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CHAPTER NINE
RAFESTRODEFROMthe dining room back towards Lise’s suite. He’d wanted to talk over the calm of breakfast, where she couldn’t hide. Yet she hadn’t been in the dining room this morning. She’d been breakfasting in her own room, so the staff told him.
In bed.
It seemed an age ago when he’d made that suggestion to her, hardly crediting it was only yesterday. How life could change in twenty-four hours. He should be there with her right now. They could be feasting on each other as he’d intended, rather than sitting down to the luxurious breakfast he’d had, which tasted little better than sawdust on his tongue. A poor substitute when all he craved to taste was her. The fire of anger burned a little too brightly in his gut as he made his way to their rooms. More at himself than anything else. He had greater finesse than this, and yet around her all his plans and good intentions crumbled to nothing.
Breakfast in bed.
They both knew what he’d meant. Lise’s pupils had flared wide and dark when he’d mentioned it. Her lips parted, breaths quick and shallow. She’d wanted him as much as he did her. Arousal joined the irritation hammering at his cold, calculated self-control, the two fresh emotions now a heady and dangerous mix that had him thrumming, not at all conducive to polite conversation.
In other circumstances they could have burned it away together. Not now. He reached her bedroom door and knocked. Perhaps a little too firmly. Took a breath to calm the driving pulse beating low and hard.
‘Come in.’ Even though her voice was muffled slightly by the wood, it was firm and clear. She should be worried. Perhaps she hadn’t seen the scurrilous online gossip in the tabloids yet? He thrust open the door and entered.
Lise stood near the window, framed by the view behind of the lake and capital she now ruled. Looking as regal as any monarch he’d ever met, with her chin held high and spine stiff. She wasn’t the tallest of women, but in that pose it still seemed as if she looked down at him. That she appeared entirely unaffected irritated and enthralled him in equal measure. He wanted to break through that cool veneer. Like before, marvelling at the passionate treasure underneath after he’d stripped her back to her truest self.
Rafe strolled into the room trying to appear nonchalant when every part of him stretched taut, primed for the spears of battle. Even today, she wore black. A dress of some sort, high-necked, below the knee. Belted at her slender waist. Skimming over the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hip. Yet it could have been the sheerest lingerie, the way the impeccable fit called to him. He barely understood this need. How his craving for power, establishing his legacy, was being overborne by another craving... For her.
‘Sleep well, Lise?’
She glanced at the unmade bed. A tray still there, with food half eaten. Visions flickered through his head like a stuttering film reel. Lise, naked and glowing in the soft light of a fire. Body arched and gasping as he tasted her. Head thrown back as she came. The breathless whispers as her fingers gripped his hair.Rafe, Rafe...
And that beat deep inside took up a relentless pace, riding him hard. His famed control fled where she was concerned. Yet she seemed entirely unmoved, though her gaze didn’t leave him, following every footstep as he moved closer to her. A polite distance, but still close enough to see her throat convulse as she swallowed.
‘Yes, I did. And I can highly commend your suggestion of breakfast in bed. An inspired idea.’ She sauntered towards that bed with a taunting sway of her hips. Picked up a piece of bread slathered with jam and bit into it. Consuming the morsel slowly, licking a stray crumb from her lips once finished. Minx. ‘Did you sleep well too?’
‘As I’ve said before, I’m not afflicted by poor sleep.’ Although his night had been plagued by dreams of being buried in the wet heat of her body. Wasted fantasies when they should have been playing them out together.
Lise raised a supercilious brow. He’d seen that look before, proving she was her father’s daughter in some ways at least. ‘Your clear, unblemished conscience.’
No, she was not doing this. He had nothing to feel guilty for. He raised a brow to match hers. Time to end what he’d started the night before.
‘I never took you for a coward.’
She turned her back on him to stare out of the window. ‘I’m not, I’m—’
‘Which is why you threatened to call Security and have me locked in a dungeon.’ No more lies. It stopped today.
Lise whipped around. ‘I told you to go. You don’t listen.’
‘I do—’
‘You’re no better than the rest of them!’ She stabbed the air in front of her with her finger.‘“What’s the point competing in the downhill championships since you can’t win?” “Why learn about running the country when you won’t need to?” “Who cares about your thoughts on the subject since you must marry?”’
The words had taken on a mocking tone. She shook her head, then looked directly at him, her gaze cold and piercing. ‘“When you claim you want me to leave, you really mean stay.”No, Rafe. You might hear what I say, but you don’t listen to what I want.’
Her wrenching sobs from the evening before still rang in his ears. Not a sound he would easily forget. ‘I will not ignore another person in distress, especially not the woman I married. How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t need to do this alone?’
She looked down at her twisting fingers then seemed to check herself, grasping onto the back of a chair instead. Her fingertips blanched white. ‘I don’t deserve any sympathy.’
Rafe didn’t understand. If she wasn’t deserving now, when would she ever be? He moved towards her. Slowed his breathing. Tried to gentle his voice. ‘You needed my support. I understand you’re afraid—’
‘Your arrogance is astonishing.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You knownothing.’
Oh, no. This, he would not accept. He’d transformed his family’s humble though successful business into a billion-dollar empire. Perhaps she needed reminding of how much this countryowedhim. And he’d take it, in the end. It was all his due. People wouldneverforget the De Villiers name.
‘My arrogance, as you call it, is well placed.’ His jaw clenched, the taunts from the Kings’ Academy searing into his consciousness. Leeches of the aristocracy were prepared to take what he offered when they were at risk of losing everything. His money to save their skins. Particularly those families whose sons had disparaged him at school. Who had bullied Carl till he’d left. ‘The De Villiers group props up most of Lauritania’s oldest companies, almost destroyed by complacency and lack of government support. There’s nothing made here that you eat or drink or wear that doesn’t have my name behind it. So, say again that you don’t need me, and I’ll walk from this room right now.’
