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She swallowed past the lump in her throat, balling her hands into fists at her side in the hope it would bring a fighting spirit back to her.
“You and Jack will go back to London.” The words weren’t cold now. They were simple, accepting. “As you should have all along. It was my mistake to steamroller you into this. My mistake to force you to give up your life and become a part of mine. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t want his apology! It was hard enough to accept what he was saying when he was being cold and detached but being kind? It hurt so much worse.
“I have a townhouse there, in Kensington. You can have it.”
Her eyes jerked to his. “I don’t want a damned townhouse. I have a home in London.”
“A flat in Earls Court?”
She bristled at the tone in his voice. “Yes, what’s wrong with that?”
And perhaps because he sensed the hurt in her words, he backed off, nodding slowly. “Fine. I’ll have my jet fuelled up. We can leave today.”
“We?” She shook her head in an instant rejection of that.
“I will accompany you both, make sure you’re settled.”
“No.” She lifted a hand towards him in the universal gesture of ‘halt’. “I don’t want you to do that. If we’re going to live separate lives from now on, Fiero – we should begin as we mean to go on.”
It was so final, so mature, so determined, but inside, her heart was crumbling like a cookie, and she knew there was no way to put it back together.
He stared out at the vineyards with a gash on his face that hadn’t eased in the six days since Elodie and Jack had left Rome.
“Can’t live with her, can’t live without her,” Max called from the pool, lifting his hand so water landed at Fiero’s feet. He turned to regard his brother with the same sense of irritation that was now his stock in trade.
“What?” The word was barked.
“Come on, Fiero, you’ve barely spoken since you got here, you’re obviously miserable. Why the hell did you let them leave?”
“Are you kidding me?” He stood up, prowling towards the edge of the pool. “What choice did I have?”
“You should have married her,” Nico called from the bar, carrying four beers in between his fingers, a grin on his expression that Fiero had an irrational urge to punch loose. He turned away. Nico was the person he was closest too out of the five of them. If he could feel violently enraged towards Nico, then there was something badly wrong.
“Married her?” Raf, reading the newspaper from a sun lounger, flicked the top down to regard Fiero with a look of amusement.
“She thought she was doing the right thing,” he heard himself defend, taking a beer from Nico and drinking half of it in one mouthful. He focussed on the sun in the distance, dipping as it was towards the horizon, and tried not to think about Elodie and what she was doing. He tried not to think about Jack and the fact he felt like a part of him had been cut loose.
“So you’re going to move to London?” Nico stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder, his presence a silent support.
“It’s an easy commute. I’ll go between here and there.” He drained his beer, placing the bottle at his feet, crossing his arms over his chest. “I won’t be an absent figure in Jack’s life.”
“It doesn’t sound like she wants you to be.”
He frowned. “No. She wanted the opposite.” I want you to love me. His stomach twisted painfully.
“And you couldn’t give that to her?”
Fiero lifted his gaze to Nico, his expression rigid. “No.”
“Then letting them go was the right thing to do,” Nico spoke more quietly now, cutting the others out of the conversation.
“Was it?” So why the hell did it feel like he was being pushed deep underwater?
“You’re having regrets?”
Fiero frowned, turning to face his cousin. “It’s done.”
