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‘Well, I’m pretty happy to hear you say yes,’ she admitted. ‘The only problem is…I mean, I know that it’s inevitable this thing between us has a relatively short shelf-life…’
‘Is that so?’
His weird tone made her glance across at him sharply, but his profile was unrevealing.
‘Well, of course,’ she confirmed, determined to show him she didn’t have any unrealistic expectations. ‘I’m afraid…’ she cast a worried glance at the child asleep in the back seat ‘…that Rose will get too fond of you. Perhaps you should keep your distance,’ she suggested doubtfully.
‘And how do you propose I do that?’ he grated, not looking amused by her suggestion.
‘I see what you mean. It’s a pity you get on so well…’
‘I can see how it might be more convenient if your child and boyfriend hated the sight of one another,’ he drawled. ‘For the record, I don’t think it’s a helpful thing to decide a relationship is doomed to failure before it’s even started.’
Natalie blinked. Surely he wasn’t suggesting they could have something long term!
He took his eyes briefly from the road. ‘Why not see how things develop?’ he suggested in a more moderate tone.
‘That’s fine by me,’ she replied, trying to keep the jubilation and hope from her voice.
CHAPTER NINE
THE following Friday a week later Natalie was outside Rafe’s office. They had arranged at breakfast to have lunch together. They had done lunch together twice already that week, and breakfast every day! A smile appeared in her eyes as her thoughts dwelt on an unshaved Rafe sitting at her kitchen table with tousled dark hair falling in his eyes… Sometimes she had to pinch herself, it seemed so unreal. But there was nothing imaginary about the growing selection of male toiletries crammed on the shelves in her dinky bathroom or the pair of black men’s socks that had turned her white delicate wash a dirty grey.
The changes weren’t restricted to her flat. Natalie felt a different person from the one she had a mere week earlier: happier, more carefree—simply more alive!
She had her moments of doubt. It wasn’t just that Rafe had quickly become part of her life—he had become part of Rose’s, too.
‘Things are moving a bit fast,’ she suggested tentatively to Rafe after the sock incident.
His deep blue eyes lifted from the journal he was reading. ‘Do you mind?’
Natalie thought about it. ‘No, actually, I don’t,’ she revealed with a silly grin.
Rafe responded with a grin of his own—one that was not at all silly. His grin made her heart race and her knees turn to cotton wool. He didn’t raise any objections when she took the magazine from his hands and climbed onto his lap—none at all!
When she had asked Rafe what she ought to tell people at work, he had shrugged in the way only a Latin male could and said, ‘Whatever you like,’—which was no help at all. On reflection Natalie had decided not to volunteer anything, but if anyone asked she would tell them the truth, though sometimes she wasn’t sure what that was, or where they were going.
She was totally, deeply, deliriously in love with Rafe, but how did he feel? Though expressive in many ways, shockingly so on occasions, he never once said ‘love’. He told her how beautiful and sexy she was, but never once did he say he loved her. His restraint on the subject made her shy of expressing her own feelings, even though sometimes she ached to do so.
She was about to knock when she saw the door was ajar. She had pushed it open a little when she heard Rafe’s voice inside; as she paused he switched seamlessly from Italian to English.
‘Hold on, Mother, I’ll put you on the speaker.’
His mother! Natalie, who had been about to move away, couldn’t resist the opportunity of listening a little longer.
‘Rafael, you don’t call, you are never at home when I call and I’ve been so concerned ever since Sophia contacted me.’
The husky voice the other end was attractively accented.
‘I asked her not to, so I was fairly sure she would. Why are you concerned, Mother?’ Natalie could hear the sound of Rafe moving about the office—a drawer opening, paper rustling. She really ought to go—if he found her standing there eavesdropping it might be a little embarrassing.
‘Do not be so obtuse, Rafael! Why do you think I am concerned? I know you were a little annoyed with your father…’
‘Annoyed!’ Natalie heard the sound of Rafe’s harsh laugh. ‘Why should I be annoyed? My father thinks he can arrange a marriage to suitable breeding stock, he puts me in an impossibly embarrassing situation…what is there to be annoyed about?’
‘You know your father, he means well, but he—’
‘Is a snobbish, manipulative, unprincipled… Do you suppose he’s ever going to learn he can’t run my life?’
‘I know you’re angry, I know you want to punish him, but really this isn’t the way to do it!’
‘What are you talking about, Mother?’
‘I’m not stupid, Rafael,’ came the impatient maternal reply. ‘Remember what you said when I asked you about marriage—you told me then what the girl you married would be like. From what Sophia tells me this girl is the exact opposite.’
There was a short pause, during which Natalie held her breath; any desire to leave had vanished. ‘You know, I haven’t actually thought about it, but I suppose she is.’
‘Add that to the fact this girl you so suddenly get engaged to just happens to be everything your father would dislike—divorced…with a child…from a totally different social background to your own… Am I supposed to think this is a coincidence? I know you want to teach your father a lesson, Rafael, but you have involved another person,’ the husky voice remonstrated worriedly. ‘Have you thought how this young woman is going to feel when she realises you are using her? I am assuming you are going to call a halt to this thing before you get as far as a church…?’
Natalie could have told her how this girl would feel—how this girl was feeling: numb. There was a total absence of feeling; she felt dead inside.
She turned and began to walk away, slowly at first and then quicker until she was running full pelt, oblivious to the startled glances she attracted. It all made sense, of course. That was why Rafe hadn’t been angry when she had claimed he was her fiancé. He had seen it as the perfect opportunity to teach his interfering father a lesson—and the sex had been good, too.
My God, he must have thought it was his lucky day! She felt used and grubby and very, very stupid. She dashed a hand across her face as the tears started in her eyes. The numbness was beginning to fade, leaving a knot of pain that was lodged like a fist behind her breastbone.
‘And all the while I was dreaming my silly dreams like the besotted idiot I am!’
‘Ms Warner…Natalie…?’
‘Yes, Maggie,’ Natalie replied as she continued to empty the contents of her drawers into a bag.
‘I just wanted to say…I’m sorry if…’
God, is this Maggie trying to be friends because sh
e thinks I’m the boss’s girlfriend? Ironic under the circumstances. ‘Honestly, Maggie, you don’t have to bother.’
‘Oh, but I do, I want to! I think I might have treated you unfairly,’ she began awkwardly. ‘No, I know I did.’
‘It’s not nec—’ Natalie began tiredly.
‘I need to say this,’ came the taut response. ‘You made me feel guilty.’
Natalie straightened up. ‘Guilty…?’ she echoed with a frown.
The older woman nodded. ‘I had a baby, you see. I wasn’t married and I gave him away…’
The simple statement hid half a lifetime of pain. Natalie’s eyes filled with tears as her tender heart ached with empathy for the pain etched on the other woman’s face.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘Nobody did,’ Maggie told her thickly. ‘I made a choice, I chose my career over my baby. You didn’t and, seeing you doing both so well, it made me ashamed that I had never even tried. Every time I looked at you I…’ She shook her head and when she continued her voice was thick with emotion. ‘I’m sorry I gave you a hard time.’
Natalie shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told the other woman wearily. Nothing mattered any more, but Maggie’s poignant tale had reminded her of something she still had—her daughter—and for that reason if no other she had to carry on. It didn’t matter how bleak her personal future seemed, the luxury of falling apart was not an option.
‘What are you doing?’ Maggie seemed to notice for the first time that Natalie was removing her belongings.
With her forearm Natalie brushed the entire contents from her desktop into an open bag. She fastened the bag and straightened up. ‘I’m leaving.’
Staying after what had happened was clearly out of the question. The idea of seeing Rafe on a daily basis made her blood run cold. She would take Rose for a holiday to her grandmother’s, and when she was there she could sort out her options, such as they were. Maybe she would stay in Yorkshire? It had a lot to recommend it, the biggest selling point being the number of miles that separated it from Rafe Ransome. It was cheaper to live in the country. Grimly determined to be positive even if her world was falling apart, she told herself the country air would be good for Rose.
