by Lynne Graham
The food was delicious—a selection of freshwater fish served with aromatic sauces and big bowls of fresh pasta. They both ate hungrily and the conversation flowed surprisingly easily. Rafael started, as he always did, by asking about her day’s painting, then actually answered her questions about his day, telling her about his plans for a new marina that was about to start construction, about the vineyards that had to be monitored closely at this time of year, the local elections that had just taken place.
He looked so composed, so handsome, so like the old Rafael she had fallen quite madly in love with.
Lottie tried to concentrate, to focus on the many and varied problems and opportunities obviously involved in being head of a principality like Monterrato. But mostly she found herself being drawn into the hypnotic spell of his deep voice, the way his Italian accent imbued the most mundane of English words with a mantle of sensuality. She watched the way his beautiful mouth moved as he spoke, the bottom lip just that bit fuller than the top one, both biteably, irresistibly kissable. The bruising on his face had faded to almost nothing now, and the scar on his forehead was hidden by a dark twist of hair but still visible where it sliced down the top of his cheekbone. A shadow of stubble darkened his jawline and upper lip; she remembered the feel of that stubble against her cheek, against other parts of her body too...
Enough! She needed to stop this before her internal organs stalled in homage to his beauty. Or, worse still, betrayed her in some hideously embarrassing way. She couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol. Sticking firmly to water, she had had no more than a single sip when Rafael had offered her a taste of the local wine he had ordered. You could hardly get drunk on a sip of wine, now, could you? Other forces were obviously at play here—far more dangerous ones.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Putting his knife and fork together, Rafael took the napkin from his lap and touched it to his lips. Suddenly his deep brown eyes were focussed intently on her face.
‘Yes, of course.’ Lottie laughed nervously under his close scrutiny. ‘As long as it’s not whether I think I might be pregnant.’
Her flippant remark was met with a derisively raised dark brow.
‘Because I really have no idea...’ She tailed off, registering that this was not a subject he was prepared to be light-hearted about. ‘No more idea than you.’
‘I realise that.’ He rolled his shoulders back, his gaze never leaving Lottie’s face. ‘I know we have to wait for two weeks before we can do a pregnancy test. That prior to that there are unlikely to be any discernible manifestations. I know the form, Lottie. I haven’t forgotten that we’ve been here before.’
‘No, of course not.’
Discernible manifestations? How did he manage to make what they were doing sound so clinical, so detached? Because for him it was, Lottie reminded herself painfully.
‘But my question is related to that.’
‘Go on.’
‘Why, Lottie—just to clarify things for me—did you agree to bear me a child?’
Lottie gulped. This was typical of Rafael. Just when things were going peaceably he would lob in a grenade of a question to ruin things. She looked down, the escaping twists of her hair falling forward as she did so, brushing against her cheeks. Even the fish head on her plate looked as if it was waiting for an answer.
‘I don’t know, exactly.’ She raised her eyes again, immediately caught by the net of his gaze. ‘I suppose it was a combination of things.’
Rafael ran his hand down his jaw to his chin, leaving it there as he tilted his head to look at her.
‘Basically, I suppose you were right when you said you knew I had always wanted to be a mother. It’s most probably the maternal instinct in me that made me say yes—as simple as that.’
‘These things are never simple, Lottie.’
‘Well, perhaps I need to prove that I can be a good mother. A better mother than I had, at any rate.’ She smiled at him, not wanting this to get too heavy.
‘Well, from what I’ve heard that won’t be difficult. How is the lovely Greta?’ He raised his eyebrows at her.
‘She’s very well.’ Lottie gave a small laugh. ‘As far as I know she and Captain Birdseye are perfectly happy living the high life in Argentina.’
Rafael had never even met her mother. Their early relationship had been such a whirlwind, with Lottie getting pregnant just weeks after she and Rafael had first met, then their hastily arranged wedding and the move to Monterrato—all happening before Greta had managed to find the time to come over. Subsequent invitations had been politely declined because of the ‘considerable distance’ between them. Lottie could only agree with that—and she wasn’t just thinking about the thousands of miles across the Atlantic.
‘I think maybe she has finally found what she was looking for.’
‘Let’s hope so. And have you found what you were looking for?’ His gaze swept over her. ‘The baby, I mean?’
‘We don’t know there is a baby yet.’ Lottie lowered her eyes, carefully folding her napkin as she tried to inject some realism into the conversation. ‘But you falling out of the sky has certainly opened up the possibility, if nothing else. A faint smile touched his mouth.
‘So you should be thanking me, really?’
Lottie felt her shoulders drop a little. Could she detect the teeniest sign of a thaw?
‘If you like.’ She risked another smile, then felt ridiculously hurt when, instead of returning it, he abruptly looked away. ‘I suppose what I am saying is that I said yes to using our last embryo because I want this baby every bit as much as you do. Even if my reasons for wanting it are different.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that my motive is purely emotional—maternal, if you like. Whereas yours is sensible, practical. I know how important it is to you, to Monterrato, that you produce an heir. But that’s not why I said yes. I said yes because I want a baby of my own. Nothing more complicated than that.’
Her little speech done, Lottie sat back, sure that Rafael would be relieved. After all, hadn’t she just let him off the hook—given him a get-out so that he knew he didn’t have to be grateful to her? But she was to be disappointed. Because instead of relief, his look was one of barely controlled temper.
Rafael heard his own pent-up breath hiss between his teeth as he stared across at Lottie. He had thought that going out for a meal would be a good idea—get away from the villa, eat some decent food for once. But he had been wrong. Sitting opposite her now, in the warm and intimate atmosphere of this candlelit restaurant, it no longer felt like a good idea at all.
The evening had started badly when she had first appeared in that flimsy dress. The way the fabric skimmed over her slender body, subtly highlighting the contours of her breasts and hips, then stopping short of her knees to reveal those long, shapely legs... Just the sight of her had all but winded him. And when he had held the door open for her and seen those skinny strap things crossing over her shoulderblades it had taken all his control, and more, not to thread his itchy fingers through them and tear them apart until the dress fell at her feet.
And right now he was still being taunted by her bare shoulders, the shadowed hollows of her collarbone, the elegant sweep of her neck—by everything that she unconsciously did to him. Fighting it was becoming more and more difficult, and he knew he had to use the only weapon in his armoury. Animosity.
‘Just for the record—’ he spat the words at her ‘—you are not the only one with emotions, Lottie. You are not the only one to feel things. Despite your cold, calculating opinion of me, I am flesh and blood beneath. Sensible and practical I may be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel things every bit as deeply as you. Perhaps you would do well to remember that.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Verbally slapped down again, Lottie felt the sting on her cheek as vividl
y as if he had struck her. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything to the contrary. I was just trying to explain the differences between us.’
‘That really isn’t necessary,’ Rafael growled back at her. ‘I would have thought the differences were all too clear.’
‘Yes.’
Biting down on her lip, Lottie fought to supress the pain of his angry words. The pain of knowing just how true it was that whilst Rafael still stirred up overwhelming longing and desire in her, she only evoked bitterness and resentment in him. She cast about for a suitably acerbic reply—something she could hurt him with as he had hurt her—but it was too late. Turning away, Rafael had already called for the bill.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAFAEL WOKE WITH a start. He could hear something—a noise somewhere in the villa. As he slipped out of bed a glance at the clock showed it was two-forty-five a.m. Pulling on his jeans, he walked silently across the landing to Lottie’s bedroom. The door was closed and he stood there for a moment, listening. Nothing. She was probably sound asleep; it had been several hours since she had flounced off to bed, refusing his offer of a hot drink, leaving him nursing a whisky and a bad mood.
The evening hadn’t ended well—just like every other evening since they had been in this place. Every evening since Lottie had been back in his life, in fact. He knew he was failing miserably when it came to following Dr Oveisi’s instructions to make these two weeks as stress-free as possible for Lottie. But there was only one bit of Dr Oveisi’s advice that he knew for sure he could fulfil—and all too easily. He was wrestling to control it every second that he spent with Lottie. And each day at Villa Varenna was making it that bit more difficult.
The villa was quiet. Perhaps he had imagined it. After padding down the stairs he stood in the hallway, straining his ears. Yes, there it was again, coming from the basement.
A plan was immediately forming in his head. If he could get into the gym he could grab one of the dumbbells and clobber whoever it was over the head before they had a chance to get away. He could feel the adenaline starting to surge through his body. Slowly he crept down. The noise was coming from the pool—he could hear the splashing quite clearly now.
Burglars didn’t take a dip before they robbed a house.
Standing in the shadows behind the glass wall, he could make out the shape of Lottie’s body moving leisurely through the water, swimming to one end, then pushing off and starting back again. The only illumination came from the submerged pool lights and she looked dark against the bright turquoise of the water, arms and legs elongated by the shadows.
He should go. As he turned away the metal button of his fly tapped against the glass and he froze, casting his eyes down as if to make himself invisible.
‘Who’s there?’
He could hear the squeak of alarm in her voice. What the hell was he doing, lurking in the gloom?
‘It’s me.’ Clearing his throat, brusquely he moved along to the glass door, pushing it open authoritatively. ‘I heard a noise. Came down to see what it was.’
‘Oh.’ She stared at him for a minute before swimming over to the edge of the pool and hanging on with fingertips that were level with his bare feet. ‘You scared me.’
‘Sorry.’
He looked down at her head and shoulders, streaming with water, her hair slicked back darkly over her forehead and then fanning out around her like seaweed. Closer inspection revealed that beneath the blue of the water she was naked. Dio.
He looked away with a jolt. ‘What on earth are you doing here at this time of night anyway? You realise that it’s nearly three a.m.?’ Gruffness covered the growl of desire.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She pushed off from the edge of the pool, took a couple of strokes, then stopped to look at him again, treading water. ‘I decided to take a midnight swim. A three a.m. swim,’ she corrected herself.
The idea had come to Lottie after several hours of fitful tossing and turning. Their evening out had ended on such a sour note, with a silent drive back to the villa and Rafael refusing even to look at her as he headed for the kitchen to fix himself a drink. Lying in bed, staring at the moonlit shadows on the ceiling, she had tried to work out just where it had gone wrong—why it always went wrong.
She had heard Rafael come upstairs, the soft click of his bedroom door. Wide awake, she’d thought back over their time together in the villa: the fraught atmosphere, the tension that had been building and building between them.
She knew that it was more than just the hurt of the past that had caused it, though that would never leave them. It was the raw, fresh assault of the present too. The insidious, sensual, sexual connection that their close confinement had revealed. That was what they were both fighting. That was what made their time together so unbearable.
Her night-time dip had been a good idea and had made Lottie feel strangely calm. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but somehow the warm water caressing her naked body had not only washed away her stress but also heightened her sensuality, producing an almost carefree drunkenness. She was in a beautiful place, with a beautiful man, and there was a chance—maybe a good chance—that she was pregnant with his baby.
And now he was here, standing at the edge of the pool, staring at her, the muscular planes of his naked torso shadowed in the dim light. The sight of him stirred an impulsive recklessness in her.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ With one last piercing look Rafael was turning to go.
‘Why don’t you join me?’ Her words had escaped before she knew it, echoing around them and halting Rafael’s movement.
He glanced back at her as she bobbed up and down in the water. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘For fun, Rafe. We are supposed to be having fun, remember? It’s doctor’s orders.’ Swimming a few strokes closer, she stopped again and looked at him earnestly, her eyes wide and daring.
Fun. Rafael realised that that was something Lottie had been full of—certainly when he had first met her. It had been one of the many things that had made him love her. She had been so different from anyone he had ever known before—different from the women he was forced to socialise with in Monterrato. Those women were like strategic pawns, carefully chosen because they were the daughters of heads of state or influential businessmen. Part of the reason he had insisted on going to England to do his business doctorate had been to get away from the whole hideous mating ritual.
But he had never expected to find Lottie—never expected to fall so blindly in love and for Lottie to get pregnant so quickly. That had led to the hurried wedding and what now felt like the happiest period of his life. His father had been livid, of course. Rafael still had that furious letter somewhere—their last exchange before Georgio had died of a massive heart attack. Which had to be a coincidence. He was not responsible for his father’s death. He just wished Georgio had had the chance to meet Lottie. She would have softened his angry heart.
He could see Lottie, waiting, looking up at him, her arms and legs moving silently, tentacle-like, beneath the brightly lit water. She was goading him to join her, probably thinking there was no way in the world that he would. Because he wasn’t fun, was he? And, worse than that, he had drained the fun out of Lottie, or at least had a damn good go at it. He could see that now.
Like some vampire of doom he had weakened her carefree spirit, her zest for life, first by throwing her, totally unprepared, into the role of Contessa di Monterrato and then with the death of their baby and his subsequent determination to get her pregnant again. It was a wonder she had any fun left in her at all.
Well, he would show her.
Walking round to the shadows at the far end of the pool, he stripped off his jeans, positioned himself on the edge and with one smooth dive plunged under the water, resurfacing several seconds later right in front of Lottie. And the look on her face was priceless.
Suddenly she was all arms and legs, swimming away from him, but still close enough that he could see her bare buttocks just under the surface of the water.
‘Catch me if you can!’ The words were sprayed over her shoulder.
She had to be joking. Watching her splash chaotically away, he counted to three before powering after her, beside her again in a couple of crawl strokes. He grabbed hold of her leg as it kicked to escape from him.
Her head went under the water then reappeared and she came up spluttering. ‘That’s cheating.’
‘Don’t issue a challenge you can’t win, Lottie.’ He was tall enough to stand in this part of the pool, but Lottie was still treading water to keep herself afloat, her arms paddling on either side of her. Reaching forward, Rafael placed his strong hands under her armpits to steady her. Suddenly the drag of the water moved them together and their naked bodies were only inches apart.
Rafael cursed silently. What the hell was he doing here? He knew he should move away—right now—before he did something...they both did something they would seriously regret. But Lottie was still looking at him, torturing him with her steady bold gaze. He felt his traitorous body immediately jerk into action beneath him, trying to rob him of any last self-control.
‘Sometimes a challenge isn’t there to be won or lost.’ Serious now, Lottie’s voice was seductively soft. Water was running in rivulets down her face as she tipped it up to meet his, her lips soft and full and maddeningly tempting.
Rafael lowered his head. ‘Nevertheless, if this is a challenge I had better warn you it is a very dangerous one.’
‘Let’s call it something else, then.’
She was so close now, Rafael could see the clumps of dark wet lashes framing her wide eyes.
‘More something that has to be confronted.’
Who made that final move? Rafael wasn’t sure, but suddenly all resistance gave way to inevitability and their lips were touching. Tentative at first, but with their softness rapidly turning from firm to bruising, from cold damp to searing heat as they plundered each other’s mouths without preamble, both taking and giving with equal lack of thought for anything except this one moment, caught up in the forbidden delirium of the kiss.
