Emergency Engagement

CHAPTER NINE

S AMMY WANTED TO return to Yorkshire immediately. She could easily imagine her mother worried and fretful and wondering what the hell was going on.

There was no way she could ever think that a sudden engagement was ever going to be anything but trouble. Even if there’d been no engagement—if Sammy had said in passing that she and Rafael were going out, maybe casually dating, or had been out for a cup of coffee together — her mother would still have had her antennae quivering with suspicion. Rich guy and speedy attraction...add those two things together and what she’d get was trouble.

Her mother’s past had taught her enough about chancers for her to be instinctively wary of someone like Rafael. Frankly, to be wary of any guy showing up and suddenly becoming an item in her daughter’s life after five minutes. Victoria’s call would have set the wheels in motion, and mention of an engagement would have been the icing on a very bad-tasting cake.

Rafael, though, calmly talked her out of it as they sat on that beach towel, each staring out at the blue ocean whilst working their way to a solution to the sudden complication that had arisen.

‘We can easily stay here for another couple of weeks, by which time your mother will have calmed down,’ he said.

‘You don’t know my mother.’

‘No one can stay anxious for weeks on end. After a while, it dulls.’

‘Again, you don’t know my mother. After our stepfather disappeared from the scene, Mum suddenly took on a ton of guilt for the massive wrong decision she had made in marrying him in the first place. She made it her mission to make sure that I, in particular, didn’t do anything rash when it came to my emotions.’

‘What about Colin?’

‘She automatically assumed that Colin would be able to look after himself.’ Sammy half-smiled. ‘Don’t ask. At any rate, she drummed it into me that I should always be careful never to be taken advantage of.’

‘Is that why you developed that checklist for boring men?’

‘“Kind, thoughtful and reliable” doesn’t automatically mean boring . ’

‘If you say so.’

‘Anyway, I could stay away for a week or a month or a year and my mother would still be worried sick that I was making a mistake. I think we should go back to England and tell her immediately that the whole engagement thing was a fabrication.’

‘We could do that.’

But then he turned to look at her, reached and touched her, just a light, feathery touch that had made her melt.

‘But Sammy, let’s be honest with one another. The engagement might have been a fabrication but what we have together—this thing between us—that’s real.’ He paused, frowned and took a sudden step back. ‘The passion, I mean. The flame that can’t be put out. Don’t tell me that that’s not real.’

‘Yes, well...’

‘Sure, we could go back over there, and we could go into a lengthy explanation about Victoria and Clement and pretending to be the couple we weren’t at the time. Shall I tell you what your mother would think of that?’

‘Can I stop you?’

‘Any time you like.’

‘Tell me. What would Mum think if we showed up and told her the truth, now that you seem to have a crystal ball?’

‘She’d think that after everything she’s told you, after every word of warning she’s issued over the years, you’ve let yourself be seduced into a lie by a guy who messes women around.’

‘I’ve told her that you’re not the man Victoria described.’ Sammy broke eye contact, but he’d made a point, and it was one she hadn’t considered. Of course her mother would be disappointed, and would think that she had rushed headlong into lust with the wrong guy. She’d remember Rafael the youthful rebel, the boy who had led Colin astray, and all her defences would shoot into position.

Sammy had truthfully told her mother that Rafael wasn’t the guy Victoria had made him out to be; that he wasn’t the guy the tabloid papers portrayed who moved from woman to woman, picking up and putting down like a spoilt kid in a toy shop.

She uneasily ran through the sincerity in her voice as she’d waxed lyrical about Rafael to her mother, persuading her out of her anxiety and persuading herself into the dawning realisation of something she must have known for a while. The realisation that she had fallen for a guy who hadn’t returned the favour—not when it came to love, which was so very different from passion—and that she’d gone and done the very thing she’d always told herself she would never do.

A sick feeling swirled inside her.

Forget about her mother and her disappointment if they rushed back to England so that they could spill the beans on the little game they had set in motion—one look at her and Caroline Payne would know that her daughter had fallen for Rafael. So much for all her teachings.

‘What did you tell her?’ Rafael asked her curiously.

‘That Victoria was a woman with an axe to grind and that she would do anything to make sure you paid the price for dumping her—woman scorned and all that stuff.’

‘Hmm.’

‘But I see what you mean.’

‘That it’s better for us to stay here for a bit until things flatten out?’

‘It would be an opportunity for me to slowly begin to tell Mum that perhaps I got carried away by being out here...that lust got the better of me, but that everything she’d ever said about using my head when choosing a guy was right, because bit by bit I could see that you weren’t the one for me.’

‘Not dull enough,’ Rafael murmured in agreement.

‘In the end, common sense would win through and by the time I return to Yorkshire Mum would be fine with it all.’

‘And you haven’t thought of the other upside to us remaining out here.’

‘Which is what?’

In her head, she had been dealing with the rollercoaster ride of emotions that had swamped her without even really realising : she was in love with Rafael.

She loved everything about him, from the way he laughed to the way he touched her, to the things he said that made her think and the way he teased her until she was laughing at herself with him.

‘That we exhaust this,’ he said.

‘This?’

‘This crazy passion we have for one another. It’ll subside. Crazy passion always comes with a sell-by date. But, if we were to walk away from it before it naturally goes, then both of us would always be left with a want that hadn’t had a chance to be satisfied, an itch still waiting to be scratched. We stay here two weeks, perhaps even a bit longer, and we see this through to the end. No dissatisfaction left because that itch hasn’t been scratched.’

Sammy nodded, lost in her own thoughts and sadly thinking that, whereas her feelings for him ran too deep to quantify, his feelings for her were best summed up as an itch to be scratched.

But she needed time, and a couple more weeks here would give her the time she needed.

Rafael strolled through the glass sliding doors of the villa that gave out to the landscaped gardens at the back. To the right the swimming pool was lit up with lights that were cleverly strung between swaying palm trees and threaded through some of the dense foliage. The blue of the pool was very dark, a dappled swirl of shadows casting stripes across the flat, still surface.

The veranda here was very wide and circled the entirety of the back, wide enough for clusters of chairs, tables and potted plants. Beyond the lit section the landscape disappeared into tropical darkness, which was dense, and pierced here and there with fireflies and the gentle swoop of bats diving in search of food.

Sammy was in the kitchen. Standing out here with a glass of wine in his hand, he smiled to himself at the thought of her shooing him away, telling him that she wanted to surprise him with a special dinner. He liked the way she’d been pink from the heat of the kitchen, her whole body radiating satisfaction at doing something she enjoyed.

The plan to remain on the island had been a good one. They’d been here for ten days in total, and he knew from the conversations they’d had that her mother had come down from the sharp anxiety she had felt when she’d first found out about their so-called engagement.

For a brief second, he frowned because something else occurred to him: where was the boredom? When was that due to set in—shouldn’t it be round about now?

Sure, he had had longer-lasting women in his life in the past but, thinking about it, he’d never spent so much undiluted time with any of them. He and Sammy were practically together on a twenty-four-seven basis. They’d fallen into a routine of going to the hotel, doing all the due diligence together before it opened. She practised cooking, and the same sous chefs he had hired when his business associates had been there worked alongside her in the hotel restaurant, getting familiar with the appliances. They cooked together for the team in place at the hotel for when it opened and, lately, for some VIP families on the island.

While she did her thing, he did his, working remotely from the conference room at the hotel, on call for anyone who might require his input. So it was a little bit puzzling that he was in her company for so much of the time and yet still got a kick from looking at her. He was still so horny for her that he couldn’t get enough of her. She could have been wearing sackcloth and ashes with a side order of hobnail boots and he would still have wanted her.

She had set a wonderful table on the veranda. They would be dining al fresco, she’d told him, and it was going to be a very special meal because he had yet to see what she’d been getting up to in the kitchen. All the stuff she’d made so far had been relatively casual and light.

He looked round as he heard her approach from behind. Rafael stared. The light from the conservatory behind illuminated her. She had dressed for the occasion in a frothy lilac dress that he hadn’t seen before that skirted her slender thighs and was belted at the waist with a thin, golden cord, and wore flat, strappy sandals and a little necklace with a shell that he had bought for her on impulse at a market they had gone to a few days ago.

She looked like a figure from Greek mythology—a very sexy one.

He slowly walked towards her, smiling as he neared her. ‘I like the outfit.’

‘Thank you. I got it yesterday at that shop—the one by the boutique that sells those paintings.’

‘I didn’t see you escape to do that.’

‘Because you were working at the hotel and I went to get some stuff from the supermarket. I thought...’

‘That you would try and distract me from eating whatever delicacies you’ve prepared because all I’d be thinking is how much I wanted to eat you ?’

‘That’s a very corny line, Rafael.’

But Sammy was smiling as he drew her against him, one hand behind her neck, the other curved possessively over her bottom. Her body curved against him in a way that was exciting and familiar at the same time. She felt the tell-tale dampness spread between her thighs and the sensitivity of her breasts brushing against the silky material. She wasn’t wearing a bra; she’d stopped that ages ago. He’d told her that he liked to be able to touch her, lift her top as she walked past in the villa, suckle against her nipple and enjoy her without the faff of having to unclasp bra straps. Since she liked that situation as much as he did, she’d been more than happy to comply.

‘I know,’ he agreed, grinning. ‘I’ll try and think of a few better ones. I like the table. You know, there was no need—nothing wrong with us eating in the kitchen.’

‘You need to see my talents as a chef!’ Sammy smiled. ‘Now, if you sit, I’m going to bring our starters out and also the wine.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He was grinning. ‘I never knew how much I would enjoy taking orders until you came along.’

Sammy smiled and held back as he strolled towards the table and sat, eyes still on her, hungry and hot. She was surprised and relieved that he hadn’t asked her what this special meal was all about. She’d glibly told him that she just wanted to prove her skills, which was true enough, although only part of the story.

Truth was that time was flying by. One week was turning into two. They’d set a time limit but it had been a vague one—two weeks or thereabouts. Thereabouts , however, didn’t stretch into ‘for ever’ land. Thereabouts meant that they would probably have roughly another week left before he started making noises about returning to the fast lane in London.

When Sammy thought about that, her blood ran cold. Should she wait until he said something—maybe told her that they needed to talk? Was there any way she could brace herself for that kind of conversation? What would she say? Would she just nod, shrug, laugh a bit and then say something vague about it being good while it had lasted?

If she were true to herself, then would that be her response? She had spent the past ten days making sure to hide her growing feelings from Rafael, needing to think things through without him suspecting anything. But now, with their timeline drawing to a close, thinking things through had to come to an end. She would have to take the bull by the horns, do what she had to do and then stand back and see where the cards fell.

She’d chosen the wine, and he rose to relieve her of it as she headed to the table, doing a balancing act with the wine cooler and two bowls of prawns in a spicy pepper sauce. The prawns on the island were the size of lobsters, and just as delicious.

‘So, chef, will you tell me about this dish?’

‘Try it and you can tell me what you think is in it. It’s a game I sometimes play with some of the families I’ve cooked for in the past. Occasionally service is formal, but a lot of the time I’ve cooked for stressed out working couples and served up in the kitchens. ’Course, the kitchens aren’t quite the sort of kitchens most people are used to—they’re kitchens fit for kings and queens.’

‘You like that—cooking privately as opposed to in a restaurant?’

‘It’s a lot more personal, but there’s also a lot more resting on what you produce, and sometimes people can be quite difficult. If they’re paying, they think they own you.’

‘It’s like that in any job,’ Rafael mused quietly. ‘You get paid to do a service and the person paying is always aware of that. You’re working for them and they own you. I saw that with my dad. When we moved to Yorkshire, he got a job, but he was still pretty fragile. There were days when he could barely make it out of bed, but he forced himself, because he knew that he was on a payroll and the minute he stopped doing as he was told the pay would stop.’

‘Whenever you talk about your dad, your tone of voice changes.’

‘Does it?’

‘Hardens.’

Rafael thoughtfully tilted his head to one side. ‘I guess it does.’ He sighed. ‘Not that I talk about this at all, but yes. Growing up, it was hard not to pity my father. Survival and resilience deserted him and the worst of it was that the marriage, as I think I’ve told you, wasn’t a good one. It definitely wasn’t made in heaven. But...’

‘But? No, wait—don’t say a thing. Give me your plate and I’ll see to the main meal. I think you’re going to love it. It’s a very special dish.’

‘Need a hand?’

‘I’ve got this.’

Her heart was beating like a sledgehammer as she prepared their mains. She made sure that every garnish was in place and every bit of food on the plate was positioned just so, from the fondant potatoes to the exquisite lobster and the tiny carrots and fresh peas.

He was confiding in her. Was he even aware of that? She didn’t think so. She’d barely been aware of it herself until she’d woken up to her own feelings and had begun to take note of the things that were said between them, the little intimacies spoken in passing.

He shared things with her: titbits about his past. He laughed and told her funny stuff that had happened with clients over the years. A couple of days ago, he’d told her of the effort he’d put in to make sure he succeeded because success was everything.

She lapped up those confidences, lashes lowered, hardly breathing, never daring to encourage in case he backed off and turned away.

‘Ta-da!’ She laughed and flamboyantly laid his plate in front of him. He laughed back and looked at her admiringly.

‘A picture should be taken.’

‘Already did that.’ Sammy slipped into her seat and glanced at him across the flickering candles. ‘Can’t have a website without lots of images, and I’m doing a lot of work on my website while I’m here. You were saying...about your dad and the way he was after your mother left...?’

‘So I was,’ Rafael continued absently. ‘I was saying that it’s partly thanks to you that I’ve squared off some of my disillusionment with my dad—a hangover from the way I felt all those years ago.’

‘How so?’

‘You had a rough ride as well and yet you haven’t become bitter or cynical. You still believe in love, and you still believe that Mr Right is out there, waiting like a knight in shining armour to marry you and give you the happy-ever-after life you want. You could say I’ve softened my stance on my father and his life choices. I always loved him but I can see how he could end up a broken guy.’

‘I’m really pleased about that although, you know, it’s not quite as straightforward as Mr Right galloping on his horse towards me.’

‘You’re not kidding.’

‘Although, it’s not as impossible as you’ve come to think.’ She felt a fine film of perspiration break out as she wondered where to go from here. Somewhere in the course of the past few days, as she’d untangled her feelings about this man, she’d realised that telling him the truth was going to be the best thing for her. The best way to be her own authentic self.

And she even dared to hope that it would not be in vain. They’d shared a lot. He’d talked to her in a way that she knew, in her gut, he’d never talked to another woman before. He’d told her stuff and, because he wasn’t a guy who shared, she’d known that that stuff represented true confidences.

He hadn’t even been aware of those moments. Like just then, when he’d spoken about his father. Could he see that behind those words lay a world of hurt that he was exposing for her to see? Surely that meant something ? Sammy knew that he was right when he’d said that, despite what she’d gone through, she still held on to her optimism. She still believed in love. Was she being an idiot to think that he might love her without realising it? That she could tell him how she felt and that he might think about it and realise that he felt the same way? That his heart had been ambushed without him realising, just as hers had?

‘What are you thinking?’ Rafael looked at the distant expression on Sammy’s face. ‘That was stupendous, by the way.’

‘I know.’ She grinned. ‘I’m not a bad chef. Maybe one day I’ll have a Michelin star.’

‘Don’t do that. Michelin-starred restaurants can be very overrated, especially for a man who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘I was going to ask you what’s for dessert, but I’ve just decided that you’re going to be my dessert. Come sit on my lap. I want to make love to you right here, right now. Then we can go swim in the pool to cool off. And when we go upstairs we can do it all again.’

‘Is sex all you think about, Rafael Moreno?’ Sammy laughed but she shuffled off her chair and he adjusted his so that she could straddle him. She linked her fingers behind his head, kissed him slowly and tenderly and then sighed with pleasure when he undid the corded belt from her waist and chucked it on the ground.

She shifted this way and that as he raised the dress, pushing it up to her neck where it gathered in soft folds so that he could lick her swollen nipples. She moaned when he pulled away, looked at them and murmured how beautiful her breasts were.

‘Small and perfectly formed,’ he observed. ‘Touch me, Sammy.’

She laughed huskily and, when she stood up to yank the dress off, followed by her underwear, he did the same with his trousers and tee-shirt until they were both naked and feverish with the excitement that had exploded from nowhere.

He kissed her, pressing her against him. She felt his hardness against her and nearly swooned. Love, passion and desire all merged into something that was overwhelming. She gently pushed him so that he was back in the chair. Then she knelt between his legs and took him into her mouth, touching his thighs and his rigid shaft the way she knew he loved.

His groans of pleasure were such a turn-on, it was an effort to remain there when all she wanted was to straddle him and feel him deep inside her. She raised her eyes to see him arched back in the chair, his big body swamping it, his eyes closed, and she nimbly mounted him and felt the soft, silky slide of his bigness in her with a powerful surge of satisfaction.

She moved on him, slowly then a little faster, and then, as she felt their bodies reaching the same point of no return, she flung her arms around his neck and buried her head against his shoulders as the wonder of her orgasm swept her away.

She was as weak as a kitten when finally the pleasure subsided, and she opened her eyes and sat back, still feeling him in her.

‘Rafael,’ she murmured huskily.

‘Jesus, that was amazing.’

‘You mean that?’

‘Of course I do.’ He smiled. ‘The ground moves every time...incredible. If I were ever to be caught up in an actual earthquake, no one would be able to say that I wouldn’t know what it felt like.’

‘It’s the same for me.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ He stroked his fingers through her hair and their eyes tangled in a lengthening silence. Sammy could feel the pulse in her temple beating steadily as she continued to look at him and this time there was no hiding what she was feeling. She’d spent enough time covering up her feelings for this guy. Now was the time for truth or else they would part company and the moment would be lost.

‘Sammy...’

‘You know what I want to say, don’t you?’ she murmured gruffly.

‘No, I don’t. Don’t say it, Sammy.’

‘I’m in love with you, Rafael.’

‘You’re not.’

He fidgeted and she eased off him to stand back, valiantly looking at him, proud of her nudity and wanting him to see the woman who wanted to live her life uninhibited with the man she loved.

He didn’t meet her eyes and she swallowed and slowly put the dress back on. Her body was still hot and sticky from love-making, although somewhere inside her something was shutting down. But she wasn’t going to give this up without a fight.

‘Don’t tell me what I am, Rafael.’

‘This wasn’t part of the plan.’

‘Plans don’t always work out the way you think they’re going to. I didn’t even like you when I first met you, and I fooled myself for ages that you weren’t the sort of guy for me, even though I was attracted to you.’

‘I need to get dressed.’

Sammy looked away, for the first time feeling the space between them and holding on to her pride with difficulty, but determined to speak her mind and to heck with it.

When she next looked at him, they were no longer lovers but uncertain strangers staring across a divide. At least that was what it felt like to her. She saw the way he had shut down. His expression was shuttered and defensive.

‘Rafael, I know how you feel about love and commitment and marriage and all that stuff...’

‘I honestly don’t know where you’re going with this, and it’s not something I want to talk about.’

‘You’re afraid of involvement and afraid of being open to your emotions. But look at us for the past few weeks, Rafael: we’ve been brilliant together. We’ve shared things, we’ve talked...and I mean really talked. You don’t want to admit it but you’re like me. I didn’t want to fall in love with you because you didn’t make any sense for me and my life, but I did. Sometimes you just can’t help what happens to your heart. Maybe it was the same for you.’

Sammy looked at him hopelessly. She breathed in deeply but already her mind was running ahead, predicting the inevitable outcome. She would have to leave. She was speaking her mind and everything she was saying was falling on barren ground because the signs hadn’t been there—not for him. It really had just been a physical attraction for him and, even if it hadn’t, even if he felt something for her, his beliefs were too ingrained for him ever to change them.

Mentally, she was packing her suitcase. The soft sounds of insects, the warm, still tropical air, the darkness of the pool and the optimistically laid out table now seemed horribly mocking, so she tried not to look at any of it but to keep her eyes firmly focused on the man gazing at her with cool, unreadable eyes.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sammy, but no. It wasn’t the same for me. I am not a man who’s in search of love. I never have been and I never will be. I thought we were on the same page. If I’d had the slightest idea that you might begin thinking that this charade we’ve been playing was the real thing, then there’s no way I would ever have involved you in it in the first place.’

‘No,’ she agreed dully.

‘I like you, Sammy.’ His voice gentled. ‘But liking isn’t loving. Liking is enjoying someone’s company.’

‘Okay.’ She looked up at him. He was being kind and she couldn’t stand it. ‘I think I’m going to pack and get back home.’

‘I think that’s a good idea. I can arrange a flight back for you tomorrow.’

‘Sure. Thank you.’

‘In the meantime, I’ll go to the hotel. Everything’s ready for the opening in a month’s time. There’s no harm in sampling the product.’

‘Quite.’

‘And Sammy...?’

She was beginning to turn away. She twisted to look at him over her shoulder, one last glance at the guy who had turned her world upside down.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted. But, trust me, one day you’ll look back at what we had and you’ll thank me, because you’ll know that I would never have been good for you. You deserve the guy who meets your checklist.’

She nodded and turned away.

Rafael felt as though time had suddenly slowed down. His brain was sluggishly receiving information but processing it was painful—painful but necessary.

He watched as she walked away from him into the house without bothering to slide the glass doors shut behind her. For a while he was frozen, staring at nothing in particular, then he moved to one of the chairs by the pool and sat staring at the glassy water.

He should have known. He should have read the signs. She was romantic. She believed in love and she wanted the happy-ever-after. The second they had embarked on their charade, he should have known that there was a chance that sooner or later what was false had a chance of merging into something real.

For her. For him, it was all just the physical stuff. Okay, so they’d talked, they got along. But he was standing firm by what he’d said, that getting along wasn’t the same as falling in love and surrendering his soul into the safekeeping of someone else. There was no leap of faith involved in getting along with someone.

This hadn’t been about drifting into coupledom for him. He had vivid memories of the amount of time his father had wasted on love. He had drowned trying to resuscitate it when it was well and truly dead, and where had that got him? Rafael had been left picking up too many pieces not to have learnt valuable lessons from the experience. Lessons that had protected him from the very thing that had happened to Sammy!

He had sworn never to put himself in a position of vulnerability, open to hurt and pain, and in a place where others might suffer because of his choices. She would be better off without him. She was a special person who needed to find her soul mate.

Uneasy with his introspection, Rafael glanced up at the bank of bedroom windows. He couldn’t see her, because the shutters were closed, but he knew that she would be packing. He texted his PA and told her immediately to book a flight out of the country for Sammy and that her details would be on file. It was done. Half an hour later, his phone pinged with the message that the relevant information had been sent to Sammy.

Making up his mind, Rafael stood up and headed indoors, already on his phone telling the guys at the hotel that he would be testing the sleeping quarters for the next couple of nights.

‘Make sure the mattresses are comfortable,’ he said, heading to his office to complete the call and gather up the work-related stuff which he would do once he was at the hotel. ‘We don’t want any guests deciding that they’re too hard, too soft, too lumpy or just not up to scratch. Wealthy guests always expect the best.’ As an afterthought, he phoned through to the hotel again and asked for a team to be sent to clean the villa as soon as possible.

He knew Sammy. He knew that she would be packing and probably apprehensive about bumping into him.

He scowled as it struck him that he was reluctant to bump into her as well. Everything that had just happened in the past half hour should have turned him off big time but when he thought of her, as he was thinking of her now, his body reacted in unpredictable ways.

He still wanted her. Still craved her.

He would wait an hour then he would go pack a bag and head to the hotel. She would be gone the following morning and...life would return to normal. He might have shared more with Sammy than he had with any other woman but, in the end, he was insulated against the very thing she had wanted. She would ease out of his life just like every other woman had, barely leaving a ripple behind her.