Her Italian Boss

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Leaving! But I thought that you and…’ Maggie stopped, colouring under Natalie’s wry gaze.

  ‘I thought we were, too, but I was wrong.’ Natalie clamped her trembling lips together and, brushing past the other woman with her head downbent, fled.

  Natalie found herself back at the flat; scarily she had no memory of how she’d got there. Once inside she began to put her plan—such as it was—into action. It was unlikely that Rafe would follow her, but if she was wrong, however, she had no intention of being here when he arrived. She gritted her teeth and blinked back the hot tears that filled her eyes as she haphazardly piled some of Rose’s clothes and toys into a suitcase. She would pick Rose up from the child-minder and go straight to the railway station—yes, that was the best thing to do.

  She was struggling as she lugged the second overfull case into the living room, when she hit her shin a painful glancing blow on a low table. If anything the pain was a useful distraction from the other pain… Sniffing defiantly, she placed her burden by the front door and looked around, trying to focus her thoughts. Had she forgotten anything vital? Mentally she ticked off items on her list of necessities. Her gaze fell upon an open book. It lay where Rafe had left it after Rose had climbed off his knee the previous evening.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he had promised when she had begged him to continue. ‘You heard what Mummy said—it’s bedtime for you, young lady.’

  An overwhelming sense of loss washed over Natalie, followed by a violent wave of anger. Rafe could have argued he had never lied to her—never told her he loved her—and it would have been true. She was willing to take a proportion of the blame herself, blame for falling in love with him. As far as Rose was concerned nothing could excuse his behaviour. That little girl adored him and she was going to be desperately confused and hurt to have him vanish from her life.

  For that Natalie would never forgive him!

  The sound of the key turning in the lock was very loud in the quiet room. Natalie mastered her panic and lifted her chin as she turned to face the door.

  Rafe stepped into the room. Tall, devastatingly handsome and very, very angry. Anyone with normal co-ordination and reflexes would have fallen in a graceful heap over the pile of cases that lay there, but not Rafe. Without pausing, he sidestepped the obstacle without removing his burning gaze off the slim, rigid figure who stood in the middle of the room.

  Lips compressed, nostrils flared, his powerful chest rising and falling as if he’d been running, he scanned her pale, hostile face with his brilliantly compelling gaze.

  ‘Going somewhere, Natalie?’

  Natalie gave a contemptuous little laugh. ‘Anywhere you are not.’ Her antagonistic reply was rewarded by his sharp inhalation. ‘How did you know I was gone? No, don’t tell me—the loyal Maggie. You really do seem to inspire selfless devotion in women, Rafe, but consider yourself with one less devoted slave.’ She placed her splayed fingers flat on her heaving bosom just in case he was in any doubt of whom she referred to. ‘You can leave the key on the table when you leave.’ She spoilt her dignified dismissal by adding childishly, ‘I suppose you’ll be relieved not to be slumming it any longer!’

  Rafe shook his head impatiently. ‘Slumming it? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I did wonder that you never invited me to your place, but it all makes perfect sense now. How would you explain me to your friends?’ With curious objectivity she observed the effect of her words on his composure as the nerve beside his mouth jerked.

  ‘How could I suggest you spend the night with me when you kept telling me how you wanted to keep the disruption to Rose’s routine to a minimum? Dear God, woman, you acted as if I was trying to move in when I left a toothbrush in the bathroom!’

  His ability to come up with a plausible excuse and then turn the tables so that she was the one at fault was staggering and probably, she thought angrily, the secret of his success.

  ‘Sure, you’re Mr Considerate!’

  ‘Stop this, Natalie,’ he pleaded in a low, impassioned voice.

  ‘Stop what?’

  The calculated obtuseness of her comment drew a harsh Italian curse from him. Swearing fluently, he crossed the room. As he reached her side Natalie was extremely conscious of his sheer physical power, of his tall, tightly muscled frame—he was a man in the peak of physical condition. In the past awareness of this strength had excited her; even now her stomach lurched as he approached. Contemplating the thrill it had given her to surrender to that strength increased her sense of self-loathing. With provocative deliberation she turned her head and looked away.

  ‘What’s going on here, Nat?’ Rafe took her chin in his hand and tilted her head up to him. ‘This morning things were fine, lunchtime you clean out your desk and walk out without a word…now I find you about to leave. Were you planning to give me any sort of explanation?’ The screaming tension on his taut features brought his cheekbones into sharp prominence.

  ‘No.’

  Her monosyllabic response had much the same effect on him as a red rag did to a bull. ‘Good God!’ he thundered. ‘You are—’ He bit off the words he was about say and inhaled, breathing deeply as if he didn’t trust himself to respond. When he did speak his low tone was flat and expressionless. ‘Do you not think that I deserve to know what the hell I’m supposed to have done?’

  Natalie gave an enraged yelp and tore her face from his grasp. ‘You deserve—you deserve!’ she yelled, her voice rising to a shrill, accusing shriek. ‘You deserve to rot in hell, Rafael Ransome!’

  He recoiled as if she’d physically struck him. If she hadn’t known better she’d have bought that look of bewildered confusion on his dark face—if, that was, she hadn’t heard that incriminating conversation and if she hadn’t subsequently had her heart ripped out.

  ‘I know, Rafe. I know.’ She waited for him to at least acknowledge he had been caught out, but he didn’t even have the decency to do that! ‘So you can imagine why I find it a bit laughable you acting like the injured party here. I’m an adult, I should have known better,’ she acknowledged, ‘but I’ll never forgive you for Rose. It was cruel, Rafe—you made her love you!’ She pressed a hand over her mouth as a sob escaped.

  ‘And I love her.’

  Natalie gasped wrathfully. ‘Why, you callous bas—!’

  Rafe caught her hand mid-swing and brought it firmly down to her side. ‘Now you will tell me what I am supposed to have done.’

  Breathing hard as if she had been running Natalie raised her bitter eyes to his. They shimmered with unshed tears. ‘There’s no need to pretend, Rafe. I know.’

  As if he could compel her to speak by sheer force of will, his piercing blue eyes narrowed on her face. ‘You know…? I’m glad one of us does, because I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. You know what exactly? Speak to me, Natalie, because you’re killing me here.’

  For a moment she hesitated; surely nobody could fake the raw emotional intensity and anguish she heard echoed in his voice. Then she remembered that damning conversation she had overheard and her face hardened.

  ‘I know that you had your own reasons for pretending we were an item.’

  Natalie hadn’t known that she was secretly harbouring a crazy hope that this would all prove to be some horrible mistake until she felt it die. It died when he couldn’t meet her eyes.

  ‘And you think you know what those are?’ he hedged.

  ‘I know why you weren’t bothered if your parents got to know about our fake engagement—you wanted them to.’

  He shook his head, his brows drawing together in a puzzled line. ‘Wanted them to what?’

  Natalie gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I heard you on the phone with your mother.’

  A flicker of comprehension appeared in his strained eyes. As she watched his head fell back and he exhaled noisily. Bizarrely his attitude seemed one almost of relief.

  ‘I took the call on the speaker phone…’ He ran a hand across his jaw. />
  Natalie knew that by this time of day he would be able to feel a faint stubble. Only yesterday she had complained about it when he’d kissed her in the office lift and he had laughed. Actually she enjoyed the abrasive roughness against her soft skin. The flood of heat that washed through her body was mingled with anger and shame.

  ‘Don’t bother trying to remember what you said,’ she advised dully. ‘I heard enough to make me realise I’ve been a total fool to fall in love with you.’

  Rafe’s head jerked up sharply; his iridescent blue eyes scanned her face. Whatever he saw there made the blood drain from his face, his normally healthily golden-toned skin looking greyish.

  ‘You fell in love…?’

  Clearly this was news to him and not welcome news. Maybe he had a conscience after all? Well, that was good, because if she felt this wretched it only seemed fair that he should feel a little bit bad, too.

  ‘So sorry if you didn’t bargain for that, but don’t worry, I’ve woken up, I won’t be proclaiming my feelings from any high buildings.’ The way I’ve been acting, I probably don’t need to. ‘I know that this has all been about you wanting to teach your father a lesson. Everything falls in your lap, doesn’t it, Rafe?’ she reflected bitterly. ‘You needed an unsuitable sort of girlfriend and who comes along but the definitive version—me? The sort of girl your father would cross the street to avoid being contaminated by!’

  ‘So that’s it. You think…!’ He shook his head and drew an unsteady hand through his dark hair. Then unforgivably he laughed—he actually laughed. This fresh proof of his heartless callousness made Natalie feel physically sick. ‘You were eavesdropping! Actually, Natalie, my father has been known to cross the street to get a closer look at a beautiful girl but never the other way around.’

  ‘That only works if the girl is beautiful and I’m not.’

  Her statement brought a stern, disapproving frown to his wide brow. ‘If I say you’re beautiful, you are,’ Rafe pronounced with breathtaking arrogance.

  ‘I have to be beautiful because you deigned to sleep with me, is that how it works? And don’t expect me to apologise about eavesdropping—if I hadn’t been I’d still be walking around thinking I was living out some sort of romantic fantasy.’

  His eyes dropped to the lush curves of her full lips and then lower to the firm, uptilted outline of her small, pert breasts. He swallowed hard.

  Seeing the contraction of muscles in his strong brown throat was the key that unlocked the door to forbidden memories. Memories of other muscles in his lean, firm body contracting and quivering beneath the glistening surface of his sweat-soaked skin and all in response to her touch.

  She had almost succeeded in locking away the steamy memory when his heavy, darkly fringed eyelids, lifted revealing an expression so hot it could have started a forest fire. Natalie’s pupils dilated until they almost obliterated the iris; similarly, the hormonal rush in her blood had a dramatic effect on her ability to think rationally—as in she couldn’t! Sweat broke out over her entire body as she tried to drag herself clear of the sensual vortex that was sucking her deeper with each passing second.

  ‘All my fantasies have you in,’ he told her simply.

  Goose-bumps broke out over her body as she suffered yet another dramatic shift in temperature. If you believe this it’ll hurt, Nat…don’t believe…don’t…! She didn’t allow herself to respond until she had regained some sort of control over her emotions.

  ‘What is it with you?’ she grated, trying to frame a reply that would make him realise he no longer had anything to gain from this pretence. ‘I know, Rafe, you don’t have to keep up the act.’

  ‘The only thing I’ve ever pretended with you, Natalie, is that I could control the way you made—make me feel,’ he gritted with a self-derisive grimace. ‘If you’d stayed around to hear the rest of my conversation with my mother you’d have heard me say as much to her. I left her in no doubt that she’d read things wrong.’

  His hard jaw clenched as his brooding glance paused hungrily on the outline of her soft, quivering lips.

  ‘The reason I didn’t object when you introduced me as your lover was I liked the way it sounded.’ Natalie’s fractured gasp was clearly audible in the short pause that followed his words. ‘As for playing your future husband, I had this idea that if I played the part really well you might decide to keep me on permanently.’

  The blood drained from Natalie’s face. ‘Permanently?’ she parroted weakly. ‘As in living together!’

  ‘No.’

  God, Natalie, will you never learn? ‘Right,’ she said, fighting for composure.

  ‘As in married,’ he slotted in coolly.

  Natalie looked at her hands. They were shaking; so was the rest of her. This was all happening too fast for her to take in. ‘But you said…’

  ‘No, Natalie, my mother said. Think about it,’ he suggested.

  She did.

  An arrested expression crossed Natalie’s face. Rafe had never actually said…had he…? Could she have jumped to the wrong conclusion?

  ‘My mother is legendary for reading situations wrong.’ His brows lifted. ‘Now that I think about it, you two should have a lot in common,’ he mused drily. ‘Of course, if she had actually met you she would never have made that mistake. One look at you and she’d have seen that I’d be the luckiest man alive if you’d have me. Will you have me, Natalie?’

  Natalie’s heart was trying to batter its way out of her chest; the tight feeling her racing pulse created made it hard to breathe, let alone speak.

  ‘What are you saying exactly, Rafe?’ This time she wasn’t going to jump to any premature conclusions.

  A spasm of raw frustration flickered across his handsome, drawn face. ‘Do I need to spell it out?’ he asked thickly.

  ‘Well, yes, actually, I think you do.’

  ‘Marry me, Natalie.’ As her silence grew so did the tension in him. ‘I think we make a pretty good team…’

  Natalie widened her eyes innocently. ‘So this is by way of being a business merger?’ she queried pertly.

  Their eyes touched; when Rafe saw what shone in hers the tension seemed to drain from his body. A fierce grin spread slowly across his dark face. ‘Like hell it is!’ he growled, reaching for her. ‘Come here, you stupid woman.’

  Resistance didn’t even cross Natalie’s mind as she walked into his open arms—where she belonged. His muscular arms tightened around her as his mouth found hers. The masterful kiss was raw, hard and hungry. Natalie’s lips parted eagerly beneath the pressure. When they finally broke apart she was dizzy and insanely happy.

  ‘Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again! Do you hear me? I’ve aged about twenty years in the last hour.’

  Natalie touched the raven hair at his temple. Despite his claim there was no sign of premature greying. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have jumped to the wrong conclusion if you’d told me how you felt,’ she chastised him reproachfully.

  One dark brow lifted. ‘Like you did…?’

  ‘I was afraid if I said anything I’d scare you off,’ she admitted.

  ‘And I felt that every time I tried to get closer you pulled back.’

  ‘I was trying to be what you wanted—a low-maintenance girlfriend who didn’t make demands…’ She intercepted his wry look and grinned. ‘Except in the bedroom,’ she admitted guiltily.

  ‘Let’s leave the bedroom out of this for a few minutes,’ he pleaded throatily.

  ‘That’s a first for you!’

  Her saucy jibe earned her a long, lingering kiss.

  When his head finally lifted Natalie gave a languid sigh and ran her fingers down the hard curve of his cheek. Rafe’s eyes darkened as he caught her fingers and brought them to his lips. Quite deliberately he kissed each individual fingertip—Natalie found it incredibly erotic. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her palm before returning her hand to her.

  ‘Is this real?’ The air left her lungs as his arms tightened about her r
ibcage before dropping to the small of her back. The firm pressure brought her up onto her tiptoes and sealed their bodies at hip level so that she could feel—as he intended her to—the very real state of his arousal. ‘You’ve convinced me,’ she admitted with a husky chuckle.

  ‘You see why I wanted to keep the bedroom out of this. I need to say stuff and I can’t think above the waist when you’re like this.’

  Secretly delighted at the image of herself as some sort of irresistible Jezebel, Natalie gave a sexy little sinuous wriggle that drew a deep groan from Rafe. She gave a regretful sigh and drew back.

  ‘You’re right, we should talk. How about if I sit over there—’ she pointed at the sofa against the wall the opposite side of the room ‘—and you sit here.’

  Rafe caught her arm. ‘Too far.’

  ‘And this is too close?’ she asked huskily.

  ‘It wouldn’t matter to the way I feel if a thousand miles separated us,’ he declared in a deep, throbbing accent. ‘Oh, my love!’ His blue eyes glittered down into hers as he laid his big hands on her shoulders. ‘I think I loved you right from the beginning. When I told myself I was protecting you by keeping my distance, in reality I think it was more about protecting myself—I just wasn’t ready to admit what I felt for you.’

  ‘Are you ready now?’ she whispered, hearing the thud of her own heartbeat in her ears.

  She watched a slow, incredible smile spread across his face. ‘Ready, able and very, very willing.’

  ‘Oh, Rafe, I love you so much!’

  The warm, sensuous impression left by his lips made her own tingle even after he had lifted his head. While she was smiling a little stupidly up at him he slid his hands down her arms until their fingertips were touching.

  ‘I think this is about as far as I feel safe letting you go away from me…’ he confessed.