Rafael's Suitable Bride (17 page)

‘Where's…um…Cindy?' she asked, in the face of his stony silence. ‘She seems a very nice woman…'

Rafael was in no mood to think about Cindy, whom he had dispatched twenty minutes earlier in a move that would certainly herald the demise of any fledgling relationship. He wasn't too concerned. If after having met her only a couple of times he had found her company grating, then it was clearly doomed.

‘I could warn you that, if this is your way of handling our break up, then you're heading for an almighty fall, but…' He shrugged elegantly. ‘It's entirely up to you how you behave in public…'

‘How I
behave in public
?' Cristina said, with mounting anger at his attitude. He seemed to think that it was perfectly fine to spend the evening with a six-foot blonde draped over him like ivy—but
she
, on the other hand, had arrived dressed
indecently and now, from what he was saying, had made a fool of herself. She tried to count to ten but only managed to make it to three, then she placed her hands squarely on her hips and glared ferociously at him.

‘I'm free, young, single, and…and…'
And what?
‘And looking for fun! Yes, I might be dressed in a short skirt…'

‘With every inch of your body on display.' Rafael interposed tightly.

‘But you've taught me how to get out there and face the world!'

‘So now it's
my
fault that you're now prowling for men?'

Cristina thought of her nights in with cocoa and gardening books and decided not to correct him. How dared he?
When he had already replaced her?

‘I don't have to
prowl for men
!' she said, thinking on her feet and for once coming up with a stinging riposte. ‘I've noticed that a fair number of them find me quite attractive! In fact…' She walked quickly towards her clutch bag and pulled out a little wad of telephone numbers. There was no way that she was going to tell him that most of them were genuine enquiries about her landscaping services from some of the wives who had been there.

‘Look—numbers!
Telephone numbers!
Including Jamie's! And, yes, I won't be
sitting around waiting for them to call me!'

R
AFAEL'S
week had not gone well. He had wasted a great deal of time reliving his party, and had been inconveniently plagued with thoughts of Cristina in her sexy and—as he liked to mentally describe it—tarty outfit.
Out there looking for fun
.

He had felt sorry for her, gentleman that he was, had invited her because he had wanted to make sure that she was doing okay. She was, he had been forced to concede to himself, doing more than okay. She was, judging from the looks of it, painting the town red.

He had also had a couple of very uncomfortable conversations with Cindy, who had mistakenly interpreted three dates as the wheels beginning to turn on a bandwagon of ‘getting to know one another'. He hadn't wanted to retaliate in any way to her accusations of being used, but in the end had been forced to tell her that they simply weren't compatible. Instead of being consoled by that suitably vague excuse, she had begun to cry down the telephone and had launched into a really aggravating attack on him personally—at the end of which she had dared shout at him that he was just the sort of man her mother had always warned her about, after which she had slammed down the receiver.

Well, he could cope with that. Indeed, it had been a relief,
because the whole business of going out with another woman, going through the getting-to-know-you routines which he had always rather enjoyed, had been giving him a headache. He could have been a bit more tactful, he supposed, in letting her know how he felt, but all that was in the past now.

No, that had been fine, but this…

He stared darkly at the phone on his desk, which he had only just replaced on its handset.

It was just as well that it was Friday, that he was the sole person left in the office—everyone else having virtually stampeded out of the building by the ridiculously early time of seven—because he was finding it difficult to focus after his conversation with Goodman.

He had hesitated before calling the man, but a couple of shared games of squash and the occasional work titbit tossed his way in the past had more than qualified him, in his eyes, for a surprise call. He had, naturally, sweetened things considerably by holding out the dazzling carrot of investing some money in the man's company. Not such a far-flung idea, as Rafael had been toying with extending his portfolio for a few months, and sure enough Goodman had leapt at the bait. It had taken only the tiniest strand of curiosity, thrown in virtually as an afterthought before ringing off, for Rafael to learn what he had wanted to know from the very beginning.

Namely whether Goodman had any intentions of seeing Cristina.

Rafael had not cared for the answer. The handkerchief-sized red dress which had accentuated all her natural assets, along with her
looking for fun
frame of mind, had worked its magic. A date, he had been informed with a disgusting amount of relish, was planned for later that evening. In fact, Goodman had practically crowed down the phone, he'd had to get his
skates on if he was to meet her in time at the restaurant he had booked in the West End.

Rafael had received this information through gritted teeth, and had immediately taken precautionary action by telling him that he would have to cancel his hot date.

‘Going to spring something on you, Goodman,' he had said, without a twinge of conscience. ‘But my legal team have done rather more work on this particular investment than I originally let on, and if we're to move ahead we've got to do it quickly. I'm going to download an evening's worth of work…and I'll need your comments by tomorrow morning.' He had allowed sufficient time for his silence to be construed as rueful. Also for Goodman to appreciate just how much his firm would benefit from Rafael's much-needed injection of funds. He had added with killer instinct, ‘'Course, I have a number of companies I'm thinking of investing in…the opportunity would not be lost elsewhere…'

The conclusion to their conversation had been predictable: hot dates were good, but work came first.

Now, staring at the telephone as though at an object capable of spreading contamination, Rafael tried and failed to put the whole thing out of his mind. He really would have liked to sweep the matter under the carpet, but he was realistic enough to realise that that just wasn't going to happen.

For some reason the woman had got under his skin and, even now, with their relationship dead and buried, she was still getting under his skin.

He thought of Goodman, eyes popping out, staring at her breasts, mentally calculating how long he could feasibly wait before he tried to get her into bed, and congratulated himself on taking the action that he had.

Without bothering to talk himself out of his decision, he
grabbed his jacket and stuck it on while his computer was logging off, then he headed for the door.

This was unprecedented behaviour. He was fully aware of that, but all rational thought processes appeared to have disengaged and his feet had a game plan of their own, taking him down the stairs because the exercise was good, into the underground car park and towards the Ferrari which had been parked up for the past four days.

It started at the first attempt, and before he could think through what he was doing he was on his way to her apartment.

The traffic, to his immense frustration, was atrocious. He hadn't noticed before, but London seemed to be awash with road works—and, he thought, scowling, even with a million red-and-white cones in place no one appeared to be working.

He had plenty of time to imagine what the course of her evening would have been like had he not ensured that it was stillborn. Drinks and dinner at Harvey Nicols, where the noise levels in the bar would have been loud, the service slow and the opportunities boundless for Goodman to make sure that she worked her way through a decent amount of alcohol before dinner. He couldn't imagine that it was her sort of place, but then neither could he have imagined her dressed in a red handkerchief and
looking for fun
.

It was well after eight by the time he had circled her road a couple of times and managed to find a spot to park.

At least he didn't have Goodman to worry about. He had picked up a message on his BlackBerry a couple of minutes earlier, assuring him that the caseload was being scanned even as he spoke.

He pressed her flat number and waited for her to pick up, which she did. Goodman would have told her by now that the date was off. He wondered whether another had been set.
Maybe the man had intimated that he would drop by later for a nightcap.

‘I was in the area,' Rafael said, ‘So I thought I'd drop by.'

Cristina pulled back as if someone had suddenly shot a bolt of electricity through her body. James, her date, had called to say that he was in a bit of a pickle with work, and she had been guiltily aware of feeling a sense of relief. Having agreed to go out with him in the first place, she had spent the past two days having second thoughts.

He was an unashamed flirt. Without the safety net of a roomful of Rafael's friends and colleagues, she had been getting that ‘out of her depth' feeling that had only increased a couple of notches when he had said, over the phone, that he would call her the following day because ‘he couldn't wait to show her a good time'.

So Rafael's voice on her intercom, while a shock to the system, left her feeling a little giddy with relief. She had thought for a split second that James had decided to jettison the heavy workload and had somehow managed to get to her place so that he could show her this
good time
he had mentioned.

Not that she was going to give Rafael any inkling of what was going through her head. Not a chance. She had spent the past few days thinking about the new woman in his life, and telling herself that she needed to likewise move forward by having a chap on her arm. Or at least a possibility in her address book.

‘Well? Are you going to open the door or not?'

‘What are you doing here?' she said, stalling.

‘I told you. I was in the area. Why not drop by? After all, we hardly spoke at the party.'

‘Well, we did, actually,' Cristina was constrained to point out. ‘When I arrived, you told me that I looked awful, so after that I thought it best to keep out of your way.'

‘Open up the door. We can talk about this when I'm inside.'

Cristina chewed her lip, hesitating, and finally she pressed the button to open the front door downstairs because she knew that he wasn't going to go away until he was allowed in. Besides, despite all the bracing lectures she'd given herself on a daily basis about the unfeeling, cold, sad human being that he was—a man she was well rid of—her unruly heart still wanted to lay into him for the speed with which he had moved on to another woman.

She still hadn't changed out of her going-out outfit. James had mentioned something about a smart restaurant in the West End and she had dressed accordingly, in an elegant turquoise dress that clung to the figure she was more proud now to have on display than ever before in her life.

On the verge of getting undressed and settling down for a night in watching television, she had kicked off the high shoes. Now she stuck them back on as she waited for Rafael to appear. Rafael was a dominating presence as it was without the added advantage of towering over her even more because she was barefoot.

She heard the rap on the door and momentarily froze, even though she had been waiting for that rap with every straining inch of her body.

She had to take a few deep breaths before pulling open the door. Normally that did the trick whenever she was nervous, but this time it had the opposite effect of making those somersaults in her stomach even more frantic.

She involuntarily stepped back the minute she saw him, and he immediately took advantage and brushed past her into the small hallway.

The previous Saturday, Rafael had looked devastatingly handsome at his party, but this was the look she had grown
accustomed to and loved most: that end-of-day, slightly dishevelled look. His hair always looked as though he had been running his fingers through it, and he had seldom walked through her door in the evening without his sleeves cuffed to the elbows and his tie stuffed into his briefcase or in a pocket somewhere. At the start of the day he looked powerful, at the end of the day he looked downright dangerous.

‘Going out?' Rafael asked, swinging round to look at her, perfectly aware that thanks to his intervention she would be going nowhere tonight.

She was wearing another dress which he hadn't seen before, another sexy number designed to show off her fabulous curves. For someone who had once preached the virtues of practical clothing, she seemed to have discovered the allure of the impractical wardrobe. First siren-red, now a turquoise that was exquisitely dramatic against her skin, and the way it clung…Having had an uninterested libido for the past few weeks, he now had the insane urge to strip her of her cling-film garment and take her the way he'd used to when things had been going good between them. Before she'd tried to pin him into a corner and turn him back into the kind of man who had seen his ex-wife grow bored and demanding and eventually unfaithful.

For a few seconds, Cristina was seriously tempted to lie and tell him that, yes, she was just about to leave her apartment, but then where would she go? She had no date, and there was no way that she was going to circle the block like a fugitive just to pretend that she was as busy on the romance front as he obviously was.

‘I was,' she confessed stiffly. ‘But something came up and my date had to cancel.'

‘Nothing worse than an unreliable date,' Rafael purred
smoothly, dragging his eyes off her and heading up the stairs so that she had no option but to follow him.

He was standing in front of the open fridge with a wine bottle in his hand by the time she joined him in the kitchen, and he took down a couple of wineglasses and placed them on the counter. ‘So who was the lucky guy?' Rafael asked casually. ‘Anyone I know?'

‘James,' Cristina mumbled. ‘Actually, I met him at your party last weekend.'

Rafael knitted his brows together in a frown and then raised his eyebrows in amused disbelief. ‘Not Goodman.'

‘As a matter of fact, yes.' She accepted the glass of wine and thought of the blonde at the party, at which point she tried to look suitably gutted that she wasn't going to be seeing James as planned.

There was a long and seemingly significant silence, and she reluctantly said, ‘Why?' even though she could tell from that look on his face that that was precisely the question he had been waiting for.

‘I thought that might be the case,' Rafael acknowledged, draining his glass and then leaning against the counter so that he could pin her down with his silvered gaze. ‘Call it a gut feeling.'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘I must have a highly developed telepathic side,' he mused. ‘Because I got to thinking about you at the party, and I realised that I should probably come over and at least warn you that, if you're thinking of finding Mr Right in the shape of Goodman, then you're barking up the wrong tree.'

Cristina flushed and folded her arms.
Come over?
Warn
her?
Was she some sort of
charity case
? This confirmed everything she had been thinking. He had felt sorry for her and
so had invited her to his little party, and he now not only felt sorry for her but he had also decided that she was somehow incapable of looking after herself.

‘Did you
know
that James would get in touch with me?' she asked tightly.

Rafael was quick to deny any such thing. He suffered not the slightest tug of his conscience in doing so, because he could now see that she really was in need of his advice. He had tried to tell her that her suddenly revised dress code was not such a good idea, and as he could now see, she was in dire need of a few more words of caution.