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Logically, he knew it was the right decision, but Christo, the idea of that man being in her home right at that very moment was suffocating. He hated to imagine her being with someone else, but she was right on that score too. It was chauvinism, nothing more. It didn’t mean anything.
None of this meant anything, just as he’d said all along.
In the middle of the night though, Fiero awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed, and it was as though someone had poured ice water on him. He woke up, and the first thing he thought of was his aunt Camilla, who’d been exiled when she’d married a Middle Eastern prince. He’d never met the woman, and he barely thought of her, but at a few minutes past three o’clock, his mind went to his aunt and everything else seemed to click into place.
Chapter 14
“HANG ON A SECOND,” she called, looking around for her robe. She couldn’t find it, nor could she remember – at this hour – where it had been left the night before.
The banging started up again and she muttered an oath before pacing through her apartment in just her camisole top and a pair of yoga pants, risking immodesty over her neighbours being woken up. It was only just gone six, and still dark outside – way too early for anyone to visit.
She glanced through the peephole and her heart leaped into her throat at the sight of Fiero on the other side. Without hesitating, she wrenched the door inwards, her pulse accelerating. “What is it? Is Jack okay?”
He stared at her for several seconds before shaking his head. “Jack is fine.”
Relief spread through her, but not for long. If Jack was fine, then what was Fiero doing at her apartment? She’d barely been able to function yesterday after seeing him so unexpectedly. Just when she thought she was getting on with her life, he had to show up and remind her of how incomplete she felt, of how much she missed him, how much she was hurting.
And with his pseudo jealousy, as though he had any right to care who she spent her time with? Not that she was even remotely interested in dating anyone, but that wasn’t his business!
She wished
she’d taken a few extra seconds to locate her robe. Standing in a barely there singlet and hip-hugging pants, she felt ridiculously exposed, given how intimate they’d been.
“So?” Her voice conveyed impatience even when there was a huge part of her that wanted to stand still and stare at him, to drink him in after so long without seeing him.
“Can I come in?”
She glanced over her shoulder then back to Fiero, and the look of thunder in his face almost made her laugh – not a happy laugh, so much as one of weary mania. He was jealous again. He thought Axel was there? Damn him! It was possessive and wrong, given that he didn’t want a bar of her.
“It’s not even half six, Fiero. What do you want?”
“It would be better to have this conversation in privacy.”
“I’m not inviting you into my flat,” she said firmly, tilting her chin defiantly, her eyes daring him to contradict her. “How did you even get through the security door?”
He held up a folded piece of newspaper. “Someone propped it open.”
Elodie closed her eyes, cursing her downstairs neighbours and their constant losing of keys.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
His eyes narrowed. “This won’t take long.”
“What won’t?”
His eyes ran across her face, his expression inscrutable.
“Fiero? It’s early. What do you want?”
He spoke at almost the exact same time she did. “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”
It was the last thing she expected. “What?”
“I had no right to ask you about your personal life. I lost that right the day I encouraged you to leave Italy, the day I told you we’d never be more than…”
“Sex,” she supplied, barely able to meet his eyes.
“Si.” But the word was dark, angry. “But Elodie, the idea of you and him, or you and anyone else, my God, I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me until yesterday, I don’t know why – I suppose I just thought, with how you said you loved me, that you would always love me, that you would never…”
