‘He didn’t want me,’ she murmured dully. ‘After all he said. He didn’t really want me.’
The towel came softly about her shoulders, Rafe’s hands holding it there as he gently urged her out of the cubicle and turned her into his arms. ‘He wanted you, Shaan,’ he told her huskily. ‘But he loved Madeleine. In all fairness, he had no right to promise any other woman anything while he still loved her.’
Yes, Madeleine, she thought emptily. Piers’ first and only love… ‘And you had to bring her back into his life,’ she whispered accusingly.
‘Yes,’ he sighed, his hand moving gently on her back. ‘You won’t believe this, Shaan, but I’m sorry. I really am sorry…’
For some reason his apology cut so deeply into her that she reared back from him and, with all the bright, burning, bitter condemnation bubbling hotly inside, she threw her hand hard against the side of his face.
He took it, took it all, without even flinching. He didn’t even release the hold he had on her, but just stood looking back at her with those cool grey eyes opalescent in his graven face, his mouth a thin, grim line.
She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She wanted to kick and scream and hit out at him again and again and again, in an effort to release all the hurt and anger culminating inside her, but she couldn’t. That one brief flash of violence seemed to have taken what bit of energy she had left from her. All she could do now was stand there in the circle of Rafe’s arms and stare up at him through huge black haunted eyes, wondering if that grim look he was wearing hid satisfaction or any guilt at all for what he had done.
Rafe had warned her—as long as six weeks ago, he had warned her he wouldn’t just stand aside and let her marry his brother. From the first moment their eyes had met across the elegant width of Rafe’s luxurious home, his contempt for her had been there, vibrating on defences she hadn’t even known she possessed, until she clashed with that look.
Until that moment she had just been Shaan Saketa, loving daughter of the late and much missed Tariq and Mary Saketa, proud of her mixed blood because she had never been made to feel otherwise—until those silver ice eyes had gone sliding over her.
Then, for the first time in her life, she’d experienced what real prejudice felt like, and the rare combination of thick, straight jet-black hair, dark brown eyes and skin as smooth and pale as milk, which had been turning people’s heads in admiration all her life, suddenly became something to be sensitive about. She’d had to steel herself to actually take the hand Rafe had held out to her in formal greeting, knowing by sheer instinct that he had no wish to touch her or even be in the same room as her.
Yet, oddly, not only had he taken the hand but he had held onto it—and clung to the new, very defensive look in her liquid brown eyes—the dark, dire expression in his had managed to chill the blood in her veins in appalled acknowledgement of what his grim expression was telling her.
It had been the moment when Rafe Danvers had made sure she was rawly aware of her complete unsuitability to become one of the great Danvers family.
Well, today he had won his battle. And now he could afford to be a little charitable, she supposed. Lend comfort to the defeated.
She moved out of his arms, clutching the huge bath sheet around her trembling figure as she went back into her bedroom.
Miraculously, there wasn’t a single sign of bridal attire about the place. The whole room had been completely swept clean of everything while she’d been hiding in the bathroom. The dress, the mad scatter of bits and pieces were all gone, leaving only her rose-pink bathrobe folded on the end of the bed, and her suitcases—so carefully packed the night before—still stacked neatly beside the bedroom door.
She dropped the towel and picked up the robe, uncaring that Rafe had followed her back into the room and that she was once again exposing her nakedness to him. It didn’t seem to matter, not when the sight of her body held no interest for the man in question.
She turned to glance at him, though, as she cinched the robe belt around her narrow waist. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, not leaning, but tense, his hard eyes hooded.
‘Your suit is wet,’ she told him, sending a flickering glance along his big, hard frame where the pale grey showed dark patches where she had leant against him.
He shrugged with indifference and moved at last, walking across the now neat bedroom to her dressing table. ‘Here,’ he said, turning back to her and holding out a glass half-full of what could only be brandy.
She smiled wryly at it. ‘Medicinal?’ she mocked, taking it from him and lowering herself carefully onto the end of the bed. From being rubber-limbed with shock, she was now stiff with it—so stiff, in fact, that even the simple act of sitting down was a painful effort.
‘Whatever you want to call it,’ he replied. ‘As it is…’ He turned again, lifting another glass in rueful acknowledgement to her. ‘I’m in need of the same.’ And he came to sit down beside her. ‘Drink it,’ he advised. ‘I can assure you, it will help.’
She swirled the dark amber liquid around the glass for a moment before lifting it to her bloodless lips. He did the same, sitting close to her, his arm brushing against hers as he moved it up and down.
It was strange, really, but, having spent the last six weeks avoiding touching her at all costs—except for that one brief contamination when they had been formally introduced—Rafe now seemed quite happy to be as close to her as he could get.
She glanced at him from beneath her thick black lashes, seeing the rigid tension in his square jaw, in the harsh line of his strong profile. He was nothing like Piers to look at. The two brothers were as different in every way as two men could possibly be. Where Rafe was dark, Piers was fair—so fair, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her to find out later that they were only half-brothers. Which also answered the question as to the ten-year gap in their ages. Piers was the handsome one of the brothers, the one with the uncomplicated smile which went with his uncomplicated character.
Or so she had believed, she amended grimly as she took another sip at the brandy. It burned as it went down, and the taste was gross, but it did at least put some warmth back inside her.
‘What happened to everything in here?’
Rafe glanced around the pristine, tidy room. ‘Your aunt and your friend cleared it all out while you were busy in the bathroom,’ he explained. ‘They—needed to feel useful.’
‘I’m surprised Jemma didn’t throw you out,’ she murmured.
‘Not your aunt?’ he queried curiously.
‘No.’ Shaan shook the thick, wet pelt of black hair. ‘My aunt has never been rude to anyone in her home in her life.’
‘Unlike me.’
‘Unlike you,’ she agreed, not even trying to work out why they were sitting here having this stupid conversation in her bedroom of all places—he being who he was and she…
‘Jemma tried throwing me out,’ he admitted, taking a quick sip at his drink. ‘But I—conviced her that you would handle all this better with me here rather than anyone else.’
‘Because you don’t care.’ She nodded understandingly. She knew exactly why she had clung to Rafe rather than anyone else.
‘That isn’t entirely true, Shaan.’ He sounded gruff all of a sudden. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I knew from the beginning that Piers was not the man for you. All right,’ he conceded at her deriding glance, ‘I’m relieved he came to his senses before it was too late. But I am not proud of the time he took to do it. Nor will I forgive him easily for the way he’s hurt you today. No one,’ he finished roughly, ‘has the right to wound another human being like he has done… If it gives you any satisfaction at all to know it, I can tell you that he and Madeleine are not proud of themselves for—’
‘It doesn’t,’ she cut in, rising abruptly to her feet. ‘And I really don’t want to hear it.’
Lifting the glass to her mouth, she tossed the full contents to the back of her throat, then stood, back arched, ey
es closed, breath held, while she absorbed the lick of liquid heat and waited for it to begin numbing her again.
She didn’t want to feel anything yet. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t even want to think—not about herself, not about Rafe, and especially not about Piers and Madeleine.
‘All right, Rafe.’ Putting down the glass, she turned suddenly on him. Her eyes were still too big in her pale face, but her mouth was steadier, the colour beginning to ease back into her shock-whitened lips. ‘I know this has all been an ordeal for you, and I thank you for the bother you’ve taken with me, but I’m going to be all right, and I would like you to leave now.’ Now, before it all came hurtling on top of her, before the real hurting began, before…
But he gave a grim shake of his dark head, not even attempting to get up, and Shaan jumped in alarm when his hand snaked out to close around her wrist, the sudden tingle of her defences warning her that she wasn’t completely numb as he pulled her back down to sit beside him.
‘I’m not going yet,’ he informed her bluntly. ‘I have a proposition to put to you first. And I want you to hear me out before you say anything. I know you’re in shock, and I know you can’t possibly be capable of making decisions of any kind. But I’m going to force this one on you for the simple reason that I think, if you agree, we can at least save your pride if nothing else from this mess.’
He paused, then turned to look directly at her, those grey eyes of his very guarded but unwavering as they caught and held onto her own gaze.
‘Will you marry me instead of my brother, Shaan?’ he requested gravely.
CHAPTER TWO
FOR a single, short, breath-locking moment Shaan experienced a complete mind black-out. Then, ‘—Have you gone mad—?’ she choked. ‘Why, you despise the very sight of me!’
‘That isn’t true, Shaan,’ Rafe denied.
Not listening, she tried to get up, but found her legs wouldn’t let her. Her whole body had turned to crumbling stone, the shock waves of the past couple of devastating hours beginning to crack her wide open inside.
His hands came out to capture her own, closing all four of them tightly together on her lap and compelling her to turn around and face him. He looked tense, as white as she felt, but determined. She was trembling so badly now that even her head shook, quivering on the slender curve of her neck, her breathing gone haywire because of the tight contraction of her lungs.
‘I know I’m not Piers,’ he grimly conceded. ‘Nor ever will be for that matter. He’s my half-brother, and as different from me as—as Madeleine is from you. But—’
Madeleine! The name was beginning to haunt her, like the face—that sweet, gentle face, with its big blue vulnerable eyes surrounded by a cloud of soft golden hair. Madeleine was the archetypal pocket Venus, the fine porcelain doll. While Shaan—she was the—
‘She’s right for Piers, Shaan!’ Rafe said fiercely, as though her thoughts were so open to him that he could easily make them his own. ‘She always was! They were childhood sweethearts, young lovers before a stupid misunderstanding had Madeleine flying off to live with her mother in America last year…’
‘I told you I didn’t want to hear any of this!’ she cried, trying desperately to struggle against the black cloud threatening to completely overtake her.
‘All right!’ he rasped, sucking in a tense breath, then letting it out again. ‘Listen to this instead,’ he insisted. ‘In three days’ time, your aunt and uncle should be leaving on a three-month long world cruise. Do you think they’ll even consider going now, after what’s happened to you today?’
She stared at him, having forgotten all about her aunt and uncle’s delighted plans to take their dream cruise now the niece they had taken care of so lovingly for the past nine years was leaving the fold, so to speak.
‘They don’t have to worry about me,’ she said shakily. ‘I’ll tell them—’
‘Tell them what?’ he challenged when she fell silent, her mouth moving soundlessly. ‘That you’ll be fine sitting here all on your own for the next three months grieving?’
‘I don’t intend to grieve,’ she denied, stiffening in affront.
‘Good.’ He nodded his dark head in approval. ‘I’m glad to hear you’ve got more spirit than to do that. But would you leave them on their own if something as devastating as this had happened to them? Of course you wouldn’t.’ He answered for her. ‘And if you did manage to convince them to go, do you think they’d enjoy themselves, knowing how they’d left you behind?’
‘I’ll go and stay with Jemma…’
‘Jemma is getting married herself in a few months,’ he reminded her.
‘How did you know that?’ she gasped in shaken amazement.
He shook his head, dismissing that question as insignificant. ‘Let’s just leave it that I do know. To inflict yourself on Jemma now would spoil the excitement for her, because your own ruined wedding day will sit over you all like a thick black cloud.’
‘Which doesn’t mean I need to inflict myself on you instead!’ she cried, hurt by the cruelly blunt way he had made her face that fact
‘Why not?’ he demanded, grimly determined grey eyes boring straight into her wounded brown ones. ‘If anyone deserves it, then I do. You said yourself that this was all my fault, and I damned well know it!’ he admitted roughly. ‘It was me who called Madeleine to warn her about you and Piers. It was me who advised her to get back here if she still felt anything for my brother. And it was me who encouraged them to see each other at every possible moment I could arrange, to make Piers see what a dreadful mistake he was making by marrying you!’
‘God, I hate you so!’ she choked, turning to fling herself face-down on the bed, her poor body hurting in so many different places that she actually shook with it.
‘Listen to me!’ To her surprise he lay back too, stretching out beside her as though he had every given right to be this close to her, when only yesterday he had shied away from even looking at her! ‘Shaan…’ His hand came out to stroke down the silky wet pelt of her hair, his fingers trembling slightly. ‘I admit it. I feel lousy about it all. Guilty, if you want to call it that. I owe you. Let me help you get through this with at least some dignity.’
‘By offering yourself in your brother’s place?’ She laughed, the sound shrill with near hysteria. ‘How old are you?’ she demanded, turning onto her back to glare bitterly up at him.
He grimaced. ‘Thirty-four.’
‘I am twenty-two years old,’ she informed him. ‘Piers is twenty-four.’
‘All right,’ he bit out, jerking up and away from her. ‘So I’m no bargain when compared to my brother! I’m not asking you to love me instead, just—give me a chance to help you through these next few months while you get over this.’
She didn’t think she would ever get over this.
‘And what will you get out of it?’ She hadn’t spent the last three years of her life working for the Danvers company without learning very early on that their revered chairman didn’t do anything without a damned good reason for doing it!
‘Like you,’ he said, ‘I save the family face.’
‘You’re that concerned with family honour?’ Her sceptical look made his mouth grow tighter.
‘My brother should be whipped out of town for the way he used you, Shaan. It makes the Danvers name dirty.’
Used… She sank back against the pillows, her eyes clouding over darkly. Yes, Piers had used her; all along the line he had used her, with his declarations of undying love and passionate promises.
He hadn’t just used her, he had grossly defiled her. And the only saving grace she could glean for herself out of it all was the knowledge that he hadn’t given in to her pathetic little pleas to make love to her before they married!
‘God, I feel sick!’
Rolling dizzily off the bed, she ran, stumbling, into the bathroom, where she was horribly and humiliatingly sick while Rafe stood there beside her, holding her hair away from her face, grimly t
aking her weight while she leaned weakly over the bowl.
Here she stood, she flayed herself bitterly, a virgin on her wedding day—with no groom to care one way or another that she had saved herself for him!
The bitterness welled up and sliced through her eyes as she ran the cold tap so she could splash her clammy face with water.
Rafe was wrong about one thing if he thought himself no bargain compared to his brother. He was worth ten of Piers—and that had nothing to do with looks or charm, or even the love still throbbing in her breast for his brother, despite all the hurt he had inflicted on it.
It had to do with this—this deeply inbred sense of responsibility he possessed. The kind which had made him warn his brother’s ex-lover about what Piers intended to do. It had to do with this—this need to put right what one of his own had messed up.
Her life—the family name. Their mutual honour!
‘I won’t marry you, Rafe,’ she said, leaning heavily against the wash basin. ‘Not to save your face or my own face. I won’t degrade myself any further by pandering to just another Danvers method of exploitation.’
‘I’m not trying to exploit you,’ he denied gruffly.
‘Yes you are.’ She lifted her head to stare bleakly at his grim, hard face in the bathroom mirror, then just stood there, staring instead at the empty void which was her own unrecognisable face.
The tears began to burn at the backs of her eyes, and she covered them with her hands, her body beginning to shudder in another bout of weak self-pity.
Rafe’s hands were firm on her shoulders as he turned her into his arms. And she felt his heavy sigh as she struggled against the onset of tears once again.
‘I have nothing left…’ she whispered bleakly. ‘Nothing…’
‘But you will again soon,’ he murmured reassuringly, and suddenly his arms were tightly crushing bands around her. ‘Come away with me now, Shaan,’ he urged her huskily. ‘At the moment, only you, me and Piers know what he actually said in his letter. Only we three know the real reason why there was no wedding today. Even your uncle didn’t really understand—only that Piers had decided not to marry you.
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