The Innocent And The Playboy
Sophie Weston
He's a heartbreaker and should leave a baby like you alone…These words had echoed around eighteen-year-old Rachel's head as she watched Ricky mix with some of the world's most beautiful people at the luxurious Villa Azul. At first he had seemed more approachable than the sophisticated crowd, but she had been deceived: he was no better than the rest. He was nothing more than a playboy, bent on seduction.She had escaped him then, but now, nine years later, Riccardo di Stefano was the head of the multinational empire, threatening to take over Rachel's company. She was no longer an innocent–he had made sure of that–but was he still the consummate playboy?
“One night with the last of the all-time playboys?” (#u36cc12a8-b645-5c03-bcbb-b1c0811a9b38)About the Author (#u1a3985e7-3048-57ab-87d2-770150ae330f)Title Page (#u0c746071-2b07-5a20-9aae-5fa94d3317c3)CHAPTER ONE (#u0b4b0655-5b5d-5be6-b5ec-998a618bec88)CHAPTER TWO (#uc26b4c17-c59d-57b5-90c8-10b6a940ba67)CHAPTER THREE (#uca2ff13e-a0bf-5f73-94be-820df2c82dee)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“One night with the last of the all-time playboys?”
Rachel continued wryly, “It had to be a disaster.”
Riccardo drew in a little breath as if she had punched him unexpectedly.
“I see your point,” he admitted levelly. “What I don’t see is why.”
He put a hand on her waist. It felt hot, burning. Suddenly Rachel was having trouble getting her thoughts together.
“Why?” she echoed.
“Why it had to be just one night,” he explained.
Rachel stared at him. Desperately she reminded herself that, however practiced he was, she had the measure of him. She might be shaking, but she had built some defenses in the past nine years. Now she activated them. She pushed at him, head down, outraged.
“Get out of my house.”
He gave ground, but he did not look defeated.
“There’s unfinished business between you and me, Rachel. You know it and so do I. Nothing either of us can say will change that.”
Born in London, Sophie Weston is a traveler by nature who started writing when she was five. She wrote her first romance recovering from illness, thinking her traveling was over. She was wrong, but she enjoyed it so much that she has carried on. These days she lives in the heart of London with two demanding cats and a cherry tree—and travels the world looking for settings for her stories.
The Innocent and the Playboy
Sophie Weston
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
‘I WON’T,’ yelled Alexandra from the staircase.
Rachel cast a harried look at the kitchen clock. The taxi was due any minute and she had not even checked her briefcase. At the table her stepson, Hugh, was munching his way through an enormous plate of toast and blackcurrant jam, ignoring his sister. No help there, then. Rachel sighed and went out into the hall. She looked up the stairs at her grim-faced stepdaughter.
‘Look, I’ve said no and...’
Alexandra’s expression darkened even further. ‘You’ve got no right to say no. You’re not even my mother.’
This was a complaint that was appearing in their arguments more and more. Rachel would have found it easier to deal with, she was sure, if she had not had a stepmother herself. As it was, half of her sympathised totally with Alexandra. The other, responsible half knew that an adventurous fifteen-year-old needed rules of conduct more than she needed sympathy. As a result their arguments tended to be protracted.
Heaven help me, today of all days, thought Rachel. She resisted the temptation to look at her watch but it was tough.
‘I know I’m not your mother, Alexandra. It makes no difference. Any adult would tell you the same.’
‘Theo’s an adult and he thinks I should go.’
‘Any responsible female adult,’ Rachel corrected herself grimly. She hesitated, then, choosing her words with care, said, ‘Of course Theo wants you to go. You’re a very pretty girl.’
She did not add, as she might well have done, And you’re going to inherit half your father’s business in less than three years. She did not need to. It was there between them already. Her stepdaughter had not forgotten a word of the disastrous altercation after her last evening out with Theo Judd. Rachel could see it in Alexandra’s hot eyes.
Her next words confirmed it. ‘You think Theo’s after my money.’
Rachel pushed her hair back wearily. It was too long. It needed cutting. She had kept it short for nine years but during these last hectic weeks she had not had time to get it cut.
‘I don’t know what he’s after, Alexandra, and that’s the truth.’
‘He’s too old for me. Go on, say it.’
‘Do I have to?’
Alexandra almost stamped her foot. ‘You just don’t know what it’s like.’
And that was a problem too. Rachel knew exactly what it was like to be in love when you were too young and the man you loved was too worldly and sophisticated to recognise how vulnerable you were. In fact, she had worked hard at forgetting for nine years. What was more, she would have said she had succeeded, until Alexandra had decided to make a present of her generous heart to a twenty-four-year-old bartender with a line in flash cars and flashier repartee. Trying to induce a little wariness in her stepdaughter had brought back some memories which could still make Rachel wince.
Sidestepping Alexandra’s comment, she said, ‘I do know that I would not be much of a guardian if I let you stay out till all hours, God knows where, with a man who is nine years older than you are.’
Alexandra could sidestep difficult issues too.
‘Dad was twenty years older than you,’ she snarled.
It was true. In spite of her anger and worry, just for a moment Rachel was startled into amusement. ‘You’ve got me there,’ she admitted. She leaned her arm on the carved wooden banisters and looked up at her stepdaughter straightly. ‘Look, Lexy, I know you won’t believe me now, but that really was different. Your father and I had both been around a bit. Fifteen and twenty-four is another kettle of fish entirely.’
‘You mean I’m a child.’
‘No, maybe not a child exactly. But there is a whole world of experiences you have not had yet.’
‘And Theo has?’
By the truck-load, if Rachel was any judge. Wisely she did not say that either.
Instead she said, ‘Well, he must be well aware of the difference between you and girlfriends of his own age. Even if you aren’t.’
Alexandra tossed her head. ‘Theo thinks I’m very mature.’
Hell, thought Rachel.
There was a swish of tyres on the wet gravel outside the house. Her taxi had arrived.
Knowing that she was giving in and she should not do it, she said, ‘Look, we’ll talk about it this evening...’
‘Because you’ve got to rush off to work, right?’
‘Because I’m late for work,’ Rachel said between her teeth. ‘Because I’m making a strategy presentation. Because the full board will be there and some of the shareholders aren’t happy. Because I have other responsibilities as well as you.’
‘You’re not responsible for me,’ flashed Alexandra.
‘I can make my own decisions.’
Rachel sighed. ‘Not legally. Look, I’ve got to go.’ ‘If my father were alive you wouldn’t treat me like this.’
Rachel winced. Even though these were exactly the circumstances which Brian had envisaged when he’d first begged her to marry him, and they’d both thought she had prepared for them, Rachel had been missing him badly in recent days.
The taxi hooted. Rachel stopped glaring at Alexandra and shot into the kitchen. Late as she was, she still checked the briefcase methodically. It was something her own father had taught her to do and she sometimes thought ruefully that she could do it in her sleep. Everything was there.
She pinned up her hair on top of her head without looking in the mirror. Then she stuffed her handbag under her arm and prepared to go.
Hugh looked up from his breakfast. The pile of toast had diminished noticeably, as it always did. So why did he always look as if he were starving? Rachel thought. He saw her worried look and grinned.
‘Sock it to them, Super Shark.’
Rachel knew this was meant to be both encouraging and complimentary. She responded accordingly.
‘Thank you very much for your support. Hugh...’
He jerked his head at the door. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’ll sort herself out sooner or later.’
‘Just as long as it isn’t too late,’ muttered Rachel, not much comforted.
‘Don’t worry about it. Lexy can look after herself,’ said her sympathetic brother.
‘I hope you’re right.’
The taxi hooted again, longer.
‘Damn. I must go. I’m sorry. I’ll see you both tonight,’ said Rachel, running.
Too fast, of course. It was blowing a gale outside. The leaves flew up, making her blink against the flying dust. The wind caught at her hastily arranged hair and whipped great hanks of red-gold fronding out of its confining hairpins. She cursed but she did not go back to repair the damage. She had told the children she was late for a board meeting. What she had not told them was that it could just turn out to be the most important meeting of her life.
Now, racing into the waiting taxi, she slipped and fell to one knee on the gravel. She felt the run in her tights at once. But it was too late to go back and change. The unfamiliar taxi driver was already impatient and Rachel was hardly less so. She got into the back seat and slammed the door.
‘Bentley’s Investment Bank,’ she said. ‘Old Ship Street.’
All the way to the huge new office block, she could feel the run snaking down her leg. On the sheer dark tights she favoured, it was going to be horribly conspicuous. She would have to keep her legs out of sight under the board table until she could dash out and get another pair. Maybe just before lunch, thought Rachel, running over the timetable in her mind. Then, jumping out of the taxi, she did not duck low enough. Rachel felt her already descending coiffure lurch sideways at the impact. It was the final straw.
As the taxi drove off, she swore before turning to steam in through the silent automatic doors.
‘Morning, Mrs Gray,’ said the security officer, from behind his smart, brass-trimmed desk. He had seen her mishap and could not suppress his grin. ‘Bit windy out there.’
Rachel hefted her briefcase under her arm and thrust her free hand distractedly through her hair. Several pins fell out.
‘Morning, Geoff. Are they here yet?’
The security guards had the best information network in the bank. Geoff did not pretend to misunderstand.
‘The party from the States arrived about ten minutes ago.’
‘Oh, hell.’
‘Mr Jensen is giving them the tour.’
Rachel stopped fluffing up her hair and scattering pins. ‘You mean he knew I hadn’t got here?’
Geoff looked wise. ‘He was looking for you earlier. Mandy told him you were on your way.’
Mandy was her secretary. Philip Jensen was Rachel’s boss—at least on the organisation chart—and he was a panicker.
Rachel sighed. She should have been here an hour ago at least. She had intended to be when she’d put her papers for the meeting into her briefcase last night. But with Alexandra’s bombshell at the breakfast table she had temporarily lost sight of her timetable. The fact that it was her own fault did not help. If anything it made it slightly worse.
‘Hell,’ said Rachel again with feeling.
Geoff grinned and opened the small door at the side of the security guards’ cubby-hole. They had their own lift to all floors which no one else was supposed to use. The theory was that it should be available at all times in case of a security alert. As a result, it was known to be the fastest route between floors. In addition, it had the advantage that she was unlikely to meet the board and their honoured guests in the unadorned steel box which served the security force. It was against bank policy but, on today of all days, the offer was irresistible.
‘Thank you,’ said Rachel with real gratitude, and dived into the prohibited lift.
She made it into her secretary’s office without encountering anyone else. Mandy looked up and took in her situation in a glance. She swung round on her rotating chair and extracted a new packet of tights from the pile in the stationery cupboard behind her.
‘Traffic?’ she said.
Rachel dropped the briefcase thankfully. ‘Only domestic.’
Mandy pushed the tights across the desk and surveyed her thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got mud on your jacket.’
Rachel looked down. It was true. There was a great splash of it like a wizard’s hand across the front.
‘I didn’t realise. It must have happened when I tripped. Damn.’
Mandy held out a hand. ‘Give it to me. I’ll have a go with the clothes-brush. You deal with the extremities.’
Rachel shrugged herself out of the jacket. ‘My one designer suit,’ she said gloomily. ‘Only just back from the cleaners.’
Mandy was surveying the dried mud. ‘The check jacket is in your office. If all else fails you could wear that.’
The check jacket was an old friend. So old that its black velvet collar showed its age. They both knew it. Rachel sighed again.
‘Philip will be furious.’
‘Philip is too terrified to be furious,’ Mandy said frankly. ‘He’ll be so relieved to see you, he won’t care if you turn up in dungarees. Go on.’
Rachel went swiftly into the ladies’ cloakroom, pulling the remaining pins out of her hair as she went. Mandy soon joined her, bearing the check jacket apologetically.
‘Designer clothes need designer cleaning. I brushed the mud off but you could still see the shadow.’
Rachel lobbed the ruined tights into the waste-paper basket and smoothed her skirt.
‘Thank you for trying.’ She straightened up to face her image in the big mirror behind the hand basins and grimaced. ‘It’s not going to make much difference anyway. My hair needs surgery. I’ve lost too many pins to put it up properly.’
‘Then leave it loose.’
Rachel fluffed out the red-gold fronds doubtfully. ‘Not very professional.’
‘Better than everyone in the meeting sitting there wondering when it’s going to fall down,’ Mandy said, ever practical.
Rachel laughed suddenly. ‘You’re probably right. I don’t want to distract them from my beautiful corporate plan.’
She brushed her hair rapidly. Mandy gathered up the scatter of hairpins and silently laid out Rachel’s underused cosmetics. Most of the time Rachel wore no make-up at all unless she was going to some big business reception.
It was Mandy’s private opinion that this was a horrible waste. However, Rachel, although in general as friendly and informal a boss as you could wish for, did not encourage this sort of comment. Mandy could never quite work out whether this was because Rachel genuinely did not know how spectacular she could look when she tried. It seemed unlikely. Sometimes Mandy even suspected that Rachel knew quite well and was, for some obscure reason of her own, terrified by it.
Now Rachel made a face in the mirror, reaching out for the little make-up case. ‘Why is painting your face supposed to improve your confidence?’
Mandy perched on the edge of the vanity counter. ‘Because it makes you look more like a performer?’
‘You mean like a clown?’
‘Like a star,’ Mandy said reprovingly.
Rachel snorted and wrinkled her nose at her reflection. ‘Some hopes.’
So maybe her unawareness of her looks was real. But she had to know how high her professional reputation stood. So why did she not have more self-confidence? Someone somewhere must have done a real number on Rachel, Mandy thought.
She was too tactful to say so, however. Instead, she said, ‘Your confidence doesn’t need any boosting. Everyone in the bank knows how good you are at your job.’
Rachel laughed. ‘That isn’t the point. I’m the one who has to believe I’m good. That’s what confidence means. And after this morning—’ She broke off.
‘What went wrong this morning? Homework?’
Rachel ran a small make-up sponge under the tap before replying. A faint frown appeared as she brushed the sponge across the compressed block of pale tan colour.
‘No.’ She hesitated, then started to sponge on the light make-up with quick, angry strokes. ‘It’s Alexandra.’
Mandy nodded, unsurprised. She had worked with Rachel all through the last three traumatic years and she did not have to have the family tensions explained to her.
‘Being difficult, is she?’
Rachel put the sponge down. ‘She thinks she’d like to live with her mother,’ she said neutrally. ‘Her real mother, that is.’
Mandy was shocked. ‘And can she?’
‘I don’t know. Not unless her mother wants her, that’s for sure.’
‘She doesn’t?’
Rachel picked up a palette of eye-shadows and a small brush. She surveyed herself, hesitating.
‘Not up to now. That’s why Brian—’ She broke off abruptly and leant forward to paint discreet colour onto her eyelids. Mandy bit her lip. When Rachel mentioned her late husband it was usually a sign that she was deeply disturbed.
‘How old is Alexandra now?’ she asked, tactfully changing the subject.
Rachel gave her a pale grin in the mirror. ‘Fifteen going on forty. To judge by this morning’s performance, anyway.’
Mandy was surprised. ‘How quickly they grow up. I hadn’t realised.’
‘Nor, according to Alexandra, had I,’ Rachel said drily.
‘Ah,’ said Mandy, enlightened. She had younger sisters. ‘She wants to go to a rock concert and you won’t let her.’
Rachel’s face tightened. ‘Something like that.’ ‘They all do,’ Mandy said comfortingly. ‘It’s just a phase. I had some terrible fights with my father. You grow out of it.’
Rachel flicked the little brush over her other eyelid. ‘Do you? I never had any fights like that. Too much of a goody-goody. Never did anything my father wouldn’t like,’ she confessed.
Except once, said a small voice inside her. Except that last, fatal time when you brought the whole world down on everyone, just because you were determined to show Riccardo di Stefano and his kind that they could not hurt people with impunity.
It was a voice that had been whispering away for three or four days now. It reminded her that even the best-conducted adolescents could make some horrible mistakes. It was a voice she had silenced for nine years and it was disconcerting to find it coming out of the ether now. Especially as it had a disturbing tendency to take her difficult stepdaughter’s side in the present argument.
Mandy said comfortably, ‘I bet you did. You’ve just forgotten.’ She relieved Rachel of the eye-shadow and handed her a lipstick and lip-brush. ‘Alexandra just needs a good fight with authority at the moment. You happen to be the only major authority figure around. Hard on you, but it’s not the end of the world. What she needs is a man in her life.’
Rachel shuddered. ‘Don’t say that. She’s jolly nearly got one.’
Mandy was unperturbed. ‘We all had boyfriends.’
Rachel paused, the lip-brush arrested halfway to her mouth. Not me, she thought involuntarily. Is that why I’m so bad at dealing with Alexandra? Is it because I never went through the normal stages? Was I just too busy being a good little girl, working hard and winning prizes? Until... The voice again! Why on earth should it start up now when she needed all the confidence she could summon up?
She suppressed the voice, applied the lipstick, stepped back and looked at herself critically.
‘Well, that will have to do.’
Mandy nodded approval. In spite of the fact that Rachel paid very little attention to her appearance, when you had shining, naturally auburn hair and wide brown eyes, it did not make too much difference, Mandy thought without jealousy. A dash of modest eye-shadow and Rachel’s eyes turned the colour of Madeira wine.
‘You look gorgeous.’
Rachel sent her a harassed look. ‘I wish I looked tidy.’ She flicked irritatedly at the loose hair about her shoulders. ‘Tidy is efficient. Untidy—well...’
‘Philip knows you’re efficient,’ Mandy soothed.
‘It isn’t Philip I have to convince.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Being half an hour late isn’t going to help either.’
Mandy laughed and uncurled herself from her perch.
‘Don’t worry about it. The new boss man has changed all the meetings round, so no one knows who is due to speak when or on what. With a bit of luck no one except Philip will even know.’
Rachel was looking in the mirror, giving a last downward brush to her neat skirt, but this made her look round. ‘New boss man?’
‘Genghis Khan in person,’ Mandy said cheerfully.
Rachel was aware of a quick lurch in her stomach, as if she were still in Geoff’s lift and it had hurtled down to the lowest level of the underground car park. You’re paranoid, she told herself. And obsessed. This is ancient history. You’d never have remembered it at all if it weren’t for the fight with Alexandra.
She took a firm grip on herself and said casually, ‘Which Genghis Khan is that?’
‘The main man. Leader of the barbarians in person.’
Her stomach sank below car-park level to somewhere around the seabed.
‘You don’t mean di Stefano?’
Please tell me you don’t mean Riccardo Enrico di Stefano, heir to one fortune and personal creator of another five times the size, patron of the arts, darling of the gossip columns and the man who took confidence into a whole new dimension.
But Mandy was grinning. ‘Himself.’
Rachel’s stomach penetrated the earth’s crust without difficulty and began to swirl around in the molten core. She could feel the heat in her face. She even put up a hand. Her cheekbone was warm under the make-up.
She swallowed. ‘What—?’ Her voice squeaked. Mandy was looking at her curiously. She swallowed and got a grip on her vocal cords. ‘What is Riccardo di Stefano doing here? The bank is only a minority investment from his point of view.’
Mandy chuckled. ‘Well, from what I saw when I helped Angela with the photocopying, that’s all going to change. I’d say he’s going to buy us.’
Rachel stared at her, appalled. Mandy misinterpreted the horror.
‘Don’t worry about it. He’ll probably buy your corprorate plan as well. More likely to than the old board, if you ask me.’
This could not be happening. Something inside her was turning over like a hibernating beast roused out of ice. Old, deep ice. Rachel could feel the faint internal tremors starting again. They were not exactly unfamiliar, but she had not been aware of them for years. Meanwhile, Mandy, unaware, was giving her an encouraging smile.
‘You could be right,’ Rachel said faintly.
Mandy patted her on the shoulder. ‘Of course I’m right. Now go and broke the agreement.’
There was nothing to be done. If he was here already, all her escape routes were blocked.
‘Yes,’ said Rachel automatically.
She shrugged herself into the check jacket like a sleepwalker and went to the door. She looked as if someone had hit her with a sandbag, Mandy thought. More encouragement was clearly called for.
‘Cheer up, Rachel. Your tights are whole and your jacket is clean. From here on in, today can only get better.’
Rachel stared at her. For an odd moment it seemed as if she were looking over the precipice of a particularly cold and deadly mountain. Then she gave a harsh laugh. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it.’
It was bitter. It even startled Mandy out of her cheerfulness. Then she said bracingly, ‘You’ll do fine. Bigwigs have never worried you. The bigger the wig, the cooler you get.’
But Rachel was still looking sick. Mandy had never seen her look like that before. She began to be alarmed.
‘You can handle yourself,’ Mandy reminded her urgently, putting a hand on her arm. ‘You know you can.’
Rachel gave a little jump as if she had been brought back to the present by main force. ‘I hope,’ she muttered.
The sick look went out of her face. But although she was regaining command of herself there was still that shaken look at the back of her eyes. It was almost as if she had received a bad shock, Mandy thought. Which, of course, was ridiculous. It took more than a visiting troupe of American money-men to shock Rachel. Or, at least, it ought to.
Rachel was thinking the same thing. She pulled her jacket straight and squared her shoulders in the mirror.
‘Boardroom?’
Mandy said, ‘Well, Mr Jensen said he’d like to see you in his office first.’
I’ll just bet he did, thought Rachel. If the biggest shark of them all has turned up in person, Philip will be turning to jelly.
‘But they arrived and he went straight to the boardroom. Would you join him—er—soonest?’
Panic stations, interpreted Rachel. She did not say so. She was too close to panic herself.
‘Right,’ she said.
She went, buried in thought. Confidence, she said to herself. That’s the thing to remember. You’re good at your job. You know that. Everyone else does. Believe it, why can’t you? Play to your strengths.
He must never know you even remember. Almost certainly he won’t. It is nine years ago. He must have had dozens of girls before and since. It’s ten to one that he forgot the whole thing in days.
She almost convinced herself.
She was still frowning in preoccupation as she went along the executive corridor. It was ankle-deep in an expensive carpet and hung with valuable seascapes. Usually Philip’s idea of executive interior decoration made Rachel laugh. Today, however, she barely noticed it.
In fact she was so deep in thought that she did not notice the man coming towards her. That was hardly her fault. Although he was tall and loose-limbed, he moved like a cat. On the sumptuous carpeting his tread was noiseless.
So when a voice said, ‘Hi there,’ she jumped about a foot in the air and came down with her head spinning.
It was the voice from her very worst dreams. Rachel felt as if someone had thrown ice-water over her. She found herself staring straight into those laughing, green-flecked eyes for the first time in nine years. It felt like yesterday. She stared at him, transfixed.
The man looked amused. ‘Rick di Stefano.’
There was not the slightest hint in his voice that he knew they had met before. Rachel registered his open smile: not a glimmer of recognition there. She moistened suddenly dry lips and tried to believe it.
In all those worst dreams of hers Riccardo di Stefano knew her at once. What he did about it varied with the awfulness of the dream but he had never looked at her with the smile of a pleasant stranger.
Rachel gulped. For the first time in years she was unable to think of a single thing to say. Instead, she just went on staring at him, horrified. Not yet, something in her brain was wailing. I’m not ready. Not yet.
Her reaction surprised him, she saw. One dark eyebrow rose.
‘I startled you. You must have been a long way away.’
Oh, she was, she was. Nine years and a whole ocean away. Impossible to say that, of course. Engage brain, Rachel, she told herself furiously. Engage brain. Or this will go out of control before you’ve even said hello.
Years of professional negotiations came to her aid at last. The unforgotten past receded, at least for the moment.
She swallowed and said, ‘Hello, Mr di Stefano.’ It came out a lot huskier than she’d expected but at least it did not sound as if all she wanted to do was run away from him and hide.
He laughed aloud then. ‘That sounds very formal.’
She gave him a quick, meaningless smile. ‘That’s the English for you.’
He smiled back. It was slow and sexy and made his eyes crinkle at the corners as if he was used to staring into the sun. He was not as tanned as she remembered, but the muscles were still as lithe under the city suit—and the laughter as wicked.
‘Now, I’ve always found English formality to be a bit of a myth,’ he said easily.
Oh, have you? she thought. Now that she had brought herself back under control she had time to observe him more dispassionately. She disliked what she saw amazingly. Confident, good-looking, intelligent. The things that her stepmother had gloated over all those years ago were still true. Even more so, if you could judge from one quick, resentful look. The charm was still there too—and he knew it. He was even waiting for her to respond to it. Rachel realised it in gathering wrath.
She said smartly, ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a formal person.’
Riccardo di Stefano’s eyes narrowed. It looked as if he had just registered that there was a real person confronting him in the corridor, Rachel thought, pleased. Her satisfaction was short-lived.
‘Have we met before?’
She could have kicked herself. Never start a fight unless you’re prepared to finish it, she reminded herself grimly.
She said in her most colourless voice, ‘I was away when you were here in September.’
He detected the evasion. Of course he would. He had built up a worldwide empire on management skills, which meant that he would have no problem at all in reading a minor employee’s disaffection.
He did not look worried by her attitude. Why should he? His reputation said he had a flair for rooting out opposition at the heart. He would have detected that this minor employee would not present him with any problems he could not deal with. Just let him not detect as well how carefully she had orchestrated her leave in order to avoid his thrice-postponed visit, Rachel thought.
Before he could challenge her further she said, ‘Were you looking for the boardroom? You should have turned right out of the lift, not left.’
He was looking at her intently. Before he could question her she said, ‘Let me show you.’
For a moment he did not say anything. She could feel him weighing up her reaction, assessing its implications, even its possible effect. Oh, yes, you could see why he was head of a multinational, multi-business empire.
She could have kicked herself. She held her breath, not quite looking at him. But he decided it was not worth probing, in the end.
‘Thank you,’ he said easily. ‘I’d appreciate that.’
She breathed again.
He fell into step beside her. He did not say anything further, but Rachel could feel his thoughtful gaze on her profile. She hoped she kept her expression neutral. By the time they reached the boardroom she felt as if the whole of that side of her face had been irradiated. Doing her best to ignore the feeling, she opened the door.
‘Mr di Stefano,’ she announced to the room.
It was not necessary. All the men there already knew who he was as well as she did, Rachel could see. And most of them were scared of him. She saw that too.
Well, at least she wasn’t scared of him, she thought. Not now. Maybe once. Not any more. It was ironic. He had done his worst to a vulnerable adolescent and she had survived. There was nothing left to be afraid of.
Reminding herself. that she was totally unafraid of Riccardo di Stefano was one thing. Meeting his eyes and retaining conviction was something else entirely. Prudently, Rachel kept her head turned away from that piercing gaze. Luckily it was not difficult.
It became obvious that Riccardo di Stefano had come to Bentley’s that morning with one object and one only. He was pleasant enough about it but underneath the good manners he was not making much attempt to hide that steely purpose. Philip Jensen was chairing the meeting and managed to deflect four pointed questions. Eventually Riccardo di Stefano changed tack. He stopped asking questions and interrupted Philip in mid-waffle.
‘Frankly, it seems to us at Di Stefano that you’ve lost your way,’ he said.
Philip Jensen was unused to direct confrontation.
‘If we can just keep with the agenda...’ he began fussily.
Riccardo di Stefano pushed the papers away from him.
‘Forget the agenda. What’s the point of talking about whether to go into Eastern Europe next year when the bank could collapse at any time?’
Rachel gasped. She was not alone. Riccardo di Stefano’s eyes swept round the table.
‘That sounds like surprise,’ he mocked.
Philip recovered. ‘Collapse? What are you talking about?’
‘Your little adventures into the futures market. You’ve got enough risk on board to wipe out the bank.’
Philip forgot he was in awe of Riccardo di Stefano. He sat bolt upright and glared. ‘That’s a preposterous suggestion.’
‘Is it?’
Riccardo nodded to a quiet man whom Rachel knew to be his company’s London director and who was on the bank’s board. The man produced a pile of printed sheets and began to pass them round. The result of Angela’s photocopying, presumably. Could Mandy possibly be right about his intending to put in a bid for the whole bank, then?
Rachel looked at the sheets blankly. They were figures of some sort. She was too shaken to focus on precisely what they represented.
The quiet man said, ‘I’ve been saying I wasn’t happy with bank strategy for six months. After the last board meeting I was so worried that I talked to Riccardo. He had our research department do a full analysis. These are the results.’
Philip picked up the stapled sheets and flicked through them. Sitting next to him, Rachel saw that his hands were shaking. He was clearly having as much difficulty in focusing on the figures as she had.
He managed, though, and looked up sharply. His eyes went very small and sharp and the tremor in his hands intensified.
‘Where did you get these figures?’
Riccardo shrugged. ‘Market information and some in-depth deduction. Then the research department in New York did some modelling. This is the result.’
Philip was shaking with anger now. With more than anger—fury.
‘You’ve been spying. This is market sensitive.’
Riccardo looked amused. ‘No need to spy. It’s all out there in the market if you go looking for it. With Sam on the board, I knew what to look for, of course.’
Philip stood up. ‘This is intolerable.’
Riccardo stood up as well. He looked utterly relaxed. How well Rachel remembered that cool, relaxed manner. How well she remembered how effectively he could use it—and with what devastating results. She braced herself.
Riccardo drawled, ‘I rather agree.’
Philip blinked. All Rachel’s protective instincts urged her to take his shaking hand. She curbed them. It would do no good and Philip would not thank her for humiliating him in public. She looked down at her own copy of Riccardo’s figures again.
Riccardo said, ‘Face it, Philip. You’ve driven this bank into the ground. Mismanagement followed by panic. Speaking as a major shareholder, I’ve had enough.’
Rachel was probably the only person at the table who was not surprised. Even Riccardo’s quiet colleague looked taken aback. A general spluttering of indignation and recriminations broke out. Riccardo sat down again, leaning back in his chair. He watched them all lazily.
Rachel lifted her eyes from the papers in front of her. Across the table Riccardo was the only one not trying to make himself heard in the hubbub. The only one apart from her, that was.
Suddenly something seemed to draw his attention to her. Seeing her silent, he raised his brows. Then he looked directly at her, straight in the eyes. Rachel felt as if she had touched a naked wire. She jolted back in her seat, breaking the eye contact feverishly. But she knew he was still looking at her.
Beside her Philip was roaring, ‘Breach of confidence ... Complain to the authorities... The bank will sue...’
Riccardo was unimpressed. His lip curled faintly. He said nothing. Suddenly Rachel could not bear it any more. She stood up. The move was so unexpected that it attracted everyone’s attention.
If she had ever imagined a scenario like this she would have been alarmed at the thought of taking public initiative away from Philip. But she had never imagined it. And anyway there were older and far more serious things she had feared in her life than Philip Jensen’s potentially wounded ego.
So she said levelly, ‘Gentlemen, the main item on the agenda was future business strategy. My report is in your folder as item four. I suggest we break to consider Mr di Stefano’s analysis. Then we can come back and discuss it. We can look at the strategy options once we’ve agreed where the bank is falling down now.’
She sat down. There was a murmur of assent.
Riccardo had gone very still. The long-fingered hand on the table was clenched tight. His eyes looked black with an odd blind look in them as if a ravine had suddenly opened in front of him.
His director sent him a quick, enquiring look. Riccardo ignored him.
‘How long?’ he said at last. He spoke directly to Rachel. His tone was sharper than any he had used so far.
Rachel looked unseeingly down at the papers. She had not the slightest idea. She took a blind stab at a time.
‘Three hours.’
He looked incredulous. ‘You’ll have proposals in three hours?’
Rachel thought, I have proposals now. You’re not the only one who knows something has got to be done about this place. But I need time to convince Philip.
She said calmly, ‘I believe so.’
It seemed as if everyone in the room was holding his breath. At last Riccardo di Stefano nodded.
‘OK. Same place.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Two-thirty.’
He stood up. Everyone else did the same. As if he were an emperor, thought Rachel. She was not even trying to curb her hostility now. But still she somehow found herself on her feet too. That infuriated her.
Across the room, Riccardo di Stefano looked at her. His dark eyes measured her as if he had only just become aware of her. She thought she saw faint contempt and put a hand to her loose hair self-consciously. His eyes narrowed. Something in that basilisk regard brought Rachel to attention as if she were facing a court martial.
‘I look forward to your ideas,’ he said softly.
Something light as a feather, deadly as a cobra, slid up the back of Rachel’s neck. She managed not to shudder, but only just. Instead she gave him a bland smile.
‘I hope to surprise you.’
He laughed aloud at that. ‘I’m sure you do. But I have to warn you a lot of guys have tried.’
And failed, was the implication.
Rachel said, ‘I like a challenge.’
Riccardo di Stefano stopped laughing. The look he gave her was pure speculation.
‘So do I,’ he said softly. ‘So do I. Maybe we’re both going to learn something from this.’
CHAPTER TWO
AS THE door closed behind Riccardo di Stefano, Philip sank back in his seat. He looked ill, Rachel thought with compassion. Beads of sweat were etching out a mask on his face. She was not the only one to notice.
‘Better let Rachel run with this one, Phil,’ said Henry Ockenden, the head of lending.
Philip waved a hand vaguely. Rachel took this as agreement. It looked as if he was not going to need much convincing after all. She got up.
‘I’ll be in my office. I’ll get briefing to you by two at the latest,’ she said.
She gathered up her papers and went.
Mandy was at her desk in the outer office. She raised her eyebrows as Rachel steamed past.
‘Fireworks?’
‘As you predicted,’ said Rachel.
‘Di Stefano on the attack?’
‘And then some,’ said Rachel with feeling. ‘Call the group; I want a meeting in twenty minutes. Everyone to have a copy of these.’ She dumped di Stefano’s papers on Mandy’s desk.
Mandy picked them up and took them to the photocopier.
‘Is di Stefano as gorgeous as they say?’ she said, pressing buttons briskly.
The copier warmed into life.
‘Worse,’ said Rachel crisply.
She turned away. Mandy was too observant. Rachel did not want the other woman to detect that this was not the first time she had had the opportunity to observe at close quarters how gorgeous he was. Or that she would give anything not to remember how gorgeous.
Rachel gave an angry little sigh. Riccardo di Stefano had obviously had no trouble forgetting. So why couldn’t she?
Mandy, at the photocopier, was not detecting anything, fortunately. She laughed. ‘He looks a heartbreaker all right.’
Rachel stiffened imperceptibly. Not turning round, she said casually over her shoulder, ‘I thought you hadn’t met him.’
‘No.’ It was not hard to discern Mandy’s regret at this fact. ‘He had his mug shot in the papers yesterday. Taking Sandy Marquis out on the town.’
‘Sandy Marquis?’ The name was vaguely familiar. Then she remembered. ‘The model, you mean? The redhead discovered teaching gym to schoolgirls?’
‘That’s the one.’ Mandy looked at Rachel speculatively. ‘He seems to go for redheads.’
‘He goes for anything female that doesn’t run too fast,’ muttered Rachel unwarily.
Mandy’s eyebrows flew up. This time she was detecting. And accurately.
‘You know him,’ she said on a note of discovery.
That’s what comes of losing your cool, Rachel told herself, annoyed. Aloud she said repressively, ‘We’ve met.’
‘Wow.’ Mandy was impressed. ‘You’ve been clubbing on the quiet?’
‘Of course not. Even if that was how I got my kicks, which it isn’t, what time do I have to go clubbing? When I’m not working I’m trying to persuade two adolescents that school isn’t all bad.’
Mandy chuckled. ‘I don’t see di Stefano at a PTA meeting,’ she allowed. ‘Where on earth did you meet him, for heaven’s sake?’
Rachel grimaced. Take it lightly, she adjured herself. It was never important. Don’t build it up into something it was not.
She shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. I shouldn’t think he even remembers.’
And I’m going to do everything I can think of to stop him remembering, she resolved fiercely.
‘Have you said anything to him?’
‘No.’ Rachel was unable to disguise her horror.
Mandy looked even more intrigued. Rachel realised she could be getting herself into exactly the kind of trouble she had hoped to avoid—the kind of trouble that slapped an ice-pack on the back of her neck and sent her normally logical mind into meltdown. She could trust Mandy, of course, but if she told her it was a secret Mandy would inevitably start to wonder what it was all about. It was only human nature. It was also horrifying.
I can’t stand that sort of speculation, Rachel thought. How can I avoid thinking about him if every time I put my head out of my office my secretary’s asking herself what Riccardo di Stefano was to me in my dark past?
She felt panic rise. It took all her self-control to quell it, to think of a plausible story. It was half the truth anyway.
‘Look,’ said Rachel, ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention it. It was no big deal but I was very young.’ She managed to sound rueful, even faintly embarrassed. She was impressed with herself. ‘It wouldn’t do my credibility much good to remind him. I don’t want him thinking he’s negotiating with a spotty teenager with no control over her temper.’
No hint of the inner panic. Well done, Rachel, she congratulated herself. Mandy was taking it at face value anyway.
‘No control...’ Mandy stared. ‘You?’
‘Youth,’ said Rachel. She gave a very good shrug, quite as if she did not care. She even managed a light laugh.
That was not quite so convincing, evidently. At least, it did not convince Mandy. ‘Did you have a crush on him?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ said Rachel with unmistakable truth. In spite of her determination to stay cool, she could not repress a shudder.
Mandy was not just a colleague, she was a friend. She saw the shudder and drew her own conclusions.
‘Well, if he hasn’t remembered yet, he probably won’t,’ she said comfortingly. ‘Not with Sandy Marquis to keep him happy.’
‘I’m relying on it,’ said Rachel. She went into her office. In the doorway she paused and looked back. ‘Oh, we’ve got a deadline. Two o’clock with Mr Jensen. You’d better find out what the group want in their sandwiches.’
Mandy grimaced. ‘Right you are. Action stations.’ She was already on the telephone when Rachel closed the door.
The room was uncannily quiet without the hum of the photocopier. Rachel sank down behind her desk and stretched out her legs in front of her. They were trembling.
There was an unfamiliar tension between her shoulderblades. She bent her head forward and sideways and the tension eased. It did not go away entirely; though. If she was any judge, it was not going to go away until Riccardo di Stefano was safely back on his own side of the Atlantic.
‘Blast,’ she said.
She rubbed her hand across the back of her neck in an uncharacteristic gesture. The muscles felt like iron. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she remembered another time when she had done the same thing. Her hand fell.
Another time and a whole world away. She got up and went to the window. Outside the rain ran greyly down the window. But the world of her too vivid memory was drenched in sunshine.
Rachel tipped her head forward and rested her brow against the window-pane. How could she ever have thought she had forgotten?
She closed her eyes and let the memories flood back.
She had never wanted to go. She had tried so hard not to. But she had been eighteen and the opposition had all been over twenty-one and had had the big guns.
‘It will be the holiday of a lifetime,’ her father had said heartily. Too heartily. Rachel had not noticed that at the time, of course. ‘You’ve been tying yourself to your books too much. Now the exams are over you deserve a really good time. Judy and I both want you to go.’
And that had been the first objection. Rachel had never warmed to her father’s second wife. Judy felt the same, she’d been sure. Most of the time they’d been polite to each other but that was as far as it had gone. Rachel had frankly been appalled at the idea of going off on a Caribbean holiday with her stepmother for company.
She had not said that to her father, of course. And what she had said had only caused him to persuade harder.
‘Judy needs a holiday as much as you do. It’s been a tough year, with the takeover and everything. She needs to get away from it all. Sun, sea and a bit of exotic night-life.’ He laughed. ‘Do you both good.’
Rachel said, ‘Exotic night-life doesn’t sound like me, Dad.’
But he was not to be deflected. ‘Nonsense. All girls of your age want to spread their wings a bit.’
Presumably Judy had told him that. Presumably she had also convinced him that she and Rachel were virtual contemporaries and could not be better friends. None of Rachel’s protests had any effect.
‘It’s very good of Judy to suggest it,’ her father said in the end.
His tone had stopped being hearty. Rachel recognised an order when she heard it. He might just as well have said she did not have a choice.
‘She’s been invited to stay with some very old friends. They have taken a house in the Caribbean. Film-star luxury, I’m told. Judy needn’t take you along, you know. Since she’s offered, you owe it to all of us to accept gracefully.’
So she went. Later it occurred to her to wonder whether her father was already suspecting his young wife’s restlessness. Maybe he’d sent Rachel along to act as some sort of chaperon. Or even as a substitute for conscience. If he had, he had been singularly out of luck, she thought now.
She had not suspected any such thing at the time, of course. To be honest, Rachel had not seen much of her father or Judy, particularly over the last year when her father’s company had got into difficulties. Rachel herself had been working furiously hard to get into university. She and her father had met occasionally over the coffeepot in the small hours. They’d exchanged tired quips. But they had not really talked since he’d married Judy.
So, if there were strains in the marriage, at that time Rachel had not known it. She’d just known she did not like Judy, and she had not been able to imagine why her stepmother would want to take her on holiday.
It had been some time before she’d found out why, but she had. By that time she’d no longer cared. She’d had her own hurt and her own guilt by then. By that time she’d no longer cared about anything except getting away and never seeing any of the inhabitants of the Villa Azul ever again.
Rachel opened her eyes and stared blindly at the London rain. In all the three weeks she had spent at the Villa Azul, it had never rained once, she remembered. She would wake up in the huge colonial bed to a sound like rain, but when she’d rushed to the window it had been to find that the sound was only the wind through the palm trees. She had been so homesick. So hungry for familiar sights and sounds. So alone.
Open-eyed, she stared out at the rain. Alone! She gave a harsh laugh that contained no amusement at all. Oh, she had been alone all right. Until that last night, when she had learned, briefly and unforgettably, that there were worse things than being alone—and that the worst loneliness of all was when you could not reach the person you were with. She felt sick, remembering.
But there was nothing else for it. Now she had started, the whole thing was coming back in cruel Technicolor.
The first time she’d met Riccardo di Stefano she had almost run away He had been like an alien from another galaxy. Well, they all had been, at the Villa Azul. By that time Rachel had learned to expect every new acquaintance to possess a degree of sophistication she knew she could not deal with. By the time he arrived, Riccardo di Stefano was exactly what she was expecting.
Tall and slim, he arrived in the Caribbean with an all-year-round tan and the inscrutable dark glasses to go with it. His hair was so dark that it looked blue in the glare of the midday sun. He was wearing piratical cutoffs that could have belonged to the ragged urchins in the town, had it not been for the indiscreet designer label at the back of the belt.
He was not bothering with a shirt that day and even to Rachel’s jaundiced eye its absence revealed muscles that could only be called impressive. He moved lazily, gracefully, as if he knew every eye was on him and did not give a damn. Rachel loathed him on sight.
The Villa Azul loved him. It was only to be expected.
But by that time she was loathing the Villa Azul and all its inhabitants with a ferocity that she would never have thought possible. It could not have been further away from the relaxing holiday her father had fondly described. There was no possibility of relaxing. Rachel had never felt more on edge in all her eighteen years.
One thing her father had been right about was the luxury, though. Rachel had never seen anything like it. The house party seemed to drink champagne at all hours, change their designer outfits three times a day and have personal trainers and hairdressers in constant attendance.
In fact, at first she thought Riccardo di Stefano was a new fitness expert. Only, then he took off the arrogant shades to reveal even more arrogant eyes. Rachel revised her opinion rapidly.
Slowly he surveyed the company scattered round the pool and the exotic gardens. His expression announced that he was supremely bored. None of the tennis professionals and expert scuba-divers would have allowed themselves to look like that. It would have cost them their job. It did not make Rachel like him any better.
And then their eyes met.
It was oddly shocking. Even on edge as she was, Rachel felt her inner tension go up a couple of notches. She stepped back as if she had walked too close to a fire.
The stranger in the designer rags looked her up and down. Rachel had just come up from the beach to collect some fruit for her lunch. She had not bothered with a wrap because she did not intend to stay. She was going to go back to the beach and carry on reading in the shade of a coconut palm. Indeed, she was still marking the place in her book with one finger.
So all she was wearing was a dark one-piece bathing suit. By the standards of the Villa Azul it was modest to the point of puritanism. But, under that cool inspection, Rachel felt that she might as well have been naked. Her face flamed.
Even across the width of the flamboyant garden, the pirate recognised her reaction. His eyebrows rose. He was clearly amused. Rachel blushed harder, and hated him for it.
Nobody else paid any attention at all. At least, not to her. That was nothing unusual. The sophisticated house party had been bewildered by her arrival. Since then, they had done their best to ignore her. Because, of course, Judy had dumped her the moment they’d got to the estate.
‘This is Bill’s daughter,’ she had said, waving a hand in Rachel’s general direction.
After that she’d stripped off and dived into the pool. She had not exchanged more than a dozen words with Rachel since. She had not even bothered to introduce their host.
He was, Rachel discovered, Anders Lemarck and said to be something in oil. The other guests were vague on his profession but very precise on his wealth, which was described as serious. On their arrival, he’d considered Rachel appraisingly, decided she was not worth getting up for and raised a casual hand in her direction.
‘Hi, Bill’s daughter.’
After that he’d ignored her too. If it had not been for the friendly islanders who ran the Villa Azul, Rachel would not even have had anywhere to sleep.
‘Part of my education,’ the eighteen-year-old Rachel had told herself. ‘Nobody said education had to be pleasant.’
She’d established a routine of swimming and reading, keeping out of the way of the main party as much as she could. Until now it had worked fine. But the piratical stranger was something else.
In spite of herself she could not look away. She stared into the face she did not recognise and knew that she would recognise it anywhere in the world for evermore. It was not just the barbecue-deep tan and insolent eyes. It was something that seemed to look right into the heart of her and imprint his image on her very core. Rachel felt helpless all of a sudden.
If the other guests continued to ignore her, they were more than-enthusiastic to greet him. Women in tiny, jewel-coloured bikinis converged on him; men turned from discussing stock-market prices to greet him. Even Anders got out of his hammock to shake his hand.
And I’m no better, standing here like a mesmerised rabbit, staring at him, thought Rachel. She was disgusted with herself. It was a real physical effort to break that eye contact. Even across the garden she could feel his resistance. But she did it.
She turned away and made for the terrace where the luxurious cold lunch was set out. These days, Rachel had learned to mingle with the sophisticated diners with reasonable confidence.
She was bending all her attention on a dish of exotic fruits, when she felt a butterfly touch against her bare arm. She brushed it away absently. Warm fingers caught and held her own.
Rachel gave a thoroughly unsophisticated squeak and let go of her plate. The pirate caught it neatly, one-handed.
‘Don’t tell me—you’re the discus professional.’ His voice was as casual as his appearance. Casual and low and horribly sexy.
He returned the plate to her with an enigmatic smile. Rachel swallowed hard. This was where that education proved its usefulness. She tried to remember all that the holiday had taught her about dealing with these people.
‘Thank you,’ she said, clutching at the plate. It tilted dangerously and half a mango fell off it. He caught that too.
‘Not the discus,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe ping-pong?’
Rachel was embarrassed. That education did not seem to have stuck after all.
Annoyed with herself, she said curtly, ‘Sorry, no,’ and held out her hand for the fruit.
He turned it over with a grimace. ‘Is this all you’re eating?’
‘I like fruit in the middle of the day.’ Why did she sound so defensive?
His eyes crinkled at the corners. With half the garden between them she had thought his eyes were dark. Now she saw that they were a swirl of curious, complicated mineral colours, flecked with green. They were also oddly weary.
She thought suddenly, He looks as if he’s seen everything in the world. And nothing matters to him any more.
She gave herself a quick shake. This was silly, melodramatic. He was a stranger. And not a very kind stranger, from the expression in those eyes. She did not think he would be kind if he knew what she was thinking about him, anyway.
He looked round at the little groups of people sitting under the trees.
‘Who are you with?’
Rachel almost jumped. ‘What?’ Then she realised what he meant. ‘Oh. I’m not. I mean—’
He looked surprised, his brows rising interrogatively. ‘You don’t eat with the guests?’
‘No,’ she admitted. It felt like owning up to her lack of sophistication all over again. She looked away.
He buffed his knuckles against the top of her arm.
‘No need to look like that. So where do you take your plunder?’
She looked up at that, laughing in quick surprise. At once his eyes narrowed, became intent. Rachel saw that the hand holding the mango clenched. Then slowly, as if in an act of will, he relaxed his fingers and gave her a slow, lazy smile.
‘Well? Do you climb a tree, or what?’ The laughing voice said he shared her amusement.
‘I’ve got a beach,’ Rachel admitted. Laughter always warmed her. The trouble was—and she had not learned enough yet to know how dangerous this was—it also took her off her guard.
‘Really? A whole beach?’
‘Well, no one else seems to use it.’
The pirate looked over his shoulder at the party again. He shrugged.
‘Surprise me,’ he said cynically. ‘Real sand, real seaweed?’ He shook his head. ‘Messy.’
Rachel chuckled.
For a moment those strange eyes widened. Then he seemed to shake himself. He looked down at the mango he was still holding. It was looking distinctly the worse for wear.
‘You can’t eat that.’ He summoned one of the house staff by some magic semaphore which Rachel was not quick enough to catch. As the man appeared at his elbow, he said, ‘Take this away, will you? And bring some food down to—’ He broke off and turned compelling eyes on Rachel. ‘Where is this magic beach of yours?’
It was at the far end of the estate, outside the cabin she had been allotted by the staff. There was no point in trying to hide the location. This was the servant who had shown her to her room three days ago. The man nodded.
‘Coconut Beach. I know. Gladly, sir.’
The pirate took the plate out of her suddenly nerveless fingers. ‘You won’t need that. Ben’s a professional. He’ll bring everything we need for a beach picnic, won’t you, Ben?’
‘I will, sir.’
Rachel did not at all like the look they exchanged. It was not far short of a grin. She suspected masculine conspiracy. It annoyed her. Worse, it made her uneasy.
But she could hardly prohibit one of Anders’ guests from visiting to one of Anders’ private beaches.
She said, ‘Maybe I won’t have anything to eat, after all. It’s hot.’
‘Plenty of shade on Coconut Beach,’ Ben said, thereby confirming Rachel’s suspicions about masculine solidarity.
The pirate chuckled. ‘Lots of ice in that picnic, Ben. Plenty of nice ice-cold drinks. Oh, and the lady likes fruit.’
The man nodded. ‘Leave it to me.’
He went. Rachel found she had an arm round her shoulders. It was warm and sinewy and it felt like iron. Her heart began to slam uncomfortably. She made a move to draw away and the arm tightened as she had somehow known it would. It set her very slightly off balance, so that she had to lean against him.
She looked up, uncertain. He was smiling down straight into her eyes. His expression made her head swim.
‘And now take me to the seaweed.’
He took her down the shallow steps of the terrace into the midday glare. Even in her confusion, Rachel was aware of the eyes watching them. For days her fellow guests had seemed barely aware of her existence. Now she felt as if she were in a spotlight.
The pirate seemed unaware. Or, if he was aware of it, he did not care. Still with that long arm round her, he skirted the pool area, with its spectacular apricot-veined marble, and swept her off into the shade of the casuarina trees.
He let her go then. It was not practical to walk along the uneven, sandy path side by side. But he did not stop touching her. The path through the casuarinas was dotted with fallen vegetation—things like cones and scaly brown twigs. He put out a hand to help her skirt them. He brushed away the feathery branches that drooped over the path, holding them back for her to pass. Once or twice, perhaps by accident, his hand brushed her loose hair.
It was flattering. It was also slightly alarming. Rachel ducked her head and made for the beach without daring to meet his eyes again.
They came out through a grove of trees whose name she did not know. They were slim-trunked and fanned out to make a loose canopy overhead. The sun made a sharply etched lace pattern of shadows beneath.
‘We could sit here. In the shade,’ said Rachel, holding back a little.
In the garden her swimsuit had felt modest until he’d looked at her. Out here, with no companion but the ocean and the pirate, she suddenly needed the covering of shadows.
He shook his head.
‘No, we can’t.’
‘But I’d rather.’ Her embarrassment felt like panic. Her voice came out too high, too defensive. ‘I can’t take too much sun. My skin—’
He looked at her. It was like a caress. It silenced her. The sexy smile grew.
‘Believe me, your skin would not like sitting under manchineel trees.’
‘What?’
He put a hand against one of the slim branches. It was a large hand, long-fingered and brown as a nut. For no reason she could think of, Rachel’s mouth dried.
‘Manchineel,’ he said. ‘Poison apple. Didn’t anyone warn you?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘What’s to warn?’
He frowned. ‘Well, the fruit’s poisonous, but you probably would not eat that. The leaves give off a sticky sap like lime trees. It’s not exactly poisonous but it can irritate the skin. Some people react badly. There have been nasty cases of blistering. The bad thing is to be under the trees when it rains. The rain washes the sap off the leaves onto the people taking shelter beneath.’
‘Oh.’ Rachel looked at the beach, powder-white in a sunlight so intense that it seemed to hum. The sky was so pale that it was hardly blue. There was not a cloud in sight. She put her head on one side. ‘An immediate danger, do you think?’
He stopped frowning and gave a bark of laughter. ‘Maybe not today.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind for the next time it rains.’
‘Bear it in mind for the next time you look at your contract,’ he said cynically. ‘Suing Anders can be lucrative.’
Rachel stared. ‘My contract?’
‘Working conditions are not supposed to include poisonous trees. Unreasonable hazard, if you were not warned.’
‘Working conditions?’
But he was not listening to her. He was running across the baking sand to the shade of the coconut palms. He looked fit and free and utterly at one with the wild landscape. Rachel followed more slowly.
So he had not realised she was a guest. In fact he had made exactly the same mistake about her as she had about him, when she’d first seen him. She thought about the other guests, their casual acceptance of every luxury, their brittle laughter and their dark, dark tans. He had recognised at once that she was a misfit. It was not really surprising, she thought wryly.
By the time she reached the tree he had found her sunblock and towel. He shook the towel free of sand and spread it for her ceremoniously. Rachel laughed and sat down. But the misunderstanding still worried her.
She said, ‘Look, I know I don’t fit in here—’
He interrupted. ‘Why should you? You’re twenty years younger than most of them.’
It was closer to thirty years, if she were honest. Most of the house guests were Anders’ contemporaries.
‘That’s not the point.’
He dropped down beside her and Rachel fell abruptly silent. She found quite suddenly that she could not remember what she had been going to say. The pirate sent her an amused, comprehending glance.
‘Oh, but it is. You’re not here to fit in. You’re here to help them convince themselves they’re having a good time.’ The cynicism was harsh.
Rachel shifted uncomfortably.
‘I’m not—’
‘Yes, you are.’
He stretched out, propping himself on one elbow, and looked at her. His eyes were not unkind but they had a remote expression. Once again Rachel had the overwhelming impression of weariness.
‘What do you think you’re here for? To run aerobics sessions? Guide them round the reef?’
She opened her lips to correct him but he waved the suggestion away before she could speak.
‘It doesn’t matter what it says in the contract. Your real job here is to be their audience.’
‘What?’
‘Such an innocent.’ He sounded almost sad.
Unexpectedly he cupped her face. It was a tender gesture, quite without sexual intent. But it set something fluttering under Rachel’s breastbone that she had never been aware of before. She drew back instinctively. His hand fell.
She rushed into speech, the words tumbling out, only half-aware of what she was saying. More aware of the small reverberations she could still feel in every nerve and muscle. Aware of the need to hide that schoolgirl vulnerability to his fleeting gesture.
‘You don’t understand. It’s not like that at all. They don’t want me as an audience. They don’t want me at all. I should never have come. The way they look at me.’
He said quietly, ‘You’re talking about envy.’
Rachel shook her head violently.
‘No, I’m not. You haven’t seen it.’ She remembered last night’s barbecue, the way people’s eyes had glazed over as she’d approached. ‘It’s as if I’m spoiling things somehow. Like I’m an alien or something—some creature that’s put a tentacle out of the sea and pulled itself up the beach to spoil the party.’
There was a little silence. Rachel realised she was shaking.
At last he said slowly, ‘Spoil the party?’
She made a helpless gesture. ‘I know it must sound stupid.’
‘No.’ He sat up.propping himself against the bark of the coconut palm. ‘No, it sounds very lifelike.’ She felt his reflective gaze on her face. ‘They really didn’t know what they were getting in you, did they?’
Before she could answer there were footsteps behind them. The manservant appeared at the top of the slope, bearing a rush basket.
The pirate looked up.
‘Our picnic,’ he said, amused.
He got lazily to his feet and went to receive it. He exchanged words with the man which Rachel could not catch. Then he brought the basket back to the shade of the tree.
‘He’ll pick it up later. All we have to do is eat, drink and enjoy ourselves.’ He looked at the pale crescent of sand and gave the first unshadowed smile she had seen from him. ‘Shouldn’t be too tough.’
It was not. They swam, then talked while Rachel unpacked the basket, finding delicacies wrapped in foil and cool-boxes. There was flaked crab in a spice that burnt the tongue, barbecued prawns soaked in lime, wonderful crisp bread, a cornucopia of exotic fruits, and wine—wine such as she had never imagined, sharp and sweet at the same time, the bottle icy cool in its astronaut suit.
The pirate did not eat much, she saw, though he watched her appreciation with lazy amusement.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she sighed at last, licking mango juice from her fingers.
He was propped against the tree.
‘You like your pleasures simple.’
‘Simple...’ She stared. Then, seeing he meant it, she burst out laughing. ‘And what would you call luxury?’
He was watching her with an odd, quizzical expression. He shrugged at her question.
‘Oh, something with linen tablecloths and at least three Michelin stars. You’d have to wear diamonds.’
Rachel choked. ‘I almost never wear my diamonds to swim,’ she said gravely.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘Why is that?’
‘It attracts the sharks. Or so they tell me.’
For a moment the strong face tightened. ‘I’ve heard that too.’
Rachel looked at him. He had been a friendly, easy companion over lunch. So why was she reluctant to ask him about himself? He was self-evidently not the usual type of visitor to the Villa Azul, in spite of his familiarity with the names of the staff and the quality of the company. What was more, he had elected to spend half the day in her company. Her curiosity was perfectly understandable. Yet she sensed a reserve in him which would not permit invasion. And she did not think he would be kind if she intruded too far.
So she did not ask him who he was and what he was doing as Anders’ guest. Instead she said carefully, ‘Meet a lot of sharks, do you?’
His expression was inscrutable. ‘My share.’
Rachel looked away from him. They were facing a view of breathtaking beauty over the pale beach to the Caribbean Sea. In the sun it looked like a cloth of silver. The distant islands could have been painted on silk, as insubstantial as dreams.
She said softly, ‘Well, there are none here.’
There was a pause. He neither moved nor spoke. All she could hear was the steady lull of the waves against the shore and the cicadas in the trees behind them. Then he gave a long sigh.
He said slowly, as if something new had occurred to him and he was examining it, ‘You could just be right.’
He stretched. Out of the corner of her eye Rachel saw him move. Instinctively she tensed. Something in her had been waiting for him to make a move in her direction ever since she’d first set eyes on him. She had been aware of it, increasingly, all during the afternoon. It was exciting, but it troubled her all the same. She did not know what she was going to do about it.
But her wariness was unnecessary. He was only lowering himself to lie full-length under the palm. He crossed his arms behind his head and tipped his head back. He closed his eyes and made a noise indicative of total satisfaction.
His lips barely moving, he said, ‘Wake me up when it gets dark.’
CHAPTER THREE
RACHEL spent the next three hours swimming and sunbathing and reading her novel. The pirate slept deeply beside her. At first she was disconcerted, even slightly piqued. But then she remembered the terrible weariness she had sensed and kept herself as quiet as a mouse in order not to disturb his rest.
Eventually he stirred. Rachel put down her book and looked at him. His eyes opened, drifted shut, stayed closed for a moment. Then they flew wide open, a startled expression in their depths.
‘What—?’
Rachel laughed down at him gently. ‘You were tired. You ate. You slept.’
His eyes flickered and went dark. His expression became unreadable. He continued to look up at her. Rachel shifted a little, suddenly uncomfortable under that unblinking stare. She tore her eyes away and made a great business of tidying up the last of their picnic. She even tried a little mockery to ease that sudden tension.
‘You don’t snore.’
He still watched her. For a moment she thought he was not going to reply.
Then he said idly, ‘You reassure me.’
Still not looking at him, she wrapped glasses in the napkins Ben had provided and stowed them carefully. A thought occurred to her. She gestured to the picnic basket. ‘Would you like something?’
‘Well...’ His voice became a drawl. ‘Maybe I would, at that.’
Rachel was surprised but she peered inside the basket, inspecting the remains.
‘Cheese, breadfruit, pineapple—Oh!’
He had reached out a lazy hand and pulled at her shoulder. Not expecting it, Rachel fell back onto the sand in a tumble of flying hair. She was twisting her head, brushing hair from her eyes and mouth when the sky above her went dark.
‘Pass on the pineapple,’ said the pirate, leaning over her. He was amused. He bent forward.
She had been half braced for it all day but now that it was happening it came at her out of the blue. Really, she had the sophistication of a six-year-old, Rachel castigated herself. What was more, now the moment had arrived, she had not the faintest idea what to do about it.
‘Oh, Lord,’ said Rachel, shutting her eyes.
It was not a demanding kiss. He feathered his mouth over her lips, her brow, her eyelids. He took his time and seemed to enjoy it. Rachel thought she could feel him smiling. She swallowed and tried to relax.
He made a small sound of satisfaction and turned her head so that he could kiss the soft, vulnerable place below her ear. Rachel quivered. Suddenly she did not have to try any more. She was relaxing spontaneously. Her limbs felt as if they were melting, moulding themselves round him. She felt lazy, luxuriously alive to her fingertips.
She thought of the boys she had kissed or wanted to kiss at the occasional party she’d got to in London. It had never felt like this. She was not quite sure where the difference lay but she knew it had felt a world away from this. In London she had felt hot and anxious, terrified—of doing the wrong thing, of being laughed at, of being hurt.
If she was terrified now, thought Rachel dimly, it was not of anything the pirate might do. It was of the way he was making her feel.
He kissed her jaw, so lightly that it felt as if he did no more than breathe on her. Unbidden, Rachel’s body jackknifed into an arch. He gave a soft laugh, his hands gentling her down again onto the sand. He slipped the straps of her swimsuit away so that he could kiss her warm bared shoulders.
Her eyes drifted half-shut. She was breathing rapidly. Her head tipped back in an agony of expectation. At last—at last—he found her mouth. This time his kiss was shockingly far from gentle.
So far that, in spite of her own body’s hunger, Rachel was frightened. Her muscles locked, quite beyond her control. She felt suffocated. She tried to turn her head away.
For a moment he would not let her. His body was fierce on hers. Then, abruptly, he let her go and swung away from her.
Rachel lay there for a moment, fighting for breath. Beside her, the pirate sat up and stared out to sea.
‘Crossed wires, I think,’ he said at last drily.
Rachel was embarrassed. That annoyed her.
‘You mean because you jumped on me?’ she snapped unfairly. ‘Why on earth did you do that?’
He shrugged, looking bored. ‘Jumped on you? It’s called a kiss. You should know that by now, even if you don’t use them. As for why... Because I wanted to. Don’t you ever do things just because you want to?’
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