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“Elodie?” There was a warning in his voice, but all she heard was her name on his lips and a kaleidoscope of butterflies battered her insides.
“He’s afraid of spiders,” she whispered, nodding, turning back to the mushrooms and chopping them as a way to avoid having to meet his eyes.
“That’s all?”
“He’s generally pretty fearless.” Her voice sounded better. More normal. She kept going. “He walked early – nine months. He was a very chubby baby, all rolls and he weighed a tonne – I carried him in one of those papooses for as long as I could but I swear he weighed almost as much as I do,” she laughed softly at the memory. “So it’s just as well he walked young. I hardly needed a stroller which, in London, was a godsend.” On autopilot, in the rhythm of normal conversational habits, she flicked her gaze to him once more and wished she hadn’t when she saw the look on his features – the same look she’d observed in the hospital earlier that day.
Devastation.
She swallowed, but didn’t look away. He was right, he deserved to know this – every last detail.
“I bought him a little bike. You know those ones that don’t have pedals? You sit on the seat and use your feet to push you forward? He loved it so much, and he was terrifyingly nimble and fast, so it turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. He would go so fast, weaving in and out of people, that most of the time I had to jog to keep up with him.” She shook her head as a warm sense of nostalgia moved through her.
It was a sense that brought with it a growing sense of guilt, because Fiero was right – he had missed so much. The delight of discovering who and what Jack would become had been hers from birth. She’d seen him grow from a tiny little bag of bones into a Jabba-the-Hutt style baby and then an active, exhausting, happy toddler. Fiero just got to meet the toddler, without knowing all the other iterations of their child.
Remorse tightened inside of her. “I am sorry, Fiero.” And for no reason that she could think of, she reached across and put her hand on his, her tones pale and creamy, his tanned like mahogany. “I wish…” she couldn’t finish the sentence, because she didn’t know what she wished.
She wished he’d been honest with her about his separation?
She wished he’d finalised his divorce?
She wished she’d found a way to speak to him and left it up to him decide whether he told his wife or not?
His lips pulled downwards, a gash in his handsome face. “Wishing is beside the point.” He freed his hand. “It changes nothing.” Bleakness infused his words. “Nothing will.”
“No, I know.” She bit down on her lower lip and his eyes dropped to the gesture, so that sadness was now at war with need, a need that was so strong it hurt her insides.
He straightened, as if mentally pulling himself away from her and their conversation. “I want to know everything. Every detail. You are going to tell me about our son so that when I look back I almost feel as though I was there. You say you are sorry? There is no atonement for what you have done, but at least this will go some of the way.”
She nodded, but a sense of pride had her reminding him, “You were married, Fiero. I wish you’d try to understand why –,”
“I do understand.” His eyes glittered with a dark pain. “I understand that you had no idea I was married, nor that I was in the midst of a divorce. I understand your feelings were hurt by my disappearance. I understand that you hated me for what you believed I had done to you, and to Alison. You thought me capable of a duplicitous behaviour that isn’t, frankly, in my DNA. I understand that you chose not to tell me about him and I understand why – I believe you truly thought you were doing the right thing.”
He was quiet, letting his words sink in.
“I understand all of that and in time perhaps I will eventually come to accept it. But you need to understand this, Elodie. He is my son, and I met him for the first time six weeks ago. Right now? There is no understanding. No forgiveness.” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple shifted in the column of his throat.
“I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”
Chapter 5
I’M GOING OUT. Don’t wait up. The words were like acid against her insides, and despite his instructions, she found herself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and the intricate pattern formed by the moonlight against the glass, casting shapes against the white ceiling, her eyes straying to the bedside table and the clock there frustratingly often.
He’d made it clear, again and again, how unwelcome she was in his life – what had she expected? That her being there would change things for him? Of course it hadn’t. He was Fiero Montebello, a law unto himself. He had plans, and so he’d gone out, never mind that it was her first night in his home, never mind that she was uncertain and nervous.
Why hadn’t she seen the danger here? The danger of letting herself trip into his orbit, to become a piece of flotsam in his galaxy, to place herself so close to him? He was too much, too overpoweringly masculine, too…everything he’d been three years ago, but it was so much worse this time. She’d borne him a son, she’d raised a little boy who was a miniature version of Fiero, and every time their son had looked at her, she’d seen his father in those distinctive eyes, so she had the agonising sense that the person she loved most in the world, the only person left to love, predisposed her in some way to think well of Fiero.
To love him, too.
It was a preposterous notion and she understood the psychology behind it; she understood how a part of her heart was buried in Fiero if only because together they’d created Jack – that was a bonding event, it was special, but she could never acknowledge it. Nor could she read anything into it, beyond the biological fact that they’d spent one night together.
She wasn’t here because he liked her or cared for her or wanted her. He’d disappeared out of her life and with good reason.
He’d been married then. But once he’d divorced? He hadn’t contacted her. And why would he have? He’d probably forgotten all about her the day after he’d left.
What was a one-night stand to a man like him?
Nothing.
