‘Why do you live in this hellhole?’ he demanded as he hurried her outside to his car. ‘It can’t be a good place to bring up a child.’
‘I don’t live here out of choice,’ she said wryly. ‘When Poppy was a baby we lived in a lovely little house with a garden. Kate was my mum’s best friend, and the reason why I left Australia and came back to England was because she invited me and Poppy to move in with her. She was a widow, and I think she enjoyed the company. But Kate died after a short illness and her son sold the house. I only had a few weeks to find somewhere else to live. I had already started my sandwich business and needed to live in London, but I couldn’t afford to rent privately. I was lucky that the local authority offered me social housing. Living on this estate isn’t ideal, but it’s better than being homeless.’
She ran her hand over the bonnet of the Lamborghini. ‘You are a multi-millionaire—you can have no idea about the real world outside of your ivory tower.’
You think?
Inexplicably Rafael was tempted to tell her that he understood exactly what it was like to live in poverty—wondering where the next meal was coming from and struggling to survive in an often hostile environment. But there was no reason why he should explain to Juliet about his background. He dismissed the odd sense of connection he felt with her because they both knew what hardship felt like. His childhood had given him a single-minded determination to get what he wanted, and Juliet was merely a pawn in the game of wills with his grandfather.
He opened the car door and waited for her to climb inside before he walked round to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.
‘I know that five million pounds could transform your situation and allow you to provide your little girl with a safe home and a very comfortable lifestyle free from financial worries.’ He gunned the Lamborghini away from the grim estate and glanced across at her. ‘I’m offering you an incredible opportunity and for your daughter’s sake you should give it serious consideration.’
* * *
It occurred to Juliet as she sank into the soft leather seat of the sports car that this might all be a dream and in a minute she would wake up. Things like this did not happen in real life. A stunningly handsome man offering her five million pounds to be his wife was the stuff of fantasy and fairy tales.
She darted a glance at Rafael’s chiselled profile and felt a restless longing stir deep inside her. It was a long time since she had been kissed by a man, and she’d never felt such an intense awareness of one before.
Bryan had been her first and only sexual experience. She’d spent her teenage years at a boarding ballet school, and although she’d known boys, and danced with them, she had been entirely focused on her goal of becoming a prima ballerina and hadn’t had time for boyfriends.
The scholarship she had been awarded had paid the school’s fees, but there had been numerous other costs and her parents had scrimped and saved so that she could follow her dream. She’d always felt that she owed it to her mum and dad to succeed in her chosen career.
But the car accident which had taken her parents’ lives had left Juliet with serious injuries—including a shattered thigh bone. The months she’d spent in hospital had intensified her sense of isolation and loneliness.
She had been painfully naïve when she’d met Bryan Westfield, soon after she’d moved out to Australia to stay with her aunt Vivian and uncle Carlos. She’d been looking for someone to fill the hole in her heart left by her parents’ deaths, and blonde good-looking Bryan had seemed like ‘the one’—until she’d realised he had only wanted sex.
‘You’re not the first young woman to have your heart broken and be left with a baby and you won’t be the last,’ Aunt Vivian had said briskly when Juliet had admitted that she was pregnant.
Her aunt had meant well but Juliet had felt stupid, as well as bitterly hurt by Bryan’s rejection, and she’d vowed never to lay herself open to that level of pain again. It made her reaction to Rafael’s undeniable sexual magnetism all the more confusing.
The look of distaste that had flickered over his face when she’d opened the door to him wearing her cleaning overalls had made her shrivel inside. She knew from photographs of him in gossip magazines—invariably with a blonde glamour model or actress hanging on to him—that she was as far from his ideal woman as the earth was from Mars. But his lack of interest in her made it easier to consider his proposition.
‘You said I would be your wife in name only? Does that mean the marriage would not be...’ she hesitated ‘...consummated?’
She was thankful that her scarlet cheeks were hidden in the dark interior of the car. If he laughed she would die of mortification.
‘Physical intimacy between us will not be necessary,’ he said coolly.
He did not actually state that he wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole but the message was clear. Juliet swallowed, feeling ashamed that the gorgeous man beside her found her repellent. They were both wearing jeans, but his were undoubtedly a designer brand, and she’d noted when he had walked around to his side of the car how the denim clung to his lean hips. His tan leather jacket looked as if it had cost the earth, while her clothes came from a discount store and her boots had seen three winters.
With a sigh, she turned her head and stared out of the window.
‘We’re here.’
Rafael’s voice pulled Juliet from her thoughts and she discovered that he had turned the car onto the driveway in front of a large and very beautiful house.
‘Where is “here”?’ she asked when he switched off the engine.
‘My home in England—Ferndown House. It’s too dark to see now, but the house backs on to Hampstead Heath.’
Juliet looked down at the rip in her jeans. ‘I suppose you don’t want to be seen with me in public when I look like this,’ she said flatly.
He turned his head towards her but she could not bring herself to look at him and see his disdainful expression.
After a moment he sighed. ‘I brought you to my home because we will be assured of privacy while we talk, which we would not be in a bar or restaurant. There is no shame in being poor. It is obvious that you work hard to provide for your daughter, but I can help you. We can help each other. Now, come inside and meet my housekeeper. Alice has prepared dinner for us.’
If Juliet could have designed her dream home Ferndown House would have been perfect in every way. From the outside it was a gothic-style Victorian property, but inside it had been cleverly remodelled and refurbished into a sophisticated modern house which still managed to retain many original period features.
She caught her breath when Rafael showed her one huge room, with a stunning parquet floor and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on one wall.
‘The previous owners enjoyed hosting parties in here, but I don’t entertain very often and the room is not used much,’ he told her.
The room would be an ideal dance studio, Juliet thought. It was her dream to one day own a ballet school, and she visualised ballet barres along the walls and a box of the powdered chalk called rosin on the floor, for dancers to rub onto their pointe shoes to help stop them slipping.
She followed Rafael along the hall and looked into another reception room, a study, and a library that overlooked the garden. Outside lighting revealed a large, pretty space with wide lawns, where Poppy would love to play. Juliet gave a faint sigh, thinking of the couple of rusty swings in the playground on the housing estate where she sometimes took her daughter.
Upstairs on the second floor they walked past what she guessed was the master bedroom, with a four-poster bed. Juliet carefully avoided Rafael’s gaze as she wondered how many women had spent the night with him in that enormous bed.
‘There is a nursery along here,’ he said, leading the way along the corridor. He opened a door