Rafael's Suitable Bride (4 page)

‘I thought your dream was to do some landscaping,' Rafael said, his cynical palate tickled by her optimistic ambitions.

‘I have lots of dreams.' Cristina, aware that she had been babbling, fell silent for a few seconds. ‘Don't you?'

‘I find it doesn't pay to think too far into the future, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the realm of dreams, so I guess the answer has to be no.' To his surprise, they had reached London quicker than he had expected. She lived in Kensington, not a million miles away from his Chelsea penthouse—and in a rather nice part of Kensington which, he assumed, would have been paid for by those discreetly wealthy parents of hers.

For the first time he considered the advantages of a woman to whom his money would be a matter of indifference. His girlfriends were almost always impressed by the size of his bank balance. The ones who did have inherited money were almost worse, in a way, because they were motivated by social standing—playing a game of ‘keeping up' or ‘going one better' which had invariably involved him being displayed to their other friends as the catch of the day.

This girl seemed to be motivated by neither. Nor, he thought, did she seem interested in playing games with him. There had been none of the usual blatant flirting.

‘Seems a bit drastic, moving over here just to escape comparisons with your sisters.'

‘Oh, I've been to England hundreds of times. I went to a boarding school in Somerset, you see. Actually, I'm living in my parents' flat, as it happens. And I didn't come just to escape comparisons. Well…actually, I pretty much did. I mean, have you any idea what it feels like to have two gorgeous sisters? No, I guess you don't. Roberta and Frankie are perfect. Perfect in a good way, if you get my meaning.'

‘No, I don't.'

‘Some people are perfect in a nauseating way, the sort who look glorious and never manage to put a foot wrong—but then they know it and want the world to know it too. But Frankie and Roberta are just lovely and talented and funny and kind.'

‘Sound like model citizens,' Rafael said with heavy sarcasm. In his experience such creatures didn't actually exist. He was pretty sure that, like a number of things, they were an urban myth.

‘They are, really.' Cristina sighed. ‘Model daughters, at any rate. They're both much older than me. I was a bit of a mistake, I think, although my parents would never admit it, and I have to say that I did have a rather wonderful life as the baby of the family. Dad took me to loads of football matches. I think that's why I've always loved football so much. In fact, that's another one of my dreams. I want to do some football coaching. I used to play a lot when I was younger. I was pretty good, in fact, but then I gave it up, and I would really love to get back into it now. Not on the playing level, but on the coaching level. I might put an ad in the papers. What do you think?'

What Rafael thought was that he had never met such a garrulous woman in his life before. He was beginning to feel a little dazed.

‘Football,' he said slowly.

‘Yes. You know the sport? It's the one that involves lots of hunky men running around a field kicking a ball…?'

‘I know what football is!'

‘I was just kidding.' She was beginning to think that here was a man for whom the world was a very serious business.

‘You're not exactly a people person, are you?' she mused aloud, and Rafael was stunned enough at that observation to look at her, speechless for the first time in his life.

‘Meaning?' he snapped.

‘Oh, gosh, I'm sorry,' Cristina apologised. ‘I didn't mean to offend you.'

‘Why would I be offended by anything you have to say?'

‘That's not very nice.'

‘It's the truth,' Rafael answered with brutal honesty. He turned down Gloucester Road, slowing to accommodate the pedestrians who seemed to think that crossing roads without watching for oncoming cars was perfectly acceptable Sunday behaviour. Her remark niggled at him and, as he turned right into her road, he slotted his car neatly into a space, switched off the engine and turned to her.

‘But I'm curious to find out what you mean by that.'

Cristina reddened and looked at him. ‘Oh, just that you don't seem to have much time for fun. I mean…' She frowned slightly. ‘Last night, at your mother's party, you didn't seem to be having a good time.'

‘Enlighten me.'

‘Now you're mad at me, aren't you?'

‘Why should I be mad at you?'

‘Because even though you say you want me to be honest with you, you don't. Maybe because you're not accustomed to other people telling you exactly what they think.'

‘I work in the most cut-throat business in the world. Of course I'm accustomed to people telling me what they think!' Rafael snapped, not really sure how he had ended up having this discussion with her.

‘Well, maybe not women, in that case.'

‘Maybe I prefer my women to be a little more compliant.'

‘Does that mean they've got to agree with everything you say?'

‘It helps.'

Cristina thought that it sounded very boring, and since he obviously wasn't a very boring man she wondered how he could tolerate a boring love life—but, before she could expand, he was opening his car door.

‘No. Spare me the workings of your mind. I don't think I can take any more refreshingly honest home truths.'

Mortified, Cristina clumsily followed him out of the car and launched into a series of uninvited and unwelcome apologies while Rafael swung her suitcase out of the pocket-sized boot and walked along the pavement to her apartment block.

‘Enough!' He held up one autocratic hand and looked at her with frowning impatience. ‘There's no need for you to trip over yourself apologising. What's your apartment number? And before you tell me that you can walk yourself and your bag up, I'm escorting you to your door. I may not be a people person, but I do have some rudimentary good manners.'

‘Oh, I know you have!' Cristina assured him hurriedly. ‘I'm at the top.' She fumbled in her bag for the key, and as she pulled it out he took it from her and pushed open the front door into a flagstone hallway shared by the residents.

It was the sort of place not many young people could ever have dreamed of affording, with the high ceilings and majestic
elegance of a converted Georgian building. In fact, it was the sort of place well out of the price range of most people—except, he considered, Cristina was not most people. Underneath the slightly dippy, ready-to-smile, chatty girl lay the soft cushion of family money.

She was walking ahead to the lift, which was small, so small that their bodies were virtually touching when they stepped inside with the overnight bag separating them.

‘How long have you been here?' Rafael asked eventually. Somehow prolonged silence in her presence seemed slightly unnatural. He wondered if his brain had somehow gone into overdrive during the long trip back down to London. Could relentless chatter do that to a person?

‘You don't have to make polite small talk with me,' Cristina told him, staring straight ahead at the uninspiring view of an elevator button rather than into the mirrored sides of the shaft—which were a little too harsh for her liking when it came to showing up her unprepossessing figure next to his superbly built one.

Even after hours behind the wheel of a car he still managed to look carelessly, breathtakingly, dangerously sexy. She quickly tore her treacherous eyes away from the quick sidelong glance she had given him.

He thought she babbled. Admittedly, she was quite a chatty person. She liked to think of herself as friendly, the sort of person who found it easy to put other people at ease. It was now occurring to her that Rafael might just be the sort of man who didn't particularly want to be put at ease by someone talking constantly at him. He hadn't exactly piled on lots of interested questions, had he? In fact, she had caught him looking longingly at his phone a couple of times, probably, she now thought, because he'd had work to conduct, but polite
ness had condemned him to silently listen to her whitter on about anything and everything.

‘Where did that suddenly come from?' Rafael asked, just as the doors pinged open.

Cristina didn't answer immediately. She hung back while he opened her door and then breezed past him into her apartment, which was arranged on two floors, the entrance being on the bedroom floor, with a short flight of stairs winding up to the small kitchen and sitting area. It was a tiny apartment, but beautifully proportioned, and interior designers had turned it into a sharply modern unit, kitted out with the best that money could buy. Cristina, who had little interest in the value of things, was unaware of the cost of some of the furnishings surrounding her, many of which had been specially imported from her mother's favourite shops in Italy.

For a few seconds she was tempted to be cool, but being cool did not come naturally to her, and she turned to him and looked up, straight into those amazing blue eyes.

‘I just get the feeling that I've been talking too much,' she confessed with her usual directness. ‘And if I've been too…too honest with you…then I'm sorry.'

‘What makes you think that I don't like your honesty?' Rafael swept aside her apology and started up the stairs. It really was very small, but very, very tastefully done.

‘Where are you going?' Cristina called out after him.

‘Nice place.' His voice drifted down the stairs and she scurried after him to find him looking around the kitchen, opening her fridge and scrutinising the contents, which were an unhealthy option of pre-cooked meals, cheeses and various items of confectionery which always worked as a pick-me-up when her spirits were a little low.

‘You shouldn't be poking around in my fridge,' she an
nounced, slamming the door shut and standing back to look at him. ‘I know I don't have the most healthy diet in the world just at the moment…'

Rafael looked down at her. She still hadn't removed her jumper, which was straining across her breasts. Standing there, with her arms folded defensively, she resembled an irate little puppy caught in the act of chewing on a piece of furniture.

‘You don't have to defend yourself or your eating habits to me,' he informed her mildly.

‘I'm not defending myself,' Cristina lied, blushing madly. ‘I'm just…I…'

‘Having two saintly, perfect sisters really did your head in, didn't it?' Rafael really tried not to delve too deeply into the female psyche, but in this instance it seemed impossible to avoid.

‘I have no idea what you're on about. I just realise that I could probably do with losing a couple of pounds, and I know what you might be thinking when you nose around my fridge.' She tried to maintain a healthy, dignified silence after this pronouncement, but immediately spoilt it by adding, ‘You're thinking that I should be eating lots of salads and drinking lots of mineral water and yes, for your information, I do eat salads.'
Occasionally
. ‘Quite often. There.'

‘Happy now that you've cleared the air on that count?' Surprisingly, he was amused rather than irritated by her rambling over-explanation. ‘A lot of men prefer women who aren't…skinny anyway.'

‘Really?' She dredged up some uncharacteristic sarcasm from somewhere. ‘Not according to every magazine in every newsagent's up and down the country.' She sighed. ‘I was skinny as a child and then I don't know what happened.' She was tempted to open the fridge and dip into some of the cheesecake which she had bought the Friday before for a bit
of consolation, but she didn't. That would have really put paid to her futile attempts to convince him that she watched what she ate. And she was dimly aware that she didn't want him thinking the worst of her.

‘Anyway,' he said bracingly, ‘You're not overweight. You're curvy.'

Her face broke into a smile of delight and she laughed that infectious laugh of hers. ‘Funny, that's exactly what I keep telling myself!'

Rafael looked briefly at her and had a moment of utter madness—a moment when he wanted to touch her, feel her body under the unflattering clothes and find out for himself how curvy she really was, how heavy and succulent those abundant breasts of hers truly were.

He turned away abruptly. ‘Fascinating though this is, I'm going to have to leave you. I have work to do.'

‘It's Sunday.'

‘Try telling that to the rest of the world.' He headed to the stairs while Cristina followed him, unsure whether she would see him again and already telling herself that that was fine. Thoughtful though he had been in sorting her out the evening before, and sexy though he was in a way that sent her entire body into overdrive, there was too much latent aggression inside him, and he was a workaholic. Cristina could respect that fierce work ethic, but she had never found it a particularly attractive trait in a man. The few boyfriends she had had in the past had been kind, unassuming free spirits who, like her, had preferred the great outdoors to the deadly indoors.

That said, she couldn't help but feel a sharp wrench as he opened her front door and turned towards her.

‘Thanks for the lift,' she said. ‘Of course, I shall send your mother a thank-you note, but if you speak to her please tell
her that it was so kind of her to invite me and that I had a marvellous time. I think she's coming down some time next month when my mother comes over to visit.'

She paused for him perhaps to mention bumping into her again, but, deflatingly, he said nothing. He just tilted his head politely to one side, hearing her out, and she wondered whether her rambling gene had kicked in again. ‘And don't work so hard.' She smiled. ‘Ever so often you should go to the park and have a walk. It's lovely, even in winter.' She very nearly tacked on a lengthy account of what she did when she went to the park—the interesting people she saw, the feeling of peace she got when she sat on a bench and watched the ducks bustling and going about their daily business—but held herself back in the nick of time.