by Helen Brooks
‘Stop it.’ The heat was still suffusing her body but with space between them sanity had returned. ‘I don’t want this.’
‘I don’t believe you. You want me every bit as much as I want you—your body’s told me so. It’s too late to deny it, Marianne.’
‘I’m not denying sex between us would be good,’ she said shakily, ‘but I want more than that. I’m not like you, Rafe. It has to mean much more than what you have told me you could give. And one day I want to get married, have a family, babies.’
‘But don’t you see, you could do that? I wouldn’t stop you. Just because we spend time together doesn’t negate you meeting someone in the future who wants the same things as you. But this is now. Now, Marianne, and it seems crazy we want each other so much and yet you’re denying us. It doesn’t make sense.’
It made perfect sense. As she stared at him everything was so clear. She had been battling to keep the knowledge that she loved him out of her consciousness for weeks but now it was almost a relief to admit it to herself. Embarking on an affair with Rafe would be emotional suicide; it was as simple as that. You didn’t recover from the aftermath when a man like Rafe left—as he inevitably would—you just learnt to live with the fallout. And she wasn’t prepared to do that. She valued herself more highly than that. Some women could take his terms and make them work. She couldn’t. Weeks and months—maybe a year or two if she was lucky—of being near to him, part of his life, sleeping in his bed and he in hers, would be impossible to let go of. So where would that leave her when the time came? Destroyed, that was where.
‘Rafe, I can’t be what you want me to be,’ she said slowly, her voice still shaky but a thread of strength winding through it.
‘You are what I want you to be.’ He reached out his hand, touching the silken curtain of her hair. ‘You’re perfect.’
She smiled sadly. He didn’t see it. In fact, he was so far from seeing it he was light years away. There had to be more to a relationship than enjoying each other physically and love needed to be a two-way thing, at least for her. Not that he knew she loved him. And he never would. ‘I’m far from perfect.’ Her voice was firmer. ‘But I do know my own mind, Rafe. I don’t want the sort of deal you’re offering. OK?’
Dark colour flared across the hard cheekbones, his blue eyes narrowing. ‘This is not business we’re discussing, it’s us. You and me.’
She nodded slowly. ‘I know that. But you have carefully laid out the criteria and drawn up the contract so I couldn’t possibly be under any illusion about how you see this merger progressing. Well, haven’t you?’ she persisted when he said nothing but continued to stare at her, his eyes narrowing still more and becoming blue slits. ‘And I’m grateful, in a way. You have been nothing if not honest, and honesty is becoming a rare commodity in business these days.’
‘For crying out loud,’ he grated, ‘this has nothing to do with business, how many times do I have to tell you? This—you and me—is something separate from Seacrest and the hotel venture.’
‘Barely.’ She brushed a wisp of hair from her face as the sea breeze teased it. ‘Because all your life is is business these days, Rafe. Your work, your love life—they are so entwined as to become one. You employ the same set of rules in one area as you do in the other. Cards on the table, logical reasons for continuing, no emotion allowed to distort the picture. It’s all cut and dried. You remain in control, autonomous.’
‘You’re talking sheer garbage.’
‘Why? Because I’m not prepared to agree to your cold-blooded proposal?’ She shook her head. ‘Look, I want to go home now and I’d rather continue by myself. I don’t belong in your world, Rafe. I never have. And I don’t want to. I might meet someone in the future who lets me down. I might get my heart broken. I might even have a marriage that fails. But I’ll have tried, I’ll have lived and felt rather than keeping my emotions in cold storage through fear.’
‘Fear?’ Now she had really caught him on the raw. ‘You are saying I’m motivated by fear just because I choose to live my life without wanting the complications that come with the marriage mill? Hell, marriage is an unnatural enough state at the best of times and heavily weighted on the side of the female of the species. Love, if it even exists in the way you seem to expect, never lasts and even while it does is dependent on one person subjugating themselves to make it work. It’s unhealthy at best and disastrous at worst.’ He stopped abruptly.
She stared at him, knowing he had revealed far more than he had intended and that he would blame her for it. ‘Like I said,’ she said softly, praying she could hold back the tears until she was on her own, ‘we’re very different people who want different things. I don’t want to fall out with you but I can’t pretend to be anything other than what I am. Neither can you. We need to put an end to this, Rafe, once and for all, and move on. You do see that, don’t you?’
Her knees were trembling and, more because she didn’t want to sink to the ground at his feet than anything else, she forced herself to turn and begin walking away. She expected him to follow her. He didn’t.
By the time she reached Seacrest her tears were blinding her. The twilight was thick now, a crescent moon high in the midnight-blue sky and the soft whisper of the Cornish sea carrying on the breeze. She didn’t go into the house, making her way into the garden instead and walking down to her mother’s bench where Rafe had comforted her all those weeks ago.
She didn’t want to love him. She shut her eyes tight, rocking forwards and backwards with her hands clasped round her middle. She wanted to go back in time to before she had met him, before her parents had died, when she had been happy. She wanted to believe all those people who said love couldn’t happen suddenly and what she was feeling was just animal attraction which would die in time. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. She had been waiting for Rafe all her life and if she didn’t marry him, she would marry no one.
She lifted her face, staring mistily into the shadows. She had done the only thing she could but it wasn’t much comfort.
CHAPTER TEN
RAFE watched her go, knowing he was going to let her walk out of his life. He continued to stand frozen for a full five minutes before starting to walk, and then it wasn’t back to the village, nor to Seacrest, but across the fields to the cliff path. It took a while to find a spot where he could climb down to the beach but, once there, he started to pace the sand, his mind in turmoil.
He marched up and down for an eternity before sitting on a rock which still held the warmth of the day. She was right. They were too different in their thinking for a relationship to work even for a short while. He frowned, and then looked up at the sky. It was a fine night and thousands of stars twinkled above him, the sea calm and serene as it allowed small waves to lap towards the shore. Nature had conspired to produce a backdrop of great beauty but then it often did; it was man who tended to mess the planet up, he thought darkly.
He lowered his head into his hands and listened to the sound of the sea. He sat for a long, long time.
He was a mess. He couldn’t shut out the truth any longer. He had been blocking out all manner of things for years.
For a moment he was tempted to rise to his feet and walk back to the village, to drink brandy with his father and discuss the business, anything to evade the thoughts gathering steam in his head. Yet he had to face what his real feelings were.
When he raised his head and stared blindly into the darkness, he knew he loved her. And she was right about the fear because it scared him to death. Since the break-up with Fiona he had emerged as a respected businessman, a force to be reckoned with. He had furthered his father’s business far beyond what it had been when he had first come on board, working all hours, building a small dynasty which had brought its own rewards and problems. But he had been in control. Always. And this—this was something different.
Was he too scared to make a commitment? He nodded his answer. And yet he loved her.
The other part of h
is brain that seemed to be having a conversation in his head came in loud and strong. He had loved Fiona, hadn’t he? Had worshipped her, even. And she had led him one hell of a dance, had publicly humiliated him.
But Marianne wasn’t like that.
How did he know that? Who really ever knew another person, deep inside? You heard of couples who had been together twenty, thirty years separating, one partner going off with someone new. He raked back his hair with an irritability that mirrored his father’s. So it was far better never to get involved in happy-ever-after in the first place, surely?
And live your life alone?
Yes, he could do that. He nodded to the thought. That didn’t scare him. He’d done it since the divorce and managed fine. Until he’d met Marianne.
So you walk away. You get on with your life and you leave her to get on with hers. In a world of men. And what happens when you hear she’s with someone? What then?
He ground his teeth. He’d want to kill the guy, that was what. He swore softly.
Marianne had confronted him with the fact that he wanted to have his cake and eat it; that was it in a nutshell. She wasn’t like the women he had dated the last few years and he had known that, but he had still hoped he could use the sexual attraction between them to persuade her to fall in line with what he wanted. What sort of man was he?
He groaned, rising abruptly and beginning to pace again. And what sort of man did she think he was? All this damn self-counselling and there was a good chance she’d laugh in his face if he did get up the courage to meet her on her terms. And he didn’t want to be vulnerable again.
His insides twisting with the intensity of his emotions, he kicked at the sand savagely. Was she like her mother? Promising one thing to one man and then calmly disappearing into the bright blue yonder with another? History had a habit of repeating itself. And his father had tried to excuse Marianne’s mother of any responsibility for their break-up when he’d told him what had transpired; that had been what had really got to him. All those years and he obviously still carried a torch for the woman.
And then he stopped suddenly, lifting his face to the starlit sky. Or could it be, maybe—just maybe—that the young Diane had been as devastated as his father had said she was when she had ended their relationship? His father had been adamant that the finish of their love affair had been nothing to do with Marianne’s father’s position in the community and the wealth that went with it. But he hadn’t believed him. He hadn’t wanted to. Raw and hurting as he had felt for his mother, he had needed to blame someone. He had held up his parents in his mind as the perfect couple and he hadn’t liked it when he had discovered his mother had not been his father’s first love. Childish, maybe. Unfair, certainly.
Feeling that he didn’t know which end of him was up, Rafe continued to face his gremlins. His mobile phone rang and he answered it. It was his father, wondering where he was. He explained he had walked Marianne home—stretching the truth slightly—and then come down to the beach to clear his head of all the stress of the last weeks. His father took this at face value, or at least he didn’t question his explanation, which was enough tonight.
The night was chillier but he didn’t feel the cold. At some point well after midnight he began to understand. Some time during the last few months since he had met Marianne he had begun to work things out in his mind. He hadn’t been aware of it but it had been happening. Which was why the couple of dates he had had with Victoria had been an effort on his part, and likewise the lady in America. He didn’t know where he was going but a change had started to happen. He wasn’t satisfied with his life any longer.
His brow wrinkled as he tried to catch thoughts which still didn’t make sense, but after another hour or so he stood up and began to retrace his footsteps, having come to a decision. He was going to stick around here for a time, using Seacrest as the excuse. He would phone Andy Jackson tomorrow, his second in command in the States, and tell him he was in charge for the next few weeks.
When he reached the sleeping village he stood for a moment wondering if he was absolutely sure what he was doing. There was no guarantee Marianne would want him even if he conquered his demons, and he didn’t intend to broach the subject of them with her again until he was sure he could offer her what she wanted. And he was far from sure right now. All he was sure of was that he wanted her, needed her, loved her and the thought of another man’s hands on her was unthinkable. But that wasn’t enough. It had to be all or nothing. For him as well as her.
After the sort of night Marianne wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy she finally gave up the fight for sleep at five o’clock and padded down to the kitchen. After making herself her first coffee of the day, she took it outside and stood and watched the sun rise, thinking of Rafe. It was a beautiful morning.
Part of her was sad that this would be the last time she would stand at the kitchen door on a summer’s morning with a coffee and watch the birds squabble at the bird table beyond the flower border. Once the builders arrived they had orders to reduce the room to an empty shell ready for its makeover as a family-cum-children’s area, a place where parents with energetic youngsters could come and let the children play without disturbing other guests in the drawing room. The new kitchen, on the other side of the house, was well underway but until it was finished she had arranged to have a small fridge and kettle in her bedroom, along with a tiny microwave. It would be a few weeks yet before the builders started on the extension which would be her and Crystal’s accommodation.
As the birds began to sing and sunshine flooded the garden she went inside to shower and get dressed, trying to concentrate on anything but Rafe. There was no reason to think about him any more, she told herself fiercely. OK, so she’d have to liaise with him up to a point over the next few months until Seacrest was up and running as a business, but there would be Crystal and Andrew around, too, and she would make sure everything was kept on a strict working basis. She could do this. She had no choice. One day at a time. That was what her father had always said when life had got difficult.
She heard the foreman’s car scrunch onto the drive about seven o’clock. He was somewhat early but it did not matter; she was more than ready to start the day. He usually came a little while before his men and talked through the day’s programme with her.
Stitching a smile onto her face, she opened the front door. The smile froze and so did she when she saw who had just unfolded himself from the front seat of what must be a hire car.
‘Good morning, Marianne,’ Rafe said calmly. ‘Crystal said work usually commences around seven-thirty so I thought you might be up.’
She stared at him. He was freshly shaven and the light blue shirt he was wearing was tucked into the flat waistband of his casual trousers. He looked cool and perfectly at ease, and for a moment the resentment was white-hot. She’d had a sleepless night and felt like a wet rag this morning, but there was Rafe, as controlled as ever.
‘Good morning,’ she said stiffly.
‘I thought it might be opportune to have a word with the men before they start work.’ He walked towards her, unsmiling. ‘And I’d like to see progress thus far if that’s all right by you?’
‘Of course.’ She tried to match his detached, even tone but it was hard. ‘It’s your money that’s funding this.’ That sounded a little curt and by way of recompense she added, ‘Would you like a coffee?’
‘I’d love one.’
She turned on the doorstep and he followed her into the kitchen, glancing around as he said, ‘They start work in here today, don’t they?’
‘Yes. Once they arrive I’ll take the kettle and coffee and tea things out of the way. All the cupboards are cleared, of course. Everything’s ready.’
‘I didn’t doubt it would be.’ He perched himself on an empty worktop. ‘I’ll have my coffee black.’
Marianne busied herself filling the kettle and placing two of the six mugs she had kept handy for the builders on a tray, keeping her ba
ck to him as she did so. She couldn’t blame him for coming to check on his investment and she had half expected he might call over the next day or two while he was in England; she just hadn’t bargained for a dawn visit! And she found his presence acutely disturbing, especially after the home truths which had been exchanged the evening before. Still, she would have had to face him at some point, she told herself bracingly, so it might as well be earlier rather than later.
This comforting thought disappeared when he said in quite a different tone, ‘Sleep well?’
Steeling herself to turn and face him, she brought all her will-power to bear in a polite smile. ‘Not too bad. And you?’
He shrugged. ‘Not a wink.’
‘Oh.’ She didn’t know what to say, not so much because of the admission he had made but the look on his face. Gone was the cool businessman of a minute ago and in his place was the Rafe of last night. She turned round on the pretence of making the coffee and caught sight of herself in one of the glass doors of the empty cupboards. If she could see the tension lines radiating from her mouth then so could Rafe.
‘We need to talk.’
She didn’t reply to this, tipping hot water onto the coffee and stirring it before she nerved herself to face him again. ‘It’s instant, I’m afraid.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Rafe, we talked last night.’
‘Yes, we did,’ he said steadily. ‘It was the first time I have really talked to a woman in years, since the break-up of my marriage, in fact. It was a painful experience.’
‘I’m sorry—’
He cut her off by seamlessly continuing, ‘But necessary. I see that now. Certain wounds were cauterised. Years too late perhaps, but cauterised nonetheless. Other issues were brought up to the surface, however, and they were harder to deal with. Hence the sleepless night.’