by Sarah Morgan
And that was hardly surprising, Rafael said to himself as his long legs swallowed up the distance. Women were never at their best when they’d been found out. And Grace Thacker had been well and truly found out. There was no more hiding. Her fraud was exposed, the consequences of her actions thrust in her face. With him standing over her shoulder and Filomena crying, she’d had little choice but to express guilt and remorse and she’d done it most convincingly.
In fact, she’d been extremely convincing. If he hadn’t known it to be impossible, he would have thought that the accusations levelled at her had come as a surprise. Indeed, her shocked response and her almost remarkable display of self-condemnation had both been sufficiently compelling to have him on the verge of reaching out with words of comfort and support.
He’d even run through the facts in his head one more time, just to be absolutely sure he couldn’t have made a mistake. Was there any way she could be innocent of the fraud he’d uncovered?
The answer was no. There was no way. She had access to the accounts. She knew the company figures. In addition to that, the person in charge of finances at her company was her own father. So obviously it was a family job.
Glancing behind him, Rafael was surprised to see her right on his heels. He was walking fast but she, despite her lesser height and build, was keeping up.
And then he saw the emotion in her eyes and knew that she wasn’t even aware of her surroundings.
Was it simply anger and frustration he was seeing? Probably. After all, her fraudulent money-making scheme had been exposed and terminated.
He had no doubt that her convincing display of regret at the fazenda had been played out for the benefit of Filomena and Carlos. Why was he impressed when he, better than anyone, knew just how well a woman could perform when she found herself in a tight spot?
Didn’t he know better than anyone just how low a woman could stoop in order to yank herself from poverty to riches?
Grace Thacker’s business was about to fold and, despite her impassioned request, he had no intention of throwing her the lifeline she so desperately wanted.
Rafael frowned and concentrated his attentions on the path ahead.
He’d arranged for the helicopter to collect her the following morning and fly her back to Rio de Janeiro so that she could catch a commercial flight to London.
Which meant that she had one more night in the rainforest to stew in her guilt.
Only he had no doubt that once she reached the privacy of her room she wouldn’t be wasting time on emotional demonstrations of regret and remorse. Why bother if she didn’t have an audience?
They arrived at the lodge and Rafael turned to her. ‘You have two hours until dinner. I expect you’ll want to rest.’
She didn’t look as though she’d even heard him so he repeated the words and this time she glanced at him in shock as if she’d forgotten his existence. ‘Sorry?’ She blinked several times, clearly forcing herself to concentrate. ‘Yes. Thank you.’
He still had a feeling she hadn’t heard anything he’d said and he found himself noting the pallor of her skin and the dark shadows under her eyes. She looked stricken. Exhausted.
Rafael frowned. They’d walked miles in challenging conditions and she hadn’t once complained but the physical challenge had to be taking its toll.
‘You need to take a shower and lie down for a while.’ Even as he spoke the words he wondered why he was bothering to show such solicitude and she must have wondered the same thing because her eyes widened.
‘I’m sorry to inconvenience you by staying another night.’ She was back to sounding like a polite child taking leave of a party and he found himself wishing she’d come back at him with the fighting spirit he’d grown accustomed to during their walk through the forest.
The woman was a mass of contradictions and almost impossible to read. She was a strange mix of humour and seriousness. Innocence mingled with an intense sexuality that seemed entirely unconscious. She didn’t flirt and yet every movement of her body seemed to seduce.
Birds swooped over the lodge in a kaleidoscope of bright rainbow colours but this time their antics drew no gasp of delight from her. No acknowledgement and no questions. In fact she didn’t seem to notice.
It was as if she was in shock.
‘I’ll meet you at dinner.’ Up until that moment he’d had no intention of eating dinner with her and the flicker of surprise in her eyes told him that she was equally astonished by his invitation.
Why did he want to spend another evening with her? Why not just walk away from her, relieved that the whole sordid matter had finally been cleared up? By the morning she’d be gone from his life.
Only he knew that shaking her off wasn’t going to be that easy.
There’d been more to that kiss in the forest than just a steamy encounter between consenting adults. Far more.
Even now it was between them, shimmering like an invisible force, pulling them together. And she must have felt it too because she made a nervous gesture and backed away. ‘Perhaps I should have dinner in my room. But I’d be grateful for the use of a phone. I’ll reimburse you, of course.’
Given the sick state of her finances, he wanted to ask ‘what with?’ but he held the words back. ‘There’s a phone in your room. Use it, but you’ll eat dinner with me.’
She didn’t argue, apparently compliant, but he wondered whether she was just too worn out and ground down to argue. She seemed—defeated?
Which was a good thing, he reminded himself firmly, running a hand over the back of his neck to prevent himself from putting a hand on her arm. If her remorse and regret were genuine then she might even be put off doing a similar thing again.
Grace dropped the phone down into its stand and flopped back on the bed.
Nothing.
No one.
Her father was away on business and so was the manager she’d appointed to help with her business-expansion plan. She’d even tried ringing the dealer herself but had got no further than a message service.
The answers to the desperate questions that had formed in her mind were obviously not going to come easily. Especially not when she was thousands of miles away in the rainforest. Right now she needed to be back in London, tracking down the person who was so cleverly defrauding her company.
But London was an eleven-hour flight from Rio and she was still in the jungle. And she still had a whole evening to get through. An evening with a man who had every reason to think that she was a nasty piece of work.
It was ironic, she thought helplessly, that the action which had finally confirmed to her that Rafael Cordeiro wasn’t the cold-hearted man he was reputed to be was the very one that was going to deprive her of her beloved business.
He was going to withdraw his loan because he thought she’d hurt Carlos and Filomena. It hadn’t been because he was determined to squeeze the last bit of profit out of her. It had been because he hadn’t liked seeing her cheat those straightforward, honest people who were struggling to survive alongside nature.
And how could she blame him for that decision, given the facts at his disposal?
If he was right—and she had no reason to doubt him—then her company had cheated those people and the fact that she’d known nothing about it didn’t excuse her. It was obvious that he cared about them deeply and the knowledge pleased her. So he wasn’t so damaged that he couldn’t feel, was he? There was good in him, if you bothered to look deep enough.
But that didn’t help her business.
Everything she’d built was about to disintegrate into dust. People were going to lose their jobs and it was all her fault. She should have known. She should have noticed. Except that she knew that there was no way she ever could have noticed. She knew that.
Should she tell Rafael the truth?
But what was the point of that? Anything she said now was just going to look like an excuse. It was too late for explanations. Far, far too late.
She wanted
to cry but the tears wouldn’t come. Instead she lay there, numb, staring at the ceiling and trying to work out her next step, but lying still was impossible when she had so much pent-up emotion inside her.
She felt angry, confused, lost, afraid—but most of all she wanted answers. She wanted to know who had done this to her.
Unable to lie there when her life was falling apart, she sprang off the bed and paced across the bedroom, listening to the calls of birds and monkeys high up in the trees.
Suddenly she wanted to be out there too, back in the soothing, verdant rainforest where city life and corporate problems seemed so far away.
And then she remembered what Maria had said about the forest pool. Didn’t they always say that exercise was good for relieving tension? Well, she’d swim and then maybe she’d be calm enough to sustain a conversation during an evening with Rafael Cordeiro.
If they didn’t stray on to the subject of business, sex, love or marriage, they just might be able to keep the evening civil.
She slipped into her red bathing costume and pulled on the linen dress, reminding herself to be careful with it because it was all she had to wear for dinner.
Taking a towel from the bathroom, she pushed her feet into her shoes, carefully wrote something on her hands and made her way downstairs. Not trusting her directional skills, she wandered through the lodge to find Maria.
The housekeeper was in the kitchen, chopping a variety of exotic vegetables, but she willingly stopped when Grace asked to be reminded of the way to the pool.
She led her out through the glass atrium and onto a path that led away from the fazenda and into a different part of the rainforest.
Grace glanced to her left and right, delight mingling with trepidation. It was the wildest and yet the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. Huge, exotic leaves rose upwards towards the light like spears while others nestled closer to the forest floor, so large that it was like taking a stroll through a giant’s garden. Climbers scrambled up tree trunks and orchids and ferns clustered around the branches.
A flash of movement caught her eye and she paused, watching as a brightly coloured frog, tiny and delicate, clung to the tree trunk, and then there was a loud squawk from above her and a bird swooped up into the trees, its feathers a flash of red.
Parrot? Toucan? Assessing bird life as a suitably neutral topic for the dinner table, Grace made a mental note to steer the subject round to the wildlife over dinner. Then she concentrated on the route, noticing that they’d turned off the main path and were now walking along a narrow trail. Trees and ferns brushed against her arms and legs and in the background there was a rushing noise that grew louder as they walked.
Glancing over her shoulder, Grace tried to memorise the way back to the lodge.
And then the trees seemed to open up and the path widened. And there, in front of them, was the pool. Grace caught her breath in surprise and delight.
The frothy white waterfall poured over the rocks above and spilled into a large pool bordered by huge boulders and tall ferns. Surrounded by trees, exotic plants and birds and butterflies of every conceivable colour, the pool water gathered up the evening light and sparkled as though a million precious jewels lurked beneath the surface.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She glanced around her and Maria nodded.
‘It’s safe, but not at night-time. And be careful walking back to the lodge. It’s very easy to take the wrong path. Turn left and then right.’
Grace was looking at the pool. The walk through the jungle and the shocking revelations about her business had left her feeling drained and exhausted. It would be a relief to strip off, cool down and relax. Then, perhaps, she’d be able to cope with the looming pressure of dinner.
And, after that, she’d work out what she was going to do, what exactly had gone wrong and how she was going to repay those people.
Rafael strode purposefully up the path that wound through the jungle to the forest pool.
Maria had interrupted his non-stop round of phone calls to inform him that Grace was swimming and he’d felt an immediate rush of irritation that she’d chosen that moment to wander off. His New York office was spearheading the negotiations for an extremely complicated deal and they were constantly clamouring for his input.
He could have left her on her own, of course. It was unusual for the local wildlife to explore that particular pool, but still …
He quickened his pace, noticing with an upward glance that it would soon be dark.
As if confirming his thought the lights by the side of the path suddenly gleamed and fireflies darted across his line of vision.
He came to the fork in the path and moments later he heard the rushing sound of the waterfall and pressed on through ferns, over huge, shiny boulders until he saw a flash of brilliant red. Like an exotic creature she slid through the pool, lithe and fit, her body slim and graceful, her blonde hair trailing loose in the water.
Hot molten lust erupted through his body and Rafael tucked his hands in his trousers and cursed softly, fighting against the impulse to join her because he knew that to join her would be to invite complications that he didn’t need.
What he did need was uncomplicated sex, and he knew that he wasn’t going to enjoy that with a woman like Grace Thacker. She was the very worst sort of woman. It wasn’t the greed that bothered him, he was used to that and he’d never found female greed to be a barrier to enjoyable sex.
He was even prepared to play their game, up to a point, which was why he was on good terms with most of the top jewellers in the world. No, it wasn’t the greed that held him back. It was something else entirely. Grace was the sort of woman who not only expected you to hand out diamonds, but also wanted fake words of love and affection. She was the sort who dug and analysed and thought that there was an answer for everything if you only searched hard enough for it.
She wasn’t the sort of woman to simply allow a relationship to be superficial.
Even now, floating in the pool, she appeared to be thinking. And then she opened her eyes and saw him. ‘Am I late for dinner?’ She swam across to him. ‘Is it time to get out?’ The late-evening sunshine bathed her body in a warm glow and the water clung to her hair like tiny beads of crystal.
Consumed by an attack of sexual hunger so intense that his body was ablaze with it, Rafael instantly redrafted his personal rules about women.
So she talked too much and was far too interested in what made him tick. So what?
He just needed to distract her and teach her that superficial could be good.
‘It gets dark quickly in the jungle and the paths can be confusing. And the animals sometimes come and drink from the pool.’ Until that moment he hadn’t believed he could be so unsubtle. What was he hoping? That she’d leap screaming out of the pool and dive into his arms for protection?
Well, yes, actually. It would save her the bother of dressing just so that he could undress her again. And he was going to undress her. He’d made his decision. ‘You never quite know what might be lurking in the pool. Piranha, anaconda, alligators …’ He lingered over the words but she simply looked at him.
‘Nothing more dangerous than that?’ Her tone was weary and he was left with the distinct impression that she would have welcomed the arrival of something dangerous and deadly to distract her from her problems. Not only was she still in the pool, but she was positively luxuriating in the water as if she was indulging in some sort of private fantasy that she had no wish to abandon.
He frowned and worked a little harder. ‘The occasional jaguar—’
‘I like cats.’
He frowned. ‘You’re not going to get out?’
She gave a humourless laugh. ‘What for? So that you can simmer and boil and intimidate me?’
‘I don’t simmer and boil and intimidate.’
‘Yes, you do. But I don’t blame you. I’d probably do the same in your position. It’s nice to know that you care about something.’
Rafae
l gritted his teeth. She was doing it again. Worming her way into his mind when the only place he wanted her was flat on her back in his bed. ‘You know nothing about me.’
‘Well, that’s true.’ She floated on her back and her eyes drifted shut. ‘You keep yourself shut away. Presumably you’re afraid that someone might discover that you’re actually a good person and that would damage your bad, dangerous image.’
‘You talk too much,’ he informed her in a driven tone and she opened her eyes.
‘And you don’t talk enough.’ There was a faint smile on her lips. ‘You know, if you just learned not to judge on appearances, you’d be almost human.’ The dimple was back, he noticed, just above her mouth on the left-hand side. He stared at it, transfixed, and then decided that the conversation had gone far enough.
‘Aren’t you going to get out of the water?’
‘I suppose so.’ She pulled herself out of the pool, scooping her wet hair away from her face as she reached for her towel. ‘Are you trying to frighten me with all this talk of animals, Rafael? Because you’re wasting your time.’
He’d noticed. She’d tramped through the rainforest, fallen in rivers and walked past spiders the size of her hand, all without a word of complaint.
‘You need to stay alert in the rainforest. There are plenty of hazards.’
‘A bit like working in the commercial world, then,’ she quipped, rubbing the towel over her limbs. ‘Drop your guard for a moment and someone is waiting to eat you up in a mouthful and swallow your dreams whole.’
He found himself watching her every movement, the flow of her arms as smooth and graceful as a dancer’s. The red swimming costume was moulded to every curve and the vivid colour seemed almost to be part of her, as if she were a jungle creature every bit as exotic as those that surrounded her. He might have thought she was relaxed and carefree if he hadn’t seen the shadows in her eyes and the tension in her narrow shoulders.
Not so relaxed.
‘Did you make your calls?’
‘Yes.’ She kept her smile bright as she swung the towel over her shoulders, concealing her high, firm breasts from his view. ‘It seems that no one is in when the conversation topic is fraud. At least being in the jungle should give me a crash course in dealing with predators. Obviously, I need it.’