She started to walk swiftly away from him. Up ahead, a bus had pulled into the kerb and she broke into a run, jumping onto the platform just as it pulled away.
‘Where to, love?’ The conductor waited imperturbably while she mopped her cheeks with a tissue.
‘King’s Cross.’
‘Not on this bus—you’re going the wrong way; this goes to Marble Arch.’
She didn’t care if it went to Timbuktu as long as it meant she was out of reach of Rafe, she thought miserably as she handed over her change and stared unseeingly out of the window.
‘So where are we going? I thought you didn’t want to be seen in public with me.’
Her eyes widened as Rafe slid onto the bench seat next to her. Heaven knew how he had caught the bus—he must have sprinted after it, but she was far from impressed.
‘I don’t,’ she said pointedly, ‘so go away.’
‘Do you really think I’d let you wander around London, alone and upset?’ he queried gently, and she quickly looked away before she drowned in the velvet softness of his eyes.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen you for four years. Why are you suddenly acting like you care, especially as you’re the reason I’m upset?’
‘There’s something between us…’ he began, and she rounded on him fiercely.
‘No, there isn’t, Rafe, not any more. You threw it away when you believed everyone including the cat’s mother, over me. I don’t want to listen to your reasons,’ she added when he made to speak. ‘I don’t want to talk about the past any more.’
‘Good, then we can concentrate on the present,’ he said coolly, and she swallowed at the determined gleam in his eyes. ‘We’ll start from the beginning and get to know one another like two ordinary people. Hi, I’m Rafe Santini; I’m a racing driver.’
Every head on the bus turned, and Eden shook her head, absolutely determined that she wouldn’t smile.
‘You could never be described as ordinary, Rafe,’ she murmured as his big hand closed over hers.
‘Nor could you, cara, nor could you,’ he growled huskily.
He was still holding her hand when they got off the bus and wandered across to Hyde Park. She ought to pull free of his grasp and demand that he leave her alone, she thought, but the honest truth was that she wanted to be with him. She wished they could start from scratch as he had suggested, but there was too much mistrust on either side, emotions that were still too raw, and her only possible saviour, who might prove her innocence, had taken his secrets to his grave.
‘How did you get on with Bruno and his family?’ Rafe asked as they strolled along the edge of the Serpentine, which glistened like a wide silver ribbon beneath the summer sky.
‘Great; he and his wife are a lovely couple, and the children are beautiful.’
For two weeks the Dower House had rung with the noisy exuberance of four small children, the cries and gurgling laughter of the utterly adorable baby, but now the Martinellis were on their way back to Italy. She had enjoyed their company, Eden mused. They had filled a void left by Rafe and were so friendly that she’d had little chance to mope, although missing him had been a constant, nagging ache in her chest.
Watching the young family had brought on a severe case of envy when she witnessed the obvious devotion Bruno felt for his wife and children. If things had been different, could that have been her and Rafe? she had wondered wistfully. At twenty-seven, her hormones were kicking in and when she’d held the Martinellis’ baby, she had been overcome with longing for a child of her own.
She had no idea whether Rafe wanted children, they’d certainly never discussed the subject four years ago, and the fantasies she’d spun of marriage and a family had been a secret desire she’d never dared to voice. Rafe was a racing driver, she reminded herself impatiently, an international playboy whose first loves were speed and excitement. She couldn’t imagine him ever settling down to a life of domestic bliss, and if he really was serious about giving their relationship another chance, she would have to accept that it would be on his terms, following the nomadic lifestyle that life as a Formula 1 driver demanded.
She must need her head tested if she was even considering going back to him, she thought grimly. She’d hated life in the public eye, their affair played out in the tabloids and glossy magazines. She wasn’t a supermodel or glamorous actress, and the paparazzi had speculated constantly on who Rafe might decide to replace her with when he tired of her—which, they suggested, he surely must. Four years ago she’d been unsure of herself and her role in his life. How much worse would it be now, when he believed she had cheated on him with his brother? He said he wanted them to have another chance, but it would be impossible when a chasm of suspicion divided them, and she couldn’t bear to have her heart broken again. It still hadn’t properly recovered from the first time.
Even wearing his sunglasses, or possibly because of them, Rafe was still spectacularly recognisable and was stopped several times by excited fans who requested his autograph.
‘I can’t help it,’ he muttered as she watched him scribble his name on the back of a stunning brunette’s T-shirt. ‘Formula 1 attracts a lot of interest, nowadays.’
‘No, you attract a lot of interest.’ It was ridiculous to feel so jealous; she didn’t even care any more, she reminded herself irritably.
‘This is hopeless, I can’t talk to you when you’re in this mood.’ He glanced along the lake to the little hut that hired out rowing boats. ‘Come on, we surely can’t be disturbed in the middle of the water, unless you object to the ducks.’ He caught hold of her hand and dragged her after him, unmoved by her protests.
‘I don’t want to go in a boat. Take someone else. Heaven knows you’ve got enough choice of females who’d give their right arm to be stuck in the middle of the Serpentine with you.’
‘Madre de Dio! You would try the patience of twenty saints.’ He lifted her bodily into the rowing boat, shrugged out of his jacket and threw it at her with barely leashed violence. She’d opened her mouth to continue the argument, but the sight of him in his tight black T-shirt that clung like a second skin to the muscles of his abdomen rendered her speechless. He had an incredible body, she conceded as she tried to look anywhere but his powerful shoulders and the rippling of his biceps as he rowed them into the centre of the lake. Her mouth felt suddenly dry as she pictured him without the T-shirt, remembered the feel of him, skin on skin, his hair-roughened thighs pressing against the softness of hers.
The only man she had ever wanted; would ever want. Her life suddenly stretched ahead as a long and lonely road, but what was the alternative? To pick up the pieces of their affair and enjoy it while it lasted? She’d done it once, lived with the uncertainty that he would end it any day, soon. She didn’t think she was strong enough to do it again.
It was surprisingly peaceful on the lake, and hard to believe they were in the middle of London. The noise of the traffic had receded to a distant hum and she tipped her head back and stared up at the sky.
‘That’s better,’ Rafe noted in a satisfied tone. ‘Relax, cara. It’s not good to be so tense.’
‘You make me tense,’ she admitted with a sigh, and he gave her a wolfish grin.
‘You make me tense, too, but I’m not complaining. Maybe we should help each other relax?’
She was powerless to resist when he turned on his seductive Latin charm. His voice curled around her like thick cream and she felt sleepy and supine, yet at the same time agonisingly aware of him. He had removed his sunglasses and she studied his face, his dark eyes beneath heavy black brows, the strong line of his nose and the sensual curve of his mouth. The feel of that mouth used to send her to heaven, she remembered, unable to drag her eyes from him, and he carefully drew the oars across the boat and leaned towards her.
‘Do it,’ he bade thickly, and she feigned confusion.
‘Do what?’
‘Kiss me. You know you want to.’
Pride dictated that she sh
ould refute the suggestion, but she felt boneless with longing and she had years ahead to work on restoring her pride. She hesitated fractionally, and then moved so that she was kneeling before him on the floor of the boat. She put one hand on his shoulder and drew his head down to hers, her mouth initiating a gentle exploration that speared his soul. He seemed content to let her control the kiss, taking only what she was willing to give, but he felt so good that the breath left her body in a rush as she increased the pressure, her tongue darting out to explore the contours of his lips.
Rafe hung on to his self-control with difficulty. She was so beautiful, so warm and giving that he had to fight the urge to push her down onto the floor of the boat and make love to her there and then in broad daylight in the middle of a London park. Take it slow, his mind cautioned. One day at a time. There was too much hurt on both sides to rush things. The tentative probing of her tongue shattered that control, and he groaned and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close while the desire to assert his mastery became an overriding need. He deepened the kiss, passion overcoming his restraint, and he plundered the soft sweetness of her lips with a hunger that bordered on desperation.
She looked stunned when at last he released her and she sat back on her seat, her blue eyes dazed as she ran a shaky finger over her lips. Fool, she derided herself. She was falling into his honeyed trap, but dear God, it was the only place she wanted to be.
‘How would you like to see the new musical that’s just opened at the Palladium?’ he asked as they walked back across the park.
‘I’d love to, but it’s been sold out for months.’
‘I have tickets for tonight’s performance, preceded by dinner at a particularly good restaurant I know.’
‘I’m not dressed for the theatre,’ Eden pointed out, and he shrugged.
‘So we’ll stop off and buy you something.’
‘No.’ The invitation to the show was too good to miss when it had received such excellent reviews, but that was all she would accept. ‘I’ll buy myself something to wear or I catch my train back to Wellworth.’ Her arms were folded across her chest, her expression mutinous, and Rafe hid a smile. He didn’t know where her fierce temper had sprung from—it certainly hadn’t been evident during the year they’d spent together—but he possessed a fairly forceful personality, he admitted honestly. Had she been afraid of him? Surely not. The idea was all the more disturbing because he couldn’t easily dismiss it. Patience wasn’t his strong point and it was true he liked to have his own way, but his outbursts of temper, although explosive, were always short-lived. Perhaps he hadn’t taken her feelings into account enough, he conceded. He’d been aware that she hated their life in the public eye, the intrusions into their private life by the tabloids.
He had never courted the attention of the paparazzi, but he hadn’t minded the pictures of the two of them. Dio, he’d been proud to show her off, to proclaim to the world that the beautiful little English rose was his woman, and maybe, if he was honest, it had been a way of getting the message across to his father, too.
‘There’s a problem you hadn’t thought of,’ Eden said with a frown as she emerged from the department store, clutching a carrier bag. She had dispatched Rafe to wait for her in the car after he had driven her mad by wandering around the shop, ostensibly trying to help. His selection of dresses with minuscule skirts had caused her a pang of despair. He wouldn’t be quite so eager to see her in a skirt up to her eyebrows if he knew the state of her leg. ‘Where am I going to get changed?’ she queried worriedly, and he gave her a bland smile.
‘At the hotel I’ve booked us into. I think of everything, cara.’
‘Yes, well, you can just un-book us. I’m not sharing a room with you.’
‘You really don’t trust me, do you?’ he murmured, an edge of seriousness in his voice as he deposited her bags in the back of the car, and Eden gave him a thoughtful look.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said quietly. ‘You let me down, Rafe, not the other way round, so don’t even go there. Once I handed you my trust on a plate, but I won’t be so careless again.’
They crawled through the London traffic in taut silence and Eden sighed as she rubbed her temples. Her head ached, her leg was throbbing and all she wanted to do was go home, except home—for now at least—was also Rafe’s home, and whichever way she looked there didn’t seem to be an escape route.
The hotel was one of London’s finest, its opulence breathtaking, and she glanced around the suite they had been shown to with wide eyes. Rafe had stormed straight into the bedroom and she could hear the faint sounds of the shower from the ensuite. She could change into her dress in the sitting room, she supposed, but a shower was tempting, and was a safer way of relaxing than anything Rafe could suggest.
She almost turned tail at the sight of the king-sized bed, refusing to admit that she was filled with nervous excitement rather than trepidation at the idea of sharing it with him. The sensible option would be to slip out of the hotel, take a cab to the station and travel back to Wellworth, but she didn’t feel sensible, she felt enervated, every nerve ending prickling with a sense of anticipation she couldn’t deny, however hard she tried.
Rafe strolled out of the bathroom, a towel hitched around his waist, and her imagination immediately soared into overdrive at the thought of what was hidden beneath the towel. His hair was slicked to his head, droplets of water clinging to the black hairs that covered his chest, and she felt a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach, a need that was savage in its intensity, and darkened her eyes to the colour of cobalt.
‘Do you want something, cara?’ he queried coolly, and she felt her cheeks flame as she dragged her gaze from his glorious body.
‘I, um…need to get changed,’ she muttered, and his brows rose.
‘Your room is at the opposite end of the sitting room, but I’m happy to share if you insist.’
‘You could have said,’ she snapped furiously, his sardonic smile telling her he was aware that she didn’t just feel an idiot, she also felt agonisingly disappointed.
‘You’re so determined to think the worst of me, there didn’t seem much point in wasting my breath, but let me make one thing clear, cara. I’m not so desperate that I need to try and trick you into my bed. I want you, sure,’ he continued with a nonchalant shrug, as if the idea of making love to her was as important as choosing a sweet from the pick-and-mix counter, ‘but I’m not going to take you kicking and screaming, so you can drop the air of maidenly outrage. One other thing,’ he added, seeing that she was temporarily struck dumb. ‘Stop looking at me like that with those big, hungry blue eyes.’
‘Like what?’ Eden managed through numb lips, and he gave her an insolent smile.
‘Like you want me to throw you down on the bed and remove every last vestige of your clothing. Trail my lips all the way down your body and then spread those milky thighs I remember so well and thrust into you until we both reach the heights of sexual ecstasy.’
‘I don’t want you to do that,’ she denied grittily, and his eyes narrowed. The tension between them was so intense, the imagery his words had evoked so stark, that one of them, surely, would have to crack.
‘Which rather proves my point, cara,’ he drawled softly. ‘I still maintain you’re a liar.’
Chapter 6
The dress was a peach-coloured, full-length sheath that emphasised her slender waist. The long skirt hid her legs while the strapless bodice revealed rather more of her full breasts than she was comfortable with. It was an overtly sexy dress and as Eden stood in front of the mirror she bitterly regretted the impulse that had led her to buy it, the secret hope that Rafe would find her attractive, despite the fact that the skirt hid her long limbs that he had always admired.
A sudden, unbidden image filled her mind, of him smoothing sunscreen over her stomach before trailing his hands lower, past the tiny triangle of material that masqueraded as a bikini, and down to her thighs. He was a leg man, he had info
rmed her in his deep, sexy drawl, and she had laughed breathlessly and teased him by wrapping her long, tanned legs around him and holding him prisoner.
What would he make of her injuries? she wondered, and then shook her head impatiently. After his parting shot a couple of hours earlier, she doubted she would ever find out. He was never going to see her scarred leg. She was still smarting from the realisation that he was aware of her growing need for him, a desire that was becoming harder and harder to conceal. For his part, far from wanting to ravish her at the first opportunity, he seemed relaxed to the point of boredom, and his attitude of take it or leave it made her humiliation complete.
It was the reason she had remained locked in her bedroom, but she couldn’t remain there forever. Pride—her only ally when her emotional stability seemed to have gone to pieces—dictated that she walk out and face him, and she checked her appearance one last time, sprayed a liberal amount of perfume on her wrists and opened the door.
Rafe swung round from the window, where he had been staring moodily down at the street, and felt his breath snag in his throat. Exquisite was the only word to describe her, and he felt a familiar ache in his loins as he took in the way her dress clung to her curves and her blonde hair was piled in a loose knot on top of her head. Sensual, sexy and right now as nervous as hell, he assessed, noting the way the pulse at the base of her throat was beating erratically. His woman, and despite the past, he was determined to reclaim her, but it wasn’t proving quite as simple as he’d arrogantly assumed.
His gentle English rose had developed thorns, he conceded with a rueful smile.
He could practically read the danger sign in her mind that warned him to keep away, but fortunately her body was throwing out different signals. The powerful sexual chemistry that had bound them together in the first place still burned.
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