But she wasn’t, was she?
They ate in the living room, lounging on a rug with their backs resting against one of the sofas and the television switched on. Rachel ate while she tried to concentrate on what was happening on the TV screen when really she was already hyped up about what was to follow.
Crazy, she told herself. You know none of this is real. You must be mad to let him get to you this badly.
Then he reached out to pick up her wineglass from the low table in front of them and handed it to her and their eyes clashed. What was good or bad for her became lost in what happened next. He moved in to kiss her; she fell into the kiss. The glass went back to the table and they made love on the rug between bowls of half-eaten pasta with the television talking away to a lost audience. Afterwards he carried her, satiated and too weak to argue, to bed.
‘The pots and things…’ she mumbled sleepily.
‘Shh,’ he said. ‘I will see to them,’ and he left her there.
By the time Raffaelle came back into the bedroom she was asleep. When he slipped beneath the duvet he did not disturb her—he did not think he had the energy to cope with what was bound to ensue if he did.
He closed his eyes, wanting sleep to shut out the next few hours before he had to make any decisions about how they were going to tackle the rest of this. The great sex was one thing, but the realities of life still waited out there for him to deal with.
Lies built on more lies. Smothering the urge to sigh, he shifted his shoulders against the pillows. She moved beside him, turning in her sleep to curl in close to him, her soft breath warm on his neck and a cool hand settling lightly on his chest.
He looked down at it resting there, with its pale slender fingers and pearly-pink varnished nails, and his skin burned in response to what he knew it could make him feel.
Lies or not, she was in his blood now. A fantasy siren most men would kill to possess. He closed his eyes again and tried to hunt down that illusive thing called sleep. His last conscious thought was the grimly satisfying knowledge that she was almost worth the temporary loss of his freedom and the trail of subterfuge he was about to embark upon.
Unless Mother Nature decided to get in on the act.
He fell asleep on that thought.
The next day brought fresh problems to deal with. He had been drinking coffee in the kitchen and trying to put his head in order while Rachel still lay lost in sleep in his bed, when his housekeeper arrived and laid a tabloid down in front of him.
‘I thought you might want to see this,’ she murmured embarrassedly.
But one glance at the photograph was enough to send him into the bedroom. ‘Rachel, wake up.’
He shook her gently, then watched as she did her trick of emerging from the duvet in that way which grabbed at his senses.
‘We need to talk,’ he said grimly, then dropped the paper on to her lap.
Silence hung for the next thirty seconds while he stood there waiting and she looked down at the newspaper. There was something disturbingly erotic about the way the photograph had caught them and he knew by the way she suddenly dropped her face into her hands that this was one intrusion too far.
A nerve at the corner of his hard mouth gave a twitch. ‘I suppose that being caught on camera like this will kill the suspicions of any mocking doubters and prove that we are indeed what we appear to be. But from now on both of us must be aware of what we do and what we say even when we believe we have complete privacy.’
‘Life in the fast lane,’ she named it bitterly.
‘Si,’he agreed. ‘I am used to it—though not to the degree that I feel the need to hide behind closed curtains,’ he put in cynically. ‘I would have expected that, having a half-sister like Elise and an insight into your half-brother’s way of earning his living, you would know all the pitfalls of life in the fast lane.’
At last Rachel lifted her head to look at him. ‘Are you implying that I set this up too?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ he denied. ‘I am simply advising you to draw on your knowledge gained from both of your siblings and think carefully before you move or speak.’
‘It sounded more like a command to me.’
‘Call it what you want,’ he said. ‘But accept that you will not go out without someone with you,’ he instructed. ‘I will assign one of my own security people to escort you.’
It was only as he said it that Rachel realised she was stuck here in London, in his apartment with nothing to do. Elise was away. Even Mark was away. She didn’t know anyone else in the city! While it was very obvious by the way he was dressed that he was not going to hang around here if at all possible and keep her company.
‘So I’m to be a prisoner now as well as your…’She severed the rest but they both knew what she had been about to say.
‘It cuts both ways,cara ,’ Raffaelle said unsympathetically. ‘I had a life and relative freedom with which to live it until you threw yourself at me. Now I have you, a bed and no life to call my own.’
‘At least you get to go to work.’
‘It is what I do during the day.’
‘Well, lucky you.’Rachel handed him back the newspaper, then she curled on her side and tugged the duvet up to her ears. ‘I might as well stay right here then, since it’s the only place I am useful.’
He laughed. ‘Hold that delightful thought until I return.’
Then he was gone. The door closed. He strode down the hallway and out of the apartment, then into the lift. It took him down to the basement where Dino and his limo awaited him. The moment he settled in the rear seat and opened his laptop his business cellphone began ringing and real life settled in. As he concluded his fourth complicated call of the journey, Dino was pulling the car to a stop outside the Villani building. He climbed out and strode in through the doors into familiar surroundings where that other excitement which came a very close second to sex waited to take him over.
Then it came.
‘Congratulations, Villani!’
‘Congratulations, sir!’
Congratulations resounded from every corner. The curious smiles that accompanied them were due almost entirely to the photograph printed in this morning’s paper, he judged.
His smile was mocking but fixed. And even that was wearing thin by the time he hit the top floor of the building.
‘Congratulations, Raffaelle,’ his secretary greeted him and dumped a whole load of telephone message slips down on his desk.
‘What are those?’ he asked dubiously.
‘Congratulations and invitations, of course.’ She grinned. ‘I would hazard a guess that these are only the beginning. It looks as if you and Carmichael will be dining out every night for months!’
He gave her them back. ‘You deal with them.’
‘Me?’
‘Filter out the rubbish and sort the rest into some kind of order,’ he instructed. ‘Then I will look at them.’
‘But wouldn’t it be more appropriate if Carmichael did it?’
Recalling the woman he had just walked away from brought a gleam to his eyes. ‘No. She has better things to do,’ he murmured dryly.
Like playing his personal little sex nymph.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SEX NYMPH WAS UP, showered and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt by the time Raffaelle entered his office building to a barrage of congratulations.
The sex nymph could not be more prim and polite when his housekeeper introduced herself as Rosa, the chauffeur’s wife; apparently both of them travelled everywhere that Raffaelle went.
And the sex nymph had no intention of being anywhere near the bedroom by the time he got back home again.
She had come up with a much more practical way to spend her time.
Over a light breakfast prepared by Rosa, Rachel planned her day with the concentration of a tourist determined to miss nothing out. Only her tour would not consist of historical sites in the city; she was going to trawl the restaurants and food wholesalers special
ising in organic produce.
Her nice new security guard arrived conveniently as she was about to leave. His name was Tony and he had the use of a car, which meant far less footwork.
Still, by the time she had been delivered safely back to the apartment long hours later, she was almost dead on her feet.
Raffaelle was crossing the hall towards his study from the living room as she stepped in through the door. Pinstriped jacket gone, shirt sleeves rolled up, tie knot hanging low at his throat and glass slotted between his fingers, he looked deliciously like the successful man just in from work and ready to wind down from his busy day.
Rachel paused, completely held by his sexual pull.
He paused too and looked at her, silky curls ruffled, face still chilled by the cold breeze blowing outside, woollen coat unbuttoned to reveal a white T-shirt with a neckline that scooped low at the front. He took his time taking in every detail with the slow—slow thoroughness of a seasoned connoisseur of beautiful women.
Knowing that she lacked the connoisseur’s high standards right now sent Rachel’s chin shooting up, blue eyes challenging him to say something derogatory.
‘Did you enjoy your day,mi amore ?’ was the sarcastic comment that fell from his lips.
Defences heightened, she reluctantly supposed she should explain where she’d been. ‘I went…’
‘I know where you have been,’ he cut in. ‘Tony works for me, not for you.’
‘Then, yes—’ they could both play with polite sarcasm, she decided ‘—I had a very enjoyable day, thank you. And you?’
‘I had an…interesting day,’ he replied, watching her every step as she made herself walk forward. ‘I spent it giving polite replies to polite invitations for us to dine with polite people who cannot wait to get a better look at my future wife.’
Recalling the revealing photograph in this morning’s paper sent a rush of heat into her cool cheeks.
‘Of course you did the wise thing and politely declined those polite invitations?’
‘No, I accepted—most of them.’
Rachel pulled to a standstill. ‘I hope you’re just teasing.’
He took a sip of his drink, every inch of him vibrating with a kind of sardonic challenge that gave her his answer before he shook his dark head.
‘The show must go on.’
‘But I don’t want to meet your friends!’ she protested.
‘Scared they might see through us?’
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Can’t we just want to—be alone together—as real engaged couples prefer to be?’
‘You’re mistaking a new betrothal with a new marriage,’ he countered. ‘Honeymooners want to—be alone together. Newly betrothed couples want to get out there and—show off.’
‘But I don’t want to show off!’
A satin black eyebrow arched in enquiry. ‘You don’t think I am good enough to show off?’
‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ she snapped. What woman in her right mind would say he wasn’t fit to show off? ‘I just don’t thinkwe are fit to be seen as an intimate couple within a group of your friends!’ Stuffing her hands into her coat pockets and hunching her shoulders in self-defence, she went on, ‘I presumed we would do—safer things like go out to quiet restaurants or something.’
‘A restaurant it is.’ He smiled. ‘Eight o’clock. We will be meeting my stepsister and several other close friends of mine.’
Rachel’s stomach started rolling sickly. ‘Tonight?’ she squeezed out painfully.
‘Si,’ he confirmed.
‘W-why couldn’t you be friendless?’ she tossed out helplessly.
He just grinned. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,cara , but I am certainly not friendless.’
‘But your stepsister of all people. Sheknows we are fakes!’
His mood changed in a flicker. ‘Stop playing the scared innocent, Rachel, when we both know you are far from it,’ he clipped out. ‘This is what you signed up for to save your sister’s marriage. And lovers who fall on one other as often as we do are certainly not faking it!’
She pushed her hands through her hair. ‘You know what I meant.’
‘And you know what I mean when I say—get your act together,’ he instructed, ‘because we are going out in public tonight and I want the besottedlover by my side, not the farmer with a chip on her shoulder a mile wide!’
Rachel stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to imply?’
He threw out an impatient hand. ‘You compare yourself badly to your more glamorous sister,’ he provided. ‘You compare me with your ex-lover and hate the fact that I am Italian like him.’
‘I do not!’ she denied.
‘Was he good-looking?’ he demanded.
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ Her eyes went wide in bewilderment.
‘Was he—?’ he persisted.
‘Yes!’
‘How old?’
‘My age—’
‘And what kind of car did he drive?’
She sucked in an angry breath. ‘A red Ferrari,’ she answered. ‘But that wasn’t—’
‘Great,’ he gritted. ‘Mine is silver. Is that a bad mark against me or one against him for being too flashy?’
‘You’re crazy,’ she breathed.
Maybe he was. At this precise moment Raffaelle did not know why he was so fired up about a man he probably would not give a second thought to in other circumstances.
‘Just go and get ready.’ He turned his back on her and strode into his study, wanting to toss his drink to the back of his angry throat but refusing to allow himself the gut soothing pleasure while she was standing there staring at him. ‘And Idon’t like flashy, so don’t come out dressed in red!’ he could not stop himself from adding.
Then he shut the door—slammedthe damn door!
Rachel shook all the way into the bedroom. She shook as she removed her coat and laid it aside. She had absolutely no idea what all of that had been about and she didn’t think that she wanted to know.
Did he hate her—was that it? she immediately questioned. Did he resent her being here so badly that he needed to take chunks out of her to get his own back on her for putting him in this situation in the first place?
Was he locked in his silly studypraying that she wasn’t pregnant with his child?
And he did not want to see the farmer dressed in flashy red when she came out. Her lips gave a quiver. He preferred to see the sleek Elise look-alike because at least he could relate to her andpretend she was his type!
Rachel stripped off her clothes and walked into the bathroom, not sure if she wanted to throw things or cry her eyes out.
The tears almost won the moment she stepped beneath the shower spray and she would have let them if he had not chosen that moment to push open the bathroom door and stride fully naked into the shower.
‘No, don’t stiffen up,’ he said as she did exactly that. ‘I am here to make you feel better, not worse.’
He drew her back against him, angling both of them so the shower sprayed down her front, then dropped his lips to her ear. ‘I came to apologise for being bad-tempered out there.’
‘You mean it’s just hit you that you have to trail me in front of your friends having ripped my head off,’ Rachel said.
‘I had a bad day.’
He was tasting her earlobe now. Rachel jerked it away.
‘Accepting invitations you had no desire to accept.’
‘While thinking of you and that bed I had walked away from.’ He chased the earlobe again. ‘So I was bad tempered all day and came home more than ready to find you waiting for me. But you were not here; you were out enjoying yourself.’
‘Playing the farmer to my heart’s content.’
‘I like the farmer,’ he murmured lustily. ‘She is toned and sleek and very sexy. I am also jealous of the ex-lover…’
That shocking confession finally stopped her from trying to pull away from him.
‘Impressed by that?’ he m
ocked.
‘Yes,’ she answered honestly.
‘I thought you might be.’ His mouth bit gently into the sensitive crook between her shoulder and neck.
Rachel’s breathing feathered and she closed her eyes, giving herself up to this when she knew that she shouldn’t. Wanting him to want her for herself and not just because she was here for the taking.
He found the soap and used it to paint every inch of her he could reach. Soon she was lost in a scented steam-filled world that shut out everything else.
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