The Italian's Future Bride

by Michelle Reid

  ‘I don’t understand why they’re still hanging around,’ Rachel said after they’d lost their pursuers in a sequence of dizzying turns down narrow back streets. She hadn’t dared speak before then in case she broke his concentration and they ended up hitting a wall. ‘What do they think we are going to do? Get married on the apartment steps or something?’

  ‘They don’t know enough about you.’ He sounded so grim that Rachel felt a cold little shiver chase down her spine.

  ‘I hate this,’ she whispered. ‘I hated it when I used to get caught up in it with Elise. I don’t know how you people live your lives like this.’

  ‘We live in a celebrity-driven world,’ he answered levelly. ‘The masses are greedy for the intimate details of the rich and famous—or, for that matter, anyone who lives a high profile life. You have now joined the celebrity ranks, so get used to it, because this is only the beginning of it.’

  The beginning of it…

  After that Rachel did not speak another word. They reached the motorway and suddenly the powerful car came into its own, eating up the miles with the luxurious smoothness that promised to cut the journey time by half.

  He stopped once at a motorway service station, led her into the café and bought sandwiches and coffee.

  ‘Eat,’ he instructed, when she stared at the unappetizing-looking sandwich he’d placed in front of her. ‘You look like death and you have eaten nothing since you threw yourself at me last night.’

  And I look like death because I hardly had any sleep last night, she threw back at him without saying the words out loud. Because out loud meant opening a Pandora’s box full of what they’d been doing instead of sleeping.

  The indifferent-tasting sandwich was washed down by indifferent-tasting coffee. Rachel was surprised he ate his sandwich or drank the coffee. They just didn’t look like the kind of food this man would usually put anywhere near his mouth.

  When they hit the road again he wanted to talk. ‘Tell me how your family works,’ he invited.

  So she explained how her mother had lost her husband to a long-term illness while the twins had still been very young. ‘A few years later she married my father and then had me.’

  ‘So what is the age difference between you and the twins?’

  ‘Six years,’ she replied.

  ‘And who did the farm originally belong to?’

  ‘My father. But he—we—never differentiated between Mark and Elise and myself. And it isn’t really a farm,’ she then added because she thought she better had do before they arrived there and he saw it. ‘It’s what we call a smallholding, with three acres of land, a house, a couple of greenhouses and a couple of barns.’

  ‘Another lie,cara ?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘It’s run like a farm.’

  ‘And the…neighbour that helps you out when you need it—what does he do?’

  ‘Jack owns the land adjoining our land—and hisis a farm,’ she stressed. ‘He’s been good to us since our parents died.’

  ‘Call it as it is,’ Raffaelle said. ‘He has been good toyou .’

  Rachel turned to look at him. ‘Why that tone?’ she demanded.

  His grimace stopped her from becoming hooked on watching his face. ‘I don’t think I want to elaborate,’ he confessed.

  ‘Suits me,’ she said and, turning the collar up on her coat, she leant further into the seat and closed her eyes.

  His low laugh played along her nerve endings. ‘You are prickly, Carmichael.’

  ‘And you are loathsome,Signor .’

  ‘Because I don’t mind saying that I dislike the way your siblings use you?’

  ‘No. You are loathsome simply because you are.’

  ‘In bed?’

  Rachel didn’t answer.

  ‘You prefer, perhaps, this Jack in bed as your lover because he is sogood to you.’

  He was fishing. Rachel decided to let him. ‘Maybe.’ She smiled.

  ‘But can he make you fall apart with pleasure there as I can, or does he bring the smell of farmer to your bed, which you must overcome before he can overcome you?’

  ‘As I said. You’re loathsome.’

  ‘Si,’ he agreed. ‘However, when I said that I don’t sleep around I meant it, whereas you seemingly did not.’

  Rachel turned her head and flicked her eyes open to look at him. Once a liar always a liar, she thought heavily when she saw the grimness lashed to his lean profile.

  And a tease could only be a tease when the recipient knew he was being teased. Sitting further up the seat with a sigh, she pushed a hand through her curls and opened her mouth to tell him exactly who and what Jack was—when her attention was caught by a giant blue motorway sign.

  ‘Oh, heck,’ she gasped. ‘We need to take this next turn-off!’

  With a startled flash of his eyes and a few muttered curses, he flipped the car across several motorway lanes with one eye on the rear-view mirror judging the pace of the traffic behind them and the other eye judging the spare stretch road in front of them. By the time they sailed safely down the slip road Jack’s name had been washed right out of Rachel’s head by an intoxicating mix of nerve-fraying terror for her life and the exhilarating thrill of the whole smooth, slick power-driven manoeuvre.

  ‘Which way?’ he demanded.

  Rachel blinked and told him in a tense breath-stifled voice while her senses fizzed and popped in places they shouldn’t. What was it about men and danger that struck directly at the female sexual psyche?

  He glanced at her and saw her expression and sent her a wide slashing masculine grin that lit her up inside like a flaming torch.

  ‘Scared,cara ?’ he quizzed.

  ‘You—you—’

  ‘Had it all under control,’ he smoothly provided. ‘Which, in Italian terms, makes the difference between a mere good lover and a fabulous lover.’

  Rachel knew exactly what he meant, which was the hardest thing to take. If he stopped the car now she would be crawling all over him in a hot and seething sexually needy flood.

  It was everything—the powerful car and the reckless man and the adrenalin rush still singing through her blood. She tried to breathe slowly and lost it completely when he reached across to her and gently stroked her cheek. Static fire whipped across her skin cells, she whispered something and turned her head. Their eyes clashed. For a short, short split second in time it was like falling into a vat of writhing, hissing, snapping snakes.

  He looked away. The smile had gone but the atmosphere inside the car had heightened beyond anything real. Rachel sat on her hands to stop them reaching for him and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening while he drove on with a sudden grim concentration that only made everything worse.

  She gave directions in short, sharp, breathless little bursts of speech that only helped to increase the tension. He said nothing but just reacted with slick control of the car. They were both sitting forward in their seats. They were both staring fixedly directly ahead. She knew where this was going to end up just as he knew it. And the agony of knowing was as tough as the agony of having to sit here and wait.

  At last—finally they turned into the private lane which led to the farm. Winter fields barely waking up to early spring spread out on either side of them, neatly ploughed and ready to sow. The old farmhouse stood in front of them, its rustic brick walls warmed by a weak sun. Flanking either side of it stood the adjoining barns and behind the house they could just see the greenhouse’s glass glinting in the weak sunlight.

  In front was the cobbled yard where Rachel’s muddy old Jeep stood tucked in against a barn wall. On the other side stood another car, a Range Rover, making Rachel’s heart sink, though whether that was due to disappointment, because she knew what was buzzing between the two of them was about to be indefinitely postponed, or relief for the same reason, she refused to examine.

  Raffaelle brought the car to a stop in the dead centre of the courtyard, killed the engine, then climbed out without uttering a word.
Rachel was slower in moving, unsure if her stinging legs would hold her up if she tried to stand on them.

  He couldn’t know what was coming and she didn’t know how to tell him. One glance at his face across the top of the car and she was almost bowled over by the strict control he was holding over himself.

  His eyes were not under control, though. They looked back at her with a possessive glitter that showered her with sexual promise.

  She parted her paper-dry lips. ‘Raffaelle—’ she began anxiously.

  ‘Let’s go inside and find a bed,’ he said huskily.

  She quivered and swallowed, then heaved in a tense breath in preparation to speak again. The front door to the house suddenly swung inwards, snatching her attention away from him.

  He looked where she was looking, shoes scraping on worn cobbles as he turned then went perfectly still.

  A man stood in the open doorway—a tall, well-built, swarthy-looking man wearing brown cords and a fleece coat. He was also a man easily in his fifth decade, with eyes like ice that he pinned on Raffaelle.

  ‘Jack,’ Rachel murmured, feeling trouble brewing even before she saw Raffaelle tense up when she said Jack’s name.

  Damn, why hadn’t she thought about this before she’d teased Raffaelle about her relationship to Jack?

  And, oh dear, but Jack did not look pleased at all.

  She hurried forward. Raffaelle stood frozen as he watched her walk straight into the other man’s arms. He was trying to decide whether to go over there and punch the bastard for taking advantage of a vulnerable young woman left alone here to cope on her own. Or to reclaim what now belonged to him, then tell him to get the hell out.

  In the end it was the other man who took the initiative.

  ‘Jack…’ Rachel burst into nervous speech as she reached him. ‘This is…’

  ‘I read the paper this morning, Rachel,’ he cut in, looking across the cobbles with a set of grey eyes that were as cold as Raffaelle’s own eyes.

  He put her to one side so he could walk forwards. Rachel could feel the suspicion coming off him in waves. Jack knew her better than most people, so if anyone was going to smell a rat about her surprise engagement then it would be him.

  ‘I n-need to explain.’ She dashed after him.

  ‘ Villani,’ Jack greeted coolly.

  Nerves jumping all over her now, Rachel rushed into speech yet again. ‘Raffaelle, this is Jack Fellows.’ Her anxious blue eyes pleaded with him to understand. ‘He’s my—’

  ‘Guardian,’ Jack himself put in. ‘Until she is twenty-five, that is.’

  ‘Well, that is a new name for it,’ Raffaelle drawled.

  ‘Jack is also my uncle,’ she said heavily. ‘M-my mother’s brother…’

  ‘And the one who looks out for her interests,’ Jack coldly put in. ‘So, if you are the same Italian who broke Rachel’s heart last year, then you had better come up with a good reason for doing it or Rachel will not receive my blessing for this engagement.’

  Oh, dear God. Rachel wished the ground would open up and swallow her. It just had not occurred to her that Jack would make such a mistake!

  Now Raffaelle was looking at her as if she was one of the devil’s children and she couldn’t blame him. It had to feel as if each time he turned around he was being forced to answer new charges that someone in her family planted at his feet!

  ‘Raffaelle is not Alonso,’ she muttered to Jack in a driven undertone.

  ‘Was that his name?’ Her uncle looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t recall you actually ever mentioning it.’

  That was because she hadn’t. She’d just come back here from her trip to Italy looking and behaving like a woman with a broken heart.

  Her uncle turned back to Raffaelle. ‘My sincere apologies for the mistake, Villani,’ he said and offered him his hand.

  But it was too late for Rachel as far as Raffaelle was concerned. She sensed his anger hiding beneath the surface of his smile as he took Jack’s proffered hand.

  Then he switched the charm on. By the time he had finished explaining who he was and what he was, and trawled out the same story about how and where he’d met Rachel, he had her uncle eating out of his hand. It was like watching an action reply of the way he had handled the press the night before. And all Rachel could do was smile benignly once more and be impressed by his performance, while knowing retribution was close at hand.

  He coolly assured Jack that he was no fortune hunter out to marry his niece for her share in the family pile. He assured him dryly that no, not all Italian men were so cavalier with the vulnerable female heart.

  And of course he was madly in love with Rachel—what man would not be? His arm snaked out to hook her around her shoulders so he could draw her in close to his side.

  I’m going to kill you the minute I get you alone, that heavy arm promised. And Rachel believed it—totally.

  Then he apologised to Jack that the news of their betrothal had broken in the papers before he’d had a chance to come here and officially request Jack’s blessing.

  It was his finest moment, Rachel acknowledged from her subservient place at his side. Jack was old-fashioned, with traditional values. She could see from her uncle’s expression that in Raffaelle he thought he was meeting a man after his own heart.

  Jack had to rush off then but he offered them dinner to celebrate.

  Smooth as silk, Raffaelle thanked him but regrettably had to decline. Apparently he had to be back in London this evening—to attend an irritating business dinner.

  Whether there was a business dinner, Rachel did not know. But, of course, her uncle understood. Busy men and all that.

  And Raffaelle’s ultimate coup was to gain Jack’s instant agreement that everything here would be taken care of while Rachel was away, because of course Raffaelle wanted her with him.

  ‘Just be happy, darling,’ Jack said to her, then he kissed her cheek, shook Raffaelle by the hand and left them, driving away while they stood and watched him—with Raffaelle’s arm still exhibiting its possession across her shoulders in a grip like a vice.

  Happy was the last thing she was feeling by the time her uncle’s car disappeared out of sight. The moment he turned them to face the house Rachel tried to break free from him but his grip only tightened as he walked them across the cobbles.

  The front door opened directly into the farmhouse-style kitchen, heated by the old Aga against the wall. Coming in here should have felt comfortingly familiar to Rachel but it didn’t. The door closed. The arm dropped from her shoulders. Moving like a skittish kitten, she took a few steps away from him then spun around.

  ‘I…’

  ‘If you are about to utter yet another lie to me—’he cut right across her ‘—then let me advise you to keep silent!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HERheart gave a thick little thump against her ribcage. It was like looking at a complete stranger again—a tall, dark, coldly angry stranger.

  ‘I was actually about to apologise for the…misunderstanding with Jack out there.’

  ‘You set me up.’

  ‘It w-wasn’t like that,’ she denied. ‘Y-you were fishing for information and I stupidly decided to tease you about my relationship with Jack.’

  ‘I am not referring to your desire to pull my strings by intimating there was another man in your life,’ he said. ‘Though using your uncle like that is unforgivable enough.’

  ‘Then what—?’ she demanded.

  ‘Alonso,’ he supplied. ‘The Italian heartbreaker I have been set up to play substitute for in your desire for payback!’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Rachel protested.

  His angry eyes crashed into her like a pair of ice picks. ‘Not only is it true but you are the most devious witch it has ever been my misfortune to come into contact with!’ he incised. ‘This was never just about saving your half-sister’s marriage! You always had this hidden agenda in which I paid for the sins you believe your other Italian lover committ
ed!’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘I’mnot that petty! Elise’s problems are serious enough without you adding such a crazy accusation into the mix! And anyway,’ she said stiffly, ‘you are nothing like Alonso. In fact I couldn’t compare the two of you in any way if I tried!’

  ‘In bed, perhaps?’ he grimly suggested. ‘Did you close your eyes and imagine it was him you were driving out of his head with your thrust-and-grind gyrations and those exquisite little muscle contractions?’