Chapter 13
FOR YEARS, RAF HAD USED a combination of alcohol, sex and work to deal with what his life had become.
To cope with grief, loss and guilt. So much so that he’d forgotten, somewhere along the way, that once upon a time he had been a runner.
Even as a boy, he’d run, forging paths over the Italian countryside, when his father would drink too much, or bring some strange woman home, and Raf had wanted to curl up in a ball and cry because of how much he missed his mother.
And his father, come to think of it. The man they’d known might as well have died when she did, for all they recognized him afterwards.
It had started as a way to escape, perhaps to exercise control in a world that felt wildly frightening and unpredictable to a little person, and then, it had become about power.
He’d run simply because he was good at it, and wanted to be better.
Faster, more urgently, his legs pumping, his lungs burning.
When Elodie had fallen asleep the night before, her breathing rhythmic, her body so soft and trusting against his, guilt had exploded in his gut. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to know why.
She was too good for him. Too pure. Too perfect.
She was everything he wasn’t. And he needed to make sure he protected her—that this baby didn’t become something she resented.
She’d spent almost a decade working tirelessly to support some bastard, who hadn’t given a second thought to what she wanted.
When Raf had mentioned a trust fund the night before, he’d been completely serious, but now he wondered if it would be enough?
He needed to think this through, to work out the best way to manage this and avoid Elodie ending up in yet another disastrous situation.
How could she have put up with that guy though? And for so many years.
Because she loved him, a voice reminded Raf.
Anger flared in his gut. Love. Stupid, inexplicable, untrustworthy love.
How he hated it, and the whole idea of it.
Love had driven Marcia to an act of insanity, to gamble on being able to conceive as soon as they were married, so that Raf would never know the truth.
Love had made her lie to him about one of the most important things in this world.
Love had destroyed his father, ruined him, because the flipside of love was loss, and burying their mother had ruined him.
Wasn’t there something better than love, anyway? What about respect and cooperation, consideration and decency?
More and more, he realized, as he ran, that he could turn this situation with Elodie into something that worked for both of them. He would support her in her dreams. They would raise the baby together. And sometimes, when they needed it, they would fall into bed together, as they had last night.
Even the thought of that, though, had him growing hard, his body instantly responding to the idea of making her his again.
Would that be the worst thing, he wondered, pausing as he crested over a gentle hill, then stopping completely, hands on hips, eyes trained on the view back towards his villa.
The roads out here were deserted—barely used, except by the handful of people who had homes spread across this part of Tuscany.
Everything about last night had been organic and urgent, as though coming together was just meant to be.
They’d both needed it. One night hadn’t been enough, but was two?
She was seriously longing for a second coffee when she heard—or felt—him enter the villa.
Footsteps, and a definite change in atmosphere, so she cursed herself for not taking the time to change out of his shirt.
But the truth was, she liked it. She liked the way the soft fabric felt against her naked body, the way it smelt faintly of him, the way it brushed her nipples and reminded her of his touch.
“Hey,” she said, nerves spreading through her like wildfire.
He was wearing shorts and a shirt, and bright white running shoes. There was a ring of perspiration at his collar that made her want to lick him and taste that salt. Which was crazy. She had always found sweat disgusting but on Raf…nothing was. Everything about him was—
She cut the thought off before it could take hold.
He wasn’t talking. He was just staring at her. In a way that made her body quiver and her insides pulse with heat, so she wondered if he was thinking all the things she was?
God, this was going to be hard.
So much harder than they’d thought.
“About last night,” he said, so she braced for whatever he was going to say, not sure what she even wanted him to say. Just knowing that what came next mattered.
“Yeah?” she prompted, when he trailed off into nothing.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”
He said nothing. Nothing about his own feelings and wants, about what he thought should happen.
He was just checking in on her. She supposed she should have been grateful.
It was yet another stark point of difference with Aaron.
When had he shown even a hint of concern with where she was at?
Then again, why would he have? She had seemed fine.
Happy with the status quo. She’d genuinely believed that herself.
Until—until she’d met Raf and realized how unexplored the possibilities were for her, how much of the world there was to see, and experience.
“Elodie?” His tone was sharp, drawing her gaze back to his face, to the concern etched there. The regret. Which was the last thing she wanted him to feel.
It reminded her of something she’d thought, the night before, as the inevitability of what was happening had become clear.
“Sleeping together was a mistake,” she said, softly.
Because how could it be anything else? She moved towards him slowly though, just a few steps, because it felt strange to have so much air between them.
“But I don’t regret it,” she admitted, nerves stretching taut at how much of herself she was putting on the line. “You?”
She waited, silence throbbing around them, twisting painfully, making her insides hurt.
“I don’t regret it, no.” But he was frowning, as though something was wrong. She closed the distance between them and reached up, wondering if she had any right to touch him, but not being able to stop herself. She ran her hand over his cheek, so his face tilted down towards hers.
“You look concerned.”
“I am.”
“What about?”
“You. This.” He shook his head a little. “This is new territory for me. It’s everything I told myself I wouldn’t want.”
“Me?”
“Any kind of relationship.”
Her heart stammered. The complications of that were huge.
A relationship? She was supposed to have been married to Aaron.
Yet she and Raf were having a baby together.
The stakes were too high to even think about dating.
It made her head spin. “Then let’s not be in a romantic relationship,” she said, slowly, still touching his cheek.
Her fingers felt warm, sparking at the touch.
“I was strangely afraid you were going to say that.”
His honesty made her heart flip. “Something tells me you’re familiar with the concept of friends with benefits.”
He arched a brow.
“Why can’t we be parents with benefits?” she suggested, taking comfort in the cool pragmatism of her suggestion.
“Occasional benefits,” she added, because she felt as though she was already asking for something outside the paradigm of what they’d agreed.
What she’d said, only two days ago, was how it had to be.
But spending time with Raf, she now knew it was unrealistic not to expect their chemistry to flare up. It was far smarter to have a plan for how to deal with that, new boundaries, that reflected the reality of their circumstances.
“I thought that complicated everything?”
“Everything’s already complicated,” she pointed out, brow arched. “It’s worse if we ignore the elephant in the room.”
Half his mouth shifted in the hint of a smile. “So, what does this look like?”
Her heart skidded painfully in her chest. “Like last night. From time to time.”
“Are we going to put a limit on it?”
She laughed then, a shaky sound. “I don’t think we need to be so prescriptive, do you?”
“Meaning…”
“We just…let ourselves enjoy this. Knowing that it means nothing. That our first duty is to our baby, always.”
“Always,” he agreed, as he swept her into his arms and kissed her like they’d been parted for years, not hours.
The phone conversation with her parents, much later that day, went exactly as she’d imagined.
They were shocked, confused, a little offended that she hadn’t told them sooner, and then, devastated to learn that not only was she not in a relationship with the father of her baby, she also had no plans to marry him.
“They’re old fashioned,” she explained to Raf, later, as they sat on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water, sipping delicious mocktails he’d somehow whipped up.
“They want us to get married?”
“They’d prefer I was married before having a baby, yes.”
“And you?”
“Nothing about this is really what I would have planned,” she pointed out, wrinkling her nose, then wondering why that felt like a lie.
She hadn’t planned this and nor had Raf.
And yet, weirdly, Elodie almost couldn’t imagine how her life was meant to be.
It felt as though all her original plans, her life with Aaron, existed in a parallel universe, one she couldn’t ever imagine finding her way back to.
Even when it felt so comfortable, it no longer felt right.
“Still regrets though?” he asked, eyes roaming her face intently.
“Weirdly, no,” she said with a tremulous half-laugh. Then, she reached out and put her hand over his, shaking her head slowly. “Life is weird, right?”