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‘Leaving! But I thought that you and…’ Maggie stopped, colouring under Natalie’s wry gaze.
‘I thought we were, too, but I was wrong.’ Natalie clamped her trembling lips together and, brushing past the other woman with her head downbent, fled.
Natalie found herself back at the flat; scarily she had no memory of how she’d got there. Once inside she began to put her plan—such as it was—into action. It was unlikely that Rafe would follow her, but if she was wrong, however, she had no intention of being here when he arrived. She gritted her teeth and blinked back the hot tears that filled her eyes as she haphazardly piled some of Rose’s clothes and toys into a suitcase. She would pick Rose up from the child-minder and go straight to the railway station—yes, that was the best thing to do.
She was struggling as she lugged the second overfull case into the living room, when she hit her shin a painful glancing blow on a low table. If anything the pain was a useful distraction from the other pain… Sniffing defiantly, she placed her burden by the front door and looked around, trying to focus her thoughts. Had she forgotten anything vital? Mentally she ticked off items on her list of necessities. Her gaze fell upon an open book. It lay where Rafe had left it after Rose had climbed off his knee the previous evening.
‘Tomorrow,’ he had promised when she had begged him to continue. ‘You heard what Mummy said—it’s bedtime for you, young lady.’
An overwhelming sense of loss washed over Natalie, followed by a violent wave of anger. Rafe could have argued he had never lied to her—never told her he loved her—and it would have been true. She was willing to take a proportion of the blame herself, blame for falling in love with him. As far as Rose was concerned nothing could excuse his behaviour. That little girl adored him and she was going to be desperately confused and hurt to have him vanish from her life.
For that Natalie would never forgive him!
The sound of the key turning in the lock was very loud in the quiet room. Natalie mastered her panic and lifted her chin as she turned to face the door.
Rafe stepped into the room. Tall, devastatingly handsome and very, very angry. Anyone with normal co-ordination and reflexes would have fallen in a graceful heap over the pile of cases that lay there, but not Rafe. Without pausing, he sidestepped the obstacle without removing his burning gaze off the slim, rigid figure who stood in the middle of the room.
Lips compressed, nostrils flared, his powerful chest rising and falling as if he’d been running, he scanned her pale, hostile face with his brilliantly compelling gaze.
‘Going somewhere, Natalie?’
Natalie gave a contemptuous little laugh. ‘Anywhere you are not.’ Her antagonistic reply was rewarded by his sharp inhalation. ‘How did you know I was gone? No, don’t tell me—the loyal Maggie. You really do seem to inspire selfless devotion in women, Rafe, but consider yourself with one less devoted slave.’ She placed her splayed fingers flat on her heaving bosom just in case he was in any doubt of whom she referred to. ‘You can leave the key on the table when you leave.’ She spoilt her dignified dismissal by adding childishly, ‘I suppose you’ll be relieved not to be slumming it any longer!’
Rafe shook his head impatiently. ‘Slumming it? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I did wonder that you never invited me to your place, but it all makes perfect sense now. How would you explain me to your friends?’ With curious objectivity she observed the effect of her words on his composure as the nerve beside his mouth jerked.
‘How could I suggest you spend the night with me when you kept telling me how you wanted to keep the disruption to Rose’s routine to a minimum? Dear God, woman, you acted as if I was trying to move in when I left a toothbrush in the bathroom!’
His ability to come up with a plausible excuse and then turn the tables so that she was the one at fault was staggering and probably, she thought angrily, the secret of his success.
‘Sure, you’re Mr Considerate!’
‘Stop this, Natalie,’ he pleaded in a low, impassioned voice.
‘Stop what?’
The calculated obtuseness of her comment drew a harsh Italian curse from him. Swearing fluently, he crossed the room. As he reached her side Natalie was extremely conscious of his sheer physical power, of his tall, tightly muscled frame—he was a man in the peak of physical condition. In the past awareness of this strength had excited her; even now her stomach lurched as he approached. Contemplating the thrill it had given her to surrender to that strength increased her sense of self-loathing. With provocative deliberation she turned her head and looked away.
‘What’s going on here, Nat?’ Rafe took her chin in his hand and tilted her head up to him. ‘This morning things were fine, lunchtime you clean out your desk and walk out without a word…now I find you about to leave. Were you planning to give me any sort of explanation?’ The screaming tension on his taut features brought his cheekbones into sharp prominence.
‘No.’
Her monosyllabic response had much the same effect on him as a red rag did to a bull. ‘Good God!’ he thundered. ‘You are—’ He bit off the words he was about say and inhaled, breathing deeply as if he didn’t trust himself to respond. When he did speak his low tone was flat and expressionless. ‘Do you not think that I deserve to know what the hell I’m supposed to have done?’
Natalie gave an enraged yelp and tore her face from his grasp. ‘You deserve—you deserve!’ she yelled, her voice rising to a shrill, accusing shriek. ‘You deserve to rot in hell, Rafael Ransome!’
He recoiled as if she’d physically struck him. If she hadn’t known better she’d have bought that look of bewildered confusion on his dark face—if, that was, she hadn’t heard that incriminating conversation and if she hadn’t subsequently had her heart ripped out.
‘I know, Rafe. I know.’ She waited for him to at least acknowledge he had been caught out, but he didn’t even have the decency to do that! ‘So you can imagine why I find it a bit laughable you acting like the injured party here. I’m an adult, I should have known better,’ she acknowledged, ‘but I’ll never forgive you for Rose. It was cruel, Rafe—you made her love you!’ She pressed a hand over her mouth as a sob escaped.
‘And I love her.’
Natalie gasped wrathfully. ‘Why, you callous bas—!’
Rafe caught her hand mid-swing and brought it firmly down to her side. ‘Now you will tell me what I am supposed to have done.’
Breathing hard as if she had been running Natalie raised her bitter eyes to his. They shimmered with unshed tears. ‘There’s no need to pretend, Rafe. I know.’
As if he could compel her to speak by sheer force of will, his piercing blue eyes narrowed on her face. ‘You know…? I’m glad one of us does, because I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. You know what exactly? Speak to me, Natalie, because you’re killing me here.’
For a moment she hesitated; surely nobody could fake the raw emotional intensity and anguish she heard echoed in his voice. Then she remembered that damning conversation she had overheard and her face hardened.
‘I know that you had your own reasons for pretending we were an item.’
Natalie hadn’t known that she was secretly harbouring a crazy hope that this would all prove to be some horrible mistake until she felt it die. It died when he couldn’t meet her eyes.
‘And you think you know what those are?’ he hedged.
‘I know why you weren’t bothered if your parents got to know about our fake engagement—you wanted them to.’
He shook his head, his brows drawing together in a puzzled line. ‘Wanted them to what?’
Natalie gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I heard you on the phone with your mother.’
A flicker of comprehension appeared in his strained eyes. As she watched his head fell back and he exhaled noisily. Bizarrely his attitude seemed one almost of relief.
‘I took the call on the speaker phone…’ He ran a hand across his jaw.
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Natalie knew that by this time of day he would be able to feel a faint stubble. Only yesterday she had complained about it when he’d kissed her in the office lift and he had laughed. Actually she enjoyed the abrasive roughness against her soft skin. The flood of heat that washed through her body was mingled with anger and shame.
‘Don’t bother trying to remember what you said,’ she advised dully. ‘I heard enough to make me realise I’ve been a total fool to fall in love with you.’
Rafe’s head jerked up sharply; his iridescent blue eyes scanned her face. Whatever he saw there made the blood drain from his face, his normally healthily golden-toned skin looking greyish.
‘You fell in love…?’
Clearly this was news to him and not welcome news. Maybe he had a conscience after all? Well, that was good, because if she felt this wretched it only seemed fair that he should feel a little bit bad, too.
‘So sorry if you didn’t bargain for that, but don’t worry, I’ve woken up, I won’t be proclaiming my feelings from any high buildings.’ The way I’ve been acting, I probably don’t need to. ‘I know that this has all been about you wanting to teach your father a lesson. Everything falls in your lap, doesn’t it, Rafe?’ she reflected bitterly. ‘You needed an unsuitable sort of girlfriend and who comes along but the definitive version—me? The sort of girl your father would cross the street to avoid being contaminated by!’
‘So that’s it. You think…!’ He shook his head and drew an unsteady hand through his dark hair. Then unforgivably he laughed—he actually laughed. This fresh proof of his heartless callousness made Natalie feel physically sick. ‘You were eavesdropping! Actually, Natalie, my father has been known to cross the street to get a closer look at a beautiful girl but never the other way around.’
‘That only works if the girl is beautiful and I’m not.’
Her statement brought a stern, disapproving frown to his wide brow. ‘If I say you’re beautiful, you are,’ Rafe pronounced with breathtaking arrogance.
‘I have to be beautiful because you deigned to sleep with me, is that how it works? And don’t expect me to apologise about eavesdropping—if I hadn’t been I’d still be walking around thinking I was living out some sort of romantic fantasy.’
