‘What would you like?’ he asked politely.
‘I don’t know—anything,’ she shook out.
He turned his back. Rachel feathered out a tense breath and hurriedly rearranged herself. In all her life she had never felt so out of sorts and out of place as she was feeling right now, sitting on this sofa, wearing this dress, with that man standing only a few feet away.
She was nobody’s luxury appendage—never had been. She’d always left that kind of thing to the more beautiful and capable Elise. Playing the role given to her tonight had been tough on her pride, from the moment she’d donned the whole image. And the only man she’d ever thrown herself at in her whole life before tonight had been Alonso, and, she recalled with a grimace, he’d been more or less crawling all over her by then anyway.
And Alonso hadn’t been rich. He’d just been a very junior car salesman with good lines in smart suits and a tiny apartment. He drove flashy cars but he didn’t own them, and he’d earned less money than she had earned picking fruit on a farm just outside Naples.
A glass appeared in front of her. Glancing up, she un-clipped one of her hands from her bag and took it with a mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ then sat staring at it wondering what the heck was in it?
‘Splash of vodka topped up with tonic,’ he provided the answer. ‘And it is not spiked with something lethal, if that is what the frown is about.’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘Then you should,’ he intruded curtly. ‘You don’t know me, Rachel Carmichael. I might go in for drug-enhanced love-ins. How old are you, by the way?’
Rachel blinked. ‘Twenty-three. Why, what has my age got to do with anything?’
‘Just curious.’ He sat down right next to her sending her spine arching into a defensive stretch.
Raffaelle saw it happen and smiled. The air circulating around them was alive with an ever increasing sting of awareness. He could feel it. He knew that she could feel it. What he could not figure out was why it was there and what he was going to do about it.
Liar, the dry part of his brain fed back.
‘Okay …’ Relaxing into the sofa, he stretched out his long legs. ‘Now, start talking.’
Talking … Sending her tongue round her dry lips, Rachel looked down at the bag she was still clutching in one hand and made a small shift of her wrist so she could see the time on her watch.
It was just coming up to midnight. How long did Mark need to do his thing with his digital camera, write his accompanying piece, then file it with the newspaper via the Internet?
She looked at her bag with the comforting feel of her cellphone inside it, and wondered if she dared take it out and ring him to check?
Great idea, she then thought heavily. As if Raffaelle Villani was going to let her contact anyone until he had his explanation.
‘Sit back and relax,’ he invited.
What she did was stiffen up all the more. ‘I’m perfectly relaxed as I am, thank you.’
‘No, you are not. There is tension—here …’ A finger arrived in the naked taut hollow between her shoulders, sending her spine into another muscle splitting arch as if she’d been stung by an electric shock.
The sensation flung her, gasping to her feet. ‘That wasn’t— necessary,’ she protested.
‘You think not?’
‘No.’ Taking a few shaky steps away from him, she put the glass to her mouth and sipped while he watched her through half hidden eyes and a knowing smile on his lips.
‘We share chemistry, cara.’
Rachel laughed thickly. ‘That of kidnapper and victim.’
‘And who do you believe is the victim here—?’
Just like that, with one smooth question, he brought the whole madness which had made up this evening tumbling down to where it really belonged.
For which of them was the real victim? Certainly not her, she had to admit. He had every right to be angry. She had no right to be anything at all.
On the short sigh that quivered as it left her, Rachel finally took responsibility for her own misdemeanours. It was no use trying to pretend she was innocent when she wasn’t. Or to wish Raffaelle Villani a million miles away because he’d ruined all their plans when he had stopped her from getting away back there at the hotel.
He was right about the chemistry too. Just turning to look at his long, lean, relaxed sprawl, giving off all kinds of innate sexual messages, sent her insides into an instant tight spiral spin.
Then—okay, she told herself grimly, let’s keep this strictly to business, then maybe the—other—stuff will die a natural death.
On that stern piece of good common sense, she lifted her chin, pushed her eyes upwards to fix them on his face, then she steadied her breathing and plunged right in.
‘As I just told you, my name is Rachel Carmichael,’ she reminded him. ‘Elise is my half-sister. W-we had different fathers, hence the different surnames …’
CHAPTER THREE
HE DID not move. He remained relaxed. His eyes told her absolutely nothing and his mouth held on to its smooth flat line.
So why did Rachel get the unnerving impression that he had already worked most of that out?
‘Elise has been out of the modelling scene for over five years now since—since she married Leo Savakis—’
‘And gave him a son.’
Rachel could only nod, pressing her lips together as she did so, because she knew without him adding that dry comment, how badly all of this reflected on Elise.
‘Leo is an … awesome guy,’ she continued. ‘He is the very hands-on head of the Savakis shipping empire as well as being a respected international lawyer, expert in British, Greek and American corporate law—’
‘Skip the CV. I know about Leo Savakis,’ he coolly cut in.
Of course he would know about Leo. Most people who moved in high business circles would have heard about her brother-in-law’s remarkable career.
‘He’s a very busy man.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ drawled this high mover—in the business world at least.
‘S-sometimes Elise feels—neglected.’
‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘So I am to get the sob story before you lurch into the ugly part.’
‘Don’t mock what you have never suffered, Mr Villani!’ Rachel flared up in her sister’s defence. ‘When you’ve gone from being the face on every glossy magazine to a stay-at-home wife and mother with no identity to call your own, then you might begin to understand!’
He didn’t even bother to respond to that heated outburst. ‘So she feels—neglected …’ he prompted instead.
‘And lonely.’ Once again Rachel steadied her breathing. ‘When Leo works abroad he prefers Elise to stay put in London or on his island in Greece. He says it’s all to do with security,’ she explained. ‘He’s made enemies in his line of work and …’ ‘Naturally feels the need to protect his wife and his son.’ ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Rachel flashed.
He raised a black satin eyebrow. ‘Are you working in defence of Mr Savakis here or his poor neglected wife?’ ‘Both,’ Rachel declared loyally. ‘I like Leo …’ But she wouldn’t want him as a husband, she added silently. He was too overwhelmingly unreadable and dauntingly self-controlled. He adored Elise though, she was certain of it. It was just that …
‘He’s been virtually living in Chicago for the last twelve months, working on a high-profile case that only allows him back home for the occasional flying visit.’
‘Hence poor Elise feeling lonely and neglected—’ ‘If you don’t stop being nasty about her, I’m going to leave!’ He shifted his shoulders against the black leather, then moved his legs, bending them out of their lazy sprawl so he could rest one ankle on the other knee. Rachel’s eyes were drawn to the lean bowl between his hipbones where the expensive black fabric of his trousers sat easily against—
Oh, please, someone help me! she thought despairingly and wanted to run away again.
He moved a hand next, lifting it up so he could stroke
a long finger across the flat line of his lips. Above the stroking finger, his grey-green eyes feathered a ponderous look over her in a way that further fanned the sexual charge.
Did all Italian men have an ability to seduce just by using body language, or was it just her misfortune that they affected her like this?
Disturbed by the whole hectic physical war going on here, Rachel put some distance between them by walking across the room to stand staring out of one of the huge plate glass windows. London—the River Thames, Westminster and Tower Bridge—lay spanned out before her in a familiar night scene.
Behind her his silent study pin-pricked her spine.
He had not even bothered to challenge her threat to leave. It was as if he knew she was becoming more and more trapped here by the sexual pull and he was enjoying feeding it.
One of the friends she’d made during her stay in Naples had once claimed that Italian men could seduce you and make you feel wonderful about falling in love with them without so much as considering falling in love themselves. It was the Italian way. Apparently you were supposed to feel blessed that they’d bothered to notice you at all.
Because they were conceited and arrogant by nature, so confident in their prowess as mighty lovers, that the suggestion that they might not assuage your every sexual fantasy never entered their minds or their beds. Such an uncrushable self-belief was seductive in itself. Rachel had fallen for it with Alonso. Now here she was, feeling the pull again and with a much more dangerous beast than Alonso ever had been.
It was time to put it to death, she told herself.
Turning from the window, she looked back at him. ‘Leo knows about your affair with Elise,’ she announced.
And saw death happen to sexual promise as he flicked those eyes into sharp focus on her face.
‘He was sent photographs of the two of you together in a restaurant here in London, then later being very intimate on a dance floor,’ she pushed on.
His tight curse brought him to his feet.
‘Elise got upset—’
‘Naturally,’ he gritted.
Rachel bit down hard on her lower lip. ‘She denied everything, which was a bit stupid when Leo was standing there with the photographic evidence,’ she allowed. ‘F-fortunately the photos were dark and very grainy and she insisted that the blonde in them could be anyone.’
‘She lied, in other words.’
‘Wouldn’t you have done in her place?’
His dark head went back. ‘If I was so miserable in my marriage that I needed to look elsewhere for—company, I would be man enough to say so before the event!’
‘Well, good for you, Mr Villani,’ Rachel commended. ‘It must be really great to be so sure of yourself that you know what you would do in any given situation! Well, Elise lied, she stressed. ‘And, right off the top of her head, she suggested that the woman in the photos could even be me. Leo wasn’t impressed—I don’t normally look or dress like this, you see—’
He flicked her a cynical look. ‘Another liar in the family, then.’
‘Yes,’ Rachel sighed, seeing no use in denying it. ‘I had been staying with Elise in London for a while to—to keep her company while Leo was away. She was so low and depressed I encouraged her to go out with an old f-friend from her modelling days and—and enjoy life a bit instead of moping around the house waiting for …’ She stopped, shutting the rest of that away where it belonged.
By his expression she knew he knew what she meant.
‘Anyway,’ she went on after a moment. ‘She took me up on the offer and really started to cheer up and be her old self! But I had no idea she was out there enjoying herself with another man …’
‘Oh, call it as it is, cara, we had the hots for each other.’
‘You don’t need to be so crude about it!’ she said heatedly.
‘What happened next?’ He was striding across the room towards the brandy bottle to replenish his empty glass and there was nothing languid in his movements now.
‘Elise told Leo that I had been seeing someone while I was staying with her …’
‘A someone who just happened to be me—?’ Brandy splashed into the glass.
Rachel watched it and mentally crossed her fingers and hoped he had the steady head for it. ‘She was fighting for her marriage.’
He swallowed the drink. ‘So did Savakis call you up to demand confirmation and you lied to him for your sister’s sake?’
‘Leo didn’t do anything.’ Ignoring his sarcasm, she kept strictly to the point. ‘Instead he chose to let the subject drop.’
‘Generous man,’ he drawled. ‘Or a sadly besotted one.’
The idea of Leo being either generous or besotted was so alien to Rachel that she had to stop and think about it and still couldn’t get either scenario to fit the Leo she knew.
‘Things have been—strained between the two of them ever since, and now …’ Rachel gathered herself in before she revealed the next bit. ‘Elise has just found out that she’s pregnant.’
Raffaelle responded to this with an abrupt stiffening of his long body. The glass clenched between his fingers, he turned a narrowed look on her face.
‘Do go on,’ he invited softly.
Rachel wished she didn’t have to go on but she knew that she did. ‘W-with the timing and—everything, there’s a big chance that Leo might not believe the baby is his.’
‘You mean he does not know about it yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Rachel murmured.
‘And is it his baby?’
‘Yes!’ she cried out. ‘Unless you are wondering if it might be your baby?’ she then could not resist hitting back.
‘I know it isn’t.’ His mouth was as hard now as his eyes were like ice.
Rachel shivered. ‘It’s Leo’s baby,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Conceived during one of his flying visits home. He’d only been there one night when he was telling Elise over the breakfast table that he was flying back to Chicago the next day. S-so she rebelled at his arrogant assumption that he could just fly in and—’ The rest was cut off and smothered. But once again she knew that he knew what she was getting at. ‘So Elise decided to punish him by telling him she had started her period and so was off limits …’
Because, as Elise had said, if Leo thought he could fly in just to ease his libido, then he could go back to Chicago and to libido hell!
‘Dio,’ Raffaelle muttered. ‘The sly machinations of a selfish woman never cease to impress me.’
‘Nor am I impressed by the casual attitude of a man on the hunt for sex!’
‘Was that remark aimed at me?’ he demanded.
‘Does it fit?’ Rachel lanced back. ‘Did you or did you not hit on my sister because you fancied your chances in her bed?’
Guilty as charged. His teeth came together. ‘I did not know that she was married,’ he declared stiffly.
‘And that’s your excuse?’ Rachel denounced. ‘Why didn’t you know she was married?’ she demanded. ‘She was a famous exmodel, for goodness’ sake! Her face used to be seen everywhere. Her marriage made the front pages of every glossy there is!’
‘Does she look like the famous model any more?’ he hit back. ‘You know she does not! She carries more weight now and her face has altered. And she did not exactly go out of her way to tell me who she was!’
‘What did she do then—pretend to be Catwoman, complete with rubber mask?’
Rachel saw him make a grab at his temper. ‘She used a different name,’ he said.
A different name—? That was one small detail Elise had left out of her account of her reckless rebellion against Leo.
‘What name—?’ She frowned at him.
He looked at her, then dared to laugh, though it wasn’t a very pleasant-sounding laugh. ‘Does—Rachel Carmichael mean much to you?’
Rachel suddenly needed to sit down again. Walking on trembling legs to the nearest sofa, she sank into its soft black leather and put the glass to her equally trembling mouth
.
‘I see you recognise the name,’ he drawled hatefully.
‘Shut up!’ she whipped back; she was trying to think.
The devious witch, the calculating madam! She’d gone out there on the town stuffed full of rebellion, using her name as a cover-up, while insisting that Leo’s precious security guards remained at the house to guard her son!
‘No wonder Mark dragged me back here,’ she mumbled.
‘Who the hell is Mark?’ Raffaelle Villani rapped out.
‘My half-brother—the one with the camera,’ she enlightened.
‘You mean you are related to one of the paparazzi?’
Rachel shifted uncomfortably. ‘Mark and Elise are twins.’
He didn’t bother to say anything to that, but just stood there glaring into space. The atmosphere was pretty much too thick to breathe now and Rachel was wishing she was wearing armour plating because she had a horrible feeling she was going to need it soon.
‘From where?’ he demanded suddenly.
Looking up at him, she just blinked.
‘You said that your brother dragged you back,’ he enlightened her. ‘From where—?’
‘Oh—Devon,’ Rachel responded. ‘I work there on the family farm—organic,’ she added for no reason she could think of.
His raking scan of her was downright incredulous. ‘You … are a farmer?’
Her chin shot up. ‘What’s the matter with that, Mr Villani?’ she challenged. ‘Does it bruise your precious ego to know you’re about to be intimately linked to a poor farming girl instead of some rich chick with a three-hundred-year-old pedigree—?’
Silence clattered—no, it thundered down as both of them realised at the same time what it was she had just said.
‘“Intimately linked—?”’ he fed into that rumbling thunder.
Rachel bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. The thickened air in the room began to curdle—or was it the vodka she wasn’t used to drinking that was beginning to make her feel slightly sick?
‘Explain that,’ he raked out.
‘I w-will in a minute,’ she whispered. ‘I just need to—get my head together to …’ say what still had not been said.
One Night In Collection Page 4
