Rubbing her hands up and down her arms in a nervous gesture as she walked, at least she looked more like herself, she tried to console herself. With Elise’s image stripped away and her hair shampooed and quickly blow-dried, she’d seen the real Rachel staring back at her from the mirror—the one who wore jeans and a long-sleeved black knit top. Her make-up was minimal and her hair had reverted to its natural style.
All she needed to do now was to convince herself that she was the real Rachel, because she certainly did not feel like her inside.
She intended to go and hunt down her bag and her cellphone before she did anything else, but she never got that far. The door next to the kitchen stood open and, having glanced through it, she then pulled to a heart-sinking halt.
Raffaelle was there, standing by a long dining table. He was wearing a soft loose-fitting smoked-grey T-shirt and a pair of charcoal trousers that hung easily around his hips. And, if she had ever wanted to know the difference between expensive man dressed in a formal dinner suit and expensive man dressed casually, then she was looking at him.
The aroma of fresh coffee would have sailed right by her if he had not used that moment to lift a cup to his mouth. She was held transfixed by his height again, by his sensual dark good looks, by his mouth sipping coffee and his long golden fingers holding the cup.
Sensation quivered right down her front as each and every sense unfurled and responded to the sight of those hands, that mouth, the long legs and wide shoulders—to her exciting new lover. Her breasts grew tight and tender in her bra cups, her tongue grew moist in her mouth, her breathing stopped completely as a tight tingling erupted low down. It was like falling into a deep, dark pit of forbidden pleasures. She didn’t want to feel like this but she could not break free from it.
Then he glanced up and caught her standing there staring at him. It was like being pinned to a wall by her guilty thoughts. Heat rushed up from her toes and through her body until it suffused her face to her hair roots while he just stood there with his cup suspended just below his sensual mouth.
The agony of mutual intimacy was nothing short of torture as she watched his eyes drop to the pair of simple flat black shoes adorning her feet, then begin a slow journey upwards, along well-faded denim that clung to her legs and her hips and the flatness of her stomach like a second skin.
His scrutiny paused right there and suddenly something else was adding to the turbulent mix. Rachel knew what he was thinking. She felt the muscles around her womb clench tightly as if it was acknowledging that it already belonged to him.
Maybe he saw the tightening because his eyes darkened. When he lifted them to clash with her eyes, the sheer power of what was passing between them put her into a prickling hot sweat.
He broke eye contact and she could feel her heart drumming against her ribs as he dropped his attention to her mouth, slightly parted and trembling, with its light coating of pink lipstick, then back to her eyes, looking out at him from a fixed hectic blue stare between quick flicks of mascara. Finally he let his eyes drift over her hair, where long and sleek straight had been replaced by a mop of silky loose curls that framed her still blushing face.
‘Where did the curls come from?’ he asked softly.
Forced into speech, Rachel had to moisten the inner surface of her lips. ‘They were always there, just hiding,’ she answered, lifting a self-conscious hand up to push the curls from her brow.
He continued to stare as the curls bounced back into place again. Shoulder-length straight now finished in a sexy blonde bubbly riot almost level with her pointed chin.
‘They suit you,’ he murmured.
‘No, they don’t,’ she denied. ‘But I was born with them, so …’ She added a shrug, then stuck her hands into her jeans pockets and finally managed to drag her eyes away from him.
Raffaelle frowned as he watched the defensive body language.
‘Is there any of that coffee going spare?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he answered. ‘In the kitchen. I will go and get it—’
‘No.’ She jerked into movement. ‘Let me.’
She’d disappeared before he could stop her, fleeing like a scared fluffy blonde rabbit. It made him grimace—a lot of things made him grimace, like the tension she’d taken with her—the knowledge of what they’d done the night before. And the lack of awareness in her own natural beauty, for which he placed the blame firmly at her glamorous half-sister’s feet.
Draining his coffee cup, he made the decision to follow her. Now the morning ice was almost broken he had no intention of letting it freeze over again.
She was standing by the coffee machine, watching it fill a cup.
‘Here,’ he said, striding over to offer his empty cup. ‘I like it black.’ He moved away from her before she had a chance to react to him. ‘What do you like for breakfast—a fresh croissant? Cereal? Toast?’ he listed lightly. ‘There is some fresh orange juice in the fridge if you—’
‘I don’t want anything,’ she cut in. ‘Th-thank you,’ she added. ‘Just a caffeine shot then I will have to be going …’
‘Goings …’ He turned slowly to look at her.
‘Yes,’ She was clearly refusing to look at him, staring down at her watch instead. ‘I have a train to catch back to Devon and half the morning has gone already.’
‘We’ve been over this,’ Raffaelle reminded her. ‘You are staying right here with me.’
‘Yes, I know that.’ She nodded, setting the blonde curls bouncing as she concentrated on the job of swapping her filled cup for his empty one beneath the stream of coffee from the machine. ‘But I need to get some clothes if …’
‘I will buy you any clothes you will need.’
Rachel stiffened. ‘No, you will not! I have clothes back in Devon—and don’t you dare make such a derisory offer like that again!’
‘It was not derisory,’ he denied. ‘I was being practical.’
‘Well, I’m trying to be practical too, and I can’t just drop everything as if I don’t have another life. I need a couple of days to—organise things with the farm.’
‘You mean you actually run the farm yourself?’
More derision? Rachel stared at him but only saw honest disbelief in his face. ‘Efficiently,’ she stated coolly.
‘So who is looking after it while you are here?’
‘A—neighbour.’ She frowned as she said that, wondering why she had put her relationship with Jack in such odd terms. ‘But he has his own place to run, so I …’
Something altered in his demeanour, though Rachel wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
‘Use your phone to make your arrangements, as I have had to do,’ he said coolly.
‘God, you’re so insufferable,’ she gasped. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re Mr High-flyer. You can order people about by phone, but I can’t.’
Ignoring the high-flyer quip, Raffaelle walked towards her. ‘You think?’
‘I know.’ Rachel nodded backing into the corner of the kitchen units as he approached, then feeling well and truly trapped by the time he towered over her. ‘I’ve seen the way it works with Leo. W-when he needs something done he just throws his weight around by telephone.’
‘But you need to be hands-on to water your organic lettuce,’ he mocked.
‘You don’t need to be so derisive about it!’ she flashed in her own defence.