‘Go away!’ she whispered wretchedly to that other woman’s beastly presence.
The sound of movement from the bathroom had her rolling off the bed to quickly strip the dress from her body and replace it with her satin wrap. Her fingers shook as she belted it around her, teeth gritted behind tightened lips as anger began to bubble up inside her.
I’ve kicked Piers out of this marriage, she thought bitterly to herself. Rafe can damned well kick Madeleine out!
The bathroom door opened and she stalked towards it, with chin up and eyes flashing in bright, blinding, bitter fury. ‘Don’t ever—do that—to me again!’ she spat into his tense pale face, and stepped past him into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.
Her breasts were heaving, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides, that green-eyed monster called jealousy so completely overwhelming her that she wanted to scratch his damned lying eyes out!
He was the one who’d insisted that Piers and Madeleine were to stay out of their bed!
He was the one who had forced this damned sex thing on her in the first place!
She railed on furiously as she stripped off what was left of her clothes, stuffed her hair into a shower cap and stepped beneath the shower.
He was the one who—
‘Oh.’ A huge sob broke from her; she couldn’t seem to stop it. Then another—and another. It was like being on an emotional roller coaster and she didn’t think she could take much more of it.
And suddenly she was doing what she hadn’t done even when Piers had jilted her. She was sobbing her heart out beneath the warm hiss of water.
And once again he was there. A hand switching off the shower. A hand closing around her arm, drawing her out of the cubicle and against his chest. Next thing the shower cap came off her head and a bathrobe settled over her shoulders with his arms closing round it.
He didn’t say a word, not a single word, as she leant there against him and just let it all come pouring out of her.
She felt limp afterwards, limp and lifeless. And still he didn’t say anything in the ensuing dull throb of silence that followed her emotional storm. He just fed her limp arms into the sleeves of her robe, folded it around her body, tied it snugly, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed.
She fell asleep wrapped in a bathrobe, wrapped in his arms, gaining a peculiar kind of comfort from the fact that Rafe did not remove his own robe so they lay in a snug bundle of soft white towelling.
* * *
In the morning she woke to find him gone, not just from the bed but from the suite, with only a brief note which told her where he’d gone but gave no clue as to how he was feeling about her foolish breakdown the night before.
And foolish she did feel in the cool light of day. Rafe was a man of thirty-four, for goodness’ sake! He was used to slick, smooth, sophisticated women in his bed, who knew how to respond to a complex man like him.
He was not used to an over-emotional female falling into a hysterical fit because he’d indulged in a bit of rough sex with her—which she had enjoyed anyway, she reminded herself.
It was Madeleine’s ghost she couldn’t cope with. And even her arrival in the bedroom last night had been at her bidding, not Rafe’s.
She sighed, hating her own sense of failure. And hating Rafe for ducking out on her this morning, leaving her to sweat alone on what his mood might be.
Then almost instantly her own mood flipped over to a chin-lifting defiance. If he could escape a showdown then so damn well could she!
‘Business meeting’, his brief note said. ‘Be back around one o’clock and we’ll go for lunch’.
Well, she wouldn’t be here at one o’clock! she decided. Though where she would go she had no idea.
All she did know was that the need to get away from this damned suite of rooms was growing stronger as each second passed by while she hurriedly hunted through her flight bag for her passport and traveller’s cheques.
Ten minutes later, dressed in a simple white soft cotton blouse and a pair of white cotton trousers held up by a contrasting cerise belt, she was travelling down in the lift with her passport and traveller’s cheques safely stashed in her shoulder bag, along with a pair of sunglasses and her purse.
Exchanging a cheque for some Hong Kong dollars was made easy by the hotel’s own bureau de change. It was while she was waiting her turn there that she was drawn into conversation with a sweet old American couple who were standing in the same queue.
They were, Shaan discovered, about to embark on an organised tour of the island with a whole group of fellow Americans. It was pure impulse that made her ask if there might be room for one more on their coach.
After that, the final decision was taken right away from her, because her newly found friends simply took over.
‘Though why a lovely young thing like you is alone in Hong Kong is incredible,’ the lady remarked as they went to search out the tour guide.
‘My husband—’ that felt strange to say out loud, she thought as something tightened up inside her ‘—is involved in business today,’ she explained.
‘Business? Isn’t that just like a man?’ was the scathing reply to that one. ‘Well. My name is Sadie and this is my husband, Josh.’ Sadie made the introductions.
A spare seat was happily found for her on the coach, and half an hour later Shaan found herself surrounded by twenty friendly Americans who made the day a sheer delight after too much of Rafe’s abrasive company.
They began the tour with a hair-raising trip on the Peak Tram to the top of Victoria Peak that made Shaan wish she’d brought a camera with her. The view from the top was spectacular, the journey back down nerve-racking. From there they visited Aberdeen Harbour, where the big floating restaurants were moored and the water was like a floating city of residential junks in itself. After that they travelled along the coast to a place called Stanley, and Shaan marvelled at the abrupt change from heavily built up Hong Kong to a tropical paradise. It was beautiful on this side of the mountains, hardly a building to be seen, and the air was less humid.
Stanley had its own huge market—nothing like as fascinating as the night market Rafe had taken her to, but, still, she found a cerise silk scarf that matched the belt around her waist, and bought it Then on impulse she bought her aunt and Jemma a similar one each, plus a small jade Buddha she spied that she thought her uncle might like. On further impulse she bought one for Rafe, too.
Guilty conscience, she recognised, even as she did it. Only, she’d happened to glance at the time and realised with a shock that it was already way past one o’clock. He should know by now that she’d escaped, and a tiny shiver trickled down her spine as she wondered how he was taking the discovery.
They lunched in Stanley itself, and by the time they all climbed back onto the coach it was already well past three o’clock. They travelled back via Victoria Peak again, where they stayed to watch the sun go down.
‘I’ve been in some beautiful places in my time,’ Sadie murmured softly beside her, ‘but I’ve never seen a sunset as glorious as this one.’
And it was, beautiful—magical, mystical. And while Shaan stood there, feeling the power of it sink into her very bones, she suddenly wished Rafe were here with her to share it. Wished it so much, in fact, that she began to regret coming on this tour at all.
Which rather defeated the object, she ruefully acknowledged as they all climbed back on the bus so they could be ferried back to their hotel.
In the foyer, Shaan thanked her new friends and said goodbye to them, because they were leaving Hong Kong for Singapore first thing in the morning. Then, tired. but feeling more at peace with herself than she had felt since Rafe strode in and took over her life, she rode the lift up to her floor. She only began to feel anxious when she opened the suite door.
The lights were on, the curtains not yet drawn, and Rafe was standing in front of the window, stiff backed, tight-shouldered, with his hands stuffed into his trouser
pockets.
He swung around the moment she stepped into the room. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he bit out furiously.
Her chin came up, automatic defiance taking over from any idea she might have had of smiling at him. ‘You know where I’ve been,’ she replied. ‘I left a message for you at Reception.’
‘To hell with that,’ he said angrily. ‘Have you any idea how humiliating it was having no idea where my wife—my new wife—had gone when I brought some people back here to meet you? Your message arrived five minutes after we did!’ he tagged on stingingly. ‘By then I was already tearing my hair out!’
With anger, not worry, Shaan grimly assumed. ‘Look.’ She tried for a bit of placating. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault if the message arrived late. But if it will make you feel better, I’ll apologise to your friends for not being here.’
‘You’ll damn well do that!’ he snapped. ‘In exactly—’ he stabbed a silver glance at his watch ‘—one hour from now, since we’re meeting them for dinner!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
DINNER! Out to dinner! With total strangers—again! And with him in this mood.
‘Oh, damn it,’ Shaan muttered as she fought with hair that did not want to go up in the French pleat she was trying to put it in, and, in the end, she dropped her aching arms to her sides and just stood staring at herself in the full-length mirror.
The dress she was wearing was another new one bought by Rafe since they’d arrived here. It was a pure silk, slinkily cut traditional mandarin dress that seemed to mould just about every sensual curve of her figure. It was deep, dark red in colour, and piped in black with gold-threaded embroidery. With her loose black hair she looked even more exotic than she’d ever seen herself look.
It was a shock—a big shock—because the woman standing inside that mirror had ‘seductress’ written all over her.
There was no way she could go out looking like this! she decided on an upsurge of stomach-clenching dismay which had her fingers reaching for the high-buttoned mandarin collar with the intention of unfastening it
Then, what’s happened to you? she paused to ask her own unrecognisable reflection. Where’s the meek and conservative little mouse you used to be—gone? What even made you choose this dress from all the other less provocative dresses hanging on the rail?
I don’t know, she answered herself with a wretched kind of helplessness. I don’t seem to have any idea who I am or even what I am any more!
‘Shaan!’ She jumped, that harshly impatient voice raking across nerve-ends so on edge they literally vibrated.
He was back to snapping out commands at her, she noted on a tension-packed little sigh.
And she was back to jumping to order, she tagged on grimly as her fingers snapped away from her collar. And instead of taking the dress off she gave her reflection a final, helpless glance before forcing her shaky legs across the bedroom floor and into the other room, hoping to God that he wouldn’t see what she’d seen when she looked at herself.
He did, or at least something very like it, because his silver-grey eyes raked angrily over her and he muttered a string of muffled curses beneath his breath.
But all he actually enunciated clearly, was, ‘Can we leave now?’ He said it grimly, tightly—so damned sarcastically she wanted to hit him.
Her tiny black patent evening bag clutched tightly in one hand, she spun stiffly towards the suite door. She heard him let out another strangled curse, and realised with stinging, helpless, wretched despair that her back view was no less provocative than the front view owing to the way the centre back split in her skirt showed more leg than it had a right to do.
But—what the hell? she told herself angrily. It was Rafe who had helped choose the damned dress in the first place! He who’d created this new monster called Mrs Shaan Danvers, who was such a complete antithesis of the old Shaan!
So he could jolly well put up with her, she decided mutinously as her nerve-ends began screaming as he came up behind her.
But all he did do was reach around her and swing the door open so she could precede him out into the corridor.
She swept past, head high, angry defiance sparking in her ebony eyes. By the time he’d closed the door and joined her, she was already standing at the wall of lifts.
‘Where did you go?’ he demanded.
‘Go to hell,’ she said tightly. ‘You had your chance for an explanation and missed it. There won’t be another one.’
‘At least tell me who you went with!’ he bit out
‘No.’
The lift doors opened. Shaan stalked inside, turned and kept her eyes glaring directly ahead, completely ignoring Rafe as he stepped in beside her and stabbed at the lift console as if it were one of her eyes.
The doors closed. They were alone and the tension was sizzling. ‘All your note said was that you’d gone sightseeing with some new friends you’d met,’ he snapped.
Your note said even less, she thought, but kept her lips clamped tightly shut.
‘What new friends?’
No answer.
‘Where did you meet them?’
No answer. But her senses began to buzz warningly because she could feel the angry frustration in him reaching out towards her.
‘Was it a man?’
‘Yes!’ she flashed at him. ‘It was a man! An American: wonderfully mannered, attentive to a fault! And he smiled a lot!’ she tagged on with a sting to her tone. ‘Which was a darn sight more pleasant than being scowled at!’
His hand, hitting the ‘stop’ button on the lift console, set her heart hammering and her eyes blinking as he spun round angrily to face her.
‘Now listen,’ he muttered, clamping hard hands on her shoulders. ‘You’re angry. I’m angry. We need to talk, but we can’t do it now because we’re already late for dinner, and it’s very important to me that we give a good impression of married bliss—got that?’
‘Yes.’ She refused to look at him, her eyes flashing all over the place rather than clashing with his.
She was pulsing inside with a desire to break free of something—all of it, she suspected. Giving in to that bout of weeping last night had only been the tip of the iceberg. Now it was all beginning to bubble up inside her. Outrage at the cavalier way Piers had jilted her. Resentment at the way Rafe had so gallantly stepped into his brother’s shoes like some white knight to the rescue of the poor heartbroken maiden! Then had come the sex. ‘Incredible sex’, Rafe had called it. ‘Mind-blowing sex’! So she must not forget the sex, must she?
Or Madeleine, come to that—dear, sweet, blue-eyed, blonde-haired Madeleine must not be left out of this carnage her life had become.
‘Shaan—’
‘Stop doing that!’ she snapped, letting her eyes clash with his for a brief second before flicking them away again.
‘Doing what?’ He was taken aback, which was very gratifying.
‘Saying my name like a teacher who is about to reprimand a child,’ she said, almost dancing on the spot with her need to let it all blow now.
He frowned. ‘Is that what I do?’
‘Yes, all the time.’
‘And you don’t like it?’
‘No. I do not.’
‘Then I apologise,’ he said stiffly.
‘Well, there’s a first,’ Shaan drawled, and knew even as she said it that she was behaving more like the child in need of reprimand than she had ever done.
He must have thought so too, because he let out a heavy sigh, his eyes closing as he seemed to make an effort to get a hold on himself. ‘We’d better go,’ he muttered grimly. ‘Before this thing degenerates into a real fight.’
‘What—another one?’ she taunted recklessly. ‘I thought we had one last night.’
His face tightened, the shaft hitting well and truly home, which almost immediately made her feel ashamed of herself for using it
Then he reacted.
His hands caught her around the waist and physically hauled her
up against the wall of the lift before she’d done more than gasp in surprise. Her eyes widened, real alarm showing in their turbulent dark depths while he stood there in front of her, pulsing with—something—though she wasn’t quite sure what.
‘Look—I’m sorry about last night, all right?’ he bit out tautly. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. In case you didn’t notice it, I also upset myself.’
‘I…’ From feeling reckless with provocation, she now found herself feeling wretched with remorse. ‘I didn’t understand why—why you were so angry,’ she explained a little unsteadily.
‘I know.’ Something flashed across his eyes—more anger, she suspected, but couldn’t be sure, and the fingers he lifted to touch her cheek were incredibly gentle. ‘But I wasn’t angry with you,’ he said. ‘I was angry with myself, for losing control like that.’
‘I thought you must have been wishing I was Madeleine.’
However she’d expected him to react to that honest little confession, it was not how he did react. His eyes closed, his mouth clenched, his big chest moving up and down on a fierce tug of air.
‘Oh, hell,’ he muttered, and looked at her again. ‘Shaan—about Madeleine—’
‘No!’ Her fingers jerked up to cover his mouth. ‘Please don’t,’ she whispered, sudden tears shining in her eyes. ‘I don’t think I could bear it if you…’ She couldn’t finish what she had been going to say because it revolved around his love for Madeleine, and that was exactly what she couldn’t bear. ‘Can’t we just forget it ever happened and go now?’ she pleaded anxiously.
He continued to stare grimly at her for a few moments longer, taking in the ready tears, her quivering lips, and lifted a hand to clasp her fingers that still covered his mouth.
He said very huskily, ‘You beautiful fool.’ And bent his head to kiss her.
He said that to me once before, she recalled hazily as her lips parted in helpless surrender to the needs of his mouth. ‘Forget Madeleine,’ he murmured gruffly as he drew away again. ‘I have.’
As she realised she had forgotten Piers? she wondered, and felt a new warmth suffuse her as hope began to blossom.
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