Rafael's Suitable Bride (12 page)

He touched one pert nipple with his thumb and felt her quicken and melt under the caress. Did he have time for more? He would have liked to shove that shirt up and fasten his mouth to that sweetly ripened, throbbing bud, would have liked to have her sink further down the plush leather seat so that he could ravish her in the cool, expensive elegance of his car.

Unfortunately…

He withdrew his hand with marked reluctance and took a few deep, steadying breaths because his body was already slamming into response. ‘We'd better go inside,' he growled. ‘Or else I'll be sorely tempted to reverse back down the drive and head for the nearest lay-by. Which wouldn't exactly be cool, now, would it?'

‘Especially not when your mother's waving at us from the downstairs bay window.'

She smiled as Rafael jerked back and pushed open his car door, leaving her to try and calm her body's tempestuous reaction to his fondling. Making out in a car was strictly for teenagers, she had always thought. Definitely not cool when it came to adults. But if Maria hadn't appeared just then, and if he had driven his Bentley to the nearest lay-by, then she would have happily let him have his way with her.

Her skin prickled at the thought of them in his car, his head buried between her thighs, nuzzling at her breasts, claiming her mouth…

She'd never thought that she would see the day when she would need a cold shower, but that seemed to be the effect he had on her. One glance, a fleeting touch, and she melted like a candle over an open flame.

As Rafael had predicted—and she would have been surprised otherwise—they had been put in separate bedrooms, with the very long distance of hall and corridor between them. Maria belonged to that generation of adults, just as her parents did, who would never have contemplated their offspring sharing a bedroom with their current partner, even if the partner in question was sporting a very expensive engagement ring on her finger. No; the only ring that would have led to a king-sized bed prepared for two was of the wedding variety.

But on Cloud Nine, which was currently Cristina's address, it was of little importance. She had the rest of her life to enjoy getting to know the man she was going to marry. A couple of nights under the same roof but in separate beds was not going to be unduly stressful.

She was also looking forward to getting to know Maria a little better as well. And she was pleased that they were going
to be staying in, enjoying a home-cooked meal, instead of going to a restaurant.

‘Of course,' she confided as she guiltily tucked into a second helping of Maria's exceptional home-made lasagne, ‘I really shouldn't be indulging in this.' She sighed. ‘Too much cheese. Very bad for the figure.' There was also tiramisu for dessert. Cristina had spied it sitting temptingly in the fridge earlier on and, ruthlessly honest as she was with her own eating habits, she'd known that she would be indulging. Then there had been the wine. Very dry and very cold and very drinkable. She had had three glasses and was feeling pleasantly relaxed. The conversation had flowed, with Rafael at his most witty and charming, Maria had chatted about incidents in her youthful past that had featured her friends and Cristina's parents, and it was all so very comfortable that she'd had to pinch herself a couple of times just to make sure that this was really happening.

‘Nonsense,' Maria laughed. ‘You have a real figure.' She wagged one finger warningly. ‘Men don't like this stick-insect woman,' she said, smiling. ‘A real man likes a woman with some substance!'

Rafael was laughing as he left the dining room carrying an armful of plates and Maria turned to Cristina and said fondly, ‘I cannot tell you how pleased I am that that son of mine finally listened to what I told him.'

‘What's that?'

Maria covered Cristina's hand with her own and gave it a little squeeze of affection.

‘About settling down. I told him that he would become a sad, lonely old man if he didn't find himself a suitable wife, and for once he listened to what I had to say! And, I must say,' she added with a hint of complacency in her voice, ‘I couldn't have
picked a better daughter-in-law myself! Now, my dear—' she stood up and yawned ‘—I am going to leave you two young things…dessert in the fridge…old lady like me…'

Cristina heard Maria's voice as just a background whisper barely audible above the roaring in her ears. Yes, yes, yes…She was nodding as if her mind wasn't exploding, agreeing with Maria that indeed she would have some of the tiramisu, that she knew where her bedroom was, that she shouldn't be too late up because there were plans to go to the market the following day…sunshine predicted…another warm one…

Five minutes ago she had heard Rafael doing domestic things in the kitchen and she had felt utterly and completely happy. Now she wanted to lock the dining room door, shut him out until she could assimilate what Maria had said—those casual, throwaway words about finding a
suitable wife
.

Cristina remembered that surreal feeling she had had, that a man like Rafael, so supremely
eligible
, could ever have managed to be attracted to
her
. He had made her feel sexy and desirable, but really and truly, when she looked in the mirror, she didn't see the sort of woman she would have associated with him. And now, in the stillness of the dining room, all of Anthea's warnings came flooding back to her, washing away her happiness like footprints on a beach.

She felt the sting of tears prick behind her eyes, and she wanted to duck down under the table and hide until she could sneak away from the house, back to the safety of her own apartment, where she might be able to get her chaotic thoughts back into some sort of order.

Rafael had never once told her that he loved her, but like a fool, she hadn't let that stand in the way of believing that he did, that he
must
, because why else would he have asked her to marry him?

She cast her fevered mind back to his proposal. She had laughed at herself at the time for expecting something romantic, and had simply accepted that he wasn't the romantic type—not the sort to kneel and slip the antique ring on her finger, not the sort to wax lyrical about having her for his wife.

She heard the sound of his approaching footsteps and looked up from where she was sitting in frozen silence. He had a tea cloth slung over one shoulder, the picture of the domestic man. But looks, as she now knew, could be deceiving. Rafael was no more domestic than a jungle animal, although he was willing to dabble if he had to.

Rafael paused at the door to the dining room, his antennae picking up something, although he wasn't sure what. He frowned and slowly began clearing the rest of the dishes from the table, expecting her to stand up and give him a hand. She normally did this sort of stuff. She didn't. Instead she remained where she was, staring down at the remnants of the food, as if looking for the table to provide answers to some internal question.

‘What's the matter?' Rafael asked, relegating any disquiet to the back of his mind. He swung round to stand behind her and then he leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck. His mother was safely tucked up in her bed, and the thought of having the place to themselves made him feel horny. Being at his mother's house, knowing that he had done the one thing in the world guaranteed to make her happy, was as rewarding as he had anticipated. His mother heartily approved of Cristina, and he had been spared those prickly conversations about his future which he had always found frustrating.

‘All is quiet on the western front,' he murmured seductively into her ear, but where she once would have squirmed with pleasure Cristina now pulled away slightly and twisted around to face him.

‘I…I don't feel comfortable, not when we're here in your mother's house…'

‘
Now
who's being the dinosaur?' Rafael teased her. ‘My mother has retired early for a reason. She may not openly condone us sleeping together, but she isn't a fool.' But that little ripple of disquiet showed its teeth once again.

It took all of her will power not to succumb to his massive charm. Or for that matter to her treacherous body, which was doing its own thing, ignoring what her head was telling it to do. She stood up and did a funny little side step out of his embrace, then she began clearing the rest of the plates, eyes averted.

Rafael followed her into the kitchen where he had made a rudimentary attempt to load the dishwasher, but unsurprisingly, had only managed to stick in the plates and cutlery, leaving all things difficult piled up in the sink.

‘I'll finish these off,' Cristina said quietly, looking at the pile of dirty dishes instead of at him. ‘You can head up to bed. You must be exhausted after all that driving.'

‘I like it when you look at me when you talk,' Rafael drawled. ‘Or are you in one of those mysterious moods which women seem prone to?'

Cristina felt an unaccustomed surge of rage rush through her, and she gritted her teeth together to suppress the awful desire to shout at him.

‘You should know about women and their mysterious moods,' she muttered violently instead, and she felt Rafael still behind her.

‘Meaning…?' He rested his hands on her shoulders and swivelled her around so that she was forced to at least face his direction, although she cravenly kept her eyes pinned to the flag-tiled kitchen floor.

Cristina took a deep breath and dived straight in. What
choice did she have? She could continue making mysterious and bitter asides, but the truth was that sooner or later she would have to confront the issue and, who knew? Maybe she had misinterpreted Maria, or misheard. She had a fleeting moment's peace of mind at the thought of that, of a perfectly harmless, innocent remark having been taken
out of context
and cruelly magnified into something
suspicious
.

‘Your mother and I were having a little chat while you were in the kitchen.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘It's just that she said…Well, she mentioned something in passing that I need to talk to you about.'

‘I can think of better things to do than talk.'

‘I know I'm probably being over-imaginative…'

Rafael resigned himself to one of those conversations in which, he knew, only ten percent of his mind would actively participate. It would probably involve wedding preparations or something equally tedious and, whilst he would dearly have liked to distract her, he could tell from the stubborn angle of her head that this was important to her and he shrugged, dropping the tea cloth on the counter.

‘Okay. Do you want some of that dessert in the fridge?'

Cristina thought of Maria's description of her, fondly intentioned but unwittingly cutting.
A real woman
. Cristina didn't particularly want to be
a real woman
. Right now, she would happily have settled for Barbie-doll status, because, despite what Maria had said, men weren't attracted to
real women
. How could she have been so blind as to imagine that Rafael was seriously attracted to her? She was a novelty at the moment, and he was probably making the best of a bad job in sleeping with the woman he had more or less been set up to marry. Just thinking about it now made her head swim and her legs feel weak.

‘I'm fine.'

‘Now I really
am
concerned.'

‘This is serious, Rafael,' Cristina said more sharply than she was accustomed to, and he frowned at her. She could see him trying to work out what was going on and she realised, belatedly, how transparently predictable she had been—always thrilled to see him, always ready to make love, always sunny natured because that was her temperament. He had beckoned, and like someone in a trance she had walked towards him, never asking all those questions which she now realised she should have been asking.

Frankly, she had been clueless.

‘Could we go into the sitting room?' she asked.

‘As you wish.'

Cristina nodded and led the way. It was a grand house, but many of the rooms downstairs were shut up because Maria, on her own, really only occupied the kitchen, the cosy den which she used as her office, the sitting room and her bedroom. In summer, she said that she liked nothing better than her garden room at the back, from which she could contemplate the beauty of nature. Consequently, those rooms which were used all year round were cluttered and cosy and quite different from the remainder of the house.

With the foundations of her fairy-tale future disappearing like a puff of smoke in a high wind, Cristina was piecing together all those missing jigsaw pieces which she had cheerfully ignored. For instance, she thought bitterly, how odd had it been that after only three months he had proposed marriage—a man accustomed to single life in the fast lane, surrounded by the most beautiful women in the world, sought after, courted, desired? How was it that he had suddenly decided to wave goodbye to all of that in a matter of
a few
seconds
, so to speak, because
she
, plump, gauche and nothing stunning in the looks department, had come along?

‘You were saying?'

Cristina, lost in her thoughts, had almost forgotten what she had been saying. She focused her eyes on the man sitting next to her on the sofa and blinked.

‘I was saying that your mother…Maria said something and I need you to clarify.'

‘Get to the point, Cristina.'

Was he being understandably impatient because she was waffling,
or were these just the signs of arrogance which she
had conveniently chosen to overlook but which had been
there all along?

‘She said that she was really happy…that you had decided to finally settle down…'

‘And so she is. Are we going somewhere with this or is it just the circles thing?'

‘She said that she had spoken to you…told you that it was time that you found
a suitable wife
.' Bitterness had crept into her voice, and Rafael's face darkened. ‘I need to find out what this is all about, Rafael,' she pursued doggedly. ‘Finding a suitable wife. Is that what this is all about?' The words were wrenched out of her and spoken straight from the heart.