by Lynne Graham
‘Who said anything about two weeks? We can leave the room like this and you can come whenever you want—stay as long as you like when you are pregnant. It’s beautiful here in the springtime.’ Catching the look on Lottie’s face, he narrowed his eyes. ‘All pregnancy-friendly paints and solvents—I’ve checked.’
If only it was just the paint that was troubling her. Far more worrying was the way he was insidiously starting to control her life, beginning to manipulate her, make decisions about her future without even consulting her.
And more worrying still was the way her body had soared with excitement at the ridiculously misguided idea that he might be taking her to bed.
‘We don’t know if I am pregnant yet, Rafael.’ Cross with herself, and determined to exert some control of her own, she knew the words sounded harsher than she felt. Moving in front of the window, she planted her bare feet firmly on the floor, yanked the belt of her dressing gown tighter. ‘And even if I am, I’d like to remind you that nothing has been decided yet. I have no idea why you are assuming I will be living here.’
‘Well, not necessarily here...’
‘I mean here as in Monterrato. I do have a life of my own, you know—a flat, friends, a job.’
That last bit wasn’t strictly true, of course. In fact it wasn’t true at all. One final phone call from Ibrahim had seen to that. He had been predictably furious that she hadn’t obeyed his instructions and been back at work within the week, and somewhere in amongst the shouted tirade she gathered she had been fired.
But funnily enough all she had felt was relief. Her twelve months at the Ibrahim Gallery had become increasingly strained as Ibrahim, a well-known and respected art dealer, had pushed the boundaries of their working relationship further and further. ‘Meeting clients’ had increasingly involved briefing sessions in a wine bar first, followed by dark taxi rides with him leeringly spreading himself across the leather seat towards her, the sour smell of whisky on his breath. She had made it very clear on more than one occasion that she would certainly not be going back to his place for any debriefing.
In retrospect, telling him exactly where he could stick his installations might not have been the wisest of moves—especially as his parting shot had been that she would never work in the art world again. Which was probably true. He was vindictive enough to see to that. But she would find something else somehow. She knew that much. She had started over before, and refused to be afraid of the prospect now.
The more pressing problem at the moment was the toweringly dark man staring at her from across the room. Staring at her with such intensity, such heart-racing, piercing concentration, that Lottie could feel it drilling through to her core, where it heated her from the inside with its seductive power.
‘I’m sure there is nothing that can’t be put on hold.’
The spell was broken and Rafael’s bluntly dismissive words brought Lottie back to her senses, her heart-rate spiking with indignation. Why did he always assume that her life was unimportant?
‘Once we know for sure that you are pregnant obviously the sensible thing will be for you to stay at Monterrato.’
‘Well, your definition of “obvious” is obviously not the same as mine.’ She stumbled over her tongue-tied sentence. ‘What I am saying is, if I am pregnant there is no reason for me not to return to England at least until the baby is due.’
‘No, Lottie.’ His voice was calm and even, like water just before it cascaded over a hundred-metre drop. ‘That is not how this is going to work. When we know for sure that you are pregnant you will be staying at Monterrato. For the whole of your pregnancy.’
The air between then hummed with tension.
‘I think I need to point out one very important thing.’ Pushing back her shoulders, Lottie placed her hands firmly on her hips. ‘I have agreed to try for this baby, Rafael, not given you the right to control my life. You might do well to remember that.’
Dio! Rafael was having trouble remembering anything at the moment. She obviously had no idea, but standing in front of the window in that damned dressing gown Lottie was giving him a perfect silhouette of her body. He had tried not to notice, to look away, but the outline of her waist, the curve of her hips, her long, shapely legs, kept drawing him back. And now she had gone and thrust forward her breasts to taunt him still further.
‘You need to get some clothes on.’
He saw Lottie frown at him. At the gruffness of his voice. At the abrupt change of conversation. He knew he had to get away—away from the physical ache of sexual hunger that Lottie stirred in him.
Striding towards the door, he turned and gave her one last glance over his shoulder before marching back down the stairs.
He was heading for the study, but changed his mind. First he needed to do something physical—burn off some of the excess energy that was suddenly pumping through him. The next flight of stairs took him down to the basement, to the gymnasium and indoor pool. Flicking on the lights of the gym, he went over to the dumbbells, picked them up. The weight of them was comforting as he started to flex his muscles. A good workout—that was what he needed, to start getting his body back to the peak of fitness.
He stopped, one dumbbell suspended in the air. Fitness be damned. He snorted at his own deception. Who was he kidding? He needed a workout to rid himself of the image of Lottie and the immediate visceral effect that she had on him.
If he was going to have to put up with much of that temptation over the next two weeks he was going to be spending a lot of time in the gym.
* * *
Pressing down on the meat in the frying pan, Lottie watched as blood oozed out. She liked her steak charred to a cinder; Rafael liked his rare. Even trying to co-ordinate the food they ate seemed like a struggle.
These past few days at Villa Varenna had been awful, excruciating. Like actors in a play, she and Rafael had moved around this beautiful stage, moved around each other, oscillating between angry disagreement and unnatural politeness and restraint, their wariness of the situation, of the fragility of the arrangement, both painfully obvious and carefully concealed.
Three days in and counting. Lottie seriously wondered how they were going to survive two whole weeks. It wasn’t just the pregnancy issue—though Lord knew that filled her mind every waking minute, seeped into her dreams at night. Mentally she veered erratically between exhilaration and desperation, depending on which imagined outcome had gripped her in its talons at the time.
The hardest part was simply being around Rafael, sharing the same space as him, realising the way he could still make her feel—the way she knew deep down that she had always felt. The two years of separation, the countless lectures she had given herself, were all washed away on a tide of longing when she was presented with him again in the flesh.
The beautiful, haughty, honed and hard-edged flesh that was Rafael.
Over the hiss of the pan she could hear him moving about in the next room, then music coming through the sound system above her head. Opera. La Traviata—sad and Italian. What was he trying to do to her?
‘Ready yet?’ Rafael strode restlessly into the room, wearing black jeans and a loose black shirt with the sleeves rolled up in his casual, infuriatingly handsome way.
‘Nearly.’ Lottie flipped over her steak. ‘Can’t we have something a bit more cheerful?’ She indicted the music with a pained tilt of the head.
He disappeared again and there was a brief silence before Johnny Cash and his burning ring of fire started up.
‘I thought this would go with your steak.’ He was behind her now, looking over her shoulder. ‘Or what’s left of it. Is this one mine?’ He indicated the plate beside the hob.
‘Yes.’ She shifted her position to block his view. ‘It’s resting.’
‘Right.’ Reaching over her to pick up the plate, he viewed it suspiciously.
The ensuing silence was enough to make Lottie spin round with the fish slice in her hand. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘No, di certo—absolutely not. Shall I take the salad through?’
They had taken to eating at the small table by the bay window of the sitting room. The views of the lake were a useful distraction from the inadequacies of the food, not to mention the inadequacies of their conversation. None of the big issues had been broached by either of them since their disagreement in the studio yesterday, and the practicalities of what would happen if Lottie was actually pregnant were being avoided like a minefield in a war zone.
For her part, Lottie had decided there was no point in getting into another argument with Rafael about something that might never happen. She had no intention of making this enforced captivity any more excruciating than it already was.
‘How has the painting gone today?’ Cutting into his steak, Rafael raised his fork to his mouth and his all-seeing gaze to her face.
‘Good.’ Lottie felt the familiar clench in her stomach at the sight of him. She struggled with an awkward mouthful of salad. ‘I’m only doing small studies at the moment; I’m hoping I can scale them up to a bigger painting.’ She paused as she caught the look in his eyes. ‘That’s if I’m here long enough, I mean.’
Rafael’s jaw clenched but he said nothing.
‘Trying to catch the light on the water is incredibly difficult.’ She hurried on to avoid that particular quagmire. ‘Just when I think I am getting somewhere I look up again and it’s all changed.’
‘A bit like life, really.’ Rafael coldly turned his attention back to his meal.
Lottie looked down at hers.
‘Had you been doing much painting since...since we last saw each other?’
Lottie noted his tactful turn of phrase, and his voice was even, but it was belied by the tautness of his body, as if he was holding back the desire to jump on his chair and scream Since you walked out on me.
‘Um, no, not really. I’ve not had much time, what with a full-time job and everything.’ She chased a cherry tomato round her plate. ‘I’ve kept up my drawing, though. In fact I’ve been doing a lot of sketches—you know, just for friends... portraits, treasured pets, that sort of thing.’
‘I’m glad you have been using your talent. So, this job of yours...’
Laying his knife and fork down, Rafael steepled his fingers over his plate and fixed her with his most piercing gaze. Lottie braced herself for an interrogation, immediately on the defensive.
‘Tell me how it is, working for a guy like Ibrahim?’
‘It’s okay.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘The job is well paid.’ Was well paid, she thought silently.
‘And what exactly does he expect for his money?’
‘What are you suggesting, Rafael?’ Her eyes flashed dangerously.
‘I’m not suggesting anything.’
‘Good, because if you were it would be deeply insulting.’
‘I’m simply trying to understand why you would flatly refuse a settlement from me in favour of working for a jerk like him.’ His lack of understanding was all too evident in the jut of his jaw. ‘If you needed money you only had to ask.’
Lottie thought back to the obscene amount of money she had been offered by his solicitors a few months after she had left him. She’d rejected it without a second thought. It had felt as if he was buying her off: goodbye and good riddance.
‘And I can’t understand why you can’t see that I want to be independent.’
‘Of course. How foolish of me to keep forgetting that.’ His voice was laced with sarcasm. ‘So, tell me—how does this independence feel, being at the beck and call of that slimy bastard?’
‘Better than being a kept woman.’ Lottie glared back at him. ‘And besides, I am not at his beck and call. I am perfectly capable of handling someone like Ibrahim. I can take care of myself.’
Rafael let his gaze rake over the feisty young woman before him and realised that she was probably right—she could take care of herself. She was no longer the innocent twenty-one-year-old he had fallen in love with but someone who, despite her delicate appearance, had the maturity to go with her fiery spirit, to cope with whatever life threw at her. Not that his protective instinct would ever go completely. He knew that despite everything he would still leap in front of a flying bullet for her without a second thought.
‘I’m not worried.’
‘Good.’ Lottie chewed at her lip, very much hoping that was the end of that particular conversation.
‘Especially as I know you no longer work for him.’ The dark brows were raised infuriatingly.
‘You know?’ Lottie felt her blood pressure soar. ‘How do you know?’
Rafael merely shrugged his shoulders in reply.
‘Why do I even ask?’ Lottie’s voice soared to match the blood in her veins. ‘I should have worked out by now that you have absolutely no scruples when it comes to prying into my life.’
‘In actual fact Ibrahim contacted me.’ Rafael’s reply was maddeningly calm. ‘He was inviting me to an exclusive preview—some conceptual artist that he seemed very excited about. Apparently he has enormous investment potential.’
Lottie glowered at him. ‘And why would he contact you?’
‘Because I am on his client list, of course. I’m surprised you don’t know that. But, then again, I guess it doesn’t matter any more.’
‘And presumably the only reason you were on his client list was because you were spying on me?’
Rafael gave a well, you know... sort of shrug. ‘Anyway, I took the opportunity to mention your name and that’s when I found out you were no longer in his employ.’
‘And did he tell you why?’
‘Funnily enough, he didn’t seem to want to discuss you.’
‘Then let me enlighten you. Ibrahim fired me because of this.’ Using both hands, Lottie gestured around her, ending with two index fingers pointing at herself. ‘He refused to give me any more time off. Sacked me on the spot.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes—so basically I have no job to go back to. But please don’t think that you have to feel guilty about it.’
‘I don’t.’
Everything about his easy reply told Lottie that her attempt at sarcasm was totally wasted.
‘I was actually thinking that it is one minor complication out of the way.’
Typical! Rafael had managed to turn what was a real worry for her—she had bills to pay, after all, and the rent on her flat for starters—into something to his advantage.
But the more Lottie thought about it the more thankful she actually was that she no longer worked for Ibrahim. She knew she would be able to get another job. If leaving Rafael had done one thing it had taught her independence, made her stand on her own two feet.
Arriving back in England with nothing but a suitcase and an alarmingly small amount of cash, she had made the decision to move to London. She needed a fresh start, away from all the memories that would inevitably haunt her in Oxford. She didn’t want Rafael to know where she was either—to track her down, demanding answers. Not that she’d needed to worry about that. Apart from that one email from his solicitors she had heard nothing from him at all. There had just been a big, fat hollow where that part of her life had been. The happiest and the saddest part.
Being alone in London had been horrendous to start with. It had seemed such a lonely place that first winter as she’d desperately tried to find a job and somewhere to live, eventually renting a depressing bedsit, feeding coins into a meter for the hissing gas fire, sleeping with her head under her pillow to try and block out the yelping screams and scary silences of her neighbours. She had thought that winter would never end.
But it had, and it had been followed
by a particularly beautiful spring. Which had been even worse. Watching lovers in the park, lying on the grass kissing, parents proudly pushing buggies towards the swings, excited toddlers leading the way... It had felt as if the whole world was happy and in love, deliberately taunting her with its joyfulness.
But time had passed and she had made some friends and found a new job, which had meant she’d been able to afford a better apartment, and suddenly things had started looking up. Slowly, slowly, she’d realised that she was no longer waking to the sick feeling of dread any more. The job at the Ibrahim Gallery had provided her with a good salary, even if the boss had made her skin crawl, and suddenly she’d realised that she had moved on, grown up, was in control of her own life again.
Until she had received Rafael’s email. Until her old life had reappeared and thrown up the extraordinary situation that they were in now.
She watched Rafael as he leant away from the table, rocking his chair on to its back legs, stretching his arms behind his head. He turned to look out of the window and she could see his reflection in the glass. Dark, shuttered, deep in thought, but as intensely attractive as ever. He wore his beauty casually, as if he didn’t notice it even if everyone all around him did. He had no vanity, no interest in showing himself off to the world—just a confidence, an inner belief, an unconscious power that meant he had the ability to achieve whatever he wanted to achieve.
Until the accident.
Lottie was struck again by the enormity of how that must have affected him. She gazed at his chiselled profile, at the whiplash scar which, even though it could never disfigure his beautiful face, was a permanent reminder of what he had suffered.
Since that first day in the office at the palazzo he had never talked about the accident. Just as he never talked about anything that mattered. As Johnny Cash’s last gravelly note faded to silence she decided to try to get him to open up.