Chapter 17 #2
Elodie pulled her shirt down then kept her hand resting on her stomach, now feeling as though she had the most precious gift in the world housed inside of her, with no idea how she was going to get through the next six months or so.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“Yes, doctor. Our deepest thanks,” Raf echoed, moving a hand protectively to Elodie’s back as he guided her to sitting, and supporting her as she stood up off the bed.
Because of the babies, she reminded herself.
If she’d been the goose that had laid the golden egg before this, she was certainly that now.
She had to remember that everything Raf said and did was because of her pregnancy, not her.
His marriage proposal, his protective instincts, the way he’d looked as though he was about to pass out when he’d thought something was wrong with the baby.
It wasn’t because of Elodie; she couldn’t forget that.
He didn’t speak as the car cut back through London, and nor did Elodie. Instead, she sat beside him, staring out the window, so he couldn’t even see her face, couldn’t see a damned hint of her features to know how she was feeling, and he didn’t trust himself to ask.
One baby had been an immense complication. How did she feel about having two? Or was she simply relieved, first and foremost, as he was, that everything was fine with the pregnancy?
He’d held his fear in, on the drive to the hospital, but deep down, he’d believed it was all about to come tumbling down, and it had left an abyss of doubt in his mind that he could only now start to consider.
The thought of Elodie losing the pregnancy, of how that grief would saturate her, him, their lives.
Of how their lives would no longer need to be intertwined, and what that would mean for both of their futures.
In the space of a few short weeks, Elodie had become a stable part of his life. He couldn’t even imagine her leaving, no longer being in his space.
But it was the baby that had bound them—or babies, as it turned out to be. The pregnancy was why he’d proposed, the pregnancy was why she’d agreed to live with him, and suggested the whole parents-with-benefits arrangement.
And he’d gone along with it, too selfish to consider the risks to her, to worry if it might be exposing her to problems. He knew from Marcia’s supposed pregnancy that sex was academically fine.
Indeed, her libido had gone crazy, which he now knew was out of a desperation to conceive for real, so her deception would never be discovered.
He forcibly dismissed the other woman from his mind and focused instead on Elodie.
As the car slid into his garage, he turned to face her but still had no idea what to say.
Raul cut the engine and Raf was moving quickly, stepping around to Elodie’s side and lifting her out of her seat as soon as she’d undone her seatbelt.
“I can walk,” she said, calmer now, her face a more normal colour, her eyes no longer sheened with tears and panic.
“You are on bedrest,” he reminded her.
“That doesn’t mean no walking.”
“Elodie, just—don’t argue with me now,” he implored, and she glanced at his face and then nodded once, so he moved through the house with relief, carrying her to his room and laying her gently on one side of the bed.
“I…can be in my room.”
“I intend to watch you, Elodie. If you need anything, I’m here.”
“Raf,” she looked scandalized. “You can’t shadow me for two days.”
“Want to bet?”
Her lips parted in surprise, but he held a hand up, forestalling whatever she was going to say. “Are you hungry?”
She remembered then that she had been starving, before the stress of this had started. “Actually, I am,” she said, her throat shifting as she swallowed.
His eyes met hers, and emotions pulsed deep inside of him, emotions he didn’t understand, or recognize, but accepted were now a part of him. “Twins,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, eyes wide.
“I guess it explains why my clothes are already too tight,” she suggested, so he realized, for the first time, that the button of her trousers was undone.
He’d missed that detail. He’d taken pleasure in the soft rounding of her stomach, the physical signs of her pregnancy.
An assurance he hadn’t really needed, yet had somehow taken comfort in.
But he should have organized more clothes for her, had a whole wardrobe of pregnancy options delivered, to cater to this.
Wasn’t that part of his obligation? Part of his duty to take care of her?
Yet it settled in his gut with a sense of dissatisfaction, as though it wasn’t quite enough. But what was?
“Stay here,” he said, aware that his stern voice would match his expression. “I’ll be right back.”
Her lips compressed, as though she’d been going to argue. He left before she had the chance.
Raf returned minutes later, with a platter of hard cheese, fruit, nuts and bread, which he placed on the bed beside Elodie. “I have a risotto re-heating. It won’t take long.”
A smile tugged at her lips despite the maelstrom of emotions storming through her. “I don’t need a risotto and this,” she pointed to the platter.
“Then don’t eat the risotto,” he said. “It’s there, as an option.
” He placed a mineral water on the bedside table, then came to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, several inches away from her.
Despite everything they’d been through that day, Elodie’s body went onto high alert, wanting—needing—him to reach out and touch her.
It wasn’t sexual, so much as a need for comfort and reassurance, for a desire to just be close to him.
For her heart to be close to his.
Ice sledged through her veins as she recognized the impossibility of what she wanted.
She would never resent this pregnancy, but at the same time, falling in love with Raf had been the stupidest thing she could have done.
And she’d known that. From the beginning, she’d known she needed to be careful around him.
He was just too much for someone like her to process.
He’d overwhelmed her every sense, stormed her barriers, so she was defenseless, completely unable to guard against the way he made her feel, the things he made her want.
Things that were impossible, and somehow essential.
“How do you feel?”
He sounded cautious, as though his own feelings were not something he was allowing space.
Despite herself, Elodie’s lips lifted in a ghostly smile. “I guess…overwhelmed.” He grimaced slightly, so she hastened to add, “and relieved.”
His eyes hooked to hers as though he needed to see the truth of that expressed in their depths. As though he was seeking his own kind of reassurance.
“I was so worried,” he said, finally, and then, he reached out, putting a hand on her knee. “You looked so unwell.”
Elodie’s heart thumped hard into her ribs. Hope burst through her, but it was the hope of the foolish, because all his concerns were centred on the babies. Or, perhaps, on her, because he viewed her as his responsibility. Worrying about her did not equate to caring for her. Loving her.
But what if it did?
What if he was sitting there, looking so completely confounded, because he had fallen as much in love with her as she had with him, and he was trying to work out what to do about it? What if it would just take Elodie being brave to release them both from this prison?
But was she brave enough to do this? To throw the truth of her feelings out there and wait to see if he reciprocated, or ran a mile?
Only, he wouldn’t run a mile. No matter what, these babies indelibly linked them. Which meant she couldn’t just announce her feelings, or they’d both be living with the fallout, no matter what.
But she could tiptoe around the subject, she thought, reaching for another piece of cheese, barely noticing the satisfaction that crossed Raf’s face as she continued to eat.
Nor the relief that darkened his eyes when his attention dropped to her stomach.
“Raf, about earlier—,”
Their eyes met and her insides trembled with nerves.
“In the car,” she continued, when he didn’t say anything.
A muscle jerked low in his jaw. “Forget about it.” His skin paled though, beneath his tan, as his brows drew close together. “I shouldn’t have suggested it. I shouldn’t have upset you.”
She reached out and put a hand on his, needing to dispel that guilt. “That’s not what caused this. You heard the doctor.”
“It can’t have helped.”
“Believe me, that was not the most upsetting conversation I had today.”
She hadn’t intended to say anything about Aaron, but the second the words slipped out, she realized she’d gone too far—that Raf wouldn’t let it drop unless he knew what she was referring to.
“Aaron called,” she blurted out, unable to meet his eyes.
“I see.” His voice, though, was stiff, giving very little away, except for a hint of something she suspected might have been disapproval. “To say…?”
She sucked in a breath and glanced at him, then wished she hadn’t. His face was almost expressionless. It was only something in the depths of his gaze that made her wonder if his feelings were involved at all in his response.
“It’s not important. I just wasn’t expecting to hear from him,” she mumbled, brushing it away.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me?”
She swallowed past a lump in her throat, the turmoil of the day catching up with her.
“I—it’s not a big deal. He was calling to say…he’d made a mistake,” she finished unevenly.
“And he was referring to?”
“Leaving me.”
Raf’s features didn’t shift. Only the steady pulsing in his throat showed that he had heard. “And what did you say?” he asked, finally.
“I can’t remember.” Elodie reached for a piece of pear but held it between her forefinger and thumb. “I was already starting to feel weird. I just wanted to get back here, to your place.”
His eyes closed at that. But when he opened them, they lanced right through her. “He said he’d made a mistake, but did he also ask then to fix the error?”
Her lips parted at how easily he’d intuited the gist of the conversation. She stuffed the pear in her mouth and nodded quickly.
“He wants to get back together?”
Elodie toyed with her fingers, nodding once.
“To get married?”
She looked at him beseechingly. “As if anything on earth would tempt me to forgive him, after what he did.”
Raf stood then, fairly jackknifing off the bed, as though an electric shock had run right up his spine. He paced to the other side of the room and stood there a long moment, before turning to face her.
“What do you want, Elodie?”
The question was the last thing she’d expected, and it caught her completely off guard. The truth of her heart was hammering through her, but he looked so imposing and closed off, she couldn’t trust herself to say anything.
“You’ve had two guys beg you to marry them today. So? Who’s it to be?”
She shook her head, rejecting his question, hating the way he’d phrased it. “You didn’t beg me,” she reminded him. “You calmly suggested it, because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Whereas he’s proposing out of love.” His tone was scathing though. “This, from the absolute jackass who broke your heart not six months ago?”
Heat flooded her cheeks, and Raf visibly shifted his features, shaking his head once. “Let’s—not talk about this right now. You shouldn’t be upset.”
“Not talking about it is going to upset me more,” she promised. “And you have no right to be annoyed. I told him no. I told him I wouldn’t meet up with him. I told him there was no point coming to London.”
“But what if you’re wrong?” Raf said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You made it quite clear this afternoon that you don’t want to marry me. I find it hard to believe your ex wasn’t somewhere in your mind when you were making sweeping statements about marrying for love.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, shocked at how much she hated the idea of marrying Aaron now.
Even when once upon a time, he’d been the sum total of her life’s wishes.
Her whole world had blown wide open, the boundaries of it expanding, so all she could think of now was Raf, and their babies. Their little family.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
He held her gaze steadily, and Elodie found she couldn’t possibly look away, even when her heart was palpating and her insides were twisting.
There was something in his expression that hinted at comprehension.
Realisation. Her heart leaped into her throat, as she worried that maybe he’d guessed her feelings.
“Excuse me,” he said, moving towards the door. “I’ll get the risotto.”
He left before she could call out that she was no longer hungry. Grief and frustration were taking up all the spare space in her body, after all.