One Night In Collection

by Various Authors

  As the gift in his bed, to use if or when he so desired it.

  The telephone went silent. Unable to stop herself, Rachel got up and went to open the door as quietly as she could, meaning to creep down the hall and listen in on the conversation—just in case it had something to do with them.

  She did not need to take another step from where she was. The door on the opposite side of the hall was open. He was standing in front of a desk with his back towards her and his trousers resting low on his hips.

  ‘You think that ringing me at two in the morning will please me, Daniella—?’ His tone did not sound pleased at all.

  Rachel continued to hover, watching as his naked shoulders racked up tighter the more that his stepsister said.

  ‘Daniella …’ he sighed out eventually. ‘Will you give me the opportunity to speak? I am sorry you have been hit by so many telephone calls,’ he said wearily. ‘No, the lady in question is not Elise,’ he denied. ‘She is who she has always been. It is everyone else who made the mistake.’

  A lie. Another lie. Rachel felt the weight of every single one of them land upon her shoulders.

  Raffaelle turned sharply, as if he could sense her standing here. She watched his eyes move in a possessive flow from her face to his shirt, then down her legs. The intimacy in the look conflicted with the coldness now in charge of his features. And she knew that not only had he brought himself under control, but she was now looking at the man she’d first met, undeniably attractive but cynical and hard.

  On a wavering grimace Rachel dropped her eyes from him and stepped back into the bedroom. When Elise had picked him to have her rebellious affair with, she had chosen the wrong man, she thought heavily as she closed the door.

  Pushing his free hand into his trouser pocket, Raffaelle suppressed the desire to either curse or sigh as he leant his lean hips against the edge of the desk while Daniella continued to yell in his ear.

  He was angry with the interfering press, who were taking it in turns to call up Daniella in their quest for more information. He was also fed up because the whole thing was now driving itself like a train with no damn brakes.

  And he was achingly bloody aroused and despising himself for feeling like that. Where did he get off, jumping all over a woman—a stranger—like some randy, feckless, uncontrolled youth—?

  No wonder she’d looked at him just now as if he had crawled out from beneath a stone. No wonder she had gone back in the bedroom and shut herself away. She knew she was trapped; he knew he was trapped!

  ‘No, Daniella,’ he grimly cut in to her half-hysterical ranting. ‘It is you who made the mistake two months ago. She was never Elise—have you got that?’

  His cold tone alone had the desired effect.

  ‘You mean you want me to say that I was mistaken?’

  ‘No. I am telling you that you are mistaken.’

  ‘So you have just got engaged to marry this Rachel Carmichael—the same woman who threw herself at you tonight?’

  ‘Si,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Just like that—?’ She was almost choking on her disbelief.

  ‘No, not just like that,’ he sighed out. ‘I have been— courting Rachel over the last few months.’

  ‘Courting her—?’

  Bad choice of word. ‘Seducing her, then.’

  Her struck silence made him grimace and he couldn’t make up his mind if she was beginning to swallow the lies or simply being sensible for once and taking on board the grim warning in his voice.

  ‘Is she pregnant—?’

  ‘No!'he bit out, jerking upright from the desk and swinging round as a sting of stark alarm shot down his back.

  Dio, he’d used nothing to stop it from happening, and he had not thought to ask her if she was protected!

  What kind of crass bloody oversexed fool did that make him? Or her for not thinking about it—?

  ‘And, since my personal life is no one’s business but my own, cara, can I suggest a simple no comment from you would make me happy? Or, better still, Daniella—take the telephone off the hook!’

  He cut the connection and tossed the handset back on its rest, then just stood there, not knowing what to do next.

  Sex without protection with a woman he barely knew. Flexing muscles rippled all over him as he took on board the consequences which could result from such a stupidly irresponsible act.

  With his luck tonight, she could already be in the process of conceiving his baby. Add all the other risks which came along with unprotected sex and he suddenly felt like a time bomb set to go off!

  A growl left his throat as he turned back to the bedroom. Chin set like a vice, he pushed open the door. The room was in darkness. He switched on the overhead light and went to stand at the bottom of the bed.

  She was nothing but a curled up mound beneath the duvet. ‘I did not use protection,’ he clipped out.

  The mound jerked, then went still for a gut-clenching second. Then it moved again and she emerged, sliding up against the pillows, flush-cheeked—wary, defensive—sensationally delectable.

  Dio, he thought.

  ‘Say that again,’ she shook out.

  ‘I did not use protection,’ he repeated tautly. ‘I am not promiscuous and I have never taken such risks before in my life,’ he added stiffly. ‘I like to think that I can respect my … partner’s history in the same way that she can respect mine.’

  Rachel looked at the way he was standing there like some arrogant autocrat caught with his pants down by his bitch of a wife. Only his pants were up; it was his shirt that was missing and the bitch of a wife in this case was the gift he’d been handed and enjoyed thoroughly—before he’d thought to wonder where she had been before she’d landed in his bed!

  As if it wasn’t bad enough that she was sitting in the bed belonging to a man she had only met for the first time tonight, wearing his shirt and his scents and his touch on her skin— she now had to endure the kind of conversation that belonged in a brothel!

  Next he would be asking how much he owed her for her services. Give him half a chance and she knew he would love to denounce her out loud as a whore.

  Well, what did that make him? Rachel wanted to know.

  ‘I am a clean-living, careful, healthy person,’ she snapped out indignantly.

  ‘I am relieved to hear it.’

  He didn’t look it. ‘I don’t sleep around! And if you hit me with one more rotten insult, Mr Villani,’ she warned furiously. ‘I think I am going to physically attack you!’

  ‘My apologies if it sounded as if I was trying to insult you—’

  ‘You did insult me.’ She went to slide back down the bed.

  ‘But we don’t know each other.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Rachel muttered.

  ‘And it is an issue we need to address.’

  ‘Well, you addressed it very eloquently,’ she told him and tugged up the duvet with a now go away kind of shrug.

  If he read it he ignored it. ‘We have not finished with this.’

  ‘Yes, we have.’

  ‘No, Rachel, we have not …’

  It was the alteration in his voice from stiff to weary that forced her to take notice. ‘We still have the issue of another kind of protection to discuss.’

  Another kind … Rachel froze for a second, then slid back up the pillows again, only this time more slowly as she finally began to catch on.

  He put it in simple words for her. ‘I did not protect us against—conception. I need to know if you did.’

  It was like being hit with one hard knock too many; she felt all the colour drain from her face. ‘I don’t believe this is happening to me,’ she whispered.

  Taut muscles stretched as he pulled himself in like a man trying to field his own hard knock. ‘I presume from your response that it is a problem.’

  ‘I’ve told you once—I don’t sleep around!’ she cried out.

  A nerve flicked at the corner of his hard mouth. ‘You don’t need t
o sleep around to take oral contraception.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that reassuring piece of information,’ she said hotly. ‘But, in my case, and because I don’t sleep around, I—don’t take oral contraception either …’ The heat in her voice trailed into a stifled choke.

  He cursed.

  Rachel covered her face with her hands.

  She had just indulged in uninhibited sex with a stranger without any protection; now his millions of sperm were chasing through her body in a race towards their ultimate goal!

  Fertilisation. A baby—dear God …

  Suddenly she was diving out of the bed and heading at a run for the bathroom. She thought she was going to be sick but then found that she couldn’t. She wanted to wash herself clean inside and out!

  Instead she just stood there with her arms wrapped around her middle and shook.

  She heard him arrive in the door opening. ‘I h-hate you,’ she whispered. ‘I wish I’d never heard your stupid name.’

  Raffaelle shifted his tense stance, relaxing it wearily so he was leaning against the doorframe. He wanted to echo her sentiments but he did not think she was up to hearing him say it while she stood there resembling a skittish pale ghost.

  ‘It happened, cara. Too late now to trade insults,’ he murmured flatly instead.

  She swung round to stare at him, blue eyes bright with anger and the close threat of tears. ‘You think that kind of remark helps the situation?’

  Pushing his hands into his trouser pockets, Raffaelle raised a black silk eyebrow. ‘You think that your previous remark helped it?’

  No, she supposed that it didn’t.

  Losing the will to stand upright any longer she sank down on to the closed toilet seat. ‘I’m so horrified by what we’ve done.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘I don’t w-want a baby,’ she whispered starkly.

  ‘Any man’s or just mine?’

  Rachel looked at the way he was standing there in the doorway—lounging there half-undressed. A tall, lean, tightly muscled supremo, the image of everything you would want to grab from the human male gene pool.

  Feeling something disturbingly elemental shift in her womb, she went on the attack. ‘Being flippant about it doesn’t help.’

  ‘Neither does flaying yourself.’

  She stared at him. ‘Where the heck are you actually coming from?’ she gasped out. ‘You don’t know me, yet you stand there looking as if you couldn’t care less about what we’ve done!’

  ‘I am a fatalist.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Rachael muttered, pushing her hair back from her brow. ‘Whereas I am wishing that yesterday never began.’

  ‘Too late to wish on rainbows, cara.’

  ‘Now you are just annoying.’

  ‘I apologise,’ he drawled. ‘However, since we could well be in this for the long haul, I suggest you get used to my— annoying ways.’

  ‘Long haul—?’ Her chin shot up. What was he talking about now?

  ‘Marriage comes before babies in my family,’ he enlightened.

  Marriage—? ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ It made her feel sick to her stomach to say it, but— ‘I’ll take one of those m-morning after pills that—’

  ‘No, you will not,’ he cut in.

  She stood up. ‘That is not your decision.’

  His silver eyes speared her. ‘So you are happy to see off a fragile life before it has been given the chance to exist?’

  ‘God, no.’ She even shuddered. ‘But I think it would be—’

  ‘Well, don’t think,’ he said coldly. ‘We will not add to our sins if you please. This is our fault not the fault, of the innocent child which may result. Therefore we will deal with it the honourable way—if or when it comes to it.’

  ‘With marriage,’ she mocked.

  ‘You must know I am considered to be quite a good catch, cara.’

  Softly said, smooth as silk. A sharp silence followed while Rachel took on board what he was actually implying. Then she heaved in a taut breath. ‘I suppose I should have expected that one,’ she said as she breathed out again.

  ‘I don’t follow.’ He frowned.

  ‘The—you set me up for this accusation.’ She spelled it out for him. ‘The—you got me into bed deliberately so you could position yourself as the great millionaire catch!’

  ‘I did not say that.’ He sighed impatiently.

  Oh, yes, he damn did! Inside she was quivering. Inside she was feeling as if she’d stepped into an ice cold alien place.

  ‘I’ll take the other option,’ she retaliated and went to push past him. The hand snaking out of his pocket grabbed her by the arm as the other hand arrived, holding a mobile telephone.

  ‘Let go of me.’

  He ignored her and there was nothing relaxed about him now, Rachel saw as he hit quick-dial, then put the phone to his ear.

  ‘Are we still under siege from the press?’ he demanded.

  He had to be talking to the security man in the foyer, Rachel realised. A new kind of tension sizzled all around them while he listened to the answer and she waited to find out where he was going with this.

  The hard line of his mouth gave a twist as he cut the connection. Sliding the phone back into his pocket, he speared her with a hard look.

  ‘The paparazzi is still out there,’ he stated grimly. ‘I do not expect them to leave us alone any time in the near future—understand?’

  Rachel just stared at him, all eyes and weighty heart and pummelled feelings.

  ‘Wherever you or I go from now on, I can almost guarantee that they mean to follow.’ He made his point brutally clear. ‘So think about it, cara,’ he urged grimly. ‘Do you want to take a walk out to the local all-night pharmacy and turn this thing into a tabloid sensation as the pack follow to witness you purchasing your morning-after medication—?’

  Ice froze the silence between them as diamond eyes locked challengingly with frosted blue. Rachel thought about screaming. She felt like screaming! He really, truly and honestly believed that she was ruthless enough to calmly take something to rectify the wrong they had done, his wonderful fatalist attitude giving him the right to believe that his morals were superior to her own.

  And why not? she asked herself starkly. What did he really know about her as a living, breathing person? Hadn’t she flipped out the clever counter attack to his marriage deal? Wasn’t she the cool liar and cheat around here, who could hit on a man and let him take her to his bed for no other reason than she’d fancied him?

  Why not tag her as a woman who was also capable of seeing off a baby before she was even sure that there was one?

  Hurt trammelled through her body, though, melting the ice and turning it into tears because she could not deny him the right to see her as a cold, ruthless schemer—she’d painted her own portrait for him to look at, after all.

  He saw the tears and frowned. ‘Rachel—’ he murmured huskily.

  She pushed his hand off her arm and walked away, only to pull to a hovering halt in the middle of the bedroom.

  Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide, she realised as her tears grew and grew. In the end she did the only thing she could see open to her right now and climbed back into the bed and disappeared beneath the duvet again.

  Heart thumping, eyes burning, she pressed a clenched fist against her mouth to stop the choking sobs she could feel working their way up from her throat.

  She heard him move. The lights went off. A door closed quietly. He had the grace to leave her alone with her misery and at last she let the first sob escape—only to jerk and twist her head on the pillow just in time to see him lift up the duvet and the warm dark shape of his now fully naked body slide into the bed.

  Her quivering gasp was lost in the arm he used to draw her against him. Eyes like diamonds wrapped in rich black velvet searched her face, then a grimace touched his mouth.

  ‘You’re crying,’ he said huskily.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Squeezing a hand
up between them, she went to brush a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

  Or she would have done if one of his fingers had not got there before hers took the tear away; she could not hold back another small sniff.

  ‘I would not have done it,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Si, I know that.’ He sighed. ‘We were fighting. You used your weapon well. I retaliated by cutting you to pieces. I apologise for doing it.’

  ‘You’re so ruthless it’s scary.’

  ‘Si.’ On another sigh he sent one of his legs looping over her legs to draw her in a bit closer to him, then he caught her hand and pressed it to his chest.

  She felt his warmth and his muscled firmness and the prickle of hair against her palm. It was all very intimate and very dangerous—especially so when she didn’t try to pull away. The shirt formed a sort of barrier to stop the more frightening skin to skin contact, but—

  She eased out a sigh of her own and tried to ignore what was happening to her. ‘I’m really sorry I got us both embroiled in this mess,’ she whispered in genuine regret.

  ‘But you did do it,’ he pointed out with devastating simplicity. ‘Now we have to deal with what we have.’ He came to lean over her, suddenly deadly serious. ‘And what we have is one story, one betrothal, one bed,’ he listed. ‘You will not, during the time we are together, give cause for anyone to question our honesty.’

  ‘Our lies, you mean.’

  He shook his dark head. ‘Start believing in this, cara,’ he advised. ‘The fate of your sister’s marriage rests on your ability to live, breathe and sleep the role you have chosen to play in my life.’

  His life. Those two words said it all to Rachel. This was his life he was protecting. His reputation. His pride.

  And why not—? she thought painfully. Her mouth quivered. The tip of his tongue arrived to taste her soft upper lip.

  Rachel saw that grimness had been replaced with slumberous desire and knew what was going to happen next.

  ‘No,’ she jerked out.

  But his tongue dipped deeper. ‘Yes,’ he contradicted in soft silken English.

  ‘But I don’t—’

  ‘You do, cara,’ and he showed her how much she did by trailing his fingers inside the shirt.