Page 64 of Friends Who Fake It

“My wife? Why do you say that?”

“Because you were engaged to her when we slept together,” Ellie threw at him. “And you didn’t even have the decency to tell me.”

And they’d married. Six months after the accident, when Ellie’s stomach was rounded with his child, he’d married someone else. She’d allowed herself the macabre indulgence of googling him only for so long as the internet confirmed he’d taken that step, and then? No more. He was married and despite the fact she was pregnant with his baby, he ceased to exist for her.

How could it be otherwise? Xavier’s own mother had made Ellie see what she needed to do – forget about Xavier and move on with her life. He sure as hell had.

She didn’t see the look of utter confusion that moved over his face. She was too angry, and too relieved – relieved to finally be able to throw the charges, that had been festering for four long years, at his feet.

“You didn’t stop to think about whether I would want to do that to another woman? Well, let me tell you, Xavier. The answer isno. If I’d known you were engaged, about to be married, I wouldneverhave slept with you. I would never have even looked at you. God, what an idiot I was! You were so charming, so skilled. Far too good at seduction to have not done it an awful lot. But I didn’t see that at the time. I just saw… you. And I was so captivated. How could I not be?”

The question hung between them.

“I was a stupid kid,” she said after a heavy beat of silence had throbbed between them. “And now, I’m anything but.” She squared her shoulders and turned towards the door. “You’ve got the answers you were after. I’m going home.”

ChapterTwo

Four years earlier

“OH GOD, OH GOD,” she murmured over and over, waiting for the lift to reach the floor of the hospital, her body in agony just imagining the state he would be in. The picture on the news had shown only a mangled car – that sleek, black sports car with the beige interior. Beautiful and fast, and now, crumpled like a tin can, after a petrol tanker had crossed to the wrong side of the M1 and collected Xavier in its path.

How he’d even survived was beyond Ellie.

But he had.

And he was going to be just fine, she told herself, ignoring the pessimistic tone of the newsreader’s report.

Billionaire CEO and heir to the Salbatore Industries fortune, Xavier Salbatore was involved in a high-speed, head-on collision earlier today. The driver of a petrol tanker lost control of his vehicle and careened into oncoming traffic. The truck driver died at the scene and Mr Salbatore is in hospital in a critical condition that some have reported as worsening. We’ll have more through the night.

Ellie didn’t want to think about the word ‘worsening’.

She wanted only to focus on Xavier. He’d left London early in the morning, just as the sun had lifted, coating the city in glitter and warmth. Or perhaps that was just the way it felt to Elizabeth, who had been swept up in Xavier’s unique brand of magic and would never be the same again.

How was it possible that forty-something hours could wreak such havoc? How was it possible that she could have become a different person altogether to the woman she had once been?

Xavier.

He’d reached inside her and fundamentally changed who she was.

And now, he needed her.

She stepped off the lift, the bright electric lights of the ward making her squint a little.

The car had crashed early that morning, and it was now almost midnight. She hadn’t seen the bulletin until ten o’clock, when she’d been ready for bed.

And she’d been waiting for him to call or text, or something – while his body was weakening, leaking life from wounds that she could only imagine. She gasped, pushing the thoughts from her mind.

She was here now, and she wasn’t going anywhere again.

“Xavier Salbatore,” she said breathlessly, when she approached the counter. “Which room is he in?”

The nurse, a short and squat woman with bright blonde hair, ran an acrylic fingertip across a piece of paper then looked up, her sea-green eyes pinning Ellie with sympathy. “It’s outside visiting hours, miss.”

“Oh, I know. I just heard. How is he?”

The nurse grimaced. “Are you family?”

“A very close friend,” Ellie said, with a meaningful look, her heart twisting with pain at how impossible it was to define what they were. They’d known each other such a short space of time and yet Ellie couldn’t imagine her life without Xavier in it.

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