34. DIANA
DIANA
Idon’t know where Rafe has been this afternoon, but somehow we’ve missed each other. Probably a good thing. Tomorrow, I’m moving out. This is the end.
I’m a bundle of nerves at the idea that he might walk in, but I don’t want to hide from him, so I set up my laptop as usual on the kitchen island after dinner.
I’ve been there for at least an hour, the kitchen lit by only the glow of my screen, when I hear the whir of the lift and the soft swish as the doors open.
I wait, but he doesn’t come into the kitchen like he normally would. I hear him pace down the hall, the familiar fall of his footsteps making my heart beat to the same tempo.
I feel both relieved and disappointed to realise he’s not going to say hello or good night or sit with me while I work, but after a few moments, I get back to work and try to forget about him.
Beside me, my phone rings where it’s lying on the island. I let it buzz a couple of times before glancing at the screen, only to see the name Handsome Stranger flashing up.
What the fuck?
Why is he calling me?
I pick it up and stare at the screen in disbelief.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
I jump, nearly falling off the stool, the phone sliding through my fingers and clattering to the island, where it vibrates against the stone.
Rafe stands in the doorway, legs planted wide. His eyes are dark, his jaw tight as he shifts his chin. “Go on. Answer it.”
Oh, fuck.
We stare at one another as, with a shaking hand, I pick up my phone, sliding the display to answer and press it to my ear. “Hello?”
My voice echoes from across the room, small and tinny and coming from Rafe’s phone. His eyes drift closed, his fingers clenching around his handset, which he lifts to his ear. “Who the fuck is this?” he growls.
“Wh-what?”
“Tell me your name.”
I’m going to lose control of my breathing. I’m going to start hyperventilating. “Diana.” It comes out feeble and shaky.
“Again,” he demands. “Tell me again.”
“Diana. Diana.” I sound broken. “Diana Marchetti.”
He grimaces, almost as if hearing my name is as hard for him to hear as it is for me to say. Opening his eyes to fix me with a glare, he hangs up and slips his phone into his trouser pocket.
My mind scrambles for excuses. A way out. Something I could say to make all this fucked up crap go away. Did I think he would never work it out?
He takes something else from his pocket and places it on the island. Hopelessness washes through me as I see what it is. My mask. He pushes it towards me with one finger. “One of the cleaners found it.”
The room is quiet except for his breathing. My breathing. A unified existence that’s inescapable, binding us together in this one terrible moment.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and he gives the slightest nod, but I don’t miss the way his fist clenches at his side, the way his shoulders tighten beneath his shirt, or the fury that lingers in his gaze.
He inhales slowly through flared nostrils. “When did you realise?”
“Immediately.” I have to force the word up my throat and out my mouth.
It wants to cling to my tongue and never leave.
“I mean, the moment I saw you here, in your home. I didn’t know who you were at the club.
” I bite down on my lower lip to stop the tremble that wants to start. “But I would never have forgotten you.”
He runs the knuckle of his forefinger over his lips. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but he closes his eyes again.
“It’s okay. I’m leaving soon,” I say, voice breaking. “We don’t have to talk about this.”
His eyes flash open. “We are fucking talking about this.” In a blur, he strides around the island until he’s standing right beside me.
My heart thrums uncontrollably, fear whipping through my veins. The only other man I’ve ever made this angry is my father, and he always lashed out, yelling at me until his voice was hoarse. It takes every ounce of self-control not to cower as though I expect Rafe to do the same.
I snap my laptop shut and push it aside. The air is charged with electricity. I can hardly draw breath for the pressure it’s exerting on my lungs.
“I hate that you did this,” he says, voice low, but there’s no anger in his tone anymore.
He sounds disappointed more than anything, and it’s harder to bear than his anger.
“I don’t know who you are. I thought I knew.
I thought we…” He looks at the ceiling, one hand on his hip, and lets out a sigh before returning his gaze to me. “You lied to me.”
I hang my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough. Once, I could have understood. Maybe. But the other night?” He stops to draw in a deep breath. “Why? Why did you do it?”
I try not to shrivel under his gaze. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.”
I swallow, not wanting to lie anymore. “I wanted you. I wanted this version of you.” I gesture to him standing there—the man I’ve longed for every single day that I’ve lived here.
“But I was never going to get it. You were never going to cross that line. You were going to sit around and…” I wave a hand through the charged air between us.
“Pretend it wasn’t there. You were going to keep trying to be decent, and I already knew you weren’t. ”
He clasps the back of his neck, rubbing it as he tips his head back. “You’re half my age. My daughter’s friend. Of course I wasn’t going to—”
“But you did.”
“I didn’t fucking know.” The words trip out, but he looks tired, as if this is draining him, and when he continues, his voice is soft. “This can’t be anything. This can’t be—”
“It already is.”
He steps back, his shoulders sloping, his expression almost hopeless. “No. You’re a different person at Delirium. That’s not you and me. What happened there is not… us.”
“You called out my name,” I remind him.
A strained tension spreads between us, worse than before. It claws at my skin and constricts my throat.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
“It was just sex,” I whisper, willing to lie in a desperate attempt to pull him back in.
“No.” Pressing his lips together, he gives a grim shake of the head.
“I’ve had ‘just sex’, and that wasn’t it.
” He inhales so deeply, his chest expands, and his exhalation shudders.
“After that first night, I wanted to search for you. But I waited to see if you would contact me, and when you didn’t, I begged Henry to tell me who you were, but he wouldn’t. I had to leave it there.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be anything. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
His jaw quivers, then hardens as he performs a laboured swallow, his eyes filling with an emotion I can’t determine. Sadness, perhaps. It stalls the beat of my heart to see him like that.
“If you had given me the slightest indication that you wanted to be found, I would never have stopped searching,” he continues.
“But I didn’t have your name. Your number.
And you never used mine; I didn’t even know if you’d ever found the card I left in your bag.
I had nothing to go on, and I wanted to respect your wishes.
No repeats. I was devastated that the first woman I’d felt something for in years didn’t want to see me again. ”
My heart thrums at his confession, but guilt and the raw, aching pain of it engulfs the sensation like a destructive tidal wave. I press my hand against my chest like I can hold it back.
“But then you showed up here, in my home, and I started spending time with you.” He paces a little away from me, then stops, his hand clasped to his forehead, his rolled-up shirt sleeve tight around his flexed bicep.
“I stopped thinking about the woman from Delirium. Little by little, she faded, and you took her place.” He drops his hand, a grating frustration touching his words.
“You were all I could think about. You invaded my mind. It was you…” His words fade, and he groans.
“Fucking hell, this is a mess I didn’t ask for. ”
He might not have said her name aloud, but I know he’s thinking of Lizzie. Of what this might do to her if she were to find out. That’s the messiest part of all this, after all. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob tumbles out of my mouth. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes shutter, and gentle huff he releases sounds desperate.
“I tried. I fucking tried. I went to Delirium to get you out of my head. But she had your eyes, and your scent, and your hair. Your mouth. And all I could think of was you. I kissed her thinking of you. Fucked her thinking of you. I treated her so badly…”
I don’t know how it happened, but as he’s been talking, he’s been moving closer, and now he’s so near that his breath touches my face and his scent surrounds me.
The crisp white cotton of his shirt is at my eye level, the hint of his pecs visible beneath it.
Tension flexes in his forearms, muscles shifting between the veins.
His pulse beats in his neck, and the urge to press my tongue against it and taste his life force blindsides me.
This close to him, I have no chance of survival.
The look in his eyes softens, and he gently brushes a strand of my hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. Every time he’s done this, I’ve wanted to lean my face into his palm.
“If I’d known it was you,” he whispers, “I’d never have treated you that way, and the only name on my tongue would have been yours.”
“It was mine.”
“Yes.” A beat of stillness. “I think it always will be.”
My breath hitches, and for seconds that feel like an eternity, neither of us speaks, and in the depths of his eyes, I read a million thoughts and thousands of words. More than we’d ever have time to communicate. A connection that speaks to my soul.
“You know what annoyed me the most when I found out?” he asks.
“What?”