave the scene of the eavesdropping crime, but she was in such a hurry that she jammed her knee into the door frame and let out a yelp before she could stop herself.
She heard the bed move, heard his footsteps and moved quickly, half running down the wide tiled corridor.
She heard him curse, and say, “I’ll call you back. ” Then, more firmly, “Elodie, wait.”
She didn’t wait, though. She kept moving, one foot after the other, no idea where she was going, only that she had to get away from him, and those people.
From the things he’d said, from the knowledge she would always have that he wished he’d never gotten involved with her.
That they’d never slept together. What had been her act of rebellion and sense of triumph over the mundanity of her relationship with Aaron, had been reduced into what seemed to be the biggest regret of his life.
“Elodie, I said wait.”
She heard the easy command in his voice, the natural authority, and bucked against it. How dare he think he could tell her what to do?
“Leave me alone,” she muttered.
But he was right behind her then, his stride longer, faster, his determination to get her to stop making her no match for him. His hand curled around her wrist, so she whirled around to face him and yanked her arm free. “Don’t touch me.”
His eyes lanced hers, his features taut. “I’m sorry you heard that.”
“I’m not,” she responded fiercely. “At least now I know how you really feel.”
“Are you surprised?” he demanded after a beat. “Don’t you feel the same way?”
Something in the middle of her chest twisted sharply, so she felt a gash of pain.
“No, actually. I don’t. Whatever else that night was, it was a step towards independence for me.
You were something I chose for myself, and you were…
something I enjoyed. And as for our baby, there is nothing on earth that would make me wish this hadn’t happened.
” She wrapped her arms over her chest as if she could physically protect their baby from his words, from the hurt that she’d endured.
He closed his eyes against her statement, his features taut. “Then you’re a better person than I am.”
She sucked in another sharp breath. “Why the hell didn’t you just let me go? You brought me here, you made a huge fuss over wanting to raise this baby together—,”
“I do want that.”
“Well, maybe I don’t,” she spat. “Not after hearing you—and whoever those people were—talking about me, and our child, like that.”
“They don’t know you.”
“But you do.”
“And I told them I believe you.”
“Oh, how gallant of you,” she threw at him. “You told them you believe me but that you’re still waiting for proof. That’s hardly a staunch defense.”
His impatience was obvious in the lines of his body. “What do you want from me, Elodie? I don’t know you. I don’t know a damned thing about you. And given the differences in our situation, it’s natural that my family would think—,”
“Don’t say it,” she interrupted quickly, lifting her hands to her lips and pressing them there.
“I can’t believe I came here. I can’t believe I thought I could let you help me, that I would just spend a month here, when all the while, you and they clearly have me pegged as some kind of gold digger. ”
He flinched at that, but he didn’t move. “It’s not an unreasonable concern to hold.”
“I told you, I don’t want anything from you.”
“And I believe you.”
“But you didn’t say that to them.”
“I told them you were different.”
She angled her face away, her breath hurting, her whole body feeling weak all over.
“Listen, there was no way to tell my family that wouldn’t result in them being shocked and jumping to conclusions.”
“I don’t care about your family. You’re the one who made it seem as though we would be a team, raising our child together, and then you basically threw me to the wolves.”
“I did no such thing,” he responded with obvious disbelief.
“You said you regret what happened with us. That you wish it had never happened. That’s what they’re going to hear and think when they see me.”
“What would you have preferred? That I pretended we were in a relationship? That I had feelings for you? With respect, Elodie, that’s not true, and my family knows me better than to believe it.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were bitterly angry tears, borne of disbelief at the way he was treating her.
“I want to go home.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her. “No.”
“No?” Her heart sped up as she looked towards the rolling hills. All morning she’d been admiring how beautifully isolated this place was, but now that hit her in a wholly different way. She was virtually trapped here, at his whim.
“You’re saying I’m your prisoner.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he responded. “I’m not an asshole, Elodie. If you really want to leave, you can leave. But not now, not like this.”
“How dare you?” she demanded, lifting her hands to his chest and pushing hard.
God, it felt good. So good. Anger fired through her veins and even though she didn’t shift him—it was like a butterfly trying to mow down a bear—just leaning into him and giving vent to her rioting emotions was a pressure valve release she desperately needed.
“How dare you?” she shouted, pushing again.
This time, it brought her body closer to his and the arms he had crossed unfolded, his hands curving around her upper arms.
“What choice do I have?” he said. “I didn’t lie to them.
I do wish this hadn’t happened, but it did.
You’re pregnant, and the baby is mine. Nothing you just heard changes a thing about what we agreed yesterday.
I have not lied to you, Elodie, and believe me, I won’t.
If nothing else, you can rely on me for my honesty. ”
“I don’t want your honesty—I don’t want—,”
“Yes?” he growled, his face somehow closer to hers. Had he dropped his head? Belatedly she realized that no, it was she who’d lifted onto the tips of her toes.
“I want—,” but her insides were twisting and shrieking, begging her to be sensible. To pull away from him and take a breath. Everything was too frantic, too overheated, including her emotions.
“What do you want?” he responded, but before she could answer, he was dropping his mouth and kissing her, with all his own pent-up feelings, his anger, his frustration, and the strength of passion that inevitably flared between them.
She swore into his mouth, she swore from deep in her soul, but his only response was to push her back against the cold stone wall of the corridor and wedge his knee between her legs, his body completely enfolding hers, just as she’d fantasised about it doing that first night they’d met.
“I think I might hate you,” she said, pulling her mouth away for the briefest moment, to suck some air into her lungs.
“That makes two of us.”