‘Oh-oh, sounds like you found out he was already married.’
She laughed. ‘If only it were as simple as that.’
‘Now I’m seriously intrigued. What happened?’
‘He was arrested. For drug importation and dealing. He got fifteen years.’
‘Wow. And you never suspected?’
‘Not for a moment. He didn’t use drugs himself, and he never did any dealing in my presence. Even when he made numerous trips to Bangkok I didn’t suspect. He said he was an importer. Of jewellery. I should have known by past experience that he was too good to be true, but as you said…love will make a fool of you every time. I thought all my dreams had come true. Hal was handsome, successful, exciting, masterful. Materially, he had it all as well. The mansion on the water. The car. The yacht. He swept me right off my feet, I can tell you. Told me he adored me. It was just a matter of time, I thought, till he proposed. I was on cloud nine till I picked up the paper one day and saw his photograph on the front page.’
‘Must have been one bad day.’
‘That’s an understatement, I can assure you. I was devastated.’
‘Did you have to testify at his trial?’
‘No. Which was fortunate. Also fortunate that this all happened in another state. I hadn’t told my parents about Hal, you see. But I was going to, once we were engaged. I thought he’d be a pleasant surprise after all the going-nowhere men I’d been with in the past. Some surprise he’d have turned out to be!’
‘Just as well he was arrested when he was, then.’
‘I didn’t quite see it that way at the time,’ Isabel muttered.
‘No. Just as I didn’t see I was better off without Liz. But we’re both better off without both of them, Isabel. Much better off. And you’re better off without Luke, no matter what you think now. He didn’t love you.’
‘Love I can do without from now on.’
Rafe looked at her. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Love still has a certain appeal.’
‘I can’t see what. It makes you do things. Stupid things. Irrational things.’
‘Mmm. You could be right there.’ Because for the next two days he was going to do the stupidest, most irrational things in his life!
‘Where on earth is that food?’ Isabel said irritably.
‘It’ll be here soon. Meanwhile, have some more champagne,’ he added, and topped up her glass. ‘Good, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But if I don’t eat soon it’ll go straight to my head. I have a very low intoxication level with champagne. It can make me tipsy quicker than anything else.’
‘Is that so? Well, there’s no worry in being a bit tipsy, is there? It won’t make you do anything later that you wouldn’t be doing anyway.’
The eyes she set upon him over the rim of her glass were very dry. ‘My, aren’t we full of the sauce tonight?’
I hope so, Rafe thought ruefully. Because my sauce is going to have to work very hard to do the job from now on. He didn’t dare cut the whole top off every condom he used during the next two days. She might notice. He really could only risk a pin-prick or two. Except perhaps tonight…
Isabel’s powers of observation could very well be limited if she got well and truly sloshed. If he was clever with what position he used, he might get away with not using anything at all.
The thought excited, then worried him.
It was a stupid thing to do, as she said. Stupid and irrational. She didn’t love him. She wouldn’t marry him. At best, he would be a father to their child at a distance, having limited access.
But so what? he thought recklessly. He was still going to do it, wasn’t he?
ISABEL woke with a moan on her lips. The sun was shining in through the open doorway of the bure, indicating Rafe was already up, probably having his early-morning swim.
‘That man must have a constitution of iron,’ she muttered as she dragged aside the mosquito net and tried to sit up. But the room spun alarmingly and there was a bongo drummer—complete with drums—inside her head.
With a low groan, Isabel sank back carefully onto the pillows then ever so slowly rolled onto her side. The room gradually stopped spinning.
It was then that she saw the tall glass of water sitting next to the bed, alongside a foil sheet of painkillers.
‘What a thoughtful thing to do,’ she murmured, though not yet daring to move. In a minute she would take a couple of those pills Rafe had left her. Meanwhile, she would close her eyes and just do nothing.
Isabel closed her eyes and tried to do nothing, but her mind was by now wide awake. She began thinking about last night after dinner. In the end, they hadn’t got anyone else to run them back to their jetty. Rafe had said he was fine to operate the boat and she’d been far too tipsy to worry.
Tipsy! Hardly an adequate word to describe her state of intoxication. She’d been seriously sloshed. Not Rafe though, yet he’d consumed as many glasses of wine as she had. Or had he? Perhaps not. He’d talked a lot between courses, and she’d just sat there, sipping her wine and listening to him like some fatuous female fool, thinking how gorgeous he was and how stupid Liz was to dump him.
No, Isabel finally conceded. Rafe hadn’t consumed nearly as much wine as she had. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to make such beautiful love to her as he had after they’d come home.
Not that she could remember it all. Some bits were pretty hazy. But she could remember the feel of his hands on her as he undressed her and caressed her. So gentle and tender. The same with his kisses. His mouth had flowed all over her and she had dissolved from one orgasm to another.
She’d never known climaxes could be like that. Blissful and relaxing. Her bones had felt like water by the time he’d rolled her onto her side, rather like she was lying now. Only last night Rafe’s naked body had been curled around her back.
Isabel’s stomach contracted at the thought. That was one thing she hadn’t forgotten. How he’d felt when he’d first slipped inside her. She moaned at the memory. It had felt so good. Even better when he’d begun to move.
Never had she been so lost in a man’s arms, her mind and body like mush. She hadn’t come again. But, Rafe must have. She had a vague recollection of his crying out. But after that, all memory ceased. She must have fallen asleep. And now here she was the next morning with a parched mouth and a vicious headache, whilst Rafe was down at the beach, no doubt bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
A shadow fell across the corner of her eye and she rolled over just enough to see Rafe walk through the sun-drenched doorway. His dark silhouette eventually lightened to reveal that she’d been right. He had been swimming, thankfully dressed in board shorts. She couldn’t cope with him in full-frontal nudity this morning.
‘How’s the head?’ he said as he walked towards the bed.
‘Awful. Many thanks for the tablets and the water.’
‘My pleasure. And it was,’ he added with a devilish grin.
‘Don’t be cocky. I was pretty plastered.’
‘So I noticed. You know you’re very agreeable when you’re plastered.’
‘I really couldn’t say. Last night is somewhat hazy.’
‘You mean you can’t remember