Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“YOU’RE STILL UP?” Three nights after their conversation in the pool, Fiero strode into the living room to find a lamp on and a body huddled into the corner of the leather sofa. Elodie, halfway through her book, pressed a finger into the page to hold her spot and nodded.
“What time is it?”
“Almost midnight.”
A smile lifted the corner of her lips. “It’s a good book.”
“Apparently. What is it?”
She held it up so he could see – the cover showed the name of a famous crime writer and the image was of a little girl holding a teddy bear by its ear.
“I’ll read it when you’re finished.”
“You read?”
He laughed. “From time to time. Usually when I’m flying.”
She was surprised when he came to sit beside her on the sofa – they’d barely spoken since the night in the pool.
“You’ve been at your grandmother’s?”
He nodded, a frown on his features.
“With your brothers?” She prompted, curious now about this side of his life.
“Si. Massimo – Max – and Luca.”
She considered this. “I thought you had more brothers than that?”
“No.”
“On the internet, when I googled you, after you…when I found out I was…” she swallowed, not wanting to bring up the discovery of her pregnancy, for how it could lead to a conversation that inevitably sparked discord between them. “I thought there was someone else? Nico?”
“Ah.” Fiero’s smile set a firework off in her belly. “Nico is my cousin. But yes, we were raised almost as brothers. There’s Raf and Gabe as well. Six of us lived at my grandparents’, when we weren’t at school.”
Elodie was quiet as she digested this.
“We have another cousin.” Fiero’s face clouded for a moment. “Sam. Samir. But I’ve only met him once, at my grandfather’s funeral.”
Elodie shifted a little, angling her body towards Fiero’s without really meaning to. “Why?”
“My grandfather refused to acknowledge him. I know it pained Yaya but Gianfelice tended to call the shots.” The words brought a deep frown to Fiero’s handsome face and Elodie had a ridiculous urge to reach over and smudge her fingertips across his lips.
Three nights ago, in the pool, she’d wanted to wipe away his grief any way she could.
Knowing that she’d instead been an instrument of more grief was a burden almost too heavy to bear.
“Why?”
“So many questions,” he murmured teasingly and her heart jolted.
“I didn’t mean to pry.” She moved once more, this time as if to stand up, but he reached out and put a hand on her knee, stilling her, and sending a shockwave of awareness bolting through her.
“You’re not.” It was a gruff admission. “My family is now your family. Or Jack’s, at least.”
Her stomach shifted – first in pleasure and then in anxiety, at the subtle distinction he made.
“Have you heard of Alhajar?”
The word was delicious, the way he pronounced it like a whisper, it sounded more like Alharjshar. Exotic and musical all at once, and yes, it was familiar. She nodded, slowly.
“It is a small but phenomenally wealthy kingdom in the Middle East. Samir is its Sheikh.”
“Your cousin?”
He dipped his head in silent agreement.
“Why wouldn’t your grandfather acknowledge him?”
“Because Samir’s mother – my aunt – ran away from home when she was only sixteen to get married.
” Fiero’s smile was tight. “She was Gianfelice – my grandfather’s – only daughter, and he doted on her.
But she fell in love, and the man in question was not only a foreign King, but he was also twenty years her senior. Naturally Gianfelice didn’t approve.”
Elodie shuddered. “Understandably. Sixteen is so young, and thirty six is old enough to know better.”
“They fell in love,” Fiero lifted his shoulders. “She was determined, and nothing my grandfather did could win her back. He was a powerful man, used to being obeyed but Sheikh Rami was determined to marry my aunt.”
“Wow. And that’s it? Because of that you never got to meet your cousin?”
“It was forbidden to even mention my aunt’s name.
Gianfelice was heartbroken, so was Yaya.
My father says they were never the same after that.
Even when Samir was born – he’s six months older than I am – it didn’t soften my grandfather’s attitude.
He wouldn’t see Camilla, my aunt, wouldn’t acknowledge her.
She died a few years ago, and I know he regretted it – he regretted not forgiving her and making his peace.
He lost so much because he held onto that anger and foolish pride. ” He shook his head with disapproval.
“But you must understand how he felt.”
“Oh, absolutely. When she was sixteen. But as the years went on, she became twenty six, thirty six, a queen, confident and happy in her choice. She knew her own mind and heart and we were all punished because my grandfather couldn’t get past that.
” Fiero’s smile was uncomfortable. “It is the single area in Gianfelice’s life of which I am critical. ”
“You were close to him?”
Fiero nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Why did you spend so much time at his house?”
“Villa Fortune,” he supplied.
“Right. Where were your parents?”
He grimaced. “Not particularly interested in being parents.” He shrugged. “But also, Gianfelice was…”
“Was?” She prompted, when he didn’t speak.
“I adored him,” Fiero said thoughtfully. “I never questioned the situation, as a boy. It’s just the way it was. But once he died, we discovered papers in his office – he’d had custody signed over to him of all six of us, and in exchange, his sons were guaranteed access to their trust funds early.”
Elodie’s eyes widened. “He bought you?”
Fiero shook his head. “Neither of his sons are particularly…paternal. It was for the best.”
“To take children away from their parents?” She huffed indignantly.
“No one was forced into it,” Fiero commented drily. “If they’d wanted us more than they did their inheritance…”
Disapproval shook through her. “I can’t believe this. So all six of you were raised by a man who’d paid off your biological parents?”
“We still saw my parents,” he said with a soft laugh.
“It wasn’t like we were stolen out of their lives.
But our grandparents provided us with the kind of stability we’d been missing.
” He paused a moment. “I sometimes think he did it for Yaya. After what she lost, with my aunt…she never really recovered. But we brought her joy. She used to say how good it was to have Villa Fortuna ringing with noise once more.”
Elodie was full of criticism for Gianfelice’s actions, but she didn’t voice it in that moment. It was clear that Fiero looked up to his grandfather, and she wasn’t sure it was fair to judge him based on the scant details she had – no matter how damning.
“I’m sorry you lost him,” she offered, instead.
His eyes, when they met hers, were brimming with emotion. He scanned her face and her pulse throbbed. “Thank you.” The words were deep, gravelled with so much more than he said.
Silence fell, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence. It prickled with awareness and needs. Sitting so close to Fiero, Elodie couldn’t calm the raging torrent of desire that had flared to life inside of her. She’d felt it in the pool, even in the midst of his grief, and she felt it now.
She ran her finger over the pages of her book distractedly, her eyes unable to leave Fiero’s face.
“What happened with your parents?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“They were in a car accident?”
“Oh, right.” She nodded slowly. “A truck veered onto the wrong side of the road. The driver had pulled an all-nighter. He fell asleep at the wheel. Mum and dad didn’t stand a chance.”
Fiero moved closer, his hand stroking her hair so her stomach swirled. “That must have been hard for you.”
She nodded. “Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
” She grimaced. “Every morning for months, I woke up with a start, and for a few seconds, I thought I’d dreamed it.
Have you ever had that? Where you’ve dreamed something really bad and in the morning it takes a moment to work out what’s real and what’s not? ”
“Yes,” he agreed immediately, and she could have kicked herself, because undoubtedly the loss of his baby had caused that reaction for him.
She moved closer on autopilot, and now her hand pressed to his knee comfortingly.
His fingers continued to run through her hair and she liked this.
She craved it – their closeness and interdependence.
“It was like that, except I didn’t get that flood of relief when you realise that you were, in fact, dreaming.
It was the opposite. I replayed every minute of that day – the missed calls, the moment my secretary interrupted the meeting I was in, her sympathy as she told me a police officer wanted to speak to me, my utter disbelief as those words landed against me.
The flight across the country, having to identify their bodies,” she shivered and now he closed the distance between them completely, his body warm where hers was ice cold.
“Organising the funeral, packing up their house, wanting to talk to them and tell them how sorry I was, wanting to be with them, wanting to change everything. I just wanted to reach back through time and unplug everything and reboot it. Life is too fragile, Fiero.”
“Si.” A hoarse admission.
And it was fragile. Fragile, precious, with a horrifying lack of certainty. Nobody knows how long they have, there’s no guarantee. She looked into his eyes and she felt one thing and one thing only.
Need. Fierce and all-consuming, and all of the reasons she had for resisting it – and him – seemed to evaporate on a wave of want.
Maybe Elodie was guilty of overthinking this?
Maybe she was choosing the safe path because she didn’t want to get hurt, but really, she was hurting herself more by resisting Fiero.
When they made love, she felt it all the way through her soul. She felt more alive than at any other time. She felt whole in his arms.