AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘What does that mean?’ she whispered, gazing up at him and deciding that she would never tire of looking at his lean, vibrantly handsome features. He had remarkable bone structure, eyelashes that were amusingly longer than her own, and eyes of quite extraordinary depth and colour. Once he had seemed so distant from her, she acknowledged absently, but now he felt familiar.
‘That you’re a treasure.’
‘And the other?’
‘That you’re sweet. A most rare virtue in my experience.’
Harriet felt light-headed with happiness. She stretched with slow, newly sensual abandon, her limbs weighted with languor and contentment. She thought she could happily stay where she was for ever. Never had she been more relaxed or more in tune with the world. Feeling impossibly feminine, she rejoiced in every point of contact where her softer curves yielded to the taut, hard muscles of his lean, tough physique. The very scent of his damp bronzed skin enchanted her. Her fingers splayed in a possessive curve across the washboard-flat expanse of his stomach. ‘Luke…’ she whispered.
And the instant she said it she knew her mistake, and was so utterly appalled by what she had accidentally said that she was struck dumb. She could not comprehend where Luke’s name had come from, or why it had leapt without prior thought from her tongue. In shock at her own indiscretion, she lay still as a statue, seized up by the horror and ghastly timing of her blunder. She felt Rafael tense against her, but the change in his body language was infinitesimal. Hope that he had somehow failed to pick up on her verbal bombshell surged through her. Perhaps her guardian angel had stepped in to distract Rafael’s attention at just the right moment.
‘I need a shower,’ Rafael murmured softly.
There was nothing in his intonation to persuade her differently and he detached himself from her with unhurried grace. Yet she felt the cold in him pierce her with the deep inner chill of his reserve and knew immediately that he had noticed. Of course he had noticed, she raged at herself in disbelief. He was not hard of hearing! He could scarcely have missed being called by another’s man’s name at such a very personal moment.
‘Rafael…I don’t know how it happened!’ she exclaimed, a sense of panic making words brim from her lips so fast that they almost ran together. ‘You probably imagine now that I was thinking about Luke, but I swear that I wasn’t! He hasn’t once crossed my mind today…of course I wasn’t thinking about him! Why would I be thinking about him when I’m with you?’
A broad bronzed shoulder shifted in the very slightest shrug of dismissal. His lean, strong face was impassive, his eyes dark as sloes and without a shade of gold. Cold fear spread inside her like an icy pool: she knew he wasn’t listening to her excuses.
‘Does it matter?’ Rafael enquired silkily.
‘Yes, it does matter—very much!’ Harriet gasped. ‘I’ve been clumsy and thoughtless, but please believe that it doesn’t mean what you think it does.’
‘Don’t presume to know what I think.’
Every scrap of colour ebbed from below her fair complexion. Her skin turned clammy, her tummy queasy. He was untouched, indifferent. He moved with the same measured grace into the bathroom and an instant later she heard a shower running. Her teeth were chattering, until she realised and clamped them together to still that nervous reaction, but she still felt icy cold and bereft. She was in shock, could not comprehend how it all could have gone so wrong at such terrifying speed. One moment everything had been wonderful and the next it had been gone, like a mirage, leaving only a taunting memory behind…
His magnificent bronzed body rigid with raw, leaping tension, Rafael leant back against the limestone wall of the power shower area, which was big enough to host a party, and very slowly and carefully uncoiled his clenched fists. With absolute force of will he subdued his temper. Of course he was angry with her. That was only natural. After all, such a thing had never happened to him before. He had heard others tell tales of similar experiences and had felt secure in the belief that no woman would ever commit such an error of good taste in his radius. To be addressed by another man’s name in his own bed was deeply offensive. Her even more tactless attempt to cover her tracks had increased his annoyance. He was not a fool. Of course she had been thinking about Luke, possibly even closing her eyes in his arms and trying to pretend that he was her ex-fiancé! Cold rage and disgust lanced through him afresh.
When Rafael emerged from the bathroom the phone was ringing. A towel wrapped round his lean angular hips, he swept up the receiver. He listened to the caller with a darkening brow, stated that he would deal with the situation, uttered a flat apology and concluded the call.
‘Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes?’ he asked Harriet grimly. ‘I have to get back to Ballyflynn in a hurry. Una’s bolted from school again.’
‘Oh, no!’ she exclaimed in dismay, rising from the dressing table where she had been brushing her hair. ‘Have you to call at the school first?’
‘I see no point in going to St Mary’s at this hour of the day. If I know my sister, she’ll already be halfway back home by now.’ Even as he spoke Rafael was getting dressed in a series of quick, economical movements. ‘Right now I need to call her mother and her sister to find out if either of them have heard from her. As usual I’ll be treated to a load of time-wasting bull, because nobody has either the guts or the interest to tell me the
truth!’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, this time Una is the one who will be sorry.’
Harriet could not conceal her concern. ‘Rafael—’
‘Have you any idea how much at risk Una is? Every time this happens I have to ask the police to check out that she hasn’t been kidnapped. She’s very young, and very stupid when it comes to her personal security,’ Rafael framed with icy clarity. ‘The last time she did this she hitched lifts halfway across Ireland to get home. Suppose she picks the wrong car and the wrong driver to trust?’
Harriet paled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Samson was rudely snatched from his comfortable doze in the kitchen. He let out a cross little growl of complaint. Harriet held the tiny animal aloft and studied him with rampant disbelief. ‘What was that?’
His liquid dark eyes blinked and he squirmed, looking as ashamed of himself as a chihuahua could look. ‘No more bad temper,’ she warned, tucking him under her arm.
Harriet met up with Rafael again in the hall. ‘Any news yet?’ she asked.
‘None.’
She had to almost run to keep up with his long impatient stride on the path to the helipad. ‘Obviously Una is extremely unhappy at school—’
