Chapter 15 #2
Her eyes burst open, focusing on the wall across Raf’s bedroom.
They’d fallen asleep sometime after midnight, her head on his chest, listening to the beating of his heart.
At some point, she’d rolled onto her side and his body was hugging hers now, one arm wrapped possessively over her, so she wondered if he might feel the way her heart had started to race.
Loved?
She didn’t love Raf. She couldn’t. They’d just met three seconds ago, more or less.
Sure, they were having a baby together. And living together.
And sure, they’d just spent the most incredible time on his yacht.
But…that wasn’t love. Love took time, and knowledge.
Love built slowly, with trust and friendship, with shared experiences.
Like with Aaron?
Because she’d known him for years, had trusted him, had shared experiences, hopes and dreams, and it had all been an illusion. Hadn’t it?
Confusion zipped through her, as she tried to steady her breath. But she was finding it almost impossible to think beyond the rapidly growing feeling that the way she had started to see Raf in her life had very little to do with their baby, and everything to do with him.
“You’re up early.”
She hadn’t moved, and yet he’d obviously sensed that she’d woken. She closed her eyes again, trying to clear the unwelcome thoughts that were completely discordant with their stated agreement, then turned over slowly, rolling onto her side to face him.
Her heart gave a quick, rapid thunder through her chest. As though it were actually banging her over the head, trying to make her see sense.
But wasn’t that the problem? She did see sense.
She saw the impossibility of loving Raf, even when her heart was hammering at her to wake up and face the reality of their situation.
“Last night went well,” he said, eyes shifting over her face in that way he had—an exploration that spoke of comfortable possession, and never-ending interest. As though her face was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Her heart rammed harder against her chest.
All she could do was nod. For some reason, the racing of her heart was constricting her vocal cords.
“You don’t agree?”
“I—yes. I liked them.”
“And they liked you.”
Her heart twisted even more urgently. Pieces of her soul seemed to be falling into place, forming a solid wall she couldn’t ever breach. A wall that was forming a new Elodie, different to what she’d been, before meeting Raf.
“I didn’t know you could sing.”
“There’s probably lots you don’t know about me,” she pointed out.
Only the words landed in the air between them and hung there, suspended, the expression on his face mirroring the recognition in her mind.
Her statement was wrong. Somehow, she felt as though he did know her.
Maybe not all the biographical details, but the real heart and soul of her, the things that mattered most. He saw her in a way that was different and unique.
Aaron had seen her as the teenager they’d been when they first met. Her parents, a little girl. But with Raf, she was simply Elodie, the Elodie he’d met in London. Finding her feet but independent, free from the shackles of the life she’d thought she wanted.
“Your voice is beautiful.”
She was both grateful and disappointed that he let her summation stand. She’d wanted him to argue, she realised. She’d wanted him to admit that he understood the most important things about her, regardless of the fact they’d known each other such a short while.
“Raf,” she said, voice halting a little.
But what could she say? How could she tell him that things were changing for her?
That she wasn’t sure she knew what she wanted their relationship to be anymore.
How could she tell him that she’d done the very thing her manager had warned her off, on that first night?
She’d caught feelings for him. She’d caught feelings, big time.
“You’re nervous.”
He could see it in every line of her body, the tightness of her features. Even her hair looked stressed, the way she’d pulled it into a tight ponytail low on her head.
She glanced across at him, as his car cut through the English countryside, closing out the last few miles to her village.
“I haven’t seen them in months. Not since moving to London. Last time I was here…”
“You were getting married.”
“Well, not quite. I mean, I came home after…after we broke up. I stayed with them a few weeks, before recognising I needed a fresh start.”
He had realised how much he didn’t like to think of Elodie’s life, before they met. Of the fact she’d been engaged to some guy who’d spent years sponging off her and then discarded her at the worst possible moment. As though she meant nothing.
“Then they’ll be glad to see you,” he said, firmly.
She expelled a sigh. “It’s complicated.”
He lifted one brow, waiting for her to continue.
“I told you, they’re conservative. Old-fashioned. The fact Aaron and I lived together for so long without being engaged was almost impossible for them to understand. This—,” she gestured to her very gently rounded stomach with a small shift of her head. “It’s going to be hard for them.”
He closed his eyes on a wave of panic. It gripped him as a snake might wrap around one’s neck, quick and inescapable.
Only, he knew what he had to do. He’d done it with Marcia, and he’d believed it to be the right decision.
It was only his experience there that had made him cynically withhold the idea of marriage.
But Elodie wasn’t Marcia. He’d known it from the beginning, but every day since then had shown him that she was, in fact, Marcia’s polar opposite.
“We should get married,” he said, the snake tightening around his throat, even when he realised that this was the right thing to do. “We can tell them we’re engaged now.”
She spun around to face him, her eyes huge and mesmerising, so he wanted to fall into them.
“What?” She shook her head quickly, then her lips parted with obvious confusion. “You’re not serious?”
“Aren’t I?” The snake was wrapping around his whole body now, but the panic felt different. It was laced with urgency. As though he’d held something that could liberate him and was losing it. Nothing made sense.
“Raf, I’m not marrying you.”
Her own voice rang with shock, and the same sense of panicked urgency he was feeling.
Despite the darkness running through him, his lips formed a grim smile.
He could think of any number of a dozen women, at least, who would be falling over themselves for a marriage proposal from Raf.
He wasn’t delusional enough to think it was about him, though, so much as his bank balance.
Whereas Elodie had never made him feel like that mattered.
Perhaps some help with a pusher. He almost laughed, now, at the modest minimalism of her expectations.
“We’ve already agreed to live together, to raise the baby together. What difference does marriage make?”
“We haven’t agreed to any such thing!” Her skin was pale, her cheeks a blotchy pink, her eyes shining with emotions.
“I beg your pardon?” He sounded calm when he was anything but. “Then what have we been doing?”
“Seeing if we can make any kind of co-parenting arrangement work,” she rushed out, the words breathy, as though she were struggling to breathe.
He understood. He now felt as though he were being pushed onto the precipice of a cliff, invisible forces dragging him perilously close to the edge. For a man who liked, and sought, control, this situation was spiralling in a way he hated.
“And?”
“And what?” she asked, sinking back in her seat and looking out of her window, her body radiating ten times more tension than it had been earlier.
Raf leaned forward and knocked on the glass, separating them from the driver. “Pull over, Raul.”
“What are you doing? They’re expecting us.”
“We need to finish this conversation.”
“Fine.” She turned to face him, her face a mask that showed she was trying to control her feelings—and only barely managing. “What else is there to say?”
“Why is the idea of marriage so offensive to you?”
Her cheeks puffed with indignation. “Why do you think people get married?”
He ground his jaw. “There are a whole host of reasons. Every situation is different.”
“Why do you think I’d get married?”
For love. The answer hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. That was why she’d gotten engaged in the past. It’s why she would have married Aaron, why she’d spent so much of her adult life dedicated to supporting him.
She’d loved him.
Possibly still did?
He tried to sift through all of the things she’d said about her ex, and the things she hadn’t.
He tried to capture her face, her expression, when the subject had come up, to understand how she felt about him, but it was all a hazy blur.
All he could think about was the way she looked at him, the way it felt when Elodie caught his eye and smiled, as though without speaking they were sharing a secret only they knew.
His whole chest shuttered closed at that thought, and what it might mean.
“Marriage makes sense,” he said, taking refuge and relief in the business-like truth of his statement.
“Not to me.”
“How is it different to choosing to live together?”
“It’s a thousand times different, and you know it.”
“How?”
“What does marriage mean to you?” she volleyed back.
“It’s a commitment,” he said firmly. “But no commitment is greater than having a child together.”
“You don’t want to marry me,” she disputed. “Not for the baby. Or you would have proposed as soon as you found out I was pregnant.”
“I had obvious reasons for avoiding that.”
“And what’s changed?” she challenged.
“I got to know you,” he said, simply.
Her lips parted and his eyes dropped to them of their own volition, his gut twisting with recognition of something he couldn’t quite comprehend.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re not her.”
She closed her eyes, but not before he’d seen hurt there. A hurt he didn’t understand, but nonetheless wanted to erase.
“We don’t have to have a big wedding,” he said, changing his approach. “We can do it here, in the UK. Have a lunch somewhere with just your parents. No one else need know.”
“God, Raf,” she groaned, shaking her head. “How can you even suggest that?”
Frustration coloured his voice. “What is wrong with what I’m offering?”
“You’re not offering,” she responded quickly, leaning forward and knocking on the glass. “Let’s go, Raul.”
Raf opened his mouth to contradict that, but something held him silent. A feeling that if he fought with Elodie over that, he’d lose the bigger argument. The car pulled back onto the country road, and gradually built up speed.
“You’re not offering,” she said, stiffly, every part of her held in a tense line, hands clasped in her lap. “Not willingly.”
“Do you think I am the kind of man who would ever do anything, against his will?”
Her lower lip trembled so slightly he thought he might have imagined it. “Yes, Raf. I think you’re just the kind of decent guy who will always do what he thinks is right, even when it’s not what he wants.”
He heard her comment and saw it for what it was: praise. A compliment. So why did it feel as though her description was also an indictment?
“I don’t want to marry you because you feel forced into it. I don’t want to marry anyone,” she corrected. “Unless it’s out of the deepest, most real kind of love there is. I might be pregnant with your baby, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up on the fairytale.”
And with that, the car turned into a small drive, so he knew they were running out of time.
But he couldn’t make his brain work. He couldn’t break down her statement, beyond the very obvious fact that regardless of what was happening between them, Elodie Finch still hoped, one day, to find a man she loved and marry him.
How had he been so stupid? How had he missed the possibility of that?
He’d thought living together would mean they were raising their child as a family—with or without marriage.
But why should Elodie settle for a shadow of the life she deserved?
Why shouldn’t she also have the love she so clearly sought?
And then what? Their child would have a stepfather? Someone who Raf didn’t know, couldn’t necessarily trust. Someone else to spend their time with.
Or was his harsh, negative reaction about Elodie spending her time with that unknown man? Elodie being made love to by someone else, made to laugh by someone else, sharing that secret, knowing smile with another man?
It was as though he’d been punched hard in the gut, all of the air knocking completely out of his lungs, leaving him with blobs of light against his eyelids.
Leaving him furious and desperate, at the exact same moment he needed to get his shit together and convince her parents that Elodie being pregnant with his baby was a reason to celebrate.
It was the last thing he felt like doing.