His Reluctant Cinderella

by Jessica Gilmore

  And, oh, how she wanted to believe him. She didn’t mean to move but somehow she was moving forward, allowing herself to lean in, rest her head against the broad shoulders, allowing those strong arms to encircle her, pull her close as the desperate sobs finally overwhelmed her, muffled against his jacket. And he didn’t move, just held her tight, let her cry it all out. For as long as she needed to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘YOU LOOK...’ RAFF CAME to a nonplussed stop, trying to find a word, any word, that did Clara justice. It didn’t exist.

  ‘Beautiful?’ Clara supplied for him. That wasn’t the word; it wasn’t enough by any measure. ‘I hope so. I’ve spent all day being prodded, plucked and anointed. If I don’t look halfway decent at this exact moment in time then there is no hope.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘You’re somewhere past halfway.’

  The truth was that at the sight of her all the breath whooshed out of his body; in a room full of glitter she shone the brightest. In the end she had eschewed all the designer dresses Rafferty’s had to offer and had opted for a vintage dress that had belonged to her great-grandmother, a ballerina-length full-skirted black silk with a deceptively demure neckline, although it plunged more daringly at the back, exposing a deep vee of creamy skin.

  Raff immediately vowed that nobody else would dance with Clara that evening, no other man would be able to put his hand on that bare back, feel the silk of her skin.

  ‘You scrub up nicely as well,’ she assured him.

  Raff pulled at his bow tie. He’d owned a tux since his teens but he still felt as if he were dressing up as James Bond.

  Or a waiter.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘Not about the presentation, more how Grandfather will take it. How is he?’

  ‘He’s here.’ She pulled an expressive face. Her relationship with Raff’s grandfather had thawed a little; he was at least polite. But although she told Raff—and herself—that his initial rebuff didn’t worry her, she wasn’t being entirely honest. It was all too reminiscent of Archibald Drewe’s treatment of her, an uneasy and constant reminder of her mistakes.

  ‘Grumpy that he has a special diet and can only drink water but happy he’s away from that damned TV and fool nurse. His words not mine.’

  ‘I bet he’s glad to be talking work as well.’ Raff had mingled business with business and invited some of Rafferty’s key suppliers and associates to fill the table he had paid for. It was odd seeing his two very different worlds colliding in this rarefied atmosphere of luxury and wealth.

  Opting for something a little unusual, Doctors Everywhere were holding the event in a private garden belonging to the privileged residents of a west London square.

  ‘It’s amazing, like a fairy tale.’ Clara was looking out at the candlelit gardens, her green eyes shining. Watching the lights play on her hair and face, Raff could only agree.

  ‘We have some very generous—and very rich—patrons,’ he said, trying to drag his thoughts back to the business at hand. ‘I hadn’t even thought about this side of our work. I spend the money, not raise it. I need to talk to Grandfather about allowing them to use Rafferty’s for something in the future. We could certainly donate food and staff or raffle prizes.’

  And the people he knew could give even more. Helping with the last stages of the fundraiser had been an eye-opener, just not a particularly welcome one.

  Raff knew he did a good job out in the field, but anyone with a good grasp of electrics, mechanics and project management could do that. He had other uses that were far more unique: entrée into some of England’s richest and most influential echelons and, although he himself didn’t value those connections, he knew that no charity could run on good intentions alone. Ensuring the donations came in was a vital role.

  But would it be as satisfying? Or would it be a gilded cage just like the one he was working so hard to escape from?

  ‘Is everything set up?’ Clara was as cool and collected as ever, on the surface at least, but when he took her arm he felt the telltale tremble.

  ‘Ready to go,’ he promised her. ‘My mission tonight is to get all these people to remember why they’re here and part with as much money as possible.’

  And throw the gauntlet down. Show his grandfather that this was where he belonged—and this was where he was staying, no matter what. Only he didn’t feel the same burning need to get back out into the field. It helped, of course, that he had been helping to set up the fundraiser, interacting with colleagues, seeing a new side of the charity’s work. But it was more than that.

  Clara. Everything he didn’t want or need in his life. She needed stability and commitment and a father for her daughter, not a travelling jack of all trades whose idea of a perfect day with family meant a day by himself. And yet, and yet...

  Somehow she had got under his skin. More than attraction, more than lust. He respected her, admired her strength—but it was those glimpses of carefully hidden vulnerability that really hooked him in. He knew how much she hid it, despised any display of weakness. But she had trusted him enough to lean on him, cry on him, allow him to shoulder her burdens for a short time.

  From Clara that was a rare and precious gift. But was he worthy? And was he capable of accepting all that she had to offer?

  * * *

  ‘They certainly do a lot of good.’ Raff’s grandfather had been slowly softening throughout the evening, his initial scepticism disappearing when he saw his table companions and the carefully prepared meal that had been specially provided for him. If he still cast a longing look or two at the bottles of very expensive wine that littered the table, he had at least stopped complaining and was sipping the despised mineral water with martyred compliance.

  ‘I had no idea about the sheer scale of their work,’ Clara agreed. ‘Nor just how desperate things can be. I’ll never complain about waiting for a doctor’s appointment again.’

  Raff and his colleagues spent their lives making sure that people all over the globe, people who lived in poverty, who had fled their homes, who had seen their world turned into warzones still had access to medicine, to doctors. To hope.

  He could have taken the easy option, the job provided for him, the family money, enjoyed all that London had to offer the young and the rich. In a way she wished he had; it would be so easy to keep her distance from that man. Much harder to stay away from the man sitting next to her, even though there was no way there could ever be any kind of happy ever after between them.

  But in the few days since the meeting with Byron something had changed. They were easier with each other, more intimate. Hands brushed, lingered, eyes met, held. Nothing had happened, not again, but the promise of it hung seductively over them.

  Butterflies tumbled around her stomach, a warm tingle spreading through her at the thought.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Raff finally managed to gracefully extricate himself from the conversation he was embroiled in. ‘I’ve been neglecting you all evening.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ After all, she was being paid for her time.

  Not that Clara felt she could charge a penny for tonight; she would ask Raff to donate her fee back to the charity.

  Raff pulled a face. ‘I’d much rather be talking to you, but I have been promising myself that as soon as the dancing starts I am all yours.’ His eyes were full of promise and a shiver ran through her despite the heat in the overcrowded room.

  ‘You didn’t say anything about dancing,’ Clara protested. ‘I can barely walk in these heels, let alone dance.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ His expression was pure wicked intent. ‘I won’t let you fall.’

  ‘You better not. When are you on?’

  ‘In a few minutes. Wish me luck?’

  Clara put one hand on his cheek, allowing he
rself the luxury of touch, rubbing her palm along the rough stubble. ‘Good luck,’ but she knew he didn’t need it. If he managed to get one hundredth of his charm across then he would have the guests clamouring to outbid each other.

  The presentations had been spread out throughout the evening. A welcome speech before canapés, then, after the starters, two of the nurses gave an evocative talk that brought their exciting, dangerous and very necessary work alive. A surgeon’s visceral yet compelling description of the challenges she faced was an uneasy filler between the main course and pudding.

  No one else seemed to notice the incongruity between their surroundings, with the conspicuous display of wealth and luxury, and the poverty and need so eloquently conveyed. Clara saw women wiping tears, the diamonds on their hands and wrists worth more than the total the charity was trying to raise.

  ‘We need to make sure everyone is suitably worked up before the auction,’ Raff whispered. ‘They’ll all be well fed and watered. We want them to go home with their consciences as sated as their stomachs!’

  Just the nearness of him, though he was barely touching her, that lightest of contact, sent tremors rippling up and down her body. For so long she had been shut away in a box of her own design, not allowing herself to do or to feel. Constraining herself to the narrowest of lives. And it had worked. She hadn’t been hurt, hadn’t messed up.

  But she hadn’t felt either. Hadn’t felt this bitter-sweetness ache. That awareness that overtook everything so that all she could see was him; she could feel nothing but his breath on her cheek, sending waves of need shuddering through her.

  Clara took a deep breath, trying to regulate her hammering pulse, remember where they were, what he was about to do. ‘So it’s up to you to seal the deal?’

  He grimaced. ‘I wish they’d put me on first. Logistics isn’t exactly the sexiest subject. They’ll be eying up the petits fours and coffee and be in a post-dinner slump by the time the auction comes around.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Clara reached for his hand and squeezed it, trying to quell the absurd jump every nerve gave as her fingers tangled with his. ‘If anybody can make logistics fascinating, you can. Go get them.’

  Raff turned and looked at her and for one long moment the tent fell away, the people fading away to nothing but a murmuring backdrop to the scorching intensity of his gaze. ‘You think?’

  ‘I do.’ And she did. This was a new side to the confident, nonchalant playboy—but then wasn’t that playboy just a façade? A mask he wore well but a mask nonetheless. And the more Clara saw the passionate, principled man behind it, the more she wanted to retreat, to run away.

  She’d thought playboys were her downfall. She’d been wrong. She had survived Byron, left him with her head held high and her heart only slightly cracked. But a man who cared, a man who carried the weight of the world on his broad shoulders? That was a far scarier prospect.

  ‘I think you can do anything,’ she said. ‘Including make every person here spend three times more than they budgeted for.’

  ‘That’s my aim.’ The words were jokey but his face was deadly serious. ‘Ready to clap nice and loudly?’

  ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I give you a good reference.’

  Was it her imagination or did disappointment pass fleetingly over his face at her words? That would be ridiculous, Clara told herself sternly. They both knew what this was. This was a business arrangement. A glitzy, intimate contract maybe but a contract nonetheless. Money was changing hands, favours were being done. That was all.

  ‘Okay, then.’ And he was gone, the eyes of half the women in the room following the tall figure as he strode across the marquee.

  Clara sank back in her chair, an unaccountable feeling of melancholy passing over her. What had he wanted her to say? She didn’t know; she was no good at this. Had swapped flirting for nappies and never quite got her groove back.

  ‘This means a lot to him.’

  She jumped. For a moment she’d forgotten where she was, that she was surrounded by people. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Charles Rafferty was looking up at the stage where his grandson stood, talking to the computer technician. Raff was relaxed, laughing, totally at home.

  ‘I knew he had this ridiculous hankering to be a doctor—it was because of his father’s illness, of course, that’s why I persuaded him to switch to business; besides, I needed him. But his heart was never in it. When he said he was off to work for these people I thought that a bit of time and freedom would sort him out. That he’d come back to me.’

  She had no idea what to say.

  Raff was responsible for people’s lives every day. He didn’t cut them open, administer the medicine, nurse them, but he made that possible. He worked in impossible conditions in impossible countries for an impossibly tiny wage.

  And he loved it. It was good that his grandfather was seeing that, acknowledging it.

  ‘He doesn’t want to let you down,’ she said, aware what a lame response it was.

  ‘No.’ The older man looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in the weeks since they had met. And for once there was no trace of a sneer on his face. Just hollow loss. ‘He’s aware of his family responsibilities. I made sure of that. He was only eight when his father had the stroke, when it was obvious his father would never recover. Only eight when I anointed him as my heir.’

  ‘And Polly?’ Okay, she was going beyond anywhere she had any right to go. But Polly was her friend. And Raff? He meant something to her, something a little like friendship.

  ‘Polly?’ He shook his head. ‘I made a mess of it, didn’t I? I inherited the company from my father and groomed my son to take my place with Castor waiting in the wings. It didn’t even occur to me that he might not want it—or that Polly did.’

  ‘Look, he’s ready.’ Raff had stepped up onto the temporary stage and was gesturing for quiet. He dominated the marquee, tall, imposing, his sheer force of will stopping the chatter as people turned to listen. ‘I’m sure you’ll work it out,’ she said quietly as the main light dimmed, leaving just one spotlight trained directly onto Raff.

  The silence was expectant. Clara was aware of nothing but the ache of anticipation twisting her stomach. Do well, she urged him silently. Make them see. Looking at her hands, she was surprised to see her nails digging into her palms. She didn’t feel any pain but when she unfurled her hands there were crescent marks embedded in the soft skin. When had he started to matter so much? When had she begun to care?

  It wasn’t just because she had helped him, gone over the presentation over and over until it made no sense to either of them.

  ‘I know you are all ready for your coffees.’ Raff hadn’t raised his voice at all yet every syllable carried to every corner. ‘And listening to me talk about project management isn’t going to raise your heart rate the way my very talented colleagues did. I have watched them perform surgeries, vaccinate children and deliver babies in every kind of condition you can think of—and I was still blown away by their talks earlier. So no, I can’t compete with them. My job now, as in the field, is to enable their work. And this, ladies and gentleman, is how I do it.’

  He raised a hand and pressed a button and immediately the room was filled with the sound of drums building up into a crescendo as the screen behind him burst into life.

  Raff had elected not to go for a talk and slides, knowing that the previous presentations would be using photos to great effect. Instead he had put together a video, a montage of photos and film showing a ‘typical’ day in his life, backdropped by fast, evocative music. The film started by panning around a small dorm room, ending in a different if similar room, and took in five different clinics and hospitals, two camps and four temporary clinics during the ten-minute show.

  Raff was shown sitting in an office wit
h paperwork piled on top of a crowded desk, spanner in hand, eying up a battered old truck, in a helicopter, setting up a tent, fixing a tap, spade in hand digging a pit, playing volleyball outside a tent, watching a spectacular desert sunset.

  But the main focus of the film was the patients and people using the facilities he built, repaired and managed.

  As the camera lingered on a queue of women waiting patiently to vaccinate their children, he spoke. ‘We need running water, toilets, moving vehicles, electricity, satellite connections, working kitchens, working sterilisers for the most basic of our clinics. The hospitals are a whole other level. It all needs to be brought in on budget and just to add to my woes our staff and volunteers quite like to be fed, have somewhere to sleep and the chance to get to the nearest city to enjoy their time off. It’s exhausting, often sweaty and dirty, and involves spreadsheets, but on the rare occasion when everything is working I can stand back and I see this.’

  Another image flashed up and stayed there. A small boy beaming at the camera, one leg wrapped in bandages, his arm encased in plaster. ‘I see children with a future, families kept together, mothers who will live to watch their children grow up. I see hope.

  ‘Thanks to you we will be able to keep vaccinating, operating, delivering and curing. Your generous donations mean that children, just like Matthew here, have a future. Thank you. I’m now going to give you the opportunity to show just how generous you can be. There are some fabulous prizes in our auction. Dig deep, dig hard and bid as high as you can.’

  The spotlight dimmed and the house lights were switched back on as the room erupted into applause. People were on their feet congratulating Raff as he walked around the room.

  ‘That was different,’ Charles Rafferty said drily. But, Clara noted, his eyes were moist.

  ‘It was good, wasn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘Luckily Raff blogs a lot when he’s out in the field and often embeds video or pictures so he had a lot of footage he could use.’