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“Right,” she frowned. So many questions flooded her mind and she wasn’t in enough command of herself to hold any of them back. “You want me to stay here?”
Now it was Fiero who frowned. “Isn’t that what you want?”
Elodie’s heart was racing. She turned the temperature on the saucepan down to a simmer and put the lid in place, then leaned back against the kitchen bench, glad for the extra support.
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
Fiero’s expression shifted and suddenly, he was impossible to read. There was a look on his face of both ruthlessness and disinterest – how he could achieve each simultaneously was something to be admired.
“I thought we discussed this on the day you left hospital.”
She bit down on her lip. “Right. That you wanted Jack to live here,” she nodded slowly, lifting her fingers to her pulse points in her forehead and rubbing them in a light circular motion. “I just hadn’t worked all the details out yet.”
She felt his eyes on her, felt the intensity of his gaze, and despite the seriousness and importance of this conversation, desire sparked in her gut.
This time, though, she didn’t give in to it.
“What is there to work out?” His shrug was nonchalant bordering on arrogant. He moved deeper into the kitchen. “You will stay here, as you are now. Jack will learn the language and start school here next year. You will integrate – start to learn the language as he does, continue working if you wish, doing your consulting. I presumed this had all been decided.”
“Did you?” Her heart was thumping hard against her rib cage and she couldn’t say why, when he was offering so many ways to make this work, she felt as though she was drowning.
“So you will need a car, and a tutor. In the language,” he prompted, moving closer, “though I am willing to give you all the after hours tutoring you require.” He pulled her body to his, buzzing his lips over the sensitive flesh near her earlobe so she trembled automatically. He began to whisper words to her in Italian, words she couldn’t understand but that evinced the desired response from her nonetheless.
How easy it would have been to succumb to this again, to give her body what it had wanted since she’d woken up that same morning and reached for him, craving him anew, only to find him gone.
It had hurt, and not just because it was an echo of the morning in London when he’d done the exact same thing.
No, it hurt because she felt her vulnerability where he was concerned, and she knew the danger that stalked her.
What she wanted went so far beyond sex. It was so much more than just a physical relationship. She pulled back a little so she could see his face and groaned without intending to, because she looked at Fiero and saw the future she wanted.
And it wasn’t a sensible, pragmatic future arrived at in an effort to give Jack everything he deserved. This was the life she actively, passionately wanted.
And he was the man she wanted in it.
“Until one day you wake up and you no longer desire me?”
His smile was light, as though he didn’t sense the change in her mood, the shift in her thoughts. “I cannot say for certain that would happen.”
“Of course it would,” she whispered. “You’ve made it clear to me again and again that this is just sex for you.” She paused, and saw the moment his expression shifted, the moment he realised she wasn’t smiling back at him. “That’s how you feel, right?”
Consternation flashed in his eyes. “What do you want from me? What would you want me to say?”
Hurt bubbled in her veins, exploding just beneath her skin. “More than I think you can give.?
?
He frowned. “What else do you want?” His eyes flashed with something like realisation. “Money? You want to know what kind of trust fund I would set up for you?”
She swore softly and jerked out of his arms. “God, no! Fiero, not for one second have I thought about the fact you could make my life financially easier. I don’t need money. I’m comfortable enough.”
His expression was perfectly banal once more, only his eyes betrayed a hint of wariness. “You are Jack’s mother and I am his father. I happen to be worth a fortune, which Jack will one day inherit. Naturally I intend to support you as well.”
Her stomach filled with acid. “I don’t want you to support me.”
“No?” His eyes narrowed. “Then tell me what you do want.”
Her swollen heart threatened to break. “I want you to want me.”
