Rachel froze as he put the plates down on the table.
‘She sends you her apologies and promises to behave the next time that you meet.’
‘She had nothing to apologise to me for,’ Rachel said flatly. ‘Actually, I could like her despite …’
‘Daniella not liking you?’
‘Yes,’ she said huskily.
He pulled out a chair and sat down on it. ‘You can tell her you like her later when we meet up at the theatre—’
‘Theatre—?’ Rachel stared at him. ‘I don’t want to go to the theatre!’
‘Sit down and eat,’ he instructed. ‘If you are eating for two you must have a good balanced diet.’
Rachel stared slack-jawed at him.
Steady-eyed, Raffaelle just shrugged. ‘I’m the fatalist, remember? I work through problems sometimes before they are problems. It is what helps to keep me at the top.’
‘You’re not short on insufferable arrogance either. You and Daniella should share the same blood.’
He just grinned over the top of his sandwich. ‘Tell me why you don’t want to go to the theatre,’ he instructed.
She pulled out a chair and sat down on it. ‘I don’t get the opportunity to go often enough to get to like it.’
‘Well, that’s about to change.’
‘What kind of theatre?’ she asked dubiously.
‘Opera,’ he provided. As her jaw dropped again, he said, ‘Get used to it because it is the love of my life. Eat.’
Rachel picked up her sandwich. It arrived by instinct at her mouth because her eyes certainly didn’t guide it there—they were still looking at him in horrified disbelief.
‘I can’t believe you want to put me through an opera,’ she protested.
‘We either go to the opera or we stay in and make love …’
And, just like that, their few minutes of near normality disappeared without a trace.
Rachel put down the sandwich. He chewed on his, his eyes gleaming with challenge.
‘I’m will not be blackmailed into your bed—!’ She flew to her feet.
‘Then prepare for an evening of Tosca,’ he countered coolly. ‘Wear something long and—sexy. Oh, and take your sandwich with you, mi amore,’ he drawled as she went to flounce out of the room. ‘The opera starts early and supper will be late.’
She wore a long slender blue gown that faithfully followed her every curve. Raffaelle took one look at her and staked possessive claim with a hand to the indentation of her waist.
‘Mine,’ he declared huskily. ‘Make sure you remember it while we are out.’
Sitting for hours beside a man who seemed to take pleasure in playing the deeply besotted lover throughout the interminable though admittedly moving music heightened her senses to such a degree that she had never felt more relieved to walk out into the ice-cold evening air so she could breathe.
They ate supper with a crowd of people including Daniella, who was quieter than the night before and was almost pleasant to Rachel, though Rachel could tell by the glint in the other woman’s brown eyes that the pleasantness ran only skin-deep. Daniella was still suspicious and hostile and hungered for the real truth as to what was going on.
Rachel gave Daniella no chance of getting her on her own that evening, staying put in her seat and keeping her attention fixed on everyone else. At least they seemed to accept her at face value—it was difficult not to when the man sitting beside her rarely took his eyes from her face. Tension zinged between them like static. Rachel refused to so much as glance at him, smiling where she thought she should do and trying to ignore the ever increasing pulse of awareness he was making her suffer. She was quizzed about her occupation and it seemed a good time to launch into the benefits of organic farming with an enthusiastic vigour that set such an animated debate going she almost managed to forget Raffaelle was sitting there.
Then he reached out to gently take hold of her chin and turned it so she had no choice but to look at him. His expression was difficult to read, kind of mocking yet deadly serious at the same time.
‘You are here with me,’ he said huskily.
‘I know who I’m with.’ She frowned at him.
‘Then don’t ignore me.’
‘I wasn’t ignoring you. I was—’
‘Smiling at every other man at this table but me.’
The idea that he might be feeling left out and jealous sent a different kind of sting singing through her blood. Her eyes must have showed it because his thumb arrived to rub across her lower lip in an intimate, very sexual proclamation that brought a telling flush to her cheeks.
But she could not pull back or break eye contact. It was too much like being plugged into an electric current again—lit up from the inside and sensually enlivened. He knew it, he built it until her breathing quickened and her eyes darkened. She could feel Daniella watching them. She heard someone else murmur dryly, ‘Time to break up the party, I think.’
‘Good idea,’ he murmured and leant forward to replace the thumb with his mouth in a brief promise of a kiss that brought him smoothly to his feet.
They travelled back to his apartment in absolute silence. They rode the lift in exactly the same way. Rachel kept her eyes fixed on her feet again but refusing to look at him did not ease the sexual pull taking place. They walked along the hallway towards the bedrooms still accompanied by that highly strung clamour of perfect silence.
When they reached the door to his bedroom they paused. Still he said nothing and still she was fighting it until—
‘Well—?’ he asked softly.
Rachel drew in a tense, sizzling, battling breath, tried to let it out again but found that she couldn’t. Her senses were singing out a chant of surrender and in the end she gave in to it, turning to reach for the door handle to his bedroom.
Without saying a single word he followed her inside and closed the door. Now she’d made the decision to come in here she did not go for modesty but just turned to face him and, with the light of a looming sexual battle lighting her blue eyes, she began to undress right there in front of him. His face was deadly serious as he watched her for a few seconds before he began to undress too.
Clothes landed on the floor all around them. Her dress pooled in a slither of blue silk at her feet. It was all part of the battle that they did not break eye contact.
Rachel walked towards the bed on legs that no longer wished to support her. Indeed they preferred to tingle and sting like the rest of her body, making sure they did not give her a moment to change her mind about this.
No chance—no hope of a last-minute reprieve. She wanted him so badly she couldn’t think beyond the need.
He took up a position on the other side of the bed and the tip of her tongue crept out to curl across her upper lip as she let her eyes glide over him. Big, lean, hard and aroused. Her breasts grew heavy and her nipples peaked, the wall of muscle around her lower stomach contracting as she tried to contain the ache.
She lifted the duvet. He did the same. They slid into the bed together and arrived in the middle of the mattress in a limb-tangling clasp of body contact.
Then he kissed her. No, he punished her for putting them through twenty-four hours of denial.
That night Rachel learned what it was like to be totally taken over, excruciatingly sapped of her will by a man with a magician’s touch. He wove sensual spells around every pleasure point. He drove her