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“Thank you,” she said meekly, aware they had so much more to talk about, but right now, she needed a dark room and silence.
CHAPTER NINE
RAFAEL LOST A few more days to another surgery to adjust a pin. It was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it left him bedridden and dopey, which made him grumpy.
Alexandra was marginally better. She joked that she had become a vampire, afraid to leave her room during daylight hours, but it wasn’t funny. She had little color in her cheeks and her lips were often white. She didn’t eat much, didn’t move much, and couldn’t watch television or look at a screen for more than a minute or two. Any loud noise or bright light sent her straight back to bed and a cooling eye mask.
They were sleeping apart and that bothered him most of all. He didn’t expect her to run away, but he wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t.
He loathed any type of uncertainty and kept remembering her saying, “Everything is in place for a clean split.”
“Are you awake?” he asked in a whisper when he finished a long day of trying to catch up on work and found her lying on the sofa in the dark, wearing pajamas and her sleep mask. A dated romcom was playing on a very low volume on the television.
“Yes.” She bent her knees as an invitation for him to sit on the cushion. “Who were you yelling at?”
“I wasn’t yelling, was I?” He lowered into the corner of the sofa with a hiss of weary pain, trying to recollect who he’d been speaking to.
It could have been anyone. Much was on the line if he didn’t put out this dumpster fire that his life had become. He wouldn’t be ruined if Gio failed to sign that deal, he kept reassuring himself. He would merely be humiliated and set back. Significantly.
Alexandra would be fine. She had always managed her own portfolio, investing with him at different times, but mostly keeping her money in relatively stable assets like real estate. He was currently leveraging against some of her assets, but there were firm firewalls in place. He’d lose everything while her fortune would barely be dented. That was both reassuring, but also galling to his ego. It probably wouldn’t have bothered him so much if they were in a stronger place, but everything felt very tentative right now.
He looked to where her ankles peeked from beneath the hem of her lime green pajama pants. Her bare toes were curled. Wariness? Or sexual tension?
“Did I start one of your headaches?”
“No. You weren’t loud enough for me to hear what you were saying, but I could tell you were swearing.”
He had a lot to swear about these days, not least of which the fact that she was suffering. “Have you had one today?” He deliberately kept his voice quiet.
“No. But, I don’t want to jinx it by bragging about it.”
He smiled faintly. Sometimes she sounded exactly like the woman he knew. Other times, she was a reticent stranger. He wanted to push and prod and establish exactly where they stood, but she was so fragile he had to handle her with great care.
He guided her feet into his lap.
She resisted. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll rub your feet.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“Why?”
Because it had been a lifetime since he’d touched her.
“To help you relax,” he claimed.
A strangled noise resounded in her throat.
He smiled with amused gratification and gently crushed her feet in his closed hands before focusing on the left one.
“Isn’t there some sort of therapy that uses pressure points on the foot? Perhaps I can cure your headaches for good.”
“I’m ready to try anything,” she said with a sigh, allowing her legs to relax. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
