by Lynne Graham
He was wearing an exquisitely tailored dove-grey suit, cut continental fasion. The subtle sheen of the fabric screamed expense, shaping broad shoulders and long, lean thighs, smoothly accentuating the indolent grace of his carriage. Aside of that disturbingly exotic quality that was intrinsically his own, he looked like a wealthy European businessman, polished, sophisticated and very self-assured. A couple of typists on the way past almost broke their necks giving his dark, virile physique a second glance.
‘Who told you where I worked?’ Sarah was infuriated by the breathless edge to her voice. She hated being taken by surprise.
‘Your neighbour was very helpful when I called at your apartment,’ Rafael imparted with a careless cool that mocked her own heat. ‘I understand that the children are otherwise occupied this afternoon, so you are free for lunch.’
Sarah’s jaw dropped inelegantly. ‘Lunch?’
Black-lashed golden eyes rested narrowly on her flushed face. ‘Am I not suitably dressed? Why do you stare at me like this?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘If you have made other arrangements, unmake them.’
For two pins she would have thrown caution to the winds and lied but a native streak of sense prevented her from making that mistake. Rafael had the whip-hand. To antagonise him unnecessarily would be foolish. ‘Give me a couple of minutes.’
But the submissive note stuck in her throat. She stalked into the cloakroom and took several deep, sustaining breaths. What did he want? Had he already been to see his lawyer? That would explain the suit on a male who had not even worn a tie at his own wedding. Glancing in the mirror, she grimaced. Heavens, she looked drab! Her short-sleeved white blouse and narrow green skirt looked exactly like the uniform it was. In a sudden burst of rebellion she released her hair from its tidy pleat and let the pale golden strands fan down on to her shoulders in silken disarray. She wished that she were wearing something scarlet and sleek and shocking to set Rafael back on his arrogant heels. Her forehead indented. What on earth did her appearance have to do with anything? Thoroughly irritated with herself, she raked a brush roughly through her hair.
His eyes wandered over her at a leisurely pace as she walked across the floor to join him. She reddened, furiously conscious of the odd little spur of excitement twisting in her stomach. Hopefully by the time lunch was over prolonged exposure to Rafael’s chauvinistic attitudes would have taken care of that problem for her.
‘How long have you been working?’ he asked.
‘Since I got the twins into nursery school.’
His mouth hardened. ‘What do you do with them in the holidays?’
Sarah bridled. ‘What do you think I do? I pay someone to look after them!’
‘I think you should be at home with them,’ he delivered harshly.
‘Women actually got the vote this century, Rafael.’
A hard hand cupped her elbow, forcing her round to face him. ‘Do you forget that I know exactly what the disadvantages of such an upbringing are? I know what it is like to be dragged up without a father, dependent on a mother who has neither the time nor the inclination to put her child’s needs first!’
Enraged, Sarah flung her head back the better to stare up at the overpoweringly tall male holding her captive. ‘I’m neither illiterate nor promiscuous, Rafael. It’s highly unlikely that either of my children will end up stealing their next meal!’
A dark flush slowly stained his golden skin. Sarah dropped her head, shocked to the core by her own instinctive cruelty. Rafael’s father had died before he was born. His mother had been a gypsy, a teenager who had found a baby an onerous burden. She had trailed him round the Spanish countryside like a piece of excess baggage, occasionally working to keep them but more often than not depending on the generosity of a series of casual lovers.
The love and security that Gilly and Ben took for granted Rafael had never had. Instead he had had to learn how to fend for himself on the streets and at the tender age of seven he had been caught stealing from a market stall. While he was in the temporary care of an orphanage, his mother, with a gypsy’s fear of bureaucracy and repercussions, had taken flight. Rafael had never seen his mother again.
The authorities had traced his grandparents and handed him over to them. They in turn had passed him over to a reluctant uncle and aunt with no desire for the responsibility. Even as a child, Rafael had probably understood far too much of what was going on around him. She could picture him as a little boy with a shock of black unruly hair and bold dark eyes that challenged and just dared the world to pity him. Her throat ached, hurting her. Rafael didn’t like talking about his childhood. It was his one streak of vulnerability. And once, so long ago it seemed now, she had seen that as a bond between them.
Biting back her pain, she murmured, ‘I can’t afford to stay at home.’
His astonishment was unhidden. ‘You refused my financial support when we separated!’ he reminded her angrily.
Sarah sent him a driven glance. ‘At the time I didn’t think you cared about me or the children. I didn’t want your conscience money.’
‘Conscience money?’ he repeated, incensed.
‘All right,’ she conceded wearily. ‘It probably wasn’t the cleverest decision I ever made. It hasn’t been easy to manage on my own but I do appreciate my independence. I live my life without interference from anybody and that’s how I like it.’
He frowned down at her incredulously. ‘Your parents…?’
She tilted her chin in unconscious defiance. ‘If I went back to live with them, they’d keep me in the lap of luxury. But at my age I’m a little past looking to my parents for support.’
‘So my children must pay the price for your false pride.’ Rafael was viewing her with smouldering censure. ‘If this is an example of your maturity, I am not impressed by it.’
Oh, dear heaven, give me the strength not to embark on another blazing argument, she pleaded inwardly. She had to reason with Rafael. She had to convince him that she was a good mother. But Rafael was unlikely to approve of any facet of their lifestyle. He was probably already convinced that he could offer the twins more than a small city flat and a working mother. He might even be planning to marry again. As that possibility took her by storm, she was filled with a sick, tortured fear that she did not want to examine.
A taxi dropped them at a restaurant within walking distance of her flat. ‘I was not sure how much time you had,’ he explained.
‘I’ve got all afternoon.’ Afraid he might translate that as some sort of fatuous hint, she muttered hurriedly, ‘But I’m sure this won’t take long.’
High-backed seats discreetly sectioned off the tables into little pockets of privacy. It was scarcely the setting for a detached, businesslike discussion, she thought irritably. The atmosphere was dark, intimate and candlelit. Giving the menu a cursory glance, she picked a salad. She should have been hungry. After all, she had skipped breakfast but her appetite had vanished when Rafael appeared. Stress had scared it off. As the waiter moved away, she helped herself to a glass of wine from the bottle that had already been brought to them at Rafael’s instruction.
It was a good wine. Rafael would be incapable of choosing anything less. Mellow and dry, the clear liquid bathed her tight throat in cooling silk. He had developed some very expensive tastes in the past five years, she reflected. A Lamborghini, an apartment that was the last word in location and elegance. They had to be rented, she decided. He was a rare visitor to London.
‘I assume that we both intend to put the children’s needs before our own personal inclinations,’ Rafael drawled lazily.
It was the opening salvo of an attack but she couldn’t yet figure out from which direction the attack might be coming. Still, he was much calmer and cooler than he had been yesterday. ‘That has always been my policy.’ She was pleased with her dry response.
‘I want to meet them this afternoon and tomorrow I would like to take them out somewhere.’
Alarm stole away her short-lived sat
‘Sarah…do you object to this?’
In the flickering candlelight, his golden skin was stretched prominently over his superb bone-structure, delineating hard angles and proud curves. He had a Renaissance face. He could have worn silks and velvets and gold earrings to the manner born. As the alien thought came to fruition, she shifted uneasily on her seat, a little like someone trying to wake up surreptitiously from a disturbing dream. She clutched her glass tautly between her fingers, frantically questioning the cause of her disorientation.
In his fierce, compelling gaze lay the full force of his energy and his ruthless determination. Acute intelligence powered his direct scrutiny. A curious weakness assailed her, her mouth running dry. ‘Would there be any point if I did?’
‘None.’ He lounged indolently back into the corner, a lean hand cradling a glass with natural grace. He could relax. He had won the first round, she acknowledged bitterly.
‘If you hurt them, I’ll never forgive you,’ she said tightly.
‘Why should I hurt them?’
‘You can’t walk into their lives and then walk back out again when it suits you.’
He took a calm, reflective sip of wine. ‘That is not my intention.’
Sarah stiffened. ‘I’m afraid I tend to judge by experience.’
An ebony brow elevated. ‘You sound bitter.’
‘How could I be? I got rid of you!’ Sarah drained her glass, set it down with a distinct snap.
‘So you were aware of what your parents did,’ he said softly, dangerously softly.
‘No, I wasn’t!’ she contradicted vehemently. ‘I was here and you were in New York. My mother was ill and I was worried sick about her…’
Rafael made a scathing sound of dismissal. ‘There was nothing wrong with your mother. Her sudden illness was merely another ploy.’
‘Yes,’ Sarah allowed heavily. ‘But I didn’t know that then. My fears for her health were very real. And what did you do? You—’
‘I attempted to break the deadlock,’ he interrupted her again with greater heat.
‘Was that what you called it? You gave me forty-eight hours to join you in New York. I said no and that was that. I never saw you again. Sometimes I wondered if I’d dreamt you up. Only dreams tend to be kinder than reality!’
‘I came back to England. Where were you?’
Sarah had become suddenly taut and when a waiter refilled her glass she clasped it gratefully. Holding something made it easier for her to keep her hands steady.
‘The only communication I received from you was through a lawyer,’ he continued with caustic bite. ‘A demand for a divorce. So much faith as you had in me, gatita!’
‘My father put detectives on you while you were in New York.’
‘I know that!’ he cut in rawly. ‘And five years ago I might have explained myself to you but not now.’
A hollow laugh escaped her. ‘An explanation would have seriously taxed your ingenuity, Rafael. When a woman spends the night in your hotel room there isn’t much leeway for error…’
‘It might have been innocent.’
Sarah gulped down another fortifying mouthful of wine. ‘With you in the starring role? Are you kidding?’ she demanded with a reasonable pretence of mocking amusement, but in spite of her determination to remain cool the old anger was spiralling up from the tight coil of tension inside her. ‘I wasn’t surprised. I can be honest about that now. I never trusted you. I was always waiting for it to happen. By that stage, I was sure it already had…’
Rafael was watching her with unnerving concentration.
‘You have the morals of an alleycat.’ That last sentence fled her lips before she could seal them and tremulously turn her head away, fighting hard to recover her self-control.
‘Yet you said nothing of these suspicions at the time.’ Long fingers deftly coiled round the bottle and tilted it over her half-empty glass. ‘I did not realise how you felt,’ he positively purred.
‘You were too b…blasted insensitive!’ As his mouth quirked, she flushed with embarrassment.
‘It seems I must have been,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘Have some more wine. The vintage appears to agree with your palate.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she muttered in partial apology as she pushed her plate away and picked up her glass again.
A splintering tension she didn’t understand suddenly held her still beneath the glittering onslaught of his golden gaze. ‘No woman was ever more loved than you were.’
‘You married me to get me into bed,’ she muttered bluntly. ‘Why wrap it up?’
‘Sarah.’ A sunbrowned forefinger idly circled over the back of her clenched hand and hot shivers ran through her, setting up a chain reaction of responses that shook her rigid. Under her blouse, her breasts peaked into painful tightness. Her nerve-endings all seemed to be centred at screaming point beneath his finger. Aghast by the sensations, she couldn’t move.
‘If I had insisted you would have shared my bed before I married you,’ he asserted with lazy arrogance. ‘You know that, I know that. That is not why I married you.’
She curved back defensively into her seat, edgily removing her fingers from reach of his careless caress. But she could still feel the imprint of his flesh, heating her blood and murdering her ability to think straight. Her heartbeat had accelerated to an insane tempo and it wasn’t steadying even yet. What on earth was the matter with her?
Rafael withdrew his hand with a sudden brilliant, blazing smile that made it difficult for her to breathe. ‘We will talk about that later,’ he dismissed, resting his ebony head back, narrowed tawny eyes gleaming with rich satisfation. ‘Where were you when I returned to England?’
The direct question, thrown without warning made her freeze. Gooseflesh prickled on the exposed parts of her body. She evaded his gaze. ‘I was in a clinic. That was true,’ she shared jerkily. ‘The doctor said I would miscarry if I didn’t have complete peace and quiet. I was there for weeks and it was incredibly boring—’
‘You were ill?’ Rafael had lost colour, abandoned relaxation. ‘Dios!’ he ground out viciously. ‘If I had your father here now, I would—’
‘You didn’t try very hard to find me,’ she said helplessly.
‘I had no desire to find you when I believed you had had an abortion,’ he proffered fiercely. ‘Your father made it clear that it was too late.’
‘You didn’t have much faith in me.’
‘Their hold on you was greater than mine.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ she corrected unsteadily. ‘I was being torn apart. You hated them and they hated you and I was out in no man’s land, trying to keep the peace. Sometimes I just wanted to run away and leave you all to it.’
His expressive eyes had chilled. ‘I have never forgotten how I was insulted by your family.’
‘Yet you had so much in common with them,’ Sarah dared.
‘Que te pasa?’ Rafael grated incredulously. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
Her smile was awry. ‘To both of you I was an object, a possession. They bought me with adoption, you bought me with marriage. Let’s face it, it was an ownership dispute. They wouldn’t let go and you wouldn’t share me. It was a tug of war and inevitably the rope had to break.’
‘Perhaps it amuses you to be facetious.’
‘I don’t find it amusing even now,’ Sarah confessed. ‘In a sense you were even more selfish than they were. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. I don’t think I can have come under the context of fixtures and fittings when you took me away from them. You didn’t steal me, did you? You had legal title.’
‘Sarah.’ It was a warning growl, given between gritted teeth.
Her head was feeling oddly light but she was enjoying herself. ‘Didn’t you ever wonder why I was the very centre of their world? Or didn’t you care? They don’t like each other very much. They don’t talk because they’ve nothing to talk about unless I’m there or I’m provoking some sort of crisis. They should have split up years ago but they stayed together because they were offered a child. And unfortunately that child was me…’
‘You are not responsible for their marital problems.’ Rafael was patently uninterested in the subject.
Her soft mouth curved down. ‘Of course you probably gathered all that from the beginning. I was too close to see it. I thought the way they were was somehow all my fault. In their own twisted, self-centred fashion they care about me. It was very, very hard for them to accept that I was never going to live with them again.’
Black luxuriant lashes partially veiled his keen scrutiny. ‘When did that miracle occur?’
‘My great-aunt offered me a home just before the twins were born. Up until last year I was living with her in Truro.’
‘Truro?’ he echoed.
‘It’s in Cornwall.’
‘I know where this place is!’ he grated. ‘Are you saying that you have been there ever since our separation? I believed you were living under the protection of your parents.’
‘When did you last fight off a dragon and rescue a fair maiden, Rafael?’ she enquired gently.
His jawline clenched. ‘Explain this talk of dragons.’
Sarah fingered a prawn off her plate and nibbled at it abstractedly. The tip of her tongue darted out to lick her lips clean. Glancing up, she found tiger’s eyes intent on her soft, full mouth. ‘Only helpless little creatures with fluff between their ears need protection now the dragons have gone. I’ve never had much taste for iron bars and bossy people. Yet I married you.’ Slowly she shook her head over that riddle. ‘That’s called leaping out of the frying-pan straight into the fire.’
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