Her Italian Boss

by Lynne Graham

  Natalie could smell the warm male scent of his body. She wanted to touch him, wanted to so badly it blocked out every other thought. Feeling bold and reckless, she laid a hand flat against his chest; through his shirt she could feel the heavy thud of his heartbeat. His body was solid muscle and bone, a long, lean and lovely body. She gave a shudder of sheer heady anticipation and let her hand slide boldly to his flat belly. She felt the sharp contraction of his stomach muscles as he sucked in his breath.

  ‘Sorry, I’m messing up your lovely clothes.’

  She went to lift her hand but he caught it hard and held it there. His shimmering blue eyes scanned her flushed face. ‘To hell with my lovely clothes!’ he declared, releasing her, but only to tear the tie from around his neck. This followed the same path as her bra.

  ‘There’s glass everywhere—this is dangerous. You could cut yourself.’

  No, you’re the dangerous one, she thought, looking at his stern, predatory profile. Desire kicked hard in her molten belly, she shivered and her eyes darkened dramatically.

  Without saying a word and correctly taking her compliance as written, Rafe swept her up in his arms, and picked his way through the shattered mirror towards the bed. Before he placed her down he removed the top cover, which was covered in tiny fragments of glass, and flung it to one side.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked plaintively when he didn’t join her.

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ he promised. His bright-burning eyes didn’t leave her face for an instant as he stripped off his clothes with flattering urgency.

  Natalie stared. She couldn’t help herself—he was beautiful in a way that made her throat ache. His skin was an even dark gold dusted lightly in significant areas by erotic drifts of dark hair. The impressive strength of his upper body and magnificent, tightly muscled shoulders was perfectly balanced by a hard, washboard belly and long, long legs. Greyhound lean, he moved with the perfect co-ordination and fluid grace of a natural athlete.

  He certainly had a turn for speed—in a matter of seconds he was standing there in just his boxers. As he stepped out of them Natalie caught her breath. She looked away, feeling like a guilty schoolgirl caught peeking.

  Rafe gave a wolfish grin of predatory satisfaction. ‘Don’t mind me, I like you looking,’ he confided with shameless candour.

  The bed springs creaked as he landed beside her. There was no trace of laughter in his face as their eyes locked. Without saying anything he fixed his mouth to hers; it fitted perfectly. He continued to kiss her, deep, drugged kisses that sent her spiralling out of control and kept her there.

  Natalie clutched at him, revelling in the smoothness of his skin and the hardness of his muscle. She didn’t connect the soft guttural sounds that she could hear with herself.

  Hands cupping her buttocks, Rafe drew her body into his. ‘You can feel how much I want you…?’

  Her body reacted as much to the sound of his voice as the erotic pressure of his arousal against her soft belly. Giving a fractured little sigh, she opened her eyes and tried to focus on his face…the outline was blurry.

  ‘Are you crying?’ Concern roughened his voice.

  Natalie blinked and shook her head. The combination of lust and love was something she had never been exposed to before; she had no defences against the heady cocktail. ‘I want you, too,’ she whispered, touching him because she quite simply had to—not touching his silken length was no more an option than not breathing!

  He groaned greedily and pulsed against the confines of her trembling hand. His uninhibited pleasure encouraged her to continue her erotic explorations.

  It was Rafe who eventually stopped her teasing caresses.

  ‘My turn, I think,’ he announced throatily as he flipped her over onto her back.

  Still ahead every step of the way, still anticipating what she wanted before she knew it herself, he slid down her body, caressing her with his hands, tasting her with his lips.

  Her swollen, tingling breasts felt as if they were on fire after he had applied his clever tongue and hands to each quivering, pink-tipped mound in turn. She closed her eyes as he licked his way lower and when he reached the hot, drenched, sensitised region between her pale thighs her back arched, lifting her hips clear of the mattress.

  Natalie hooked her fingers in his hair.

  Rafe lifted his head. There were dark bands of colour high across his cheekbones. He took one look at her face and groaned. ‘When you look at me like that I just want to…’

  ‘So do I,’ she moaned. ‘So do, Rafe. Do it right now, you beautiful man!’ she cried brokenly.

  He kissed her neck as he settled over her. ‘Oh, my God!’ she moaned as he slid up into her, hard and hot. ‘Oh, this is…is…’ he rocked higher into her and she bit into the damp skin of his neck sobbing softly ‘…good…very, very good.’

  ‘It will be…’ he promised, thrusting hard. ‘Just let go, let it happen,’ he instructed, continuing to build a smooth, fluid rhythm.

  Natalie didn’t know what he was talking about, but she did know that she wouldn’t mind if he carried on doing what he was for ever. A little while later she found out this wasn’t true—in fact she couldn’t bear it any longer. Just about that moment she discovered, in the most earth-shattering way, what he had meant—it happened!

  In the aftermath of a climax that had involved her entire body from her toes to—well, she couldn’t discount the possibility her hair follicles had been involved—she lay there in a dazed glow, curled up like a sleepy, sexy kitten in his arms. The only sound was her occasional murmur of, ‘Wow!’ which made Rafe, who had his chin propped on top of her head, grin.

  ‘I think I’m going to fall asleep,’ she confided.

  ‘Nice idea, but we might miss the wedding photos.’

  With a horrified cry Natalie leapt out of bed, ignoring his warning cry of, ‘Watch the glass!’

  ‘Oh, God, we’ll be late. Why didn’t you remind me?’ she remonstrated severely as she struggled into her clothes.

  ‘I had other things on my mind.’

  They weren’t late and Natalie got to cry a little, seeing Rose looking sweet walking up the aisle behind the bride.

  There was a certain novelty value attached to being the centre of attention. It aggravated the bride, too, which was a definite plus, but Natalie knew it wasn’t her stunning good looks or sparkling personality that were the draw. No, it was the man beside her. That Rafe would inevitably know and be known by people on this sort of celebrity guest-list had not even crossed her mind.

  She had reached the point, after two glasses of champagne, where she was actually enjoying herself when Mike introduced her as Rafe’s fiancée. He did so in front of half a dozen people Rafe knew, one of whom, an opera singer of international fame, turned out to be one of his mother’s best friends.

  ‘Oh, Luisa didn’t tell me and I only spoke to her on Thursday!’ she exclaimed, kissing first Rafe and then Natalie on both cheeks.

  ‘Actually, Sophia, we haven’t told the families yet so I’d be grateful if you could keep it to yourself for a couple of days,’ Rafe requested smoothly.

  ‘But of course,’ she promised immediately. ‘And do your family know yet, Natalie?’

  Natalie got the impression those bright, curious eyes were missing not a detail of her outfit.

  ‘There’s only my grandmother.’

  ‘Oh, how sad, but you have a little girl, I believe…? A readymade family—how nice for you, Rafe…but you have such a big family. Have you been to the palazzo in Venice yet?’

  Natalie shook her head. Palazzo! That figured—blue blood on both sides.

  ‘We’d planned to spend our honeymoon there,’ Rafe slotted in smoothly.

  ‘Oh, you will love it. Come along and tell me all about yourself, my dear,’ she urged, drawing a reluctant Natalie away.

  ‘I have never been so glad for Valentine’s Day to end.’ Natalie sighed later as she kicked off her shoes in the comfort of th
e car. Rose was already fast asleep in the back. ‘I am so sorry!’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the fiancée stuff in front of your mum’s friend. What’ll you say to them?’ she asked worriedly.

  Rafe dismissed them with a shrug. ‘Oh, I’ll deal with them, don’t worry.’

  ‘You’re being awful nice about this…?’

  ‘I’m a nice guy,’ he revealed modestly. ‘Once you get to know me.’

  Natalie lowered her eyes to her hands, which lay primly in her lap. ‘I was wondering…’ Was she making a terrible mistake?

  ‘You were wondering what?’ he prompted.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d like to stay the night with me…if you’ve no plans, that is…’

  There was a charged silence.

  ‘If I had any I’d change them,’ he told her with a grin that revealed his even white teeth. ‘You have absolutely no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.’

  ‘Well, I’m pretty happy to hear you say yes,’ she admitted. ‘The only problem is…I mean, I know that it’s inevitable this thing between us has a relatively short shelf-life…’

  ‘Is that so?’

  His weird tone made her glance across at him sharply, but his profile was unrevealing.

  ‘Well, of course,’ she confirmed, determined to show him she didn’t have any unrealistic expectations. ‘I’m afraid…’ she cast a worried glance at the child asleep in the back seat ‘…that Rose will get too fond of you. Perhaps you should keep your distance,’ she suggested doubtfully.

  ‘And how do you propose I do that?’ he grated, not looking amused by her suggestion.

  ‘I see what you mean. It’s a pity you get on so well…’

  ‘I can see how it might be more convenient if your child and boyfriend hated the sight of one another,’ he drawled. ‘For the record, I don’t think it’s a helpful thing to decide a relationship is doomed to failure before it’s even started.’

  Natalie blinked. Surely he wasn’t suggesting they could have something long term!

  He took his eyes briefly from the road. ‘Why not see how things develop?’ he suggested in a more moderate tone.

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ she replied, trying to keep the jubilation and hope from her voice.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE following Friday a week later Natalie was outside Rafe’s office. They had arranged at breakfast to have lunch together. They had done lunch together twice already that week, and breakfast every day! A smile appeared in her eyes as her thoughts dwelt on an unshaved Rafe sitting at her kitchen table with tousled dark hair falling in his eyes… Sometimes she had to pinch herself, it seemed so unreal. But there was nothing imaginary about the growing selection of male toiletries crammed on the shelves in her dinky bathroom or the pair of black men’s socks that had turned her white delicate wash a dirty grey.

  The changes weren’t restricted to her flat. Natalie felt a different person from the one she had a mere week earlier: happier, more carefree—simply more alive!

  She had her moments of doubt. It wasn’t just that Rafe had quickly become part of her life—he had become part of Rose’s, too.

  ‘Things are moving a bit fast,’ she suggested tentatively to Rafe after the sock incident.

  His deep blue eyes lifted from the journal he was reading. ‘Do you mind?’

  Natalie thought about it. ‘No, actually, I don’t,’ she revealed with a silly grin.

  Rafe responded with a grin of his own—one that was not at all silly. His grin made her heart race and her knees turn to cotton wool. He didn’t raise any objections when she took the magazine from his hands and climbed onto his lap—none at all!

  When she had asked Rafe what she ought to tell people at work, he had shrugged in the way only a Latin male could and said, ‘Whatever you like,’—which was no help at all. On reflection Natalie had decided not to volunteer anything, but if anyone asked she would tell them the truth, though sometimes she wasn’t sure what that was, or where they were going.

  She was totally, deeply, deliriously in love with Rafe, but how did he feel? Though expressive in many ways, shockingly so on occasions, he never once said ‘love’. He told her how beautiful and sexy she was, but never once did he say he loved her. His restraint on the subject made her shy of expressing her own feelings, even though sometimes she ached to do so.

  She was about to knock when she saw the door was ajar. She had pushed it open a little when she heard Rafe’s voice inside; as she paused he switched seamlessly from Italian to English.

  ‘Hold on, Mother, I’ll put you on the speaker.’

  His mother! Natalie, who had been about to move away, couldn’t resist the opportunity of listening a little longer.

  ‘Rafael, you don’t call, you are never at home when I call and I’ve been so concerned ever since Sophia contacted me.’

  The husky voice the other end was attractively accented.

  ‘I asked her not to, so I was fairly sure she would. Why are you concerned, Mother?’ Natalie could hear the sound of Rafe moving about the office—a drawer opening, paper rustling. She really ought to go—if he found her standing there eavesdropping it might be a little embarrassing.

  ‘Do not be so obtuse, Rafael! Why do you think I am concerned? I know you were a little annoyed with your father…’

  ‘Annoyed!’ Natalie heard the sound of Rafe’s harsh laugh. ‘Why should I be annoyed? My father thinks he can arrange a marriage to suitable breeding stock, he puts me in an impossibly embarrassing situation…what is there to be annoyed about?’

  ‘You know your father, he means well, but he—’

  ‘Is a snobbish, manipulative, unprincipled… Do you suppose he’s ever going to learn he can’t run my life?’

  ‘I know you’re angry, I know you want to punish him, but really this isn’t the way to do it!’

  ‘What are you talking about, Mother?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Rafael,’ came the impatient maternal reply. ‘Remember what you said when I asked you about marriage—you told me then what the girl you married would be like. From what Sophia tells me this girl is the exact opposite.’

  There was a short pause, during which Natalie held her breath; any desire to leave had vanished. ‘You know, I haven’t actually thought about it, but I suppose she is.’

  ‘Add that to the fact this girl you so suddenly get engaged to just happens to be everything your father would dislike—divorced…with a child…from a totally different social background to your own… Am I supposed to think this is a coincidence? I know you want to teach your father a lesson, Rafael, but you have involved another person,’ the husky voice remonstrated worriedly. ‘Have you thought how this young woman is going to feel when she realises you are using her? I am assuming you are going to call a halt to this thing before you get as far as a church…?’

  Natalie could have told her how this girl would feel—how this girl was feeling: numb. There was a total absence of feeling; she felt dead inside.

  She turned and began to walk away, slowly at first and then quicker until she was running full pelt, oblivious to the startled glances she attracted. It all made sense, of course. That was why Rafe hadn’t been angry when she had claimed he was her fiancé. He had seen it as the perfect opportunity to teach his interfering father a lesson—and the sex had been good, too.

  My God, he must have thought it was his lucky day! She felt used and grubby and very, very stupid. She dashed a hand across her face as the tears started in her eyes. The numbness was beginning to fade, leaving a knot of pain that was lodged like a fist behind her breastbone.

  ‘And all the while I was dreaming my silly dreams like the besotted idiot I am!’

  ‘Ms Warner…Natalie…?’

  ‘Yes, Maggie,’ Natalie replied as she continued to empty the contents of her drawers into a bag.

  ‘I just wanted to say…I’m sorry if…’

  God, is this Maggie trying to be friends because sh
e thinks I’m the boss’s girlfriend? Ironic under the circumstances. ‘Honestly, Maggie, you don’t have to bother.’

  ‘Oh, but I do, I want to! I think I might have treated you unfairly,’ she began awkwardly. ‘No, I know I did.’

  ‘It’s not nec—’ Natalie began tiredly.

  ‘I need to say this,’ came the taut response. ‘You made me feel guilty.’

  Natalie straightened up. ‘Guilty…?’ she echoed with a frown.

  The older woman nodded. ‘I had a baby, you see. I wasn’t married and I gave him away…’

  The simple statement hid half a lifetime of pain. Natalie’s eyes filled with tears as her tender heart ached with empathy for the pain etched on the other woman’s face.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Nobody did,’ Maggie told her thickly. ‘I made a choice, I chose my career over my baby. You didn’t and, seeing you doing both so well, it made me ashamed that I had never even tried. Every time I looked at you I…’ She shook her head and when she continued her voice was thick with emotion. ‘I’m sorry I gave you a hard time.’

  Natalie shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told the other woman wearily. Nothing mattered any more, but Maggie’s poignant tale had reminded her of something she still had—her daughter—and for that reason if no other she had to carry on. It didn’t matter how bleak her personal future seemed, the luxury of falling apart was not an option.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Maggie seemed to notice for the first time that Natalie was removing her belongings.

  With her forearm Natalie brushed the entire contents from her desktop into an open bag. She fastened the bag and straightened up. ‘I’m leaving.’

  Staying after what had happened was clearly out of the question. The idea of seeing Rafe on a daily basis made her blood run cold. She would take Rose for a holiday to her grandmother’s, and when she was there she could sort out her options, such as they were. Maybe she would stay in Yorkshire? It had a lot to recommend it, the biggest selling point being the number of miles that separated it from Rafe Ransome. It was cheaper to live in the country. Grimly determined to be positive even if her world was falling apart, she told herself the country air would be good for Rose.