Cristina wanted to lock the door, shut Rafael out until she could assimilate those casual, throwaway words about finding a suitable wife.

She remembered that surreal feeling she had had, that a man like Rafael, so supremely eligible, could ever have managed to be attracted to her. Rafael had never once told her that he loved her but, like a fool, she had believed that he must—because why else would he have asked her to marry him?

‘What’s the matter?’ Rafael asked.

He leant forward and kissed the side of her neck, murmuring seductively into her ear. Where she once would have squirmed with pleasure, Cristina now pulled away and twisted around to face him. It took all of her will-power not to succumb to his massive charm.

How could she have been so blind as to imagine that Rafael was seriously attracted to her? He was probably making the best of a bad job by seducing the woman he had set up to marry. Cristina turned away, willing herself not to cry. She wriggled the engagement ring from her finger, turned back to him and held out her hand with the ring in her palm.

‘This isn’t going to work, Rafael.’

Cathy Williams is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

BEDDED AT THE BILLIONAIRE’S CONVENIENCE

THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET LOVE-CHILD

KEPT BY THE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE

THE ITALIAN BOSS’S SECRETARY MISTRESS

RAFAEL’S SUITABLE BRIDE

BY

CATHY WILLIAMS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RAFAEL’S SUITABLE BRIDE

CHAPTER ONE

ON A day when most sane people were doing their utmost to stay off the roads, Rafael Rocchi had decided against the ease and speed of the train and chosen instead to bring his Ferrari out of hiding. It wasn’t often that he got the opportunity to drive it, and what was the point of having all that supercharged brake horsepower and black metal tucked away in his London garage—cleaned and polished once a week by his chauffeur, Thomas, and then patted gently on the bonnet and locked away for another week of rest and relaxation?

Driving to his mother’s house in the Lake District would be perfect. He would be able to lose himself in the sheer pleasure of being behind the wheel of a car that was as powerful and challenging as an unbridled wild horse. Nothing topped it for a sense of freedom, which was, to him, invaluable because by contrast, his day-to-day life was so structured. Running the Rocchi empire, which he had done singlehandedly since his father had died eight years previously, was not exactly a liberating experience. Invigorating, yes. Highly charged and immensely satisfying, yes. Liberating, no.

Once on the open road, the car devoured the distance noiselessly and effortlessly. On this rare occasion, Rafael had switched off his mobile phone and instead was listening to the rousing dynamism of classical music, keenly alert to the condition of the roads, but not unduly bothered. The past few days had seen snow cover the length and breadth of the country, and although none was currently falling, the fields as he headed up north were still blanketed in white.

At no point did he think that a fast car on treacherous roads was a lethal combination. He was utterly convinced of his own ability to control his Ferrari, just as he was convinced of his ability to control every aspect of his life. It was probably why, at the age of thirty-six, he was already legendary in the business world, feared for his ruthlessness as much as for his brilliance.

He was even occasionally inclined to think that women feared him equally, and that, he thought, was a good thing. A little fear never hurt anyone, and it paid to make sure that a woman knew who controlled the strings in a relationship. If six-month flings could be deemed relationships. His mother certainly had an alternative way of describing them, which, he thought, was behind this grand party of hers. A little impromptu post-Christmas event, she had told him, to lift everyone’s spirits because there was no month flatter than February—yet how impromptu could a party be when catering for over a hundred people had to be arranged?

No, his mother was on the matchmaking bandwagon again, even though he had repeatedly told her that he was not up for grabs, that he liked his life precisely as it was. As far as his mother was concerned—traditional Italian that she still was at heart, even after decades of living in England—unmarried and offspring-free at the age of thirty-six couldn’t possibly be a happy situation for anyone. She herself had married at twenty-two and had had Rafael by twenty-five, and would have had several more children had fate not seen fit to deny her the chance.

She had also insisted that he attend, which was ominous, but in the whole world the one person whom Rafael respected unconditionally was his mother. And so here he was, at least for the moment enjoying the experience of getting there even if, once there, he would be bored out of his skull—and probably stuck having to make mind-numbingly dull small talk with a girl with whom he would almost certainly have nothing in common.

His mother had never come to grips with the truth that Rafael liked his women almost solely for their looks. He liked them tall, blonde, obliging and, most important of all, temporary.

All it took was that small lull in his concentration. As he rounded the corner of the small country road which led towards his mother’s substantial property, he pressed on the brakes at the sight of a car which had veered off the road and ploughed into the snowy bank at the side. The Ferrari spun round, and in a squeal of protesting tyres came to a halt just feet away from the hapless and, as Rafael could see as soon as he had stormed out of his skewed car, abandoned Mini.

His pleasurable satisfaction had come to an abrupt halt, and there was someone on whom he could vent his well-deserved rage. Someone standing up from the other side of the Mini now, fixing him with a startled glance. A woman. Typical.

‘What the hell’s going on here? Are you hurt?’

The woman stepped out and blinked up at him.

‘Well?’ Rafael demanded. As an afterthought, he realised that he had better move his car just in case someone else rounded the corner. The road was always deserted, but there was no point taking chances.

‘I have to move my car,’ he told the woman who didn’t appear to have a tongue in her head.

When he next stepped out of his now parked car, it was to find that she had disappeared once again.

With mounting irritation, Rafael walked round the back of the Mini and found her kneeling on the ground, looking for something with the help of the light from her mobile phone.

‘Sorry,’ came an anxious apology from the squatting figure. ‘I’m really sorry. Are you all right?’ A quick glance in his direction, then the search for whatever was missing began again.

‘Have you any idea how dangerous it is for you to leave your car there?’ He nodded curtly at the Mini.

‘I tried moving it, honestly, but the tyres kept squealing.’ She stood up, reluctantly abandoning her search, and chewed her lips nervously.

Rafael could now see that the woman in question was little over five-three. Short and dumpy from the looks of it. Which did nothing for his diminishing patience levels. Had she been willowy and beautiful, his charm-gene might have automatically been kick-started. As it was, he looked down at her with a frown of displeasure.

‘So you then decided to leave it where it lay, never mind the risk you were causing to anyone coming round the bend, and start scrabbling on the road instead?’ His voice was laced with sarcasm. Never noted for high levels of patience, Rafael was now on the verge of snapping completely.

‘Actually, I wasn’t scrabbling on the road. I was… I rubbed my eyes to wake myself up, and one of my contact lenses came out. I’ve been driving all the way from London. I should have taken the train, but I want to leave first thing in the morning and I didn’t want to be rude and have to wake anyone up to drop me to the station.’ She looked up at him earnestly. ‘Hello, by the way.’ She held out one small hand and stared at the stranger.

He was the most beautiful stranger she had ever seen in her entire life. Actually, he could have stepped off the cover of a magazine. He was very tall, over six feet, and his dark hair was combed back so that there was nothing to distract from the perfect chiselled beauty of his face. His scowling face.

Cristina couldn’t stop herself from smiling helplessly, unfazed by his unsympathetic expression.

Rafael ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I’ll get your car into a less hazardous position and then you’d better get in my car. I assume you’re heading in the same direction as me. There’s only one house at the end of his lane.’

‘Oh, you don’t have to do that,’ Cristina said breathlessly.

‘No, I don’t, but I will because I don’t want the hassle of dealing with a guilty conscience if you get behind the wheel of your car when you can’t see anything and crash.’ He spun round on his heels while Cristina continued to watch, with fascinated interest, as he expertly did what she had spent half an hour trying and failing to do.

‘That was brilliant,’ she told him honestly when he was back in front of her, and Rafael felt some of his anger begin to subside.

‘Hardly brilliant,’ he muttered. ‘But at least the damn thing’s in a safer position now.’

‘I could drive myself now,’ Cristina was forced to admit. ‘I mean, I have a pair of specs in my bag. I always carry them because I never know when my contact lenses are going to start irritating my eyes. Do you wear contact lenses?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’ She frowned slightly, belatedly considering her appearance and what lay ahead of her.

‘Well?’ Rafael was back by his car, passenger door open, waiting for her to stop dithering at the side of the road while the wind whipped around them, reminding them that yet more snow was just a frosted breath away.

Cristina took a couple of steps towards him, her expression still anxious and hesitant. ‘It’s just that…well…’ She spread her hands tellingly along the length of her body. ‘Look at me. I can’t possibly make an entrance looking like this.’ She barely knew her hostess, Maria. She had met her a few times in Italy, when she had been living with her parents before moving to London, and she had seemed a nice lady, but she really wasn’t close enough to her to enlist her help in getting cleaned up because she had somehow managed to lose a contact lens. Now her hands were dirty from rummaging on the ground, her tights were torn and she dared not even think of the state of her hair, which was unruly at the best of times.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Rafael told her dismissively. He pulled open the passenger door and sighed impatiently. ‘It is freezing out here, and I’m not standing having a prolonged conversation with you about the state of your appearance.’ He kindly decided not to point out that there was very little she could have done with her appearance which would have made her look sexy anyway. She was built like a little round ball, and the wind was doing some very unflattering things to her hair. Grubby hands weren’t exactly going to go a long way to remedy what looked like a pretty plain gene pool.

However, as she seemed rooted to the spot in some kind of agony of embarrassment and indecision, and as he was getting colder and colder and more and more impatient by the second, Rafael decided on the only possible solution.

‘Get your things from your car and I’ll make sure we go through the back entrance. Then I’ll take you up to one of the guest suites and you can do whatever it is you think you have to do.’

‘Really?’ The way he had handled her little car! And now the way he was taking charge, hitting upon a solution to the thorny problem of her appearance! Cristina couldn’t help but admire his ingenuity and consideration in helping her out. True, he wasn’t exactly giving off sympathetic vibes, but as she hurried to get her overnight bag and coat from her car she decided that that was perfectly understandable. He had, after all, just had the fright of his life when he had taken the corner and nearly crashed into her car.

‘Hurry up.’ Rafael glanced at his watch and realised that the party would already be in full swing. He had promised his mother that he would make it well in advance, but naturally the demands of work had progressively eaten away into his good intentions.

‘You’re very kind,’ Cristina told him as he took her bag and coat from her and tossed them into the trunk—the virtually invisible-to-the-naked-eye trunk.

Rafael couldn’t remember the last time he had been described as kind, and he really wasn’t sure that he cared for it, but he shrugged and didn’t say anything, just turning the ignition so that his powerful beast of a car roared into immediate life.

‘How are you going to find your way to the back entrance?’

At this point in time, Rafael didn’t feel inclined to go into his relationship with the hostess. The woman obviously didn’t have a clue as to his identity and he preferred to keep it that way. At least for the moment. He had met enough women in his lifetime who’d found his wealth an aphrodisiac. Sometimes it was amusing. Mostly it was just plain dull.

‘I never got your name,’ he said, changing the conversation, and as his eyes slid over to her he saw the colour flood her cheeks and she looked at him with mortified consternation.

‘Cristina. Golly, I’m so rude! You’ve just rescued me and I haven’t even had the wit to introduce myself!’ Was she gaping? She thought she might be, and she made an effort to pull herself together and start acting like the twenty-four-year-old woman that she was.

However all attempts at sophistication were ambushed by her intrinsically cheerful personality and impressionable nature. She had met hordes of men throughout her life. That had all been part and parcel of her privileged upbringing in Italy, and then later staying with her aunt in Somerset when she had gone to boarding school. But her experiences with them on any kind of intimate level were limited. Indeed, non-existent, and so the cynicism that came from broken hearts and ruined relationships, which most women would have considered just another part of growing up, had failed to materialise. She had an unbounding faith in the goodness of human nature and was therefore undaunted by Rafael’s unwelcoming response to her chatter.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked curiously, abandoning the struggle not to feast her eyes on him.

‘Rafael.’

‘And how do you know Maria?’

‘Why are you so concerned about what kind of impression you make? Do you know the crowd who are going to be there?’

‘Well, no… But… I just can’t bear the thought of walking into a roomful of people with torn tights and hair all over the place.’ She looked at her hands and sighed. ‘My nails are a mess as well, and I especially had a manicure yesterday.’ She could feel tears begin to well at her ruined appearance and she stoutly swallowed them back. Instinct told her that here was a man who probably wouldn’t welcome the sight of a strange woman howling in his car.

But she had tried so hard. New in London and still without any solid friendships, Maria’s invitation had been something lovely to look forward to, and she had really tried to dress for the occasion. Hard as her mother had laboured over the years, in her own sweetly loving way Cristina had always been guiltily aware that she had never managed to live up to the position into which she had been born. Her two sisters, both now married and in their thirties, had been blessed with the sort of good looks that needed very little work. They had been super clothes horses and then, in due course, super wives and super mothers.

She, on the other hand, had blithely failed to live up to expectation. She had grown up a tomboy, more interested in football and playing in the vast gardens of her parents’ house than in frocks, make-up and all things girlish. Later, she had developed a love of all things to do with nature and had spent many a teenage summer following around their gardener, asking questions about plants, keenly interested in what could grow where and why. Somewhere along the line she suspected that her mother had given up on her mission to turn her youngest into a lady.

She had distinct concerns about the state of her frock.

‘I don’t know what possessed me to think that I could find a contact lens on the ground,’ she confided glumly.

‘Especially with some dregs of snow still left lying about,’ Rafael felt obliged to point out.

‘Especially,’ Cristina agreed. She looked at her knees. ‘Torn tights, and I haven’t brought a replacement pair. I don’t suppose you have a spare lot lying around somewhere…?’

Rafael glanced across at her and saw that she was grinning at him. Well, she certainly had good powers of recovery, he admitted to himself, not to mention a vibrant ability to overlook the fact that he clearly didn’t feel inclined to spend the rest of the short trip chatting to her about the state of her appearance.

‘Not the sort of thing I usually travel with,’ he said seriously. ‘Maybe my— Maybe there’s a spare pair somewhere in the house…’

‘Oh, Maria’s probably got drawers full of them, but we’re not exactly built along the same lines, are we? She’s tall and elegant and I’m, well, I’ve inherited my father’s figure. My sisters are exactly the opposite. They’re very long and leggy.’

‘And that makes you jealous?’ Rafael heard himself asking.

Cristina laughed. It was an unexpectedly infectious sound, something between a guffaw and a giggle—unlike most women who thought that tittering was the ladylike thing to do.

‘Lord, no! I mean, I love them to pieces, but I wouldn’t swap my life for theirs, not a bit of it. I mean, five kids between them and so much socialising! They’re forever having dinner parties and cocktail parties, and entertaining clients at the theatre or the opera. They live quite close to one another and they’re both married to businessmen, you see, which means that they’re always on show. Can you imagine—never being able to leave the house without a full layer of make-up and matching accessories?’

Since the women Rafael dated never left the bedroom without a full layer of make-up and matching accessories, he could well understand the lifestyle.

Ahead of him, he could see his mother’s house, a sprawling country mansion of faded yellowing stone, its chimneys proudly rising upwards and the front courtyard full of cars, as was the long drive leading up. Even in the darkness it was easy to appreciate the grace and symmetry of the building, and he waited for the predictable gasp of awe, but none was forthcoming.

This was mildly surprising because he had occasionally brought one of his girlfriends to the house in the past and roughly about now, as the house unfolded itself in all its perfect splendour, they had exclaimed in delight as if on cue.

When he looked he saw that Cristina was fidgeting with the hem of her dress and the little frown was back on her face.

‘There are an awful lot of cars,’ she commented nervously. ‘I’m really surprised there’s such a good turnout, considering the weather.’ Surprised, and a bit dismayed. She disliked big social occasions at the best of times, but this had all the hallmarks of being a vast one.

‘People up here are of the hardy variety,’ Rafael pointed out. ‘Londoners are altogether softer.’

‘Is that where you live?’

Rafael nodded and quickly circled the courtyard, and then edged his car down the side-slip towards the back of the house and the tradesman’s entrance.

‘I thought you might have lived around here,’ Cristina said vaguely. ‘I thought perhaps that might be how you know the house and stuff.’ She tried to carry the observation through to its logical conclusion, but her mind was leaping ahead to the small problem of getting herself cleaned up and presentable for the number of people inside—not to mention Maria, who had been kind enough to invite her along. She might lack the polish of her sisters, but embarrassing her host would be anathema.

The back entrance was, to her relief, considerably less busy. Just the staff to get past.

‘I ought to tell you that I’m Maria’s son.’ Rafael killed the engine and turned towards her.

‘Are you?’ Cristina looked at him in silence for a few seconds. She was thinking that Maria was a lovely, kind and genuine woman, and kind and genuine people tended to have kind and genuine offspring. She gave him a beaming smile because she realised that, however curt his outward attitude might appear, he was as kind as she had initially judged him to be. ‘Your mother’s a wonderful person.’

‘I’m glad you think so. On that one thing we at least agree.’ Without giving her time to respond to that ambiguous statement, he let himself out of the car and proceeded to help her out, while a man, who seemed to have materialised out of thin air raced out to get the bags. This could only mean that his mother had requested a lookout for her tardy son, which was a bit of a bother, considering he was now a reluctant knight in shining armour who had to somehow shuffle his unexpected cargo up the stairs and into one of the guest suites—whichever one was unoccupied, because he suspected a fair few people would be staying over.

He had a few quick words with Eric, the man who had been taking care of everything to do with the house for as long as Rafael could remember, and then signalled to Cristina.

In the remorseless light of the back hallway, he was surprised to see that she wasn’t actually the unremittingly plain woman he had first thought.

Of course, no one could call her beautiful. She was way too… He rooted around in his head for a suitable adjective and opted for ‘stout’…not precisely fat, but solidly built. The sort who could probably pack a mean punch if the occasion demanded, although a less aggressive person he could hardly have hoped to find. Her face was open and warm, and although she was still looking nervous he could tell that she would be someone given to easy laughter.

And she had enormous eyes, huge liquid-brown eyes, like a spaniel puppy.

In fact, Rafael thought, she was the human equivalent of a spaniel puppy. The direct antithesis to the languid greyhound sort he favoured. But, hell, a deal was a deal and he had promised to help her out with her predicament.

‘Follow me,’ he said abruptly, and he began leading her out of the kitchen, and through a myriad back rooms which lay between them and the sound of voices and laughter that signalled the party happening at the front of the house.

Of course, the house was far too big for his mother after his father had died, but she wouldn’t hear of having it sold.

‘I’m not yet decrepit, Raffy,’ she had told him. ‘When I need to use stair lifts, then I’ll consider selling it.’ Knowing his mother, that day would never come. She was as energetic in her early sixties as she had been in her early forties, and although there were wings of the house which were rarely used many of the rooms were taken up at various points of the year by friends and relatives staying over.

Rafael now led Cristina to one of the less-used wings and quickly ushered her into a bedroom suite, where she proceeded to look at him with a mournful expression.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman.’ He shook his head and favoured her with a direct and assessing look.

‘I know I’m being a nuisance,’ Cristina said on a sigh, ‘But…’ Then she saw the expression on his face and flushed. ‘I know I haven’t got a perfect figure…’ she stuttered in embarrassment. It occurred to her that a man who looked like him, a man whose amazing looks could stop a woman dead in her tracks, would only ever associate himself with his female equivalent—which would probably not be a vertically and horizontally challenged twenty-four-year-old inexperienced woman.

‘I’ve been on countless diets,’ she blurted out into the ever-growing silence, ‘You wouldn’t believe. But like I said, I have my father’s shape.’ She laughed a pitch higher than was necessary and then subsided into embarrassed silence.

‘Your dress has a tear.’

‘What? No! Oh, goodness…where?’

Before she could bend to scrutinise her treacherous garment, Rafael was in front of her, then kneeling like a supplicant, holding up the flimsy fabric of her loose, tunic-styled silk dress which, with its cluttered pattern of red and white tiny flowers against a black background, should have been more than up to the job of camouflaging a tear. Unfortunately, as he held it up, the rip seemed to expand in girth until it was all she could see with horrified eyes.

Through her horror, though, she was very much aware of the delicate brush of his fingers against her leg. It sent a thrilling, wicked shiver straight through her body.

‘See?’

‘What am I going to do?’ she whispered.

They looked at each other and Rafael sighed. ‘What else did you bring?’ Since when had he been in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress?

‘Jeans, jumpers, wellies just in case I wanted to have a walk and look around the garden. I absolutely love looking around gardens. I’m addicted to it. The most boring people can sometimes have wonderfully creative streaks that come out in the way they landscape their lawns. I’m babbling, sorry, getting away from the point…which is that I have absolutely nothing appropriate to wear…’

Rafael had never met a woman who only packed the bare necessities. For a few seconds he was reduced to stunned silence, then he reluctantly told her that he would fish something out of his mother’s wardrobe. She had enough outfits to clothe most of Cumbria.

‘But she’s so much taller than me!’ Cristina wailed. ‘And skinnier!’

But he was already striding out of the room, leaving her to wallow in a very unaccustomed sense of self-pity.

He returned some ten minutes later holding various assorted clothes, all of which seemed hideously bright, not at all suited to someone of a more robust persuasion.

‘Right. I can’t waste much time here, so strip.’

‘What?’ Cristina’s eyes widened and she wondered, fleetingly, whether she had heard correctly.

‘Strip. I brought some…some forgiving items…but you’ll have to try them on and you’ll have to be quick about it. I’m late enough as it is.’

‘I can’t…not with you there…watching…’

‘Nothing I haven’t seen before,’ he drawled, amused by her sudden attack of prudishness.

Cristina, however, refused to budge and he waited, looking at his watch while she tried on the armful of clothes in the privacy of the adjoining bathroom.

He could, he knew, always leave her to get on with it. After all, she wasn’t his problem. But he found himself staying anyway, and when she finally emerged he swung round, ready to tell her whatever she wanted to hear. Anything to get going with the evening, because he had work to do and would have to disappear virtually as soon as he appeared.

He looked at her and stared before muttering the statutory, ‘Looks very nice…’

He hadn’t quite expected this. Yes, she was far from willowy, but neither was she as overweight as the dress had suggested. In fact, there was a definite sign of curves, and her breasts were bountiful, barely restrained by the stretchy lilac fabric. She had the golden colouring of someone brought up in kinder climes, and her shoulders, left bare by the sleeveless style of the dress, were rounded but firm. For the first time in memory he was awkwardly conscious of fumbling for something further to say, and avoided the dilemma by opening the door and standing back to let her through.

‘Thanks.’ Cristina gave him a sincerely felt look of gratitude, then on impulse she tiptoed and kissed him chastely on the cheek.

It was as if she had suddenly been touched with an electric spark. She could actually feel her skin go hot, and it was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life before. She pulled back at roughly the same time as he did and preceded him out of the room, babbling yet again about nothing in particular because she didn’t want him to see how hot and bothered she felt.

It was almost a relief to make their way downstairs and to be greeted by the babble of voices, providing her with a comforting backdrop into which she could conveniently slide.

But not until she made her presence known to Maria, who was fussing over a tray of drinks being carried precariously by a young waitress with a slightly panicked expression.

Now that she was finally here, she could appreciate her surroundings—the fine paintings on the walls, the elegant dimensions of the huge drawing room, which flowed into yet another reception room also filled with people. Vases of flowers, lush and colourful, were scattered on some of the tables, and on the oak sideboard that must have been at least ten-feet long, and the atmosphere was thick with the jollity of lots of people having fun. Young and old, fat and thin, tall and short. She grabbed a glass of white wine from a passing tray and then interrupted Maria, who had been giving instructions on the timing of the food which, she exclaimed, was a complete nightmare to organise—but still, she seemed to be having a great time dealing with her nightmare.

‘That dress…’ Maria quirked her eyebrows, puzzled.

She was, Cristina acknowledged not for the first time, a strikingly beautiful woman—elegant without being in the least bit intimidating, and well-spoken but gentle with it. Rafael might have been a trifle short-tempered, but she warmed at the memory of him putting himself out on her behalf, showing her up to the room, rummaging amongst his mother’s clothes so that he could fetch a selection for her to try on and thereby saving her the embarrassment of greeting strangers with a gaping hole in her dress. And when she had kissed him lightly on his cheek! Her heart did a funny fluttery thing inside her.

She wondered where he was right now. Somewhere in the room, but he had been commandeered by acquaintances long before she had made it over to Maria. Which brought her to the subject of the dress, upon which she launched into an exuberant account of how it was that she was wearing her hostess’s dress. Maria, with her head cocked to one side and smiling with amusement, listened to the end and then assured her that she was more than happy for her to keep the dress because it certainly looked a great deal better on Cristina than it ever had on her.

‘I’ve never quite managed to fill it out at the top in the same way,’ she confided, instantly boosting Cristina’s self-esteem. ‘Now, tell me how your parents are…’

They chatted for a few minutes, then Maria took her on a round of introductions to people whose names Cristina had a hard time remembering. By the time Maria disappeared back into the throng, Cristina was happily ensconced in a lively conversation about gardens with some of the locals, who seemed as enthusiastic about the ins and outs of soil and compost as she was.

Across the room, Rafael absentmindedly looked at her and then took himself off in search of his mother, who would doubtless give him a sound lecture on the virtues of punctuality. He wondered how that would favour an early departure from the scene, thanks to an important overseas conference-call which he had scheduled for eleven-thirty.

But no, there was no mention of his late arrival, and within seconds he knew why.

‘I had no choice,’ he muttered. ‘The woman had ploughed into the side of the road and was hunting down an errant contact lens as if she had a hope in hell of finding it.’ He wondered how well she was taking in her surroundings without the dreaded spectacles, which she had refused to wear, opting instead for one contact lens and the possibility of crashing into something breakable.

She really was generously proportioned in all the right places, he thought distractedly, finding her and keeping her in his sight for a few seconds while he polished off his whisky and soda.

‘She’s a gem,’ Maria said, following his gaze. ‘I’ve known both her parents for such a long time. They own that chain of jewellers…you know the ones? Supply diamonds to all the best people…quietly influential, if you know what I mean.’

Rafael had been half listening, but now his ears pricked up, more thanks to his mother’s intonation than the substance of her words, though he was picking up phrases: not brash like most wealthy people… Italian, of course, very traditional in their outlook, but not suffocatingly so… Happy for their youngest to live and work in London… And then, from nowhere, ‘She would be perfect for you, Raffy and it’s really time you thought of settling down…’

CHAPTER TWO

‘NO, MOTHER!’

They were sitting in the large, farmhouse-style kitchen with a pot of coffee between them and the buzz of the radio in the background telling them that another depression was heading in their direction so that they could expect more bad weather.

It was not yet six-thirty, but Rafael had already been up for an hour, travelling the world via his mobile phone and laptop computer, and Maria was up simply because she found it impossible to sleep beyond six in the morning. Waking early was the habit of a lifetime, and a very handy one when she wanted to corner her son before the rest of her overnight guests started drifting downstairs and commanding her attention.

‘You are not getting any younger, Raffy.’ She picked at the croissant on her plate and tried to work out a suitable strategy for coaxing him into her way of thinking, a mammoth task by anyone’s standards. ‘Do you want to grow old changing mistresses every other week?’

‘I don’t change mistresses every other week!’ Rafael informed her. He looked meaningfully at his computer and was dutifully ignored. ‘I like my life just the way it is. Moreover, I’m sure she’s a very nice girl, but she’s not my type.’

‘No, I have met your type! All looks and no substance.’

‘Mother, that’s the way I like them.’ He grinned, but met no smiling response. ‘I don’t want a relationship. I haven’t got time for a relationship. Have you any idea how little free time I have in my life?’

‘As little as you want to have, Rafael.’ She leaned towards him and he could feel a sermon approaching. Mentally he kicked himself for getting downstairs at the crack of dawn when he should have known from past experience that his mother would be there, bustling around and primed for conversation. But he hadn’t thought. In fact, he had forgotten her ridiculous remark the minute his conference call had started, just as he had forgotten his brief contact with the girl in question about whom he could only vaguely recall someone short, plump and unnaturally cheerful.

‘You can’t run away forever, Raffy,’ Maria told him in a gentle voice, and his brows snapped together in disapproval of where the conversation was heading. Unfortunately for him, his mother was immune to any such vibes. She just kept ploughing onwards.

‘I really don’t want to talk about this, Mama.’

‘And I think you need to. So you married young and were heartbroken when she died—but, Rafael, it’s been over ten years! Helen would not have wanted you to live your life in a vacuum!’ Privately, Maria thought that probably was exactly what his ex-wife would have wanted, but she kept the thought to herself, just as she had always kept her opinions of her son’s ex-wife to herself. More so now because it was disrespectful to speak ill of the dead.

‘For the final time, Mother, I am not living my life in a vacuum! I happen to enjoy my life the way it is!’ And I don’t need you to try and find me a suitable wife, he thought, although he would not have dared utter such a statement because he knew how much it would have hurt her. He was, after all, her only child, and as such a certain amount of interference in his personal life was only to be expected. But that girl of all people? Surely his mother knew him well enough to know that physically the girl just wasn’t his type!

She should also have known that any talk of Helen was taboo. That was a part of his life which he had consigned to the past, never to be resuscitated.

Maria shrugged and stood up. ‘I should go and change,’ she said neutrally. ‘People will start heading down in a minute. I wouldn’t like to shock them by having to see me in my dressing gown. I am sorry if you think that I’m being an interfering old woman, Rafael, but I worry about you.’

Rafael smiled fondly. ‘I don’t think you interfering, Mother…’

‘The child is a little naive. I know her parents. Is it any wonder that I feel a certain moral obligation that she is okay?’

‘She seems fine to me,’ Rafael said heartily. ‘No complaints about London life. Probably having a whale of a time.’

‘Probably.’ Maria busied herself with her back to her son, making sure that all the breakfast requirements were ready. Of course Eric and Angela, who had been with her for ever, would have made sure that everything was prepared for her guests—twelve of whom had remained for the night—but she still liked to make sure for herself that all was as it should be. She could hear the guilt in Rafael’s voice, but her maternal sense of duty ignored it. She wanted her son to be sorted out, which meant not standing on the sidelines while an array of highly unsuitable women flitted in and out of his life until he eventually keeled over from work-related stress or heart failure.

‘Maybe, however, you could make sure that her car is all right for her drive back down to London?’ She turned to him for confirmation. ‘I told her that you would last night, and she has left her car keys on the table by the front door.’

‘Sure.’ That small favour seemed more than acceptable when the upside was his mother dropping a conversation that was really beginning to frustrate him.

He would have to do his emails a little later, which was annoying, but unavoidable.

He left the house before further distractions occurred and headed out to where the Mini had been abandoned overnight. Already the sky was beginning to turn the peculiar yellow-grey colour that precedes a snowfall. He realised that if he didn’t leave soon he might find himself marooned in his mother’s house, subjected to significant conversations about the quality of his life choices.

He was unprepared for the unthinkable, which was a Mini whose engine had decided to hibernate.

An hour after he had left for the seemingly routine task of starting it up, letting it run for a few minutes and then assuring his mother that the car was fine and dandy, he was returning with a ferocious scowl and a premonition of hassle.

He pushed open the front door in a tide of bitterly cold air to find Cristina standing there, warmly clad in jeans and a jumper. The source of all his trouble.

‘The thing’s dead,’ he informed her, slamming the door behind him and stamping his feet on the mat. He divested himself of the beaten leather jacket and glared at her.

Cristina bit her lip, guiltily aware that she should have been the one seeing to her car, even though Maria had assured her that Rafael wouldn’t mind in the least checking on it first thing in the morning. She’d given the impression that it would be no bother at all. From the dark expression on his face, it certainly had been a bother.

‘I’m really sorry,’ she apologised profusely.’ I should have gone and tried myself. In fact, I was about to…’

‘Do you think you might have been able to get it going where I failed?’

‘No, but…’ She fidgeted and then gave him a watery smile. ‘Thank you so much for trying anyway. Is it very cold out there? I can make you a cup of hot chocolate, if you like. I’m good at making hot chocolate.’

‘No hot chocolate. Black coffee.’ He headed towards the kitchen which, thankfully, had not yet been invaded by the leftover guests. As an afterthought, and without turning around to look at her, he offered her a cup.

‘I’ve already had a cup of tea. Thank you.’ Cristina paused. Even windswept and scowling he was still rawly, powerfully sexy, just as sexy as he had appeared the night before when he had come to her rescue. She brightened up at the memory of that, the way he had helped her out when there had been no need. ‘Do you think I might be able to get in touch with a garage to come and have a look at it?’ she asked his averted back.

‘It’s Sunday and it’s going to snow.’ Rafael turned around to look at her. ‘I think the answer to that is no.’

Cristina paled. ‘What am I going to do, in that case? I can’t just stay here indefinitely. I’ve got my job. I can’t believe my car’s decided to just pack up on me!’

‘I doubt it was a deliberate act of sabotage,’ Rafael commented dryly, feeling slightly better after the coffee, but still aware that there was a shed-load of work waiting to be done and that he would have to leave sooner rather than later. The motorway would be fine, even if it began to snow, but getting down the lanes that led from his mother’s house could be challenging in bad weather, especially in a sportscar which was not fashioned for anything but optimum road conditions.

Cristina smiled and he was dimly aware that she really did have a smile that lit up her face, giving her a fleeting aspect of beauty. However, he was far more aware that time was pressing on, and he looked at his watch and then gulped back the remainder of his coffee.

‘I really have to go.’ He wondered whether she had any idea of his mother’s far-fetched ideas and decided that she didn’t.

‘I know it’s a huge imposition, but could you possibly give me a lift back to London—to whatever Underground station is closest to where you live? It’s just that I really need to get back, and…I could always get the garage to come out in the morning and fix the car…and then have someone drive it down to London.’

‘Or you could just stay and see to it in the morning yourself. I mean, surely your boss would let you have the day off for an emergency.’

‘I don’t have a boss,’ Cristina said with a touch of pride. ‘I work for myself.’

‘All the better. You can give yourself a day off.’ That sorted, Rafael dumped his cup in the sink and began heading for the door. But the image of her disappointed face behind him made him curse softly under his breath and turn back to her. ‘I’m leaving in an hour,’ he said abruptly, watching the disappointment fade away like a dark cloud on a sunny day. ‘If you’re not ready, I’ll go without you, because snow’s forecast and I can’t afford to be trapped here.’

‘You could always ask your boss for the day off.’ Cristina grinned. ‘Unless you are the boss, in which case you can always give yourself the day off.’

But she felt considerably cheered. It was peculiar, but there was something invigorating about him. She packed her bags quickly and efficiently. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, but her figure could do with skipping a meal, she decided. And Maria, despite her protests, assured her that she would telephone the garage herself and make sure that the car was delivered to London. She knew Roger, the chap who owned the garage, and he owed her a favour after she had given him a very lucrative tip indeed on the horses.

Rafael was less overjoyed with the arrangements. ‘Saddled with’ were the two words that sprang into his head. He could hardly blame his mother for the state of the Mini and its lack of co-operation in getting started, but as they manoeuvred down the country lanes one hour later he couldn’t help but feel that he had somehow been trapped into sharing his space with a perfect stranger.

And an extremely talkative one who seemed intent on ignoring the fact that he had a handless headset in the car for a reason. She patiently waited for business conversations to end, staring through the window at ominous skies which had gone from yellow-grey to charcoal, and then felt perfectly free to ask him about his work.

‘But don’t you ever relax?’ she asked, appalled after he had reluctantly given her a rundown of his typical day. They were leaving behind the first dismal flurries of snow and Rafael reluctantly abandoned his plans to call his PA, Patricia, for an update on the Roberts deal.

‘You sound like my mother,’ he told her curtly, then, because he could sense rather than see her baffled silence at the harshness of his response, he relented. After all, he only had a couple more hours in her company. Why be offhand when she was so determinedly upbeat? ‘I presume, if you’re your own boss, then you know that running a company is a twenty-four-seven commitment. What exactly do you do, anyway?’

Cristina, who had been a little hurt at his lack of curiosity about her life and what she did, smiled, more than prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was obviously very, very important. She had known, of course, that he came from a moneyed background, but she had had no idea that he was entirely and solely responsible for running the show. Little wonder he was so focused on work with little time to spare making polite chit-chat with her.

‘Oh, nothing very important,’ Cristina said, suddenly a little abashed at her pedestrian occupation.

‘Now I’m curious.’ He half smiled, and that half smile made her draw in her breath sharply, made a frisson of awareness ripple down her spine and send shivers racing all through her body. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time.

‘Well…do you remember I told you how much I love gardens? And nature?’

Rafael had a dim recollection but he nodded anyway.

‘I own a flower shop in London. I mean, it’s nothing much. We each of us children came into some money on our twenty-first birthdays and I chose to spend mine on that.’

‘In England? Why?’ A flower shop? He had had extensive dealings with flower shops, almost exclusively in connection with his girlfriends, to whom flowers were usually sent at the beginning and at the end of relationships. But his PA dealt with all that and he had always assumed that she simply rang one of those huge concerns that delivered worldwide. But there must be one-man-band shows. Cute. She had the appearance of someone who might run a flower shop.

Cristina shrugged and pinkened. ‘I fancied being out of Italy. I mean, I have perfect sisters who lead perfect lives. It was nice getting away from the comparisons. But please don’t mention that to your mother, just in case it gets back to my parents!’

‘I won’t,’ Rafael promised solemnly. Did she imagine that he gossiped with his mother about such things? Nevertheless, her admission was touching, as was her enthusiasm about what she did. The woman was a walking encyclopaedia on trees and plants, and he was perfectly content to listen as she chatted about her shop, her plans to branch out into the landscaping business at some point, starting with small London gardens, but then moving on to bigger things. She was dying for the Chelsea Flower show, which she had been to a couple of times, and which had never failed to amaze and astound her. Her dream was to show her own flowers there someday.

‘I thought your dream was to do some landscaping,’ Rafael said, his cynical palate tickled by her optimistic ambitions.

‘I have lots of dreams.’ Cristina, aware that she had been babbling, fell silent for a few seconds. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I find it doesn’t pay to think too far into the future, which, if I’m not mistaken, is the realm of dreams, so I guess the answer has to be no.’ To his surprise, they had reached London quicker than he had expected. She lived in Kensington, not a million miles away from his Chelsea penthouse—and in a rather nice part of Kensington which, he assumed, would have been paid for by those discreetly wealthy parents of hers.

For the first time he considered the advantages of a woman to whom his money would be a matter of indifference. His girlfriends were almost always impressed by the size of his bank balance. The ones who did have inherited money were almost worse, in a way, because they were motivated by social standing—playing a game of ‘keeping up’ or ‘going one better’ which had invariably involved him being displayed to their other friends as the catch of the day.

This girl seemed to be motivated by neither. Nor, he thought, did she seem interested in playing games with him. There had been none of the usual blatant flirting.

‘Seems a bit drastic, moving over here just to escape comparisons with your sisters.’

‘Oh, I’ve been to England hundreds of times. I went to a boarding school in Somerset, you see. Actually, I’m living in my parents’ flat, as it happens. And I didn’t come just to escape comparisons. Well…actually, I pretty much did. I mean, have you any idea what it feels like to have two gorgeous sisters? No, I guess you don’t. Roberta and Frankie are perfect. Perfect in a good way, if you get my meaning.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Some people are perfect in a nauseating way, the sort who look glorious and never manage to put a foot wrong—but then they know it and want the world to know it too. But Frankie and Roberta are just lovely and talented and funny and kind.’

‘Sound like model citizens,’ Rafael said with heavy sarcasm. In his experience such creatures didn’t actually exist. He was pretty sure that, like a number of things, they were an urban myth.

‘They are, really.’ Cristina sighed. ‘Model daughters, at any rate. They’re both much older than me. I was a bit of a mistake, I think, although my parents would never admit it, and I have to say that I did have a rather wonderful life as the baby of the family. Dad took me to loads of football matches. I think that’s why I’ve always loved football so much. In fact, that’s another one of my dreams. I want to do some football coaching. I used to play a lot when I was younger. I was pretty good, in fact, but then I gave it up, and I would really love to get back into it now. Not on the playing level, but on the coaching level. I might put an ad in the papers. What do you think?’

What Rafael thought was that he had never met such a garrulous woman in his life before. He was beginning to feel a little dazed.

‘Football,’ he said slowly.

‘Yes. You know the sport? It’s the one that involves lots of hunky men running around a field kicking a ball…?’

‘I know what football is!’

‘I was just kidding.’ She was beginning to think that here was a man for whom the world was a very serious business.

‘You’re not exactly a people person, are you?’ she mused aloud, and Rafael was stunned enough at that observation to look at her, speechless for the first time in his life.

‘Meaning?’ he snapped.

‘Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,’ Cristina apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘Why would I be offended by anything you have to say?’

‘That’s not very nice.’

‘It’s the truth,’ Rafael answered with brutal honesty. He turned down Gloucester Road, slowing to accommodate the pedestrians who seemed to think that crossing roads without watching for oncoming cars was perfectly acceptable Sunday behaviour. Her remark niggled at him and, as he turned right into her road, he slotted his car neatly into a space, switched off the engine and turned to her.

‘But I’m curious to find out what you mean by that.’

Cristina reddened and looked at him. ‘Oh, just that you don’t seem to have much time for fun. I mean…’ She frowned slightly. ‘Last night, at your mother’s party, you didn’t seem to be having a good time.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Now you’re mad at me, aren’t you?’

‘Why should I be mad at you?’

‘Because even though you say you want me to be honest with you, you don’t. Maybe because you’re not accustomed to other people telling you exactly what they think.’

‘I work in the most cut-throat business in the world. Of course I’m accustomed to people telling me what they think!’ Rafael snapped, not really sure how he had ended up having this discussion with her.

‘Well, maybe not women, in that case.’

‘Maybe I prefer my women to be a little more compliant.’

‘Does that mean they’ve got to agree with everything you say?’

‘It helps.’

Cristina thought that it sounded very boring, and since he obviously wasn’t a very boring man she wondered how he could tolerate a boring love life—but, before she could expand, he was opening his car door.

‘No. Spare me the workings of your mind. I don’t think I can take any more refreshingly honest home truths.’

Mortified, Cristina clumsily followed him out of the car and launched into a series of uninvited and unwelcome apologies while Rafael swung her suitcase out of the pocket-sized boot and walked along the pavement to her apartment block.

‘Enough!’ He held up one autocratic hand and looked at her with frowning impatience. ‘There’s no need for you to trip over yourself apologising. What’s your apartment number? And before you tell me that you can walk yourself and your bag up, I’m escorting you to your door. I may not be a people person, but I do have some rudimentary good manners.’

‘Oh, I know you have!’ Cristina assured him hurriedly. ‘I’m at the top.’ She fumbled in her bag for the key, and as she pulled it out he took it from her and pushed open the front door into a flagstone hallway shared by the residents.

It was the sort of place not many young people could ever have dreamed of affording, with the high ceilings and majestic elegance of a converted Georgian building. In fact, it was the sort of place well out of the price range of most people—except, he considered, Cristina was not most people. Underneath the slightly dippy, ready-to-smile, chatty girl lay the soft cushion of family money.

She was walking ahead to the lift, which was small, so small that their bodies were virtually touching when they stepped inside with the overnight bag separating them.

‘How long have you been here?’ Rafael asked eventually. Somehow prolonged silence in her presence seemed slightly unnatural. He wondered if his brain had somehow gone into overdrive during the long trip back down to London. Could relentless chatter do that to a person?

‘You don’t have to make polite small talk with me,’ Cristina told him, staring straight ahead at the uninspiring view of an elevator button rather than into the mirrored sides of the shaft—which were a little too harsh for her liking when it came to showing up her unprepossessing figure next to his superbly built one.

Even after hours behind the wheel of a car he still managed to look carelessly, breathtakingly, dangerously sexy. She quickly tore her treacherous eyes away from the quick sidelong glance she had given him.

He thought she babbled. Admittedly, she was quite a chatty person. She liked to think of herself as friendly, the sort of person who found it easy to put other people at ease. It was now occurring to her that Rafael might just be the sort of man who didn’t particularly want to be put at ease by someone talking constantly at him. He hadn’t exactly piled on lots of interested questions, had he? In fact, she had caught him looking longingly at his phone a couple of times, probably, she now thought, because he’d had work to conduct, but politeness had condemned him to silently listen to her whitter on about anything and everything.

‘Where did that suddenly come from?’ Rafael asked, just as the doors pinged open.

Cristina didn’t answer immediately. She hung back while he opened her door and then breezed past him into her apartment, which was arranged on two floors, the entrance being on the bedroom floor, with a short flight of stairs winding up to the small kitchen and sitting area. It was a tiny apartment, but beautifully proportioned, and interior designers had turned it into a sharply modern unit, kitted out with the best that money could buy. Cristina, who had little interest in the value of things, was unaware of the cost of some of the furnishings surrounding her, many of which had been specially imported from her mother’s favourite shops in Italy.

For a few seconds she was tempted to be cool, but being cool did not come naturally to her, and she turned to him and looked up, straight into those amazing blue eyes.

‘I just get the feeling that I’ve been talking too much,’ she confessed with her usual directness. ‘And if I’ve been too… too honest with you…then I’m sorry.’

‘What makes you think that I don’t like your honesty?’ Rafael swept aside her apology and started up the stairs. It really was very small, but very, very tastefully done.

‘Where are you going?’ Cristina called out after him.

‘Nice place.’ His voice drifted down the stairs and she scurried after him to find him looking around the kitchen, opening her fridge and scrutinising the contents, which were an unhealthy option of pre-cooked meals, cheeses and various items of confectionery which always worked as a pick-me-up when her spirits were a little low.

‘You shouldn’t be poking around in my fridge,’ she announced, slamming the door shut and standing back to look at him. ‘I know I don’t have the most healthy diet in the world just at the moment…’

Rafael looked down at her. She still hadn’t removed her jumper, which was straining across her breasts. Standing there, with her arms folded defensively, she resembled an irate little puppy caught in the act of chewing on a piece of furniture.

‘You don’t have to defend yourself or your eating habits to me,’ he informed her mildly.

‘I’m not defending myself,’ Cristina lied, blushing madly. ‘I’m just…I…’

‘Having two saintly, perfect sisters really did your head in, didn’t it?’ Rafael really tried not to delve too deeply into the female psyche, but in this instance it seemed impossible to avoid.

‘I have no idea what you’re on about. I just realise that I could probably do with losing a couple of pounds, and I know what you might be thinking when you nose around my fridge.’ She tried to maintain a healthy, dignified silence after this pronouncement, but immediately spoilt it by adding, ‘You’re thinking that I should be eating lots of salads and drinking lots of mineral water and yes, for your information, I do eat salads.’ Occasionally. ‘Quite often. There.’

‘Happy now that you’ve cleared the air on that count?’ Surprisingly, he was amused rather than irritated by her rambling over-explanation. ‘A lot of men prefer women who aren’t…skinny anyway.’

‘Really?’ She dredged up some uncharacteristic sarcasm from somewhere. ‘Not according to every magazine in every newsagent’s up and down the country.’ She sighed. ‘I was skinny as a child and then I don’t know what happened.’ She was tempted to open the fridge and dip into some of the cheesecake which she had bought the Friday before for a bit of consolation, but she didn’t. That would have really put paid to her futile attempts to convince him that she watched what she ate. And she was dimly aware that she didn’t want him thinking the worst of her.

‘Anyway,’ he said bracingly, ‘You’re not overweight. You’re curvy.’

Her face broke into a smile of delight and she laughed that infectious laugh of hers. ‘Funny, that’s exactly what I keep telling myself!’

Rafael looked briefly at her and had a moment of utter madness—a moment when he wanted to touch her, feel her body under the unflattering clothes and find out for himself how curvy she really was, how heavy and succulent those abundant breasts of hers truly were.

He turned away abruptly. ‘Fascinating though this is, I’m going to have to leave you. I have work to do.’

‘It’s Sunday.’

‘Try telling that to the rest of the world.’ He headed to the stairs while Cristina followed him, unsure whether she would see him again and already telling herself that that was fine. Thoughtful though he had been in sorting her out the evening before, and sexy though he was in a way that sent her entire body into overdrive, there was too much latent aggression inside him, and he was a workaholic. Cristina could respect that fierce work ethic, but she had never found it a particularly attractive trait in a man. The few boyfriends she had had in the past had been kind, unassuming free spirits who, like her, had preferred the great outdoors to the deadly indoors.

That said, she couldn’t help but feel a sharp wrench as he opened her front door and turned towards her.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said. ‘Of course, I shall send your mother a thank-you note, but if you speak to her please tell her that it was so kind of her to invite me and that I had a marvellous time. I think she’s coming down some time next month when my mother comes over to visit.’

She paused for him perhaps to mention bumping into her again, but, deflatingly, he said nothing. He just tilted his head politely to one side, hearing her out, and she wondered whether her rambling gene had kicked in again. ‘And don’t work so hard.’ She smiled. ‘Ever so often you should go to the park and have a walk. It’s lovely, even in winter.’ She very nearly tacked on a lengthy account of what she did when she went to the park—the interesting people she saw, the feeling of peace she got when she sat on a bench and watched the ducks bustling and going about their daily business—but held herself back in the nick of time.

‘Thanks for the advice,’ Rafael said gravely. ‘I’ll give it some thought when my working day ends at nine.’

‘Now you’re laughing at me.’

‘Perish the thought.’

He wasn’t sure how she had managed it, or maybe it had done him good just escaping London for a night, but he was perfectly relaxed by the time he made it to his own place in Chelsea.

Unlike Cristina, he occupied by London standards an enormous penthouse suite that spanned the top two floors of a redbrick mansion not a million miles away from where she lived. Like hers, his was impeccably decorated, and with a minimalism that left little room for individual touches. Just the way Rafael liked it. No family photos adorned the surfaces, no mementoes of holidays taken, no random books lying dog-eared on tables waiting to be picked up and explored. Instead, the living area was dominated by two sprawling, cream leather sofas, between which was a thick, cream rug with a barely visible abstract pattern and which had cost the earth.

The paintings on the walls were likewise abstract, splashes of colour which were demanding rather than soothing. Likewise, they too had cost the earth.

He dumped his case on the ground, poured himself a glass of water and immediately went to check his answer machine. Nine messages, eight of which he would deal with later. The ninth…

Rafael played it back with a frown of annoyance.

Delilah. A damned stupid name he had thought at the time, but he had been prepared to overlook that because she was exquisitely beautiful. Very tall, very leggy and with a serenely angelic face that cleverly hid the personality of a shrew.

Theirs had been one of the few relationships which he had allowed to drift, largely because he had been out of the country so much at the time that a face-to-face confrontation had never been engineered, and Rafael had not sought one out. Delilah was prone to hysterics, and if there was one thing that he couldn’t stand it was a hysterical woman.

Now, after nearly four months, she was back on the scene. His mother’s words slammed back at him—different mistresses every week…running away from a past he never wanted to revisit…living life in a vacuum…

He leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes and thought that maybe, just maybe, it really was time to think about settling down.

CHAPTER THREE

THAT thought had cleared his mind by the time he awoke on the Monday morning to the insistent beeping of his mobile phone at the ungodly hour of…

Five o’clock!

And a text message from Delilah. The text message, with all those abbreviations which Rafael found so annoying, informed him that she had been away—an extended holiday in the Caribbean—but that now she was back and would love to meet so that they could catch up.

Once a relationship had been terminated, Rafael was the sort of man who moved on. Not for him any scenarios which involved meeting up with an ex-girlfriend so that they could talk over the bad old days about a bottle or two of wine. He had moved on from Delilah, although he had to admit that it had not been a clean break.

Without giving himself time to switch into work mode, he dialled in her number, then waited all of two rings before it was picked up. Not a good sign. Women who waited by phones were women who became very dependent very fast, and a very dependent woman was a liability.

It was not a comfortable conversation and he knew that it should have been conducted face to face. He had optimistically figured that deliberate absence from the scene and a lack of communication would be sufficient indication of a breakup, but he had been lazy.

Hence he could hardly blame her for the tears, the accusations, the insults—which he was unsurprised to hear consisted of a wide range of adjectives—and, worse than all that, the plaintive, rhetorical question of what she had done wrong.

It was nearly six before he was finally off the phone, having endured his full frontal attack, and close to eight by the time he had showered, changed, sent some emails and was heading out of his front door.

It was barely light outside with a cold, blustery wind that felt damp even though there was no sign of rain. Rafael, still in a foul mood after his conversation with Delilah, would have missed the flower shop had it not been open for a delivery just as he happened to be walking past.

He had never noticed it before, but then that was hardly surprising. Flower shops did not feature highly on his list of desired destinations, nor did he often walk to work. It was a vigorous twenty-five minute walk and he could rarely spare the time.

In the bleak mid-winter grey, the scent filled his nostrils and on the spur of the moment he paused then entered the shop.

It was small, but overflowing with flowers, most of which were unusually vibrant, many exotic. One side of the wall was completely given over to orchids, and Rafael was startled at the array. He would have a couple of them delivered to Delilah’s house with an appropriate note, but before he could place his order the very young girl who was busying herself with the delivery informed him that the shop wasn’t actually open as yet. Not until ten.

‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ Rafael said, glancing at his watch, knowing that he would have to get his skates on if he was to make it to his first meeting. He pulled out his wallet and extracted a wad of notes, then he pointed to the two most exquisite of the orchid plants.

‘I want those delivered to this address…’ He scribbled Delilah’s address on the back of one of his business cards. The young shop assistant was beginning to look flustered, but not for a minute did he think that he wouldn’t be able to get what he wanted, because at the end of the day, whether the shop was open or not, money talked.

‘I take it there won’t be a problem?’ He looked up at the girl who glanced over her shoulder and smiled faintly.

‘Not at all, sir. What should the message on the card read?’

Rafael frowned and shrugged. ‘You’re better off without me. All the best. R.’ The girl was blushing violently as she transcribed the words onto a piece of paper, and Rafael raised his eyebrows in amusement. ‘Would you say that that is appropriate for a relationship that has outstayed its welcome?’

‘No! It’s horrible!’

Rafael swung round at the voice to find himself staring into a pair of distinctly disapproving eyes, and for a few seconds he was lost for words. Fate had decreed that, of all the small flower-shops he might have walked into from the street on a grainy February morning, he had chosen the one belonging to Cristina.

‘Your shop?’

‘Anthea, I’ll handle it from here.’ Cristina, framed in the doorway of her little office at the back of the shop, folded her arms and looked at Rafael, who looked like no businessman she had ever seen before. The uniform was the same—sharp grey suit, just visible underneath the trenchcoat which was swinging open, black leather shoes—but somehow he’d transcended ‘average man on way to work’ into a category of his own.

She turned just as a man approached from the office to stand next to her, and she gave him a bright smile.

‘So I can call you later in the week?’ she asked.

‘Any time after six.’

Rafael watched this brief exchange through narrowed eyes. The man was stocky but muscular, with the build of someone who spent time outdoors. His hair was straight and very fair, and he was wearing an earring which, to Rafael, immediately spelt ‘disreputable’. He scowled and looked around him, waiting for her to finish her conversation.

‘Who was that?’ he asked as soon as the man had left the shop.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘What do you think I’m doing? And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘Anthea…’ Cristina was aware of her assistant looking at Rafael, goggle-eyed. ‘Why don’t you go and start working on the costings for the delivery?

‘I know what you’re doing here,’ Cristina hissed, remembering why she had snapped at him in the first place. ‘You’re buying flowers, but I’m just amazed that you came here! How did you know the name of my shop? I don’t remember telling you.’

‘You didn’t.’ He wondered how her wealthy, no doubt protective, parents would react if they knew that their daughter was in London consorting with all manner of lowlife. ‘I happened to be walking to work and I needed to send some flowers to—’

‘Someone who had outstayed her welcome?’ Cristina, having been raised on a healthy diet of romance fiction and fairy-tale-ending movies, bristled on behalf of the unknown recipient of the most expensive flowers in her shop.

Rafael flushed darkly. ‘Had I known that you owned this place, I would have gone elsewhere,’ he grated. ‘As it stands, you should be grateful that I’ve just provided some very healthy business for you. I can’t imagine that random flower shops do that well in the centre of London.’

‘We happen to do very well, as a matter of fact! We specialise in fairly uncommon flowers.’ It was not in her nature to be snide, but the devil inside her made her add, ‘Maybe guilty businessmen find it works when it comes to buying flowers for their girlfriends. Including the discarded ones.’

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Cristina.’

‘How could you end a relationship on a note and a bunch of flowers?’

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