by Various
‘I’ll leave you to get dressed,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He moved away from the bed and the distracting sight of her softly pink face, still flushed from sleep. ‘We’ll have breakfast on the terrace with Zahid and Francesca. I’ll meet you up there. You can find it on your own by now, can’t you?’
He just couldn’t wait to get away, could he? ‘I think I can just about manage without a map,’
she said pleasantly—because she was damned if she was going to let him see her hurt and her anger. But it was mainly anger with herself that she felt—for allowing herself to feel hurt.
Raffaele hadn’t promised her anything, had he? Other than a great weekend and great sex?
And he had certainly delivered that.
She forced a smile, noticing that he hadn’t touched her. Not a kiss. A glance. A murmured comment. Not a single touch which might have made her feel she mattered.
She waited until he had gone before she drank her coffee and thought about how best to handle this. Now that they were preparing to return to England, Raffaele was clearly working hard to reestablish the boundaries and he had obviously decided that the whole bed thing had been a mistake. So she had some choices open to her.
She could seduce him—or beg him to make love to her.
Or she could keep her pride and her dignity and shrug her shoulders as if it didn’t matter—
even if her heart felt as if it was breaking into a thousand pieces.
There was no contest, really, was there?
She showered and dressed with particular care, recognising that make-up had another role to play other than that of accentuating a woman’s good points. It became a mask you could hide behind—and she was in desperate need of some kind of camouflage this morning.
She chose a plain white silk shift which brushed the floor—the golden-ringed belt worn low on her hips its only adornment. Her hair she caught up into a twist on top of her head—
simple and uncomplicated and the opposite to the writhing nest of emotion she was feeling inside.
But she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt nervous as she made her way up to the terrace, wondering what the day ahead would bring.
The two men were alone, standing overlooking the city, deep in conversation. When they looked up Natasha wondered if that was an odd kind of guilt she read in their faces—or was she now just getting paranoid?
But Zahid could pull charm out of the bag when he wanted to. Almost seeming to compensate for Raffaele’s unmistakably cool body language, he bowed to her as if she were the royal—and clapped his hands so that servant after servant brought out different dishes of fruits and tiny little sweet pastries and strong, thick coffee in a beautiful silver pot.
With a start, Natasha realised how easily she had slipped into the role of mixing in such exalted circles.
‘Where’s Francesca?’ she asked.
‘She is in her room and, unfortunately, she will not be joining us,’ said Zahid smoothly.
‘Oh?’ Natasha looked across at Raffaele, but his black eyes were as expressionless as those of a statue. ‘That’s a shame.’
‘Indeed, it is,’ said Zahid coolly. ‘But she sends you her good wishes and says farewell. And I have told Raffaele that he must bring you to my country one day, whenever you wish it.’
‘I think that Natasha is done with travelling for a while—aren’t you, cara?’
Natasha nearly choked on a macadamia nut, but at least chewing it gave her something to focus on—something to stop her rage from bubbling to the surface. How dare he? How dare he treat her like some commodity he could just pick up and then put down again at will? Did he think she had no feelings? Or was he just afraid that she was about to start booking a two-week trip to Badr al Din, or wherever it was?
But pride was a funny thing—as soon as it was injured it began healing itself in order to protect. Thus it was pride which enabled her to smile widely at Zahid and to tell him how much she appreciated his kind offer. And pride which allowed her to tell him truthfully that she intended to come back to Morocco one day with her son.
‘You have a son?’ Zahid queried in amazement.
Which answered her unasked question of how much Raffaele had told the Sheikh about her.
Nothing, it would seem.
‘Yes, he’s five.’ She could see Zahid doing mental calculations in his head, so she cleared up any embarrassing confusion with the truth. ‘I split up with his father when I was still pregnant.’ Which would also, she guessed, make her a thoroughly unsuitable consort for the Sheikh’s friend.
‘Five?’ breathed Zahid diplomatically. ‘You must have been little more than a child yourself!’
Somehow she got through the rest of the meal—though that nut was destined to be the last morsel which passed her lips. She bade farewell to Zahid and, once he had swept from the terrace followed by a retinue of servants, she rose to her feet.
‘What’s the hurry?’ questioned Raffaele, with a perfect view of her long legs from where he lay back against one of the stacked cushions.
‘To pack, of course!’
Maybe it was because he liked to be in the driving seat that he now perversely found himself wanting to stay a little longer. Or maybe it had something to do with the morning sun illuminating her so that she looked like some glorious white and golden goddess. But she had turned her back on him almost deliberately and was walking away from him.
His mouth hardening with anticipation, he stood up and followed her all the way down the stairs until they were back in their suite, and then he caught hold of her and turned her round, a question in his dark eyes. ‘Maybe we should delay our flight for a while,’ he said huskily.
Heart pounding, Natasha stared up at him. ‘Really? Why? What else did you have in mind?’
‘That is a very loaded question, cara.’ Snaking his hand around her waist, Raffaele smiled as he pulled her close into his body, his voice deepening as he lowered his lips to her neck, his eyes closing as he inhaled the delicate scent that was Natasha’s alone—and so familiar to him. ‘I can think of plenty of things I would like to do right now.’
And so could she. Things not entirely unrelated to his warm touch and the fact that she could feel the hardness of his arousal pressing against her, as well as sense the desire which thrummed in the air about them.
‘Can you?’ she questioned.
‘Mmm.’ He nuzzled at her ear. ‘Can’t you?’
‘Raffaele, please—’
‘Please, what, cara?’
She wanted to say Please will you stop touching my breasts like that? But it seemed that her body had other ideas—for it was revelling in the glory of his touch. Was it possible for a woman to know that something was wrong and yet to respond with a kind of unstoppable greed?
‘Oh!’ Her head fell back, her mouth opening in a gasp as he rucked the silk of her gown up around her thighs. He wasn’t wasting any time with tenderness, she thought desperately. The golden belt had clunked its way to the ground, and now he was tugging at her panties, tearing at the delicate fabric impatiently. She gasped again—was it to protest at such arrogant disdain for the costly little piece of underwear? She would never know, because now he was touching her where she most liked to be touched, and he was doing it like a man on a sensual mission.
And suddenly it was too late to do anything other than breathe his name out loud. ‘Raffaele!’
‘Si,’ he said, frantically unzipping himself, levering her up against the wall. He stared down at her parted lips and huge dark eyes for one split second, before thrusting into her so long and deep that his sigh of satisfaction became a ragged and almost helpless groan.
There was no time to think, to speak, to object or even to kiss—because her orgasm happened so quickly and unexpectedly that Natasha felt almost cheated. As if he had robbed her of something and she couldn’t quite work out what it was. And Raffaele shuddered within her almost immediately, his big bo
dy convulsing as he tightened his arms around her, saying something in Italian which sounded more like a curse than anything else.
She waited until he had stilled and then weakly pushed at his chest, appalled by the sheer physicality of the act. Her tongue snaked round her lips, her heart sinking with despair. He had used her—used her as a body, simply to satisfy his needs. And you have used him, taunted a voice in her head, and she flinched as she heard it.
‘Tasha?’ His breathing was steadier now, but his eyes were wary—because something about the intensity of what had just happened had taken him by surprise. ‘Are you okay?’
She was far from okay. She was hurting like hell. But signor would never know that. ‘Yes, I’m absolutely fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’ She opened her eyes very wide. ‘And now I’d like to go to the airport and take a plane. Or is it catch a plane? I’m not sure. I’d never travelled by air before this—particularly not by private jet—but you’re the expert, aren’t you, Raffaele? You’re the expert on pretty much everything. You tell me.’
He frowned and yawned, thinking that bed just might be the best option all round. ‘I thought we were going to delay our flight?’
‘But we don’t need to anymore. Not now.’ She moved away from him.
‘What are you talking about?’
Say it, she told herself. Confront your worst fears and then they can have no power over you.
‘Well, we’ve just had sex, haven’t we? So we can leave right away. Unless you were planning to fit in another couple of bouts before we go back?’
‘Bouts? This is not a boxing match we are talking about!’ he flared. ‘And there is no need to put it quite so…clinically.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Oh, please, Raffaele—let’s not dress up the facts just to make them palatable! That’s what this whole weekend was about, wasn’t it? Sex—pure and simple—a basic human urge that we both satisfied. If that wasn’t clinical, then I don’t know what it was!’
‘Why are you suddenly talking like this?’ he demanded furiously.
Because she had suddenly come to her senses. ‘Because it’s the truth! You know it is!’ And she turned away from him and ran into her dressing room before he could touch her again, recognising that this was not going to be easy.
Over the years she had learnt to love him—it had crept up on her almost without her noticing—and now she was going to have to unlearn it. Because to Raffaele she was nothing other than a person who could be useful to him. She could perform a million roles—from making him soup and throwing the press off the trail of his sister to taking him in her mouth under the intimate cloak of the night and hearing him moan his fulfilment.
Biting her lip, she racked her brain as she raced through the possibilities open to her. Perhaps the only way she was going to come out of this with any degree of sanity was to revert back to what she really was. What she always had been. His employee—nothing more and nothing less.
She was hurriedly piling her delicate lingerie into a suitcase when Raffaele entered the suite.
His attention was caught by the lacy thong which she clutched between her fingers and his mouth hardened.
‘We need to discuss what we are going to do when we return to England,’ he said curtly. ‘Are you prepared to continue with this arrangement?’
Taking his statement at face value, she chose her words carefully, damned if she would give him the satisfaction of knowing just how vulnerable she felt inside.
She held up the heavy, cold weight of the diamond ring so that rainbow rays streamed from its faceted surface. ‘For as long as we need to we will continue with this engagement,’ she said. ‘And, seeing as the press don’t actually have access to the bedroom, they won’t know that it isn’t a proper relationship, will they? When Elisabetta is well and you decide that the charade is no longer necessary, then we’ll just let it fizzle out all by itself. There’ll be a new story by then and my debt to you will have been repaid.’
He stared at her, at an expression he had never seen in her eyes before, and he couldn’t quite work out what it was. A new coldness. All the habitual adoration flown. ‘Is that how you see it? Is that how you regard all that has happened between us?’ he demanded. ‘As the repaying of a debt?’
Oh, how arrogant, she thought bitterly. And wouldn’t he just love it if she told him that, no, he’d captured her heart into the bargain?
‘Let’s leave our egos out of it and just stick to facts, shall we, Raffaele?’ she questioned coolly.
It was at moments like this that she took him completely off guard. For a moment, he thought—with something approaching admiration—she sounded exactly like his lawyer.
Chapter 13
Had Raffaele thought that Natasha might relent on the journey back to London? That a hand splayed carelessly over the silken temptation of her thigh might have her breathlessly revealing that she couldn’t wait to get home and into his bed?
In truth, yes, he had. But the reality was quite different.
She was cool, polite, distant. At first Raffaele let her get away with it—the flight was turbulent and there were too many stewardesses bobbing around and offering them unwanted glasses of champagne to challenge her resolution with seduction. But when they arrived back to an empty house and she jerked her head away from his slightly impatient kiss his eyes narrowed—at first with suspicion and then with barely suppressed anger.
‘Are we going to stop this charade now? I think you have made your point, don’t you, cara?’
‘What point is it I’m supposed to be making, Raffaele?’
His eyes narrowed. How feminine introspection angered him! ‘I don’t know, cara,’ he said silkily. ‘And to be honest, I don’t care—there is only one thing I care about right now, and we both know what that is.’
She stared at him, shivering at the cold detachment in his black eyes. How easy it would be to let him carry on kissing her—his sensual mouth and his practised hands stroking away any doubts she had. But how foolish, too. Every time he entered her body he was chaining himself a little more tightly to her heart. Every kiss was like a brand that nobody else could see but that was going to scar her for ever.
‘I told you in Morocco that I will continue with our supposed engagement, but the sex stops.
It…it has to,’ she finished shakily.
‘Do you want to tell me why?’ he drawled, ignoring the sudden look of appeal in her eyes. ‘Is it because Sam is due back?’
Natasha winced. He was concerned about practicalities, nothing more. ‘In England we have an expression,’ she said slowly, ‘about not playing with fire because you only get your fingers burnt.’
His mouth curved into a cruel smile. As he bent his dark head closer he could see the instinctive tremble of her body, and temptation briefly flared. How easy it would be to make her take her words back—to have her pleading with him to make love to her. But Raffaele never begged. And neither would he waste his time with someone intent on games.
‘Then, stay away from the fire,’ he said mockingly. ‘Let your body grow cold, instead, Tasha.’
Desire left his dark, rugged features as abruptly as if a switch had been turned off, and Natasha watched him walk away from her with a terrible feeling of foreboding. Wanting to call or to run after him, but knowing that if she did so she would be lost for ever.
‘I’m flying to Paris,’ he snarled.
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
Tonight? Sam arrived back from Serge’s house full of energy and enthusiasm, and even he looked different—as if he had been parted from her for months rather than a few days. But being apart made you reevaluate things and look at them differently, Natasha realised. Yes, he had missed her—but only in the way a five-year-old boy should miss his mother.
I must make sure I never try to live my life through my son, she told herself fiercely. He mustn’t become one of those only children of a single parent who feels responsible for the happiness of
that parent. She needed to increase his freedom. She had to learn to let go. Of him and of so much more.
If anything had come out of this wild, tumultuous episode it was that lesson.
Once Raffaele rang from France. Natasha tried to convince herself that his clipped tone was due to the crackly international line, but deep in her heart she knew the real reason. Now that their brief sexual fling was over, he had distanced himself from her, and that, too, was inevitable. Yet, for the first time, Natasha recognised that by changing their relationship she had managed to destroy it. That there was no going back to where it had been.
Had she really thought that she could carry on like before after eveything they had shared together? With her serving him coffee and trying to forget all the achingly sensual intimacies they had shared?
At least, the news from the clinic was good. Elisabetta had put on weight and was benefiting hugely from the therapy. She was moving to a sister clinic in the United States, which would give her vast landscapes in an inaccessible place where no one would bother her. The world had moved on—a high-profile Hollywood divorce wiping away any interest in the half-sister of an Italian billionaire.
The ‘engagement’ was yesterday’s news—even the huge diamond had taken to slipping round her finger so that it wasn’t visible. The last two mornings she hadn’t actually worn it, and nobody had noticed.
Usually, when Raffaele was away it just felt like a change of routine. This time it felt different. As if there was a huge hole in her life. Natasha couldn’t settle to anything. She felt as if she no longer belonged—even the Italian she had been studying now seemed like a faintly ridiculous thing to be doing.
And what the hell was going to happen when Raffaele returned?
Something was going to have to give—and maybe this was the kick-start she needed. She thought about something Sam’s headmaster had said to her when the exam results had come in, and made an appointment to see him before school ended.
The door slammed one evening the following week, and Natasha looked up, unprepared for the sight of Raffaele walking in, all windswept and sprinkled with droplets of rain, wearing a dark cashmere coat. That old rush of love came back—only, now it was sharper, stronger, honed by absence and the knowledge of his lips and his body and by a brief taste of what life would be like as Raffaele’s woman. Her legs felt shaky as she watched him put down his briefcase, not daring to move or to speak for fear that she would do something humiliating—