The Italian's Future Bride

by Michelle Reid

  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 to sleep around to take oral contraception.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that reassuring piece of information,’ she said hotly. ‘But, in my case, and becauseI 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—loungingthere half-undressed. A tall, lean, tightly muscledsupremo , 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 wonderfulfatalist 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 andsleep the role you have chosen to play in my life.’

  His life. Those two words said it all to Rachel. This washis 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.

  Her breast received his touch with livewire tingles. Don’t respond! she told herself, but she did. Her mouth opened wider to turn the gentle contact into a proper kiss and the globe of her breast peaked pleasurably against his palm. It was terrible; she could not seem to control herself.

  On a husky murmur he took the kiss back from her and from there it all began to build again.

  It should have been a huge let-down after what they’d just been fighting about—but it wasn’t. What it was, was a slow, slow attack on every sensual front he could discover by using his lips and his tongue and the light-light tantalising brush of fingers. There was not a single millimetre of her flesh that was not gently coaxed into yielding its secrets—its every weakness exposed and explored until she felt like a slave to her own sensuality and an even bigger slave to his.

  By the time he prepared to come into her, she was so lost in a hazy world made up entirely of him that she just lay there, watching while he produced the protection they’d both forgotten about the last time and expertly rolled it down his powerful length.

  His eyes burned hers as he came over her. When he pushed inside, her groan brought his lips down to capture the sound. They moved together in a slow, deep, serious, dark journey, which left both of them totally wiped out by its end.

  And, as sleep finally swept her into boneless oblivion, Rachel knew she had been totally taken over, ravished, possessed.

  I wish, was the last conscious thought she remembered having and fell asleep wondering what it was she had been about to wish for.

  She awoke cocooned in a nest of warm duvet and to the sound of a telephone ringing again. Only it did not sound loud, as if it was being muffled by the thickness of walls and doors. But the persistent sound pierced through her sleep like a sluggish pulse taking place inside her head.

  She didn’t open her eyes—didn’t want to. Too many bad memories were already rushing back, the worst of them being the knowledge that she’d fallen into bed with a man she’d only met the night before, had hot, unprotected sex with him and now his physical imprint was so deeply stamped on her that she could still see him, hear him, feel him and smell him with every sensory cell she had.

  The ringing stopped. Rachel let her eyes open. Daylight was shrouded by the drawn curtains but she could see just enough to know that the place beside her in the bed was empty and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  At least she would have some time to get herself back together before she had to face him again.

  Easing out of the bed, she rose to stand up with just about every muscle feeling the extra stretch as she looked around her for something to put on.

  Her clothes had gone. So had the shirt she had been coveting last night like a last line of defence. What now? she asked herself. Were her missing clothes supposed to be sending her a message about where she fitted into his life?

  Suddenly spying the cashmere throw he had used to cover her with the night before draped over a chair, she leapt on it and wrapped herself in it. The throw covered her from throat to ankle but she still felt like the wretched man’s concubine, imprisoned for his exclusive use.

  And he knew how to use her, she was forced to admit when her senses gave a tight little flutter in response to the thought.

  Someone knocked on the door. She almost tripped over as she spun round to stare at it.

  ‘Y-Yes?’ she called out, puzzled as to why the heck he was bothering to knock when privacy had been something he had taken no heed of last night.

  ‘Your things have arrived, Carmichael,’ a totally strange female voice announced. ‘Shall I leave the suitcase here outside the door?’

  ‘Oh—y-yes—thank you,’ she answered, frowning because she didn’t know what the woman was talking about.

  She waited a few seconds before going to pull the door open a small crack to make sure the woman had gone before she looked down to discover the suitcase she’d hastily packed before leaving Devon was now standing on the floor. Clinging to the black throw with one hand and still frowning, she used her other hand to lift the case inside the bedroom and shut the door again.

  Last time she’d seen this, it had been lying open and spilling its contents on to the spare bed in Mark’s flat. So how had it ended up here instead?

  Had Mark delivered it? Had he come here, then left again without bothering to see or speak to her to find out if she was okay?

  Hurt thickened her throat as she heaved the case on to the rumpled bed and unzipped it. Inside it was everything she had brought up to London with her, plus all the extras that Elise had provided to help turn her into her look-alike.

  There was also a piece of paper lying on the top of everything. Picking it up, she unfolded it to find it was a hastily scribbled note from Mark.

  Did you have to send the chauffeur round to knock me up for your stuff at 6 o’ clock in the morning? I’d only just crawled into bed!

  Elise called you last night after I told her the good news, but your phone was dead. She and Leo wanted to congratulate you on your coming nuptials, if you get my drift. Call her later today so she can play the ecstatic sister for Leo’s benefit.

  I’m off to LA this afternoon for a few weeks. See you when I get back. Love M.

  Mission accomplished, in other words, so it was back to normal life—for Mark anyway. No words of concern for how she was feeling. No sign of a rescue plan for her any time soon.

  Rachel stared out at nothing
for a moment or two. Then, as a rueful grimace played its rather wobbly way across her mouth, she let the note fall on to the bed and turned her attention to selecting fresh clothes from the suitcase. At least she was now overloaded with expensive hair products and cosmetics, she consoled herself.

  Dressed in a short bathrobe and fresh from his shower in one of the guest rooms, Raffaelle opened the bedroom door as the bathroom door shut with a quiet click.

  He stood for a moment, viewing the evidence of her occupation, then walked over to the bed and picked up the note. His expression hardened as he read it. His eyes then drifted to the open suitcase, where it looked as if everything had been dumped in there at haste.