by Sarah Morgan
‘I think I ought to concentrate on sorting out the mess I’ve made of the business I’ve got,’ she croaked, ‘without taking on any more responsibility.’
‘There is no mess and it is sorted out. The dealer is no longer in business.’
‘Seriously?’ Grace was visibly startled by that piece of information, her eyes widening. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I’m the one who helped persuade him that seeking an alternative form of employment as an immediate priority would be advisable for his general health,’ Rafael drawled, his tone leaving her with the distinct impression that the dealer was probably now an extremely unhappy man. ‘Which just leaves my father.’
‘Indeed.’ Rafael sat back in his chair. ‘I still have to deal with him, but everything else is sorted out. The guy now in charge of your finances is clever and approachable. You can ask him anything. And if he shoots one impatient glance in your direction then tell me and I will fire him.’
Touched by the sentiment behind his characteristically arrogant statement, she smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘He’ll sort out the purchase of your coffee.’
‘I had a couple of ideas about that.’
‘Go on.’
‘I want to stop going through a third party and deal directly with Carlos and Filomena at the fazenda, so that the money goes directly to them. I’m going to deal with them myself so that I build a relationship. That way, if there are any problems with production then I’m the first to know and if they have any concerns with the way I’m doing business, they can tell me.’
‘All right.’
Suddenly horribly self-conscious and not really understanding why, she stood up and paced across the room. ‘I’m going to donate a percentage of our profits to a charity protecting the rainforest. I know that means lowering our profit,’ she said quickly, ‘but the move isn’t entirely altruistic. These days many consumers have a conscience so I think they’ll like the idea that the coffee they drink supports the rainforest. And perhaps we can use our photo boards to show them exactly what their money is supporting.’
There was a long silence. ‘Why do you always walk around when you’re nervous? You did it on that first day when you were trying to persuade me to extend your loan.’
‘I just find sitting still too stressful. Maybe it reminds me of school. So what do you think?’
‘About your charity donation?’ He gave a tolerant smile. ‘I think you’ll never be a billionaire if you’re prepared to throw away money so flagrantly but that doesn’t matter because I have enough money for both of us.’
Her smile faded. ‘I don’t want your money.’
‘I’m starting to realise that.’ He leaned forward, a hint of wry humour in his eyes. ‘You’re the first woman who has never expected me to give her anything.’
‘You’ve given me loads,’ she muttered. ‘You’ve sat and helped me understand numbers, which is something that no one else has ever bothered to do. You were amazingly patient with me and you went over it again and again without once sounding irritated or annoyed. And you’ve sorted out the dealer for me and I would have hated doing that because it’s so easy for people to tie me in knots.’
‘I was talking about money.’
‘Yes.’ She gave a slight frown. ‘Well, money isn’t always what’s important, is it?’
‘Maybe not. You’re a very unusual woman.’ His lingering gaze unsettled her and she moved from one foot to the other.
‘You mean because I can’t add up?’
‘No, I don’t mean that.’ He rose to his feet and strode across to her, laughter in his eyes. ‘I really couldn’t care less whether you can add up and I’ve had enough of talking about your business, numbers and your father. We’ve just about got time for a swim before Maria serves dinner.’
They walked down the path and Grace stopped as she saw the bright red ribbon tied to the trees. ‘What are those for?’
‘You,’ Rafael said gruffly, urging her along. ‘I instructed my staff to mark the path to the pool so that there’s no chance you can get lost again. You follow the ribbons.’
The lump built in her throat. ‘You did that for me?’
He looked at her for a moment and then shrugged. ‘It seemed less trouble than tracking you through the rainforest.’
But even his casual answer wasn’t enough to dampen the happiness inside her. He’d thought about what she needed. About what might help her.
The pool was deliciously cool and refreshing and Grace slid into the water with an appreciative moan. ‘I wish I could transport this pool back to London with me.’
‘Why would you need to do that?’ In a series of swift movements, Rafael removed all his clothes and stood for a moment, watching her, completely unselfconscious.
Confronted by such a blatant display of potent masculinity, she felt her cheeks heat. ‘Because I love it.’
‘Then stay in the rainforest.’ With a shrug that indicated that he considered the problem solved, Rafael plunged head first into the water in a smooth, athletic dive.
She gave a gasp of shock as he surfaced right next to her. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes.
‘There are all sorts of potentially lethal predators in this pool, minha paixao,‘ he said huskily, sliding his hand behind her back and urging her against his hard, powerful body. ‘You need to be careful.’
Engulfed by a sexual excitement that shocked her, she pushed against him and lifted her mouth to his. ‘Is that right?’
It was crazy to allow herself to become this involved with him, but how could she stop herself? It was as if her mind and her body were outside her control and she gave a low moan of encouragement as she felt his hands slide down her body, removing her costume in the process. In a matter of seconds she was naked but she didn’t even care because all she could think about was what he did to her.
‘Rafael …’ She moaned his name against the slick muscle of his shoulder and felt the hot, hard throb of his arousal brush against her.
He clamped a hand behind her head and captured her mouth, his tongue creating an explosion of sensations that sent her whole body into meltdown.
She wriggled and writhed against him in an attempt to get closer still, her body slippery and lithe in the water, and she heard him mutter something in Portuguese and then he held her firmly and entered her with a smooth, sliding thrust.
The contrast between the cool of the pool and the incredible, pulsing heat of his body made her cry out and her head fell backwards, her hair trailing in the water as he thrust into her with a rhythm so exquisitely perfect that she almost immediately lost control. Her body exploded around his and she heard his answering groan and felt the sudden increase in masculine thrust that heralded his own completion.
Drained, sated and more than a little dazed, Grace closed her eyes and clung to his wide shoulders, relieved that he was still holding her, otherwise she had a strong suspicion that she would have drowned and died happy.
‘Not leaving Brazil any time soon,’ he purred, stroking her damp hair away from her face with a gentle hand.
Barely able to focus, she opened her eyes and looked at him. Did he care about her? Surely he had to care in order to respond like that? And he’d changed towards her, she felt it. He’d softened in his attitude. They shared a bond that wasn’t just sexual.
Did they, just possibly, have some sort of future?
Watching Grace sip cautiously at a glass of wine, Rafael wondered why it was that everything about her fascinated him.
And why, he wondered with a faint frown, had repeated sex done nothing to dampen his ravenous libido?
He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he just might be addicted to Grace Thacker’s incredibly lithe, seductive body.
He noticed the faint shadows under her eyes with a frown. ‘You’re tired?’
‘A little.’ She put her glass down and picked up her fork, taking a small mouthful of the dish that Maria had put in fron
t of her. ‘More worried than tired, if I’m honest.’
‘Worried?’ Discovering that he absolutely didn’t want her to feel worried, Rafael leaned forward. ‘What’s worrying you? Tell me and I’ll solve the problem.’
‘My father.’
‘I’ll deal with him.’
‘I don’t want you to. It isn’t your problem. And it isn’t the thought of dealing with him that bothers me. It’s everything else.’ She toyed with her food. ‘I suppose I’m just very upset.’
‘Why? Your business is going to be fine.’
‘But it isn’t just about the business, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’ Rafael stared at her blankly, trying to see what he’d missed, and she gave a twisted smile.
‘This is going to sound really crazy but I feel as though I’ve lost my father.’ She swallowed. ‘And I know it’s mad to feel that way because obviously he’s never cared about me but that’s a really hard thing to accept. I’ve spent my entire life trying to please him and make him proud of me but it’s obvious that my father didn’t ever want me to succeed. That’s pretty hard to take.’
‘Why?’ He frowned at her. ‘That says everything about your father and nothing about you.’
‘I know that’s the theory,’ she said in a small voice, poking at the food on her plate, ‘but it isn’t that easy in practise.’
Rafael sighed. ‘Having children is a massive responsibility which the majority of people get hideously wrong,’ he said in his usual cynical drawl. ‘Which just goes to show that you should never put your faith in people. Better to rely on yourself.’
‘And I do. I always have done.’ Her eyes slid away from his. ‘But what sort of life is it, without love?’
‘A simple one?’ Seriously disconcerted by the direction of the conversation, Rafael reached across the table and piled some food on her plate, noting that she didn’t eat anywhere near enough. ‘Forget it, now. You need to toughen up and learn to be less trusting.’
‘Don’t give me any more.’ she held up a hand to stop him filling her plate ‘.I’m not really hungry. And I’m not sure that I really want to toughen up. I don’t really want to live the sort of life where I don’t feel anything.’
‘Believe me, it’s much simpler that way,’ Rafael assured her and she lifted her eyes to his.
‘Did she really hurt you? Your ex-wife?’
Everything about him tensed in an instinctive rejection of her intimate question but then he told himself that a short reminder of other people’s failings might help her build that shell she so badly needed. ‘No. She didn’t hurt me.’ It was a long time since he’d let a woman hurt him but he had no intention of revealing that much about himself.
‘Were you in love with her?’
Sliding his mind back into the present, he raised an eyebrow in silent mockery. ‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I know you claim not to believe in love, but you did marry her. And your reputation is for avoiding commitment so there must have been a reason.’
‘There was a reason.’ Emotion, dark and deadly, rushed towards him and he forced it away. ‘She told me that she was pregnant.’
‘Oh.’ She put her fork down on her plate. ‘You married her for that reason?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what happened? Or would you rather not talk about it? I mean, I know you don’t have a child so.’ she hesitated, stumbling over the words, clearly anxious to protect his feelings ‘… if it makes you sad then let’s change the subject. I’m so sorry. I should never have asked.’
‘I’m not sitting here pining, Grace.’ His tone was rougher than he’d intended. ‘There was no baby.’
Her eyes misted. ‘She lost it?’
He studied her with a mixture of disbelief and fascination. Her emotions were so incredibly close to the surface. Everything she felt was reflected on her face. She was designed to go through life being severely bruised.
‘There was never a baby to lose.’ His tone was harsher than he intended and his knuckles whitened on his wine glass. Forcing himself to slacken his grip, he studied her shocked face with a faint smile. ‘So you see, Grace Thacker, even the most cynical of us can be duped.’
‘She lied to you in order to persuade you to marry her?’ Her eyes were bright with sympathy and something much, much softer that flowed over his ragged nerve-endings and soothed like a balm. ‘She loved you that much?’
Rapidly coming to the conclusion that Grace Thacker’s mind worked in a completely different way from the rest of the population’s, Rafael felt his muscles clench. ‘She didn’t love me at all.’
‘But if she—’
‘Being married to a billionaire comes with certain compensations,’ Rafael drawled lightly, resigning himself to the reality of pointing out what, to him, was totally obvious, ‘not least of all a guaranteed income for life.’
‘You think she married you for your money?’
‘I know that she married me for my money.’ He watched her across the table. Was she really that naïve? ‘What else?’
‘Is that all you think you have to offer a woman? Money?’ She sounded genuinely shocked and he heard the bitterness in his laugh.
‘No. Apparently I excel in the bedroom, as well.’ He watched as the colour bloomed in her cheeks. ‘After I ended the relationship and gave her the settlement she’d worked so hard for, she was keen to make it really clear that she was more than prepared to continue with that element of our relationship. After she’d sold her story to the tabloids, of course.’
‘She talked to the papers—’
‘They all talk to the papers,’ Rafael said, not even bothering to keep the bitterness out of his tone. ‘It’s another lucrative source of income for my ex-girlfriends and my ex-wife. I suppose you could call it lateral thinking. Once they’ve finished fleecing me in person, they carry on milking the relationship in print.’
There was a moment of silence and then she put her fork down, apparently giving up on her food. ‘Well—’ her tone was deceptively light ‘—your ex-wife sounds like a very special person. Perhaps we should introduce her to my father. At least they’d understand each other. But that was just one relationship, Rafael. Haven’t you ever been tempted to try again?’
‘Marriage, no. Sex—’ he raised his glass towards her ‘—yes. Quite frequently actually.’
She blushed sweetly. ‘Well, I know that you’ve been very busy in that department, according to the papers, anyway. But I wasn’t really talking about sex or marriage. I was talking about love.’
‘Don’t talk to me about love, Grace. Don’t ever talk to me about love.’ He watched her flinch. ‘All relationships are based on mutual greed. One person has what another person wants.’
‘Not everyone is like your ex-wife.’
‘The world is full of people like my ex-wife.’
‘Do you truly believe that?’ Her voice was suddenly spirited and her eyes flashed with something that came close to annoyance.
‘You’re an incredibly intelligent man. Are you really going to let a few greedy girlfriends ruin your view of women?’ Not just a few greedy girlfriends.
Something dark and uncomfortable churned inside him and he tensed as he was forced to contemplate the murky depths of his soul that he so rigorously ignored.
Finding himself on the receiving end of her faintly accusing blue gaze, he was suddenly tempted to reveal all those things about himself that he kept hidden, just to reinstate himself in her good books. Shaken by the powerful and uncharacteristic urge to confide when confiding was as alien to him as running a business by consensus, he clamped his mouth shut.
And why did he care what she thought of him when the good opinion of others was a matter of complete indifference to him?
He suddenly realised that she was staring at him again and something powerful throbbed between them. Refusing to be drawn into something more than physical intimacy, he gave a faint smile.
‘What was the questio
n again? Am I going to let a few greedy girlfriends affect my view of the whole human race? The answer is yes, Grace.’ He raised his glass in her direction, unable to keep the mockery out of his gaze. ‘I think I probably am. And don’t feel sorry for me because I’m as bad as they are. I keep women around for as long as they’re useful to me. Perhaps you’d better remember that and run while you can.’
Her lips parted and he saw her breathing quicken. ‘I’m not running anywhere. And I think you’re completely wrong about who you are. There’s so much more to you than that.’
She was such a ridiculous optimist, he thought savagely, and it was no wonder she’d been so hurt in her life when she laboured so hard to find good in people.
‘No, Grace, there isn’t. Why do you think I choose to spend a large amount of my time in the rainforest?’
‘Well it’s very beautiful and if I had a place like this I’d never go near a city—’ She broke off and sighed. ‘I’m trying to understand you …’
And she would try, of course, because Grace Thacker was a woman who had to get under everyone’s skin. ‘I don’t require you to understand me. I thought I’d made that clear.’
‘But I do understand, well, part of it, at least. You’ve never met anyone who just wanted you for yourself. For who you are. And I know the feeling because I haven’t either. Not that I exactly worry about someone wanting me for my money.’ she let out a long breath and smiled. ‘I suppose it’s easier for me.’
‘It’s easy for me too,’ he said softly, watching her face. ‘I just set my expectations accordingly. And you need to do the same. Just use people for what they can give you.’
She hesitated for a moment and then she straightened her shoulders. ‘I can’t do that. No matter what happens in life, you can’t really change the person you are, can you? All my life I’ve wanted to be loved the way I am. All my life I struggled to please people—my teachers, my father—but it never worked. I’ve just disappointed people. They get impatient and frustrated with me. Do you want to know something funny?’