Devil in Paradise

by Joanna Mansell

  Kate's skin began to grow cold with the first prick-lings of apprehension. Except for her and Rafe, the villa was empty. Any kind of help was a million miles away. She kept trying to convince herself that Rafe wouldn't hurt her, wouldn't force her into anything. He was her cousin, for heaven's sake! She was quite safe with him.

  But he isn't really your cousin, a shaky voice inside her head reminded her. And just think of all the stories you've heard about him—and none of them were good!

  Without any warning, Rafe swung her round, so that she had her back to the wall. Then he kept her pinned in place by the simple expedient of placing his body directly in front of her. Since he was bigger and stronger, there was no way of escape until he chose to let her go.

  'Scared?' he challenged softly, studying her face very closely. 'Perhaps you ought to be, Kate. You've caught me at a bad moment. I'm tired, and I'm in an odd mood. And now I've started something that I'm finding it very hard to stop.'

  Even before he had finished speaking, his hands had begun to move again, and in deadly earnest this time. Her thin cotton nightie was no protection against him. She could feel the warmth of his palms and the probing of his fingertips as clearly as if she had been stark naked.

  Kate gulped hard and closed her eyes a trifle desperately. Perhaps if she pretended this just wasn't happening…

  Rafe's mouth moved against the side of her throat, and her eyes shot wide open. That definitely wasn't going to work! And, oh, heavens, something inside her just seemed to be melting, and she was horrified to find that she liked it, wanted more of it…

  It seemed that Rafe was only too happy to oblige. He made no effort to remove her nightdress, but seemed content to let that flimsy barrier remain in place, as if he got a perverse pleasure out of being frustrated in his desire to explore further.

  He turned his attention back to her lips, and this time he left her with plenty of opportunity to breathe. Only it was still difficult, because Kate's lungs were wheezing by this time, constricted by something she didn't even begin to understand.

  His tongue delicately probed. Then he withdrew for a few seconds. 'Do you like this, Kate?' he enquired in a slightly rough voice.

  'No,' she denied, a little frantically, but Rafe merely smiled.

  'I'm sure your parents would be completely shocked if they knew you were capable of telling such a massive lie.' His fingers moved again, turning their attention to the hot, swollen line of her breast. 'Are you beginning to ache yet?' he murmured in a very different tone.

  Kate shakily decided that there wasn't much point in denying it any longer. She had a healthy young body, and it was sending out clear signals that it was very interested in Rafe Clarendon. Even someone with half his experience would be able to read those signals quite easily.

  'Of course I'm reacting,' she muttered, relieved to find that her voice sounded a lot more steady than her trembling limbs. 'You're very good at this, aren't you? But then, I dare say you've had a lot of practice. There must have been dozens of women in your life!'

  'Dozens,' agreed Rafe, without batting an eyelid. 'At least, according to your mother, and all the assorted aunts and great-aunts who love to gossip about me.'

  Kate looked at him guardedly. 'Then it isn't true?'

  His eyes flashed with sudden amusement. 'I didn't say that.'

  'Oh, you're so annoying!' she said, with a faint scowl.

  'I'm also a little insane for letting this situation get so out of control,' he said ruefully. 'This is hardly the way to get rid of you!'

  'Oh, I don't know,' Kate retorted, with a touch of her old spirit. 'I might have hated it so much that I'll be packing my bags and leaving first thing in the morning.'

  His gaze rested on her reflectively. 'But you won't, will you, Kate?'

  'No, I won't,' she said, with great firmness. 'If all this was just a ruse to get me out of here, then it hasn't worked.'

  'Oh, it wasn't a ruse,' he told her evenly. 'And that's the trouble. You're starting to complicate my life in more ways than one.'

  'We could just forget about tonight,' she suggested, although she knew very well that it was going to be a long time before she could erase it from her own memory. 'It needn't be a problem.'

  Rafe began to look restless. 'Just having you here is a problem. And I don't mean because of what's happened between us tonight, although that's certainly not helped the situation. It would be much better all round if you just moved out of the villa, Kate.'

  'You mean better for you! Well, I'm not going until you give me a very good reason why I should go,' she said stubbornly. Rafe shifted away from her, which gave her a chance to pull herself together and think more clearly. 'I know you don't want me out of here just because of tonight,' she went on. 'And I know you're not really here on holiday. I don't know why you're being so uptight and secretive about the whole thing, though, or why you don't want me around.'

  'Believe me, it would be far better if you knew nothing about it.' He prowled even further away from her. 'You're right, I'm not here on holiday,' he finally admitted with some reluctance. 'I've come to France on behalf of a client. But I'm not working on an ordinary case right now. It isn't even very legal. That's why I want you well away from here, in case the whole thing blows up in my face.'

  But Kate was far too intrigued now to let it go at that. 'I'm not even going to think about leaving this villa until you tell me exactly what's going on. And even then, I might decide to stick around.'

  'You're a Clarendon, all right,' he said, with a touch of exasperation. 'Stubborn through and through!' Then his expression changed. 'But if it's the only chance I've got to get rid of you, then I suppose I'm going to have to tell you what I'm up to. But you're not going to like it, Kate.'

  'Try me,' she invited.

  He gave a faint groan. 'Don't tempt me! My resistance is pretty low right now.' He stood with his back to her for a while, and when he at last swung back to face her his expression was very different from what it had been only seconds ago. 'On the other hand, when you know why I'm here you might not want me to come near you ever again.' Rafe looked at her very steadily. 'You see, I've come to France for just one reason. I'm going to try and kidnap a six-year-old boy.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kate was sure she had misheard him. He couldn't possibly have said that he intended to kidnap someone!

  Rafe studied her face rather tensely. 'You don't believe me? Then perhaps we'd better leave it at that.'

  'No,' she said sharply, with an abrupt shake of her head. 'No—if you really mean it, then I want to hear about it. You can't just walk off without telling me more.'

  'Then go and put some clothes on first,' he instructed. 'That thin nightdress is just too damned distracting. I can't think straight while you're wearing it.'

  With her head dazed from both his kisses and his startling announcement, Kate trailed slowly up the stairs. Perhaps he had been joking, she told herself confusedly. Yet she knew from the look on his face that he hadn't been.

  She pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and then reluctantly went back downstairs. She wasn't at all sure that she wanted to hear whatever Rafe was going to tell her. All her instincts were warning her that this could well lead to big trouble.

  Rafe was waiting for her in the kitchen. 'Want some coffee?' he offered, as she came through the door.

  'Coffee?' she repeated, a little incredulously. 'You tell me that you're planning to kidnap a small boy, and then you calmly offer me coffee?'

  He shrugged. 'Personally, I need it. I'm nearly asleep on my feet, and I've a feeling that you're not going to let me go to bed until we've gone into this in some detail.'

  'You're right about that,' she retorted. 'I mean, I know you've got a reputation for doing slightly crazy things, but I never thought you'd go in for anything like this!'

  'Neither did I,' he said drily. He poured himself some coffee, and then sat down at the table. 'Take a seat,' he invited, gesturing to the chair opposite. 'This c
ould take some time.'

  'Thanks, but I prefer to stand,' Kate told him stiffly. She moved to the far side of the kitchen. Then she realised that she hadn't wanted to take that seat because she didn't want to get too near to him. Quite suddenly, Rafe didn't seem like the same man who had kissed and caressed her such a short time ago.

  'I suppose you want to know how I got involved in all this,' he said.

  'Not really,' Kate said in a disapproving tone. 'I guess that, in your line of work, you'll tackle anything as long as it pays well.'

  Some of the tiredness left Rafe's face, and his eyes glinted dangerously. 'Believe it or not, I do have certain standards. There are plenty of jobs I've turned down because they were too dirty or downright illegal.'

  'But obviously you don't mind tackling a little kidnapping,' she retaliated. 'Especially when it's a small boy who'll be fairly easy to snatch, and won't put up too much of a fight!'

  'Don't judge me until you know all the facts!' Rafe said sharply. Then he made an obvious effort to calm himself. 'Don't you think I've gone over all the pros and cons a hundred times? Normally, I never touch anything that's outside the law, and I've never even considered doing anything like this before.'

  'Then why do it now? Short of money?' she said with some contempt.

  His face became positively thunderous. 'I thought you wanted to know the facts! You haven't even heard them, and yet you're already judging me and making me out to be some kind of villain.'

  'Well, I don't see that you can blame me!' Kate retorted. 'What possible kind of justification can you come up with for kidnapping a young child?'

  'How about the fact that he's already been snatched away from his mother, and she's absolutely desperate to get him back again?' he challenged tautly.

  Kate looked at him warily. 'Snatched by whom?'

  'His father,' Rafe replied bluntly.

  She gave a disbelieving groan. 'Rafe, you haven't got mixed up in one of these tug-of-love cases? You can't be that crazy! These things have to be settled legally. You can't just grab a child from one parent and hand it over to another.'

  Rafe slammed his fist down on the table, making her jump violently. 'Don't keep making judgements. This case was settled legally. The judge awarded the mother full custody, after she and the boy's father were divorced. The boy himself wanted to stay with his mother, and the judge went along with that. The father was granted visiting rights, but that was all.'

  'So, what went wrong?'

  'The father wouldn't accept the judge's ruling. He fought it right through the courts and, when he still lost, he took matters into his own hands and just snatched the boy from his mother.'

  Kate frowned. 'How did he get away with it?'

  'Because he's got money and power and influence,' Rafe stated baldly. 'When you're armed with those three things, you can get away with all sorts of things, even though they're quite illegal.'

  Her brows drew even deeper together. 'The boy— is he staying at that villa you were watching the other day?'

  'Yes. I caught a glimpse of him a couple of mornings ago—he's definitely there. That villa belongs to the boy's father, Martin Foster. It's just one of half a dozen luxury homes he's got scattered throughout the world.'

  'Well, if you know where he is, why don't you just tell the mother? Then she can pursue the matter through the French courts. That's got to be better than putting the poor kid through the trauma of another snatch,' she argued hotly.

  'Legal proceedings take a long time. Before it ever got to court, Martin Foster would have moved on, taking the boy with him. And next time, we might not be able to find him so easily—if at all.'

  'Surely the police could make sure he stays in the country until the case gets to court?'

  Rafe gave a cynical smile. 'Martin Foster's a very powerful man. He'd somehow find a way of getting himself and the boy out of the country.'

  Kate shook her head decisively. 'But snatching him back can't be the answer. It isn't right, Rafe.'

  'None of this has been right, from the very beginning,' he replied rather grimly. 'I'm just trying to straighten it out as best I can, while hurting everyone as little as possible—especially the boy. And I haven't even made any definite decisions yet about trying to grab the boy. I'm going to try and find a way of seeing him. If he seems reasonably happy where he is, then I won't do anything at all. There's no point in uprooting him from a secure home for a second time.'

  'The mother won't like that,' warned Kate.

  'No, she won't, but it's one of the conditions on which I took the job in the first place.'

  'Why isn't the mother here? If you do grab the boy, it would be much better if she was around, so he could be handed straight over to her. That way, he wouldn't be nearly as frightened or confused.'

  'That's true,' agreed Rafe. 'But there's always the risk that the father, Martin Foster, might somehow catch a glimpse of her. If that happened, he'd simply move on and we'd have no way of knowing where he'd gone. At the moment, he thinks the mother's pursuing the case through legal means. Since that's usually a fairly long process, he must feel reasonably safe for the time being. That gives us an advantage that I don't want to lose.'

  Kate decided that she did, after all, want to sit down. Her legs were suddenly beginning to feel uncomfortably weak.

  'I still think you're crazy,' she said. 'You're acting outside the law, and you're going up against a man who's probably got enough power to break you.'

  'I'm not afraid of Martin Foster,' Rafe replied calmly. 'And he's the one who acted outside the law in the first place, by snatching the boy. But there could certainly be trouble, and that's why I want you out of it, Kate.'

  'You've already tried to throw me out a couple of times,' she reminded him. 'And it didn't work.'

  'You didn't know all the facts then. You didn't know why I wanted you out of the villa. I suppose I should have been straight with you from the very beginning, but I thought the less you knew about this, the better. Now you can see why you've got to go, though.'

  Kate's eyebrows shot up. 'I certainly can't! In fact, I think you're going to need me to stick around.'

  'For what?' Rafe questioned sharply.

  'If you do grab the boy, then the poor kid's going to be scared to death. He's going to need a woman around. No offence, Rafe, but I shouldn't think you know the first thing about young children.'

  'And you do? You're an only child, Kate. You probably know as little about a six-year-old boy as I do.'

  'But I'm a female,' she retorted. 'We're meant to have maternal instincts and all that. Anyway, I can't just go back home and forget about all this. I wouldn't be able to sleep at nights, wondering what was happening to that poor kid.'

  Rafe looked at her thoughtfully. 'You've suddenly changed your attitude, haven't you? A couple of minutes ago, you were telling me I was crazy to get mixed up in this. Now, you seem to be telling me that you actually want to help.'

  She gave a small shrug. 'I don't know the rights and wrongs of this case. I don't even know if there are any. But whatever happens someone's got to be around to look after that kid, and make sure he comes out of this with as few scars as possible.'

  'And you're volunteering for that role?'

  Kate was quite sure that this was the maddest thing she had ever done in her entire life, but she didn't see how she could back down now. 'It looks like it,' she said, after a brief pause.

  'No, Kate,' he said, quietly but firmly. 'I know you mean well, but you don't understand what's involved—or how nasty it could get.'

  'I understand that there's a six-year-old boy caught up in the middle of this,' she said indignantly. 'He's probably homesick, scared to death, and wondering what on earth's going to happen next. I'm not going to walk away from this until I know he's all right.'

  Rafe's gaze fixed on her. 'And what if we find that the boy isn't at all homesick, or missing his mother? That he's perfectly happy where he is, and having a whale of a time with his fath
er?'

  'You've already answered that question. You said you'd let him stay where he was.'

  'And you'd go along with that decision? You wouldn't rush in and single-handedly try to restore him to his mother?'

  'Of course not,' she said a little indignantly. 'I'm not stupid!'

  Rafe got to his feet. 'Then at least we're in agreement on a couple of things. Perhaps we'd better just leave it at that, for now.'

  'But what about plans?' she demanded. 'I want to know what you're going to do next.'

  'The only plans I've got right now are for a good night's sleep,' he told her.

  Kate realised that his tone had suddenly become rather evasive.

  'You're not going to let me get involved in this, are you?' she said bluntly.

  Rafe paused for only a moment. 'No, I'm not. I shouldn't even have told you about it. This isn't the kind of thing you should get caught up in, Kate.'

  'Give me one reason why not!' she demanded.

  A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'For one thing, your mother would probably have me hung, drawn and quartered if I allowed anything to happen to her precious daughter. For another—' He looked at her with an expression that she couldn't quite fathom. 'For another, I don't want you involved,' he finished.

  'Because you think I'll be a hindrance?' she said heatedly.

  His face became even more unreadable. 'No, that isn't the reason at all.'

  'Then what is?'

  But he obviously wasn't going to be drawn on the subject any more tonight. He walked over to the doorway, and stopped there for just a moment, his dark gaze resting on her briefly. 'I've said—and done—a lot of things tonight that I shouldn't have. I'm already regretting it, and in the morning I'll probably be regretting it even more.' Then his tense mouth relaxed a fraction. 'And now, you'd better let me go up to bed alone, or we could end up with even more problems. Goodnight, Kate.'

  She started to say something, but then hurriedly stopped herself as she caught the bright glint of his eyes. And she waited until the sound of his footsteps had completely died away before switching off the light and making her own way up the stairs.