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If only he knew! Alessia had no part in this. It was simply her comprehension of her own heart. “This isn’t personal.”
“Of course it isn’t. You don’t do personal.” The words were scathing, and they hurt more than he could ever understand.
“Nor do you.”
“Wrong. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do love. I don’t do happily-ever-after. But I do personal.” He let the words sink in, each like a little bomb detonating under her skin. “And leaving without having the decency to broach it with me is worse than I would have expected.”
She opened her mouth, the unfair accusation digging into her. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?” He pushed, his body so close she could feel heat emanating from him. She swallowed, the act difficult given the lump in her throat.
“After I’d told Yaya. When I saw you next.”
“But not last night?” His eyes narrowed. “That’s why you were quiet when I brought the book to you, right?”
“No,” she shook his head. “I only made this decision today.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re running away from me.”
She couldn’t answer. She looked up at him as though she were drowning.
“You’ve been running away from me this whole time.”
“No,” she had to deny it. “I’ve been running to you some of the time as well.”
“Not really. Sex, sure, but heaven forbid we get intimate in any other way. Sleeping in my bed was too much for you. Because it felt ‘real’?”
“You don’t want real either!” She went on the attack out of a sense of self-preservation. He was right, she was running away, but not because she didn’t care about him! “Come on, Raf. Don’t put this all on me. There must be a part of you that’s glad I’m leaving?” She braced for his confirmation.
“We’re not done,” he said simply.
Her heart stammered. “No?”
“Cristo, no. Do you feel like this has run its course?”
She was half-pleasure, half-pain. Pleasure because he wanted her to stay and that was rewarding but pain because he had no doubts this would run its course and she didn’t want that.
“Stay a little longer, cara. Yaya wants you to. You know it would be a simple thing to agree.”
Not simple, no. Complicated and messy, and inevitably difficult. “She doesn’t need me.”
“Need? What about want? She wants you to stay. I want you to stay.” He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her where she was. “And you want to stay.” He kissed her then, a kiss that demanded submission, a kiss designed to draw from her the agreement he sought. She couldn’t give it. Her heart ached. She wrenched herself free, pulling her face away on a heavy sound. Fire stole through her soul.
“No, Raf. I want to leave. I’m done here.”
He stared at her with a thousand emotions in his eyes, but not one of them looked like love. He wasn’t capable of it. She should have realised that sooner – what other explanation was there for a grown man who spent his life going from city to city, avoiding relationships like the plague. They were both broken in vital ways – this had been doomed to fail from the start. Maybe she would have realised if she’d been hoping for love, but it hadn’t been on her radar. She’d been thinking only of guarding her own feelings, not trying to guess what his were.
“Just like that?”
She couldn’t love him without understanding him and she understood him well – the pain his mother’s desertion had spread through his soul, a pain he’d never really got over. But why should he be feeling that now? He didn’t love Lauren. His ego was smarting, that was all. She’d be a fool if she let herself hope there was something more in his reaction. But what if…?
“What do you want from me, Raf?”
The question brought a frown to his face. “Isn’t it obvious?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I want you to stay. Yaya wants you to stay.”
