Chapter 15
THERE WERE A BILLION POINTS OF difference between Marcia and Elodie.
They were chalk and cheese in myriad ways.
He’d known Marcia for years and Elodie for months, and yet, he had recognized their fundamental differences immediately.
And then, when Elodie had come to tell him about the baby, he’d reacted from a place of past trauma and mistrust, but each step of the way, she’d shown how genuine and decent she was.
Even going along with his demand for a paternity test, while she herself was still reeling from the discovery of their pregnancy. Her temper was measured, reasonable, she was kindness itself.
But seeing her amongst his family was yet another stark contrast to Marcia.
He’d never quite realized how her presence had tainted their events.
Oh, they’d still always pulled together, had fun, enjoyed one another’s company, but there had been a formality and restraint around Marcia, that he now recognized was well deserved.
His family hadn’t liked her, they hadn’t trusted her, and Raf wished he’d realized that if the people who knew him best had felt that way, it should have served as a warning to him.
Which meant what, exactly? Because Elodie was in the middle of a group of his cousins and their wives, telling a story that was making them all laugh to the point of having tears streaming down their faces.
She’d eaten four slices of Gianni’s experimental new pizza—blackberry jam, goats cheese and mint—admittedly not his worst combination but still a way off being acceptable.
Not only had she kept up with conversation when it had turned to the company, she’d had no hesitation in weighing in, asking questions, considering statements, giving opinions that made Raf realise why she’d wanted to study business from when she was a high school student. Her aptitude was clear.
Which made him all the angrier at her bastard user of an ex, at a man who’d let her subjugate herself, and her dreams, so he could follow his, no matter how unlikely. And it made him angry at Elodie, too, for going along with it.
Except, that wasn’t why he was angry. And perhaps he wasn’t angry at all?
Perhaps it was jealousy, a voice in the back of his mind prompted him, that she had loved Aaron enough to put her deeply-held dreams on hold, to see him work for his.
She had loved him. And on the rebound from Aaron, out of anger with him for texting, she’d gone home with Raf.
To punish her ex, or mentally get back at him.
It hadn’t mattered to Raf that night.
He hadn’t particularly cared what had motivated her. He’d just wanted her with a force that had threatened to knock him sideways.
They began to move inside, Elodie glancing over her shoulder at him, a brow raised, so he waved his hand to indicate he would follow shortly.
She smiled, and his gut twisted. He wanted to be back on the yacht, where it was simple and easy.
Where it had just been the two of them. Even the baby had barely entered his mind.
But what the hell did that mean?
What was he playing at?
That first day Elodie had come to his villa, and he’d kissed her, she’d insisted that their baby had to come first. That they couldn’t do anything that might complicate how they would co-parent. Barely a day later, and they’d tumbled into bed and hardly gotten out of it again.
Which was, he admitted now, problematic.
As was this.
She was family. He’d said that to her, from the beginning. She had to be. His best-case scenario was being able to raise their baby cooperatively, and for their baby to have the same time with his family as any of the other children. Of course, Elodie was a part of that, if she wanted to be.
But that didn’t answer the question of why he’d taken her out onto the yacht, to bob around on the Mediterranean, and do everything he could to escape reality.
Except he couldn’t escape reality. He couldn’t forget.
Elodie made him want to. She made him want to throw caution to the wind and simply trust, to live on a hope and a prayer and believe the best would become reality.
But he’d done that once before. He’d trusted Marcia.
He’d planned to build a life with her. And she’d burned it all down around him.
He’d lost so much, and he’d sworn to himself that he’d never be in that position again.
This baby was both a blessing and a curse, because it forced him to be vulnerable to something he’d chosen to avoid. He could still control it though. He could still keep things with Elodie neatly within the bounds of what he wanted their situation to be.
Parents with benefits, just as they’d agreed.
A frown was etched on his features as he moved across the terrace, because something inside of him was rebelling at that very idea, but he ignored it.
At first, when he entered the house, he thought Gianni was playing the piano and singing, as was his usual after-dinner move.
But it was too polished. Too beautiful. Raf stepped into the villa and strode towards the living room, only to stop walking and stand right in front of the door.
Gianni was at the piano, playing a moody jazz song, but to his right, Elodie was singing, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.
His family were staring in the exact same way he was—totally transfixed.
All eyes were on her, but Elodie’s were closed, as she seemed to feel not just the beat of the music but the very heart of the song.
Her lips moved—such beautiful, sensual lips—but they seemed to have the power of an instrument.
As she tapered off, at the end of the song, she opened her eyes and smiled, a silly, embarrassed smile, before her gaze landed on his and her face froze. Heat flushed her cheeks and she lifted her hands as everyone began to clap. “They made me do it,” she explained to Raf, laughing a little.
“Yeah, but we didn’t know you were like a professional,” Georgia called out. “You totally put us to shame.”
Her cheeks got pinker.
“She’s just teasing,” Maddie promised. “Elodie, that was incredible. Are you a musician?”
“God, no. I just sing in the shower.”
His gut rumbled. The only singing he’d heard her do in the shower had been screaming his name as he moved his mouth over her sex, then his fingers, then took her against the tiled wall. Pleasure throbbed in his gut, anticipation driving everything else from his mind.
“On that very beautiful note, it’s time for us to get going,” he said.
“We haven’t even had coffee yet,” Maria objected.
“Next time, we’ll stay later.”
“Growing a human is exhausting,” Elodie said, but when her eyes met his, Raf knew she was feeling exactly what he was.
A desperate, consuming need to be alone.
To do the one thing that made everything else feel as though it made sense.
To make love, even when love wasn’t a part of this, for either of them.
Parents with benefits. He clung to that. Clung to it and held it to his heart.
The drive from Gianni and Maria’s villa to Raf’s was an actual agony.
They’d barely spoken since leaving the house, besides the occasional civility—her thanks as he opened the car door, his reminder to buckle up.
The air between them seemed to stretch with a new kind of tension, different to before.
It was as though her whole body was on tenterhooks, needing to touch him, but knowing she couldn’t.
She didn’t dare. Because one touch was going to ignite the whole damn situation.
Sure enough, as soon as he pulled up out in front of his villa, he unfastened his seat belt and was at her car door before she’d stepped out.
The moment her feet connected with the graveled drive, he was scooping her up and carrying her up the stairs, towards the tiled hallway and then his bedroom.
They didn’t make it, though. Somewhere along the way, she was kissing him and he was easing her to her feet, then she was dragging him to the floor, their clothes lost here, and there, torn from their bodies in their desperate need to connect.
To touch. To feel this explosive sense of rightness.
And it was right.
She had no other name for this, for what they were doing, and how she felt, but it was right and that was enough for her.
It was so easy to feel that way in the passion of the moment.
So easy to surrender to the perfection of what she felt, to the sublime certainty that everything was going to be okay.
To pretend that they could just tumble in the door and fall into each other without there being a consequence or future problem.
Like this was easy and no-strings, when the biggest string of all was tightening around them, growing inside of her, day by day.
This baby took away the freedom to surrender to passion.
She’d known that from the beginning, but their chemistry had made it too difficult to fight.
And now? When would that change, if ever.
Would their baby come along and one day the passion would peter out, leaving them free to go back to their normal lives? What did that even look like?
Elodie’s life prior to meeting Raf had been completely different to this. Either way, she had been jettisoned into a whole new ballgame—one where Dante Santoro was telling her she’d always be a part of their family.
Even more troubling, though, was the gnawing feeling that she wanted more.
More than just being a co-parent with Raf. Someone she felt attracted to. More than he probably wanted to give. It was history repeating itself—Aaron had never loved her like she’d wanted to be loved.
Loved?