Chapter 5 #2
Elodie had dated before, but never seriously, never for long.
She didn’t like the way boyfriends seem to expect her to have endless time to binge watch Netflix shows on weekends when she’d had work to catch up on.
She hadn’t liked the way they’d silently disapproved of the hours she kept, the long days, the constant presence of her phone at her side, her willingness to let it make incursion on any time of her day or night.
She’d had no real experience to speak of. Not with someone like Fiero Montebello. He’d overwhelmed every single one of her senses.
Or maybe it was that losing her parents as she had, so unexpectedly and in a way she couldn’t absolve herself of guilt from, had woken her up in some way.
She’d made wholesale changes to her life almost immediately, unable to believe the decisions she’d made, the ways she’d treated them. She’d sworn she wouldn’t let life pass her by, that she’d do what they’d always wanted her to – get out and see the world.
Meeting Fiero had been in the midst of the ‘gap year’ they’d wanted her to take, which she’d refused to have any part in. Mum, you don’t get it. This internship is like a one in a billion chance. I’m not going to stuff it up to go backpacking and stay in feral hostels.
She cringed now at how dismissive she’d been of their wishes.
How unwilling she’d been to listen to them, to see that there was wisdom in their experience, and to recognise that they knew her better than she knew herself.
Life is a marathon, Rosie. Your career will wait.
Go and explore. Open yourself up to new opportunities.
Rosie. Her lips curved in a wistful smile.
Her mother had always used her middle name, only calling her Elodie Rose when she was in trouble. Otherwise, it had been Rosie, and every year, there’d been a beautiful bunch of roses on her birthday.
Roses just like the ones she’d looked out on from the hospital as she’d recovered, roses that had almost seemed like a sign from her mother, a hug, an embrace, a reminder that they were still with her.
Not in a spiritual way, so much as the way all great parents were with their children, always and for all time. They were a part of her soul, her decisions, her life – their biology had informed hers, and their attitudes had shaped who she was. And now, they were a part of Jack.
Her eyes swept shut as she pictured her son, their son. She and Fiero had created him; he was a reflection of them, even when he looked as though he had been cast solely in Fiero’s image. She knew she was in him, in his smile and laugh, and that her parents were there too.
She’d given him her father’s name, so he’d grow up to know of them, to understand his grandparents had been wonderful people, even though he’d never get to meet them.
A small sigh parted her lips, and then a noise had her eyes bursting open and shifting towards the noise – to her left.
And her mouth went dry, her heart began to pound hard against her ribs, adrenaline screamed in her ears.
Just a metre or so across, there was another little Juliette balcony, this one occupied by Fiero. He’d taken his jacket and shirt off, so he wore only jeans, slung low on his hips, and in his hand he cradled a single scotch tumbler.
He was watching her unashamedly and unapologetically.
A thousand things occurred to her, all at once.
If she reached her hand out and he did the same, they could touch. Her fingers could brush his.
His bedroom must be there, on the other side of the wall to hers, so close.
He was so beautiful, physically perfect, strong and vital.
Her breath was rushed, her lungs too tight.
She couldn’t speak. Words were beyond her.
“It’s late.” His voice was gravelled.
Her pulse sped up.
“Is it?” The words were too fast, too high-pitched.
His half-smile was derisive. “After one.”
She nodded, turning to look back inside, as though she could see her bedside table from where she stood.
What could she say in response? That she couldn’t sleep?
And let him wonder why?
“I like late nights.”
His eyes glittered in his handsome face. “Do you?”
She nodded jerkily, turning her attention back to the view of Rome, the sparkling lights, but now, she barely saw it. Every single part of her was absorbed by this man, swallowed up by his nearness beneath the spectacular starlit night.
“I didn’t know you were there.”
“I’ve been here all along.”
She swept her eyes shut. “I meant, I didn’t know your bedroom was there. Beside mine.”
Nothing. Silence.
And when she turned to look at him, his expression was impossible to comprehend. “You say you were going to tell him about me?” The words travelled through the evening air, landing against her with a dull thud. She nodded, anguish on her features.
“Yet you gave him your name. Not mine.”
She blanched visibly. “Yes.”
“So he wouldn’t know about me?”
“So the press wouldn’t know about him,” she responded tautly. “Montebello isn’t exactly a name you give your kid if you want them to fly under the radar. Plus with his looks, it wouldn’t take anyone long to put two and two together…”
“So you were actively hiding the truth of his identity?”
“You make it sound so sinister.” She lifted her fingertips to her temples. “Neither of us meant for me to fall pregnant, right?” She stared at him, waiting for him to respond. When he didn’t, she shook her head. “You were so careful with protection, Fiero. This wasn’t your fault.”
“Christo, my fault? You see our son as something you want to blame someone for?”
“Don’t twist my words. That’s not what I meant. But you don’t bear any of the responsibility for this, for him.” She swallowed. “I chose to have him, to raise him. That was my choice.”
He glared at her, his expression forbidding. She was making it all so much worse. “You think I would ever have dodged this ‘responsibility’?”
“No,” she sighed. “But I wasn’t going to foist it on you, Fiero. It was quite clear that all you wanted from me was sex, and then discovering you were married…”
A muscle jerked in his jaw and something in his expression shifted, so for the briefest moment she felt like perhaps she was getting through to him, like maybe he understood. But his next words were a growl.
“And if he asked about me?”
She blinked, unspeaking.
“He is only two, but before long he’ll start nursery school, make friends, and realise that he’s missing a father in his life. What then?”
“I would have told him about you,” she promised.
“And if he wanted to meet me? To know me?”
She swallowed. “I would have let him. I wanted that too, you have to believe me. Just not…”
“Not what?”
“While he was young. While it was all so fresh. Your marriage –,” his face was like a thunderclap, making her stumble a little in her sentence.
“It had all just happened. I thought it would be harder for your wife to forgive all this if I arrived, nine months after that night, clutching a pink, screaming newborn.” She swallowed, so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t register the look of complete grief that stretched his face taut.
“But a five year old, a ten year old, by then it would simply be water under the bridge.”
He drank his scotch and moved to the edge of the balcony, so they were less than a metre apart. She could see everything on his face, every feature, every shift of emotion, everything.
“And I would have missed five times what I have now.” His words were thick with recrimination.
His grief did something to her, pulled at her heartstrings and her conscience, so she heard herself saying, “Do you want to talk about it? Now?”
His expression shifted, a look of something like anger morphing into something like frustration.
“No. And yes.” He dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on her.
“I knew you for one night, but I would have sworn on my deathbed that you were the last person alive capable of doing something like this. Of keeping something like this a secret.”
It was pleasure and pain, all in one. His judgement destroyed the praise.
Tears filled her eyes. Before she could ask him, once more, to try to understand, he took a step back.
“It’s been two years. One more night isn’t going to change things. Go to sleep, Elodie. Tomorrow, you can start telling me all that I have missed.”
He turned his back and disappeared, leaving her with a heart that was broken and changing, filling with emotions she didn’t want to examine, with feelings she didn’t want to comprehend.