Everyone was speaking in English in deference to Carin—but where the hell was she? Rafe knew it was ridiculous to be on edge. He’d come up with the idea of this dinner more out of anger than anything else, but this really was the first time any of his friends were going to meet his wife.
His wife. Just thinking those words gave him a strange feeling.
Rafe lifted his glass to his lips again. Claudia said something and gave a trill of laughter. He smiled, too, even though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He couldn’t get his thoughts on anything but Carin, and how it would feel to put his arm around her, feel her body fit the curve of his and introduce her.
This is my wife, he would say, and Claudia and her lover, Isabela and Luiz would all see that the woman he’d married was even more beautiful than they’d imagined.
Beautiful, and hot-tempered, and furious at him. But he would change all that, later tonight. After his guests left, he would kiss Carin until her anger turned to passion and then, at last, he truly would make her his wife…
“…still can’t get used to the fact that you’re married, darling,” Claudia said, putting her hand on his arm. “My Rafe, with a sweet little mulher.”
Sweet? Rafe almost laughed. “Prickly” was a better word for his wife.
Dammit, what was keeping her?
Claudia sighed dramatically. “Oh, well. I’ll just have to wait until you get tired of this one and come back to me.”
It was an old line. She’d used it for years. He’d always smiled and taken it as a joke but for some reason it was annoying the hell out of him tonight. And why did she persist in calling him “darling”? That had never irritated him, either, but tonight it grated on his nerves.
“I don’t intend to get tired of this one,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “Carin and I are married, Claudia. I explained that when you telephoned.”
“Sim, so you did.” She smiled, smoothed the lapel of his white dinner jacket. “You are married, and you have a child. How quickly you work, darling Raphael.”
Rafe frowned into his wineglass. Maybe it hadn’t been such a clever idea, inviting his former fiancée to dinner, but he’d arranged this party on such short notice that there hadn’t been time to do much planning. Besides, all he wanted was to be sure Carin believed him when he said it was time she stopped pretending their marriage was a game. She had to enter into his life, accept her role as his wife…
Her role, in his bed.
An image of her, naked in his arms, flashed before him. Desire, sharp and electric as lightning, sizzled through his blood.
What was wrong with him? He had guests, Claudia was talking to him, and all he could think about was bedding Carin.
“…listening to me, darling? Rafe, you’re hurting my feelings.”
He blinked, forced his attention to Claudia, who was looking up at him from beneath her lashes. She was flirting with him like crazy. Well, she always did; it was part of her and it didn’t bother her that her lover was standing ten feet away, or that his wife was about to join them…
Deus! What an idiot he was. He’d told his former fiancée about his wife, but he had not told his wife about his former fiancée. And, of course, he should have. Women were difficult creatures to understand at best, but he could see that it would not be pleasant for a bride to learn her husband had once intended to marry another woman by coming face-to-face with that woman, with no warning.
Well, it was too late, now, just as it was too late to call this off. What had he been thinking, to make so many changes in one day? He’d moved Carin into his rooms, told her it was time they had a real marriage, and now he was about to introduce her to Claudia.
His jaw tightened.
The fault was hers, as much as his. Carin should not have made him so angry. What sort of man would not get angry, if his wife made it brutally clear she refused to think of him as her husband?
“…fly to São Paulo next week, darling? We could have dinner and…”
Claudia walked her fingers down his arm. He caught her wrist and held on. It was the only method he could think of to keep her from touching him again.
And, dammit, he was still angry. Was this any way for a wife to treat a husband? For her to show him respect? If Carin didn’t appear soon, he’d go upstairs and get her, even if it meant breaking down the door she’d locked against him. How dare she lock him out of his own rooms? How dare she treat him with such condescension?
His hand tightened around the wineglass.
All of that was done with, now. She would do what was expected of her. She would look beautiful, behave demurely, speak when spoken to and charm his guests. And later, when they were alone, he would lock the bedroom door against the world and show her—and show her…
Rafe lifted his glass to his lips and drained it.
What would he show her? That he had a frightening lack of control where she was concerned? That she could enrage him with a cold look? That he had never stopped wanting her in his arms again?
Tudo bem. All right. Memory had turned a simple act of sex into something too intense to be real. Taking Carin to bed would get things back to normal.
“Rafe?”
Damned right, it would. A wife was meant to sleep with her husband. It was time to teach her that. And, after tonight, she would think of no man but him. He would take her until she was exhausted, until her body ached from his possession. He would make her his, drive the man she had loved, might still love, from her body, her heart, her soul…
“Rafe,” Claudia said again. “Oh, my goodness…” Soft laughter bubbled from her lips.
“Pare!” Isabela hissed, and Claudia’s laughter did stop, but too late. Rafe could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck. His guests were all staring past his shoulder.
“What is it?” he said, and turned around…
And saw his wife, dressed like a bad joke in a fashion magazine.
She stood in the arched entrance to the living room. He thought, at first, she was ill, because her skin seemed so yellow. Then he realized it was the color of her gown that made it seem that way. Deus, the gown was a green so bright it hurt his eyes. It was shiny, too. If a fabric could be said to have a radioactive glow, this one surely did.
The gown didn’t fit right, either. It was tight, but not in the way snug garments could flatter a woman. It pulled at the seams, making doughy lumps of Carin’s lush curves. What were those things at her neck and ankles? Ruffles? Rafe stared, horrified, at the woman who was his wife. He had never imagined her in ruffles. She was too slender, too elegant…at least, she had been, until tonight.
And her hair. What had she done to turn it from silk to straw, to make it a flat brown instead of rich chocolate?
Rafe took a shuddering breath. Surely, this was a bad dream, or some hideous North American joke.
“Rafe,” she said, and smiled.
His hand tightened on his glass. Her mouth was painted a deadly shade of purple; she had a smear of the stuff across one front tooth.
“Rafe, please forgive me. I’m so sorry I’m late.”
She didn’t even sound like herself but like a combined parody of Marilyn Monroe and a world-weary Jessica Rabbit. And why was she begging his forgiveness? The Carin he knew would never beg for anything.
Deus, what had happened? He had sent the doctor away too quickly, and clearly she needed his services. Wasn’t there such a thing as post-partum depression? Sim. There was. The wife of a friend had suffered from it. Perhaps this—this psychosis was one of its manifestations. Was this his fault? Had he pushed too hard, frightened her into trying too hard to please him?
Claudia tittered again, and he flashed her a furious look. Isabela whispered something to her husband, her voice gentle. It was good she was here. She’d had children. Surely, she would know how to deal with…
“Rafe,” Carin said softly, and something in the way she spoke his name froze his blood. He looked away from the terrible gown, the hi
deous shoes, the purple mouth, looked into her eyes…
White-hot rage exploded deep inside him. For a moment, his mind went blank.
His wife’s eyes were not filled with pleading, or teary with depression. They glittered, hard as stone, with cold, sharp, malice.
She had done this deliberately.
He wanted to kill her.
No, not that. Killing was too easy. What he wanted to do was throw his guests out the door, grab Carin and shake her until her purple-smeared teeth rattled, until those hideous ruffles danced, until she really did beg and plead for mercy. Then, only then, he would rip that ugly gown from her body, tear off his own clothes, take her, right here, on the floor, until she knew that he was her master, that he would not tolerate such behavior.
He took a deep, deep breath, then glanced around the room. Isabela da Sousa was staring fixedly at the wall. Luiz was slugging down the last of his whiskey. Claudia’s lover, whatever the hell his name was, was pop-eyed with shock. Claudia, still standing beside him, was flushed with anticipation of what would happen next.
Well, she was going to be disappointed.
Rafe fixed a smile to his lips, walked towards Carin and took her hand.
“Ah, querida,” he said, and pressed his mouth to her fingers, “I was beginning to wonder why you were delayed in joining us, but now I can see it was because you were making yourself even more exquisite than you already are.” Carin’s pupils contracted; he felt her hand jerk within his and he tightened his hold. “I’ve been telling our guests all about you.”
Her eyes narrowed. Whatever reaction she’d expected, it wasn’t this. Good, he thought savagely. Let her see that two could play at this game.
“Come, querida.” He tucked her hand into the curve of his arm and drew her away from Claudia, towards the da Sousas, instinctively leaving what surely would be the best moment for last. “Isabela, this is Carin. My wife.”
Isabela cleared her throat. “How nice to meet you, my dear.”
“And this is Isabela’s husband, Luiz.”
Luiz da Sousa took Carin’s hand and kissed it. “I am charmed.”
Carin flushed. Isabela looked as if she’d stepped out of a Paris salon; her husband was a dead ringer for Paul Newman.
“Any friends of Rafe’s are friends of mine,” she said in the squeaky whisper that she’d thought so clever just moments ago.
Rafe put a hand in the small of her back. “And this is—my apologies, senhor. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Carlos Garcia, Dona Carin. Muito gosto.”
“I’m—I’m pleased to meet you, too, senhor,” she stammered.
Was it possible…could she have made a mistake, tonight? Her appearance had achieved the effect she’d hoped for. The stunned looks on the faces of Rafe’s guests, the shock in his eyes and then the way his face had reddened with embarrassment and anger…
But she hadn’t expected him to make such a quick recovery, any more than she’d intended to make herself a spectacle for such sophisticated company. And who was that woman whose hand Rafe had been holding, the gorgeous blonde with the endless legs?
Rafe slipped his arm around her waist and flattened his hand on her hip. His guests would think it an affectionate gesture. In reality, his fingers pressed, hard, into her flesh.
“And now, my lovely wife, I want to introduce you to a special friend. A very old and dear friend.” He turned her around, towards the blonde. “This,” he said, his voice a dangerous purr, “is Claudia Suares.”
Claudia was tall. She was a knockout and she wasn’t wearing something long and feminine, she was wearing something that barely covered her thighs. Her smile could have sold toothpaste, automobiles, maybe even world peace.
She was the kind of female women hated on sight, Amanda would have said…and Amanda would have been right.
Carin swallowed hard. “Hello,” she said, proving that it was possible to fold your lip over a purple-smudged incisor and still manage to speak.
“How charming,” Claudia replied, in a voice as soft as a feather and as sweet as spun sugar. She looked up at Rafe and shot him that megawatt smile. “What a naughty boy you are, darling, to put the woman you married and the woman you were supposed to marry at the very same dinner table. Oh, aren’t we going to have fun?”
* * *
It was not fun. Not at all.
Carin’s plan, her clever, clever plan, lay dead and defeated as a collapsed balloon. She’d seen it start to expire the second she’d walked into the living room but Claudia’s announcement had provided the coup de grace.
Everyone had laughed pleasantly at the little joke, and then Rafe had explained that he and Claudia had once been engaged.
“Things didn’t work out,” Claudia had added with a hot, private look at Rafe.
“No,” Rafe had said smoothly. “But we still keep in touch.”
“We do, indeed,” Claudia had purred.
“Really,” Carin had said, smiling her lip-folding smile while she tried to figure out what that all meant. What was “once”? Was it six months ago? Six years? Or was it six weeks? And what were the “things” that hadn’t worked out, and what did it mean, that they still kept in touch?
For the very first time, it occurred to her that her husband might have been in another relationship before he’d felt obligated to marry her. Maybe their marriage was why “things” hadn’t worked out for Rafe and Claudia.
From the start, she’d been so hung up on the life she was leaving behind, on how Rafe was turning her world upside down, that she’d never stopped to wonder about what she might be doing, to his.
He and Claudia certainly seemed—close. All those little looks. The smiles. The little strokes of Claudia’s hand on Rafe’s arm, his hand, his jacket…
Conversation swirled around her. No one seemed to expect her to participate, and she didn’t. Eventually, mercifully, dinner finally ended. Carin thought that meant the evening had ended, too.
She was wrong.
“Nonsense, querida,” Rafe said pleasantly, and slipped his arm around her in another of those death grips. “The night is young. Let’s have coffee and brandy on the patio.”
No, she thought, no, and hung back as the others filed from the dining room.
“Rafe? I—I think I’ll go upstairs. Please tell your guests—”
“Our guests,” he said, and he bent his head to hers, put his mouth to her ear, as if to murmur an endearment. “You will stay until I dismiss you or so help me God, minha mulher, you will regret it.”
She believed him.
So she let him lead her out to the patio, pull out a chair for her as if he were the most solicitous of husbands.
Elena brought coffee. Carin poured it into tiny cups as translucent and delicate as eggshells, and Rafe poured brandy into crystal balloon glasses, and she wondered if anyone could possibly tell that she was dying inside, that this night of carefully-orchestrated revenge had boomeranged, that instead of humiliating her husband, she had humiliated herself…
And that her embarrassment wasn’t half as agonizing as being forced to watch the intimate by-play between Rafe and the woman he’d really wanted for his wife.
Someone told a joke. Someone else laughed. Isabela, who was as kind as she was charming, spoke to her. Carin simply smiled, nodded, and hoped she looked as if she were listening.
She wasn’t.
She was looking at Claudia and Rafe, at the dark head bent towards the fair one.
She saw the woman who had once been engaged to marry him add a teaspoon of sugar to his coffee before he could reach for the bowl, heard her finish his sentences for him. She listened to Claudia’s low laugh as Rafe leaned closer and whispered to her. She watched lovers so taken with each other that they’d forgotten the rest of the world existed…and she suddenly understood why her husband hadn’t demanded she share his bed.
Claudia was his mistress.
Carin shot to her feet. Her gown, that
damnably ugly thing, brushed against the table. Her cup and saucer fell to the tile floor of the patio and shattered.
Everyone stopped talking, looked at the broken china, then at her. She knew she should apologize, or make some little joke about her clumsiness, but her tongue felt too thick for her mouth.
“Oh,” Claudia said, “how awful. You’ve spilled coffee on your gown.” The perfect pink mouth curled up at the corners. “I do hope you haven’t ruined it, Carin. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to replace something so, ah, so unusual.”
“Claudia,” Isabela said sharply, and the man who was Claudia’s escort threw her a harsh look. But Rafe, Rafe, who was trapped in a marriage to her instead of to the beautiful woman he really wanted, said nothing.
Tears blurred Carin’s eyes. She gathered up her miserable skirt and walked quickly from the patio. When she stepped inside the house, she began to run.
“Carin,” Rafe shouted.
She heard him coming after her and she quickened her pace, stumbling on the bottom step as she raced for the bedroom.
“Carin,” he yelled, “wait!”
Wait? She choked out a laugh. She was finished taking orders from Raphael Alvares, finished with this travesty of a marriage. She never wanted to speak to him again, see him again, listen to him again.
He couldn’t keep her here, no matter what he threatened. She was taking Amy and leaving him, tonight.
Panting, breathless, she reached his bedroom and flung open the door. Let him get an attorney. Let him get a battery of attorneys. That was what she should have told him, from the beginning, but she’d been confused, exhausted, ashamed…
She cried out as Rafe’s arms swept around her.
“No,” she said fiercely, and beat her fists against the powerful hands locked at her waist, but he lifted her off her feet, carried her into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Damn you,” she said, “damn you, Raphael Alvares!”
“Are you crazy?” He turned her in his arms, jerking his head back to avoid her flailing fists. “Carin!” He caught her wrists in one hand, captured her chin in the other. “Stop it!”
“I hate you,” she sobbed. “Do you hear me, Rafe? I despise you.”
The Alvares Bride Page 11