Rafael's Suitable Bride (10 page)

She finally fell asleep and woke to a room flooded with sunlight and no sign of Rafael.

But there was a note. The note informed her that he would be in touch, and she carried it with her for the remainder of the day. Just having it on her made her heart sing. She literally felt light-headed with emotion and when, the following day, she picked up her telephone to hear his dark, velvety voice on the other end of the line, it was all she could do not to tell him just how very happy she was.

* * *

And events over the ensuing three months moved at the speed of light.

Rafael, she discovered, was not a man who did things in halves. He wanted her, and she was more than ready to accommodate him. Playing hard to get was not in her repertoire
of feminine wiles, even when Anthea, who had viewed the proceedings with jaundiced eyes, told her that Rafael didn't appear to be the sort of man who would feel comfortable wearing an apron and putting out the garbage.

‘He'll never have to wear an apron!' Cristina laughed. ‘Why would he?'

‘What a lucky man,' Anthea said wryly. ‘Most women expect their guys to share the duties.'

‘I really enjoy cooking,' Cristina told her, hurt by the implication that she was somehow lacking. True, she knew that she held very old-fashioned values, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, was it?

‘And have you done much of that?'

‘None,' Cristina confessed. ‘I've offered, but—'

‘But he's a man who prefers to dine out?' In the time they had been working together they had become firm friends, and, although their ages were close enough, Anthea was streets ahead when it came to men. Normally Cristina would have paid great attention to what her friend said, but when it came to Rafael she would allow no criticism. Anthea, she thought, was jaded from the bad experiences she had had with men. She also was not privy to the man behind that forbidding mask: the man who treated her with respect and consideration, the man who made love to her, always making sure that her needs were met ahead of his, the man who, yes, guarded his thoughts, but still managed to laugh at the things she said, the man who'd told her that she was wonderfully uncomplicated, the man who had encouraged her football coaching, even occasionally taking time out to come and see her.

‘I'm just asking you to be careful.' Anthea relented, seeing the anxious expression on her friend's face. Cristina's open, trusting nature was at once both a blessing and a curse, as far
as Anthea was concerned. Yes, her heart was fashioned out of pure gold, but it was a heart that could easily be broken, and Anthea had visited too many dodgy characters in the past not to know that someone like Rafael Rocchi would not be in it for the long haul. Not with a girl like Cristina who, rich in her own right though she might be, was not the ornamental bauble he would eventually like to dangle on his arm.

She had even been on the Internet and found pages upon pages on him, including a wide variety of pictures which had almost universally featured him with just those ornamental baubles she had expected to find. She had kept all of that to herself, but in her head a very clear picture had been formed of the sort of man he was.

‘I mean,' she suggested kindly, ‘Would it be the end of the world if you edged the conversation towards a future?'

Cristina, who had been mulling over that very question for the past couple of weeks, decided that yet again fate was at work, putting the thought firmly in the foreground.

She took more than usual care with her outfit that evening. Rafael had been away for the past three days, a flying visit to Boston. He was, he had told her over the telephone, really dying to see her. He was not averse to having long, sexy conversations with her on the phone, conversations that made her toes curls when she later recalled them. Cristina predicted that he would be in a very good mood when he came over.

They had planned on a meal out, as normal. After a flurry of trying different restaurants, they had now narrowed the field to a few of their favourites. Occasionally they skipped eating altogether, when the draw of the bedroom was simply too irresistible.

Today, however, Cristina had left work especially early to cook a meal. Fish, because she was still eternally watching
her weight, and vegetables prepared exactly how she had been taught by their chef at home when she'd been growing up. Everything organic, of course, and everything bathed in a wonderful atmosphere thanks to some terrific smelly candles which she had found at a tiny little shop only round the corner.

As she took a last look at her reflection, liking the way the black dress cunningly hid what she still considered serious love-handles—never mind Rafael's flattery to the contrary—she felt her stomach flip over with a sudden attack of nerves.

She had been blissfully happy. Rafael fulfilled every part of her. He was her sounding board and her soul mate, but Anthea's blunt words of caution had managed to seep their way into her head, filling her with doubts. It seemed pretty early in the relationship for them to be discussing a future, but then again—and here she recalled yet more words of wisdom from one of the magazines she had devoured in the past—weren't two people in love supposed to know early on whether they wanted to commit to one another or not? She was sure she had read somewhere that relationships could drift for years, going apparently nowhere, only for one of the partners to break it off and within weeks to be married to someone else.

When Cristina tried to think of life without Rafael, her mind went blank and she felt cold with fear.

That fear, she reasoned now, could only be assuaged if she took the bull by the horns and did as Anthea had suggested.

For a few seconds, waiting for Rafael, she was filled with self-righteous courage, but as soon as she heard him phone up to her, her stomach went back to its antics, and she was busily wondering whether the meal had been such a good idea by the time he knocked on her door.

All her thoughts were scattered to the four winds the minute she set eyes on him.

He had come directly from the airport, was still carrying his overnight bag, along with the black case. Outside the weather was beautifully mild for the middle of May, and he had cuffed the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows. He looked lean and bronzed and muscular, and she felt that familiar leap of excitement as she looked at him.

Then he bent and kissed her, taking his time as he always did, his mouth making promises he would fulfil later in bed.

Only after he had straightened did he glance behind her into the tiny hall.

‘What's the smell?'

‘Smell?' Anthea's words of wisdom were fading fast as he stepped past her and glanced up the stairs in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Oh,
that
smell!' She clapped her hand to her forehead in a casual gesture. ‘I thought I'd cook. I know we'd booked to go out to that Italian, but all this eating out that we do…I'm not sure I'm getting the right balance of…um…nutrients anyway.' He was heading up the stairs and she hurriedly followed him, cursing herself for the linen, the crystal wineglasses and the candles which were burning merrily away. Hardly the image of a meal whipped up by someone solely for nutritional purposes.

‘Anyway!' she called up, shoving aside visions of him horrified by this show of domesticity, which he had not once suggested. ‘I thought I'd just…' she caught her breath and watched him as he stood there in the small kitchen, surveying the carefully laid table, complete with the hateful candles ‘…whip up a meal for us. Nothing fancy.' She bit her lip nervously and hovered. ‘I don't mind if you'd rather go out,' she finished lamely, but when he turned to her he was smiling, a slow smile as though something had clicked in his head.

‘No way. Smells too good to pass up.' He walked towards
her and gathered her in his arms. ‘I didn't realise that cooking was another of your specialities.' Another tick in what had become a pleasingly traditional package. Cristina was a homemaker, and as far removed from the women he had dated in the past as chalk was from cheese.

Cristina breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I wouldn't say a
speciality
.' ‘Have I got time for a shower?' She had dressed for him. She had cooked for him. Normally those two things in combination would have had him running a mile, but with home and hearth on the agenda, they added up to just what he needed. A woman programmed to put her man first, a woman set in completely the opposite mould to that of his first wife. The fact that she turned him on was a distinct bonus, and he didn't dwell on what would happen when his boredom threshold was breached. That bridge would be crossed when he came to it. ‘I don't suppose you fancy another?' His eyes swept appreciatively over her. He enjoyed showering with her, enjoyed their slippery bodies rubbing together under the fine, warm spray.

‘I'll start with the meal.' She remembered what Anthea had said about modern women expecting duties to be shared equally with their men. ‘You can come and help when you're ready. If you want. I've pretty much done it all, as a matter of fact.' She wondered where she was going with this. And now he was looking at her with that indulgent expression he sometimes wore, which she'd interpreted as the grown-up tolerating the antics of a kid.

She was ready with the starters by the time he emerged twenty minutes later from the shower, his hair still damp and swept back, and wearing a pair of jeans and a black tee shirt. He had never brought clothes to her house, but over time she
had accumulated some, left and laundered and carefully put in one of the cupboards in the spare room. She had taken it, subconsciously, as a hopeful sign that he hadn't removed them, but had dipped into them, taking it for granted that he would have one or two essentials on tap.

Rafael felt wonderfully relaxed. He made a token effort to do something with a bowl of lettuce leaves and some spring onions, but in the end contented himself with pouring them both a glass of wine and sitting down at the kitchen table so that he could watch her as she bustled around the kitchen, checking things and fetching crockery down from the cupboards.

He found her tide of chirpy chatter as entertaining as it was soothing. For someone who worked in a flower shop and did football coaching once a week, she always seemed bursting with news—things she had seen during her day, the random people she had chatted to, thoughts and plans that had flitted through her head and which she'd told him she liked to discuss with him. He was amazed that it didn't irritate the hell out of him, but it didn't. She was easily pleased and he found that he liked that. In the general scheme of things, the less easily pleased the woman, the shorter the relationship.

Now she was chatting to him about the starter, which was a combination of various seafoods in a spicy tomato sauce and served in a large glass bowl stuffed with crisp lettuce and tomatoes.

‘Am I boring you?' she asked out of the blue, and Rafael looked at her quizzically.

‘Why would you ask that?'

‘Because I seem to be the one doing all the talking, and…' She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at him earnestly. ‘I just wondered whether you find it a bit dull listening to me rattle on about the silly things that happen in my life,
when you'd probably much rather be talking about more important stuff.'

Rafael speared a prawn on his fork and held it out to her to nibble. She had a very sexy mouth and a very sexy way of eating food. She didn't view it as a plateful of calories waiting to pounce. She enjoyed every mouthful of what she ate, and it was a turn-on just watching her.

This time, however, she shook her head and stared down at her plate for a few seconds.

‘I enjoy not talking about “important stuff”,' Rafael told her. ‘I spend countless hours talking about
important stuff
. It's great to get here and listen to you tell me about the latest drama in your life.'

‘I don't have a dramatic life, Rafael. You do.'

‘On the contrary.' He finished his starter and stood up to clear the table. ‘I listen to stockbrokers and bankers and lawyers discuss technicalities of management buyouts and takeover bids and foreign currency markets. Hardly drama.'

That sounded pretty dramatic to Cristina, whose mind seemed to shut down the second it was presented with a financial problem. Anthea had turned out to be a godsend in that area, handling all the accounts efficiently and expertly. Normally she would have chattered away to him about her lack of ability when it came to sorting out money matters. He'd often teased her about that. But now, on her pressing bandwagon of trying to find out where they were going, and with Anthea's warning words ringing in her ears, she lapsed into anxious silence.

‘What did you talk to…your other girlfriends about?' she asked eventually, and he frowned at her.

‘How am I supposed to remember?' She seemed to be lost in a little worried world of her own, so he fetched the fish from
the oven and gestured for her to remain seated while he dished out. ‘Now.' He sat down and looked at her steadily. ‘What's this all about?'

Now or never
. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had never been the sort of girl who was willing to be dangled on a string, waiting for a day that might never arrive. She had old-fashioned principles, and already she was in the process of jettisoning them by sleeping with Rafael when she had no real idea where they were heading. She had fallen instantly and madly in love with him and, while that love was glorious and uplifting, it had also cleverly ambushed a lifetime's worth of romantic convictions and beliefs.

‘Rafael…I really need to know where we're going. I mean,' she continued hurriedly, ‘I never planned to get involved in a relationship that was going nowhere.' Underneath the kitchen table, she wrung her hands together and mentally told herself that she was absolutely doing the right thing. ‘I've told Mum and Dad about us, and they haven't said anything, but I know that they don't approve. This may sound silly to you, but…' Those amazing blue eyes were narrowed on her and she didn't have a clue what was going on in his head. She had seen that look a few times when he had taken work calls in her presence, that inscrutable, shuttered look that lent him an air of chilling foreboding. Directed at her, she felt her stomach spasm into painful knots as she desperately tried to hang on to her courage.