The Right Bride?

by Sara Craven

  “I used to love to dance,” she said wistfully. Steve had been a technically perfect dancer; but the music had never entered his soul, and she’d soon learned not to take other partners. Briefly a memory of his savage temper rippled along her nerves; she shivered, her eyes downcast.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Too much wine,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Let’s go dance,” Rafe said. All evening he’d had the sense that someone else was sitting at the table with them: a man called Steve, who’d died a hero. It was a feeling he could do without, he thought, getting to his feet and offering her his arm.

  The canopied patio was entwined with wisteria, the blooms like ghostly blue lanterns in the moonlight. Several other couples were circling the floor to music that was dreamy and romantic; Karyn gave herself over to it, moving into Rafe’s arms as naturally as if she’d been dancing with him all her life. He said, smiling down at her, “You’re taller than you were in your steel-toed boots.”

  She chuckled. “Actually, my feet are killing me. How do women ever walk in these shoes?”

  “Take ‘em off.”

  Scandalized, she said, “Here?”

  “Darling Karyn, we can make our own rules.”

  Darling…and was it true? Could she make her own rules? If so, she wanted the evening to end with Rafe in her bed. Once he’d taken her home tomorrow, he’d be leaving for Toronto, so what could be the harm? He’d told her back in England that he’d sworn off passionate relationships; so he wouldn’t want commitment any more than she did. They could go to bed together and then go their separate ways.

  The perfect ending to a perfect evening.

  She leaned into Rafe’s body, intuitively following his lead, feeling fluid in his arms, slumberous with desire. Lifting her lips to his throat, she whispered, “We could go back to the bungalow.”

  He said huskily, “I think that’s a fine idea.”

  Even his voice was perfect, she thought with a frisson down her spine. As deep and smooth as the amber-colored brandy he’d ordered after dinner. Her whole body a single ache of longing, she let him take her by the hand and lead her from the dance floor. Hand in hand, they walked back to the bungalow. As he unlocked the door and they went inside, Karyn said casually, “When are you flying to Toronto?”

  “I’m in no hurry.”

  “I thought you had a sale to look after.”

  “I delegated it. Got the report late this afternoon, it doesn’t look like the site suits our criteria.”

  A little edge to her voice, she said, “But you’re going home soon.”

  “In a hurry to get rid of me?”

  All her senses alert, she said with careful truth, “If we go to bed together tonight, it’s not the start of an affair. Or of any kind of commitment.”

  Rafe said sharply, “You mean you’ll spend the night with me providing I head across the Atlantic tomorrow morning?”

  “You told me when you arrived that you were dropping in—not staying long, in other words.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Maybe you should have communicated that to me.” She gave a sigh of frustration. “Rafe, I don’t want to end a magical evening by arguing with you. You said to me once that you’d sworn off passion for life…she ripped the heart from my body was how you put it. That’s why you were thinking of marrying Fiona, who, to put it mildly, didn’t turn your crank. But what’s between you and me—if that’s not passion, I don’t know what to call it. So I’ve been going on the assumption that the last thing you’d want from me is any kind of commitment.”

  She’d found, unerringly, the weak point in his armor. “It’s too soon to talk about the future,” he said forcefully. “I just want to get to know you. To see if there’s anything between us to build on.”

  “Build what?”

  “You don’t let up, do you?”

  “Most people don’t travel four thousand miles for a picnic!”

  His eyes like gimlets, he said, “I don’t like talking about this—why for years even the thought of passion made me run a country mile. But it’s time I did.”

  She said mutinously, “I don’t need to hear your life story.”

  His voice dangerously soft, Rafe said, “Just listen to me for five minutes, will you?”

  All Karyn’s euphoria on the dance floor had vanished, eaten up by a pervading anxiety. “All right, I’ll listen. But don’t expect me to change my mind—I’m not into commitment.”

  “We’ll get to the reasons for that later,” Rafe said curtly, by sheer willpower forcing her to hold his gaze. “But this is about me. Why I was just fine until you came along.” He paused, trying to calm down. When had he ever let a woman get to him as easily as Karyn did?

  So much for his famous defences.

  “I met Celine when I was twenty-five,” he said, ironing any emotion from his tone. He was asking for understanding; not sympathy. “I was on the way up, living in high gear twenty-four hours a day. Working my guts out, traveling all over the world, dealing with men who had ten times my experience. Celine was from Paris, she was a model and so beautiful she stole my heart the first time I saw her.” He moved his shoulders restlessly. “I figured she was unattainable. But to my intense gratification she wasn’t. We fell into bed and for the next eighteen months I was head over heels in love with her.”

  Karyn stood still; through the open windows she could hear the shush of the breeze through the beech trees. She hated every word he was telling her. She was jealous, she thought incredulously, jealous of a woman Rafe had loved years ago.

  Perhaps he still did.

  “Celine traveled a lot with her job, as did I. But whenever we could meet, we did.” Rafe grimaced. “Now I can see that the long-distance aspect was what made our affair last as long as it did, yet simultaneously destroyed it. The ending was predictable. I got home early from Bangkok and found her in bed with another man. Not the only man she’d been seeing, so I discovered when I confronted her. She’d been systematically betraying me from the beginning, all the while swearing her fidelity.”

  In the dim glow of light from the hall, his face was bleak. Karyn said gently, “I’m sorry.”

  “We all have to grow up sometime…but I’d trusted her. Completely. She laughed in my face, that was the worst of it. As though I’d been an utter fool to take her at her word. But, Rafe, no one stays just with one man…how bourgeois.”

  “That was hateful of her,” Karyn said hotly.

  “After that night, I never saw her again. But from then on I only dated women who knew the score, and I kept all my defences in place. Like you,” he finished sardonically, “I wasn’t into commitment.”

  What was she supposed to say to that? “Lots of women are capable of fidelity.”

  “Fiona would have been, certainly. I knew her. I trusted her. I loved her in a way that didn’t scare the hell out of me.”

  The words were out before Karyn could stop them. “Do you still love Celine?”

  “No. It took a while, but eventually my feelings for her died.”

  “You don’t love me.”

  Rafe winced inwardly. “I don’t know what I feel. Other than straightforward lust.”

  “Do I scare the hell out of you?”

  “Yes.”

  His monosyllable hung in the air between them. Karyn said evenly, “One more reason for you to fly straight home tomorrow.”

  “And live like a coward for the rest of my life? I don’t think so.” He hesitated. “I’m being as honest as I can when I say that marrying Fiona would have suited me in other ways. You see, I was ready to settle down. Spend more time at Stoneriggs, and raise a family. Fiona’s always liked the idea of having children. It all fit together.” He hesitated again. “I still want to settle down and have a couple of kids. Just not with Fiona.”

  A cold fist was squeezing Karyn’s heart. She said quietly, “There must be lots of women who’d be ver
y happy to be your wife and the mother of your children. Go home and find one, Rafe.”

  “I can’t do that. Not when I’m beginning to think you’re the one I want.”

  “That’s ridiculous! We’ve scarcely spent any time together, and the circumstances have been so complicated—you don’t know anything about me.”

  Some things you know from the beginning? She sure didn’t want to hear that. “You’re forgetting something. I know Fiona. So in a way I know you.”

  “My life’s been completely different from Fiona’s!”

  “Why don’t you tell me how? Not the money, not your career—the rest of it.”

  She bent to undo the straps of her shoes, her dress glimmering softly, her cleavage shadowed; her shawl was a ghostly white. “Let’s cut to the chase. You’re asking for intimacy. I don’t do intimacy. I don’t do long-term. Get that through your head.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “Because it hurts too much.” She was telling the truth, she told herself fiercely. Well, sort of. It had just hurt in a different way than anyone else realized.

  Rafe gazed at her in silence, his nerves stretched tight. She was talking about Steve. About a pain so deep that a year later she wouldn’t even consider getting involved with another man. “You’re the one who suggested we cut to the chase, Karyn,” he said evenly. “Talk to me about Steve…how you met and what he meant to you. I don’t have any idea what he was like.”

  “I want to go to bed with you. Not wallow in reminiscences.”

  “You’re a widow, for Pete’s sake! Why wouldn’t I ask about your husband?”

  She tilted her chin stubbornly. “I don’t want to—there’s no point. Rafe, we both know what happens when you and I get within ten feet of each other—and there’s nothing wrong with lust. But I’m not going to dress it up as something it isn’t. We can go to bed together and you can leave for England in the morning. Or we’ll sleep in separate rooms.”

  “You want us to make love and then act as though it never happened.”

  “That’s right.” Suddenly she reached out, laying her hand on his sleeve and speaking with passionate intensity. “I want to be naked in my bed with you naked beside me. I want to taste every inch of you, I want to be held, I want you inside me.” Her voice broke. “But that’s all I want—I can’t be any more honest than that.”

  His whole body felt as though it had been streaked with fire. He looked down at her slender fingers, feeling the pressure of her nails and imagining them digging into his bare back, the softness of her breasts against his chest, her long legs wrapped around his thighs. His heart was thudding against his rib cage. Wasn’t that what he wanted, too? Karyn, naked and willing in his arms? The whole night before them…

  With an effort that felt monumental, he pulled back. “But tomorrow you want me to get in my jet, fly back to England and stay there.”

  She nodded. “I’m on the pill, so I won’t get pregnant. There’ll be nothing to tie us together—and that’s just the way I want it.”

  He said flatly, “I’ve been insulted a few times in my life, but you take the cake.”

  “You’d rather we didn’t use protection?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t treat me like a one-night stand!”

  Her nostrils flared. “Sex without commitment—men have been doing it for years. But I’m not allowed to because I’m a woman?”

  “Clever, Karyn. This isn’t about equal rights—it’s about caring and intimacy.”

  “It’s about relationship. We don’t have one. I don’t want one.”

  “Then I’m not going near your bed. Now or ever.”

  “Fine!” she snapped, clutching her shoes to her chest. “Sleep well and don’t bother dropping in on me again.” Then she stalked across the room to the farthest bedroom and slammed the door. The lock turned with an aggressive click.

  Feeling as though he’d just done ten rounds with a champion heavyweight, Rafe left the bungalow and marched back to the lodge.

  A woman he lusted after had offered him a night in her bed and he’d turned her down flat.

  He was a fool. An idiot.

  Be damned if he’d make love with her all night and then fly home in the morning as though nothing had happened. He wasn’t going to be treated that way—discounted as though he could offer nothing but physical release. If that’s all she thought of him, to hell with her.

  Systematically Rafe went through the highly colorful stock of swearwords he’d learned in the many corners of the world. He didn’t feel one bit better afterward. He told himself Karyn was just a woman: pretty, sure; sexy undeniably; but replaceable. How long was it since he’d gone to bed with anyone? Too long, obviously.

  He’d be a fool to fall in love with her.

  So he wouldn’t.

  First thing tomorrow he’d tell the pilot to prepare for a transatlantic flight. There’d be no hanging around in Charlottetown.

  He’d soon find someone to settle down with, to be the mother of his children. He could advertise, Rafe thought cynically. They’d be flocking after him. Him and his fortune.

  Karyn didn’t care one whit about his money.

  Karyn didn’t care about him. Period. All she wanted to do was use him for her own ends and then cast him aside.

  She was honest about it, though, a little voice insinuated in his ear. After all, isn’t that how you’ve been living your life for the last six years? Ever since Celine took your pride and trampled it on a Paris street?

  It wasn’t the same thing at all.

  No? Think about it, Rafe.

  Scowling, he crossed the lobby, heading straight for the bar. He sat down, got the bartender’s attention and ordered a brandy.

  When it came, he stared at it moodily. He didn’t want anything more to drink. Cupping the glass in his palm, he swirled the liquid around and around. Wasn’t that what he was doing—going around in circles?

  He was through with Karyn and her little games. He’d see her at Fiona’s wedding, and no doubt at the christenings that in due time would follow. But he could handle that. By then, he’d be married himself.

  “Buy me a drink?”

  His head swiveled around. A very pretty young woman in a black dress had slithered onto the stool next to his. Daughter of a CEO, he thought. No harm in her, out for a good time and she’d picked on him. So, he thought ironically, he’d been presented with Karyn’s replacement sooner than he’d expected.

  “Sorry,” he said, feeling old enough to be her father, “I’m not available. You should be careful who you come onto—not everyone’s harmless like me.”

  “You don’t look harmless.”

  He nodded at the bartender, tossed a bill on the counter and said crisply, “Serve the lady the drink of her choice and keep the change.” He gave her a cool smile. “Good night,” he said and strode out of the bar.

  I’m not available. That’s what he’d said.

  As he approached the bungalow, he stopped for a few minutes under the shadows of the beech trees. To be unavailable was to be committed. He was committed to Karyn, a woman of undoubted passion who’d freed his own deep needs.

  He didn’t understand what that commitment meant. But it wasn’t to be taken lightly.

  He’d bet Holden Castle and his beloved Stoneriggs that Karyn was afraid to fall in love again. She’d done so once, and lost the man she’d loved. Who could blame her if she didn’t want commitment? He himself had avoided it for years after Celine had dumped him.

  Why should Karyn be any different?

  Loosening his tie and shrugging off his jacket, Rafe headed toward the bungalow. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A HALF-MOON silvered the trees and shrubbery, the lawns like a black carpet; except for a light in the hallway, the bungalow was in darkness. The soft plash of surf was the only sound. Rafe took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of newly mown grass and honeysuckle, laced with the tang of the sea.
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  What he was about to do would have long-lasting repercussions, he thought soberly. He was more than ready to allow passion back into his life, he’d proved that to himself the last few days. But he wasn’t standing here in the dead of night just because he wanted to make love to Karyn. No, it was far more complex than that.

  He wanted more from Karyn, a lot more; and he was willing to give more. To let down his defences and allow her in. To hope that eventually, if he were patient, she’d surmount her grief and do the same for him. Where that would all lead, he had no idea. Trying to ease the tension in his shoulders, he walked up the path toward the front door.

  Somewhere inside the bungalow, Karyn screamed.

  For a split second Rafe stood like a man transfixed, a chill racing the length of his spine. Then she screamed again, a choked sound wild with terror.

  She’d locked her bedroom door. He couldn’t get in that way.

  He raced around the corner of the bungalow and in a great surge of relief saw that she’d left her bathroom window open. Leaping over the flowerbed, Rafe punched in the screen and levered himself over the sill. If someone was hurting her, he’d kill the bastard. Landing on his feet, he crossed the ceramic floor, not caring how much noise he made. The door to her bedroom was closed. He burst in, his fists at the ready.

  Karyn was alone in the room. Sprawled facedown on the bed, she was whimpering in her sleep, breathing hard as though she were running. Even as he watched, she flipped over on her back, her eyes tight shut, her face contorted in an agony of fear.

  Swiftly Rafe crossed the room and sat down on the bed. “Karyn, wake up—you’re having a bad dream,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and gently shaking her.

  Her eyes flew open, stark with terror. “Don’t come near me—go away!” She struck out at Rafe, frantically twisting her body as she tried to pull free.

  He said urgently, “It’s Rafe—you’re safe with me, Karyn…I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  He was still clasping her by the shoulders. She went very still in his hold. “Rafe?” she whispered.