Emergency Engagement

CHAPTER TEN

RAFAEL KNEW JUST when Sammy left the island.

In fact, he was in the hotel when he heard the sound of the aeroplane that would deliver her back to England; that was how small the island was. It had roared overhead, and he’d gritted his teeth and tried not to think of her staring out of the window, her heart hardening in the face of his rejection.

Within the week, he too would return to England, and henceforth business dealings with her would be done via his PA. There was no need for him to know anything about what she did with the considerable amount of money he would be handing over to her.

And, as for their fake engagement, it might have been whispered to Sammy’s mother but it had not ignited in the press, so when he returned, there would be no public curiosity to douse.

As for Caroline Payne, he was sure that Sammy would retreat from the make-believe fantasy with no harm done to her relationship with her mother. She would be the decisive one who had cut the ties, having realised the error of her headlong rush into infatuation. She had poured her heart out to him in a no-holds-barred performance that he could only admire, and she would surely be bitter at the way he had reacted—coolly, firmly, with no way back for discussion.

Of course, she would tell whatever story she wished to tell to her mother, and he couldn’t fault that approach. Bitterness would fuel her. He would be in the lead role as Big Bad Wolf, knocked back for the first time in his life, dismissed to lick his wounds in a dark cave somewhere, and he was happy with that. He couldn’t be happier.

A woman in love with him? No way. He blamed himself because he had been swept away by the sex. The truth was that love had never been a complication he would take on board— could take on board—however convenient the situation was and however hot the sex.

And however warm the laughter, stimulating the conversation, tender the touches...

He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. She’d left yesterday and it felt like a lifetime ago.

The conference room at the hotel should have been his sanctuary. Work had always been his go-to, but now, with his laptop in front of him and a string of emails to deal with, he just couldn’t focus. His chest hurt. His eyes hurt. His brain hurt. In his mind’s eye, he saw her thinking, reflecting, remembering. She would remember everything—the way she had walked into love and the way she had proudly told him how she felt, even though it must have been daunting for her, given everything he had said in the past about not believing in love.

Would she already have been to see her mum? Or would she be bracing herself, buying some time before she launched into a smiling, self-deprecating, eye-rolling speech about what an idiot she’d been, and thank God she’d seen the light before it was too late?

And in her heart? In her heart, she would remember the good things they’d had, but in her head, he would crystallise into the sort of guy she knew she should have stayed away from. If she forgot the way she’d confessed her love, then she would never forget the way he’d rejected her.

How fast could love harden, only to be replaced by hate and then eventually indifference? She would look back over her shoulder and curse herself for her foolishness in falling for him.

Rafael surrendered to his thoughts and snapped shut the laptop. Through the bank of windows, he could see the endless stretch of blue sky, and in the distance the streak of turquoise ocean turning dark as it meshed with the horizon. It was not yet four in the afternoon. He felt he could keep sitting right here, staring through the window, until that blue sky turned violet and orange and then finally inky black. The swirl of his thoughts paralysed him. He’d led a nomadic life when it came to the opposite sex. But Sammy...

He pressed his thumbs against his eyes and felt sick. Always able to see problems clearly, Rafael was caught in the unusual place of not knowing what to think or what was really going on. He had a pounding headache.

He poured himself a glass of whisky. It wasn’t going to help, but he downed it anyway. He scowled at the empty glass in his hand and all over again succumbed to the second-guessing he’d been trying to keep at bay.

In love with him... She’d told him that he was the last person she could ever fall for. She’d said that she went for a type and he wasn’t that type. She had her checklist! Had he been at fault for taking her at her word and believing what she had said? Or had he been so busy enjoying her that he’d steered clear of asking questions to which the answers might have proven unpalatable?

But she was gone, and she would thank him for turning her away; would thank him for putting her back on the path to finding the sort of guy she deserved. He wasn’t that guy. He wasn’t a guy who did love. How many times had he made that clear? A thousand! Yet she had defiantly ploughed ahead, ignoring what he had told her. She was someone who forged forward. That was just her trademark. She braced herself and fearlessly went where angels feared to tread. He should have taken that into account! Sammy was a law unto herself.

His stomach tightened again and he felt a stab of pain deep inside.

Well, as it stood, whatever love she had would sour quickly...but again that thought twisted something inside him. Looking at the bigger picture, though, it would still be for her own good! He would end up being the fall guy in a big way but that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? He’d actively volunteered to be the fall guy.

Rafael paced the room as the evening wore into night, barely seeing anything, aware of the darkness outside getting thicker and denser until the Technicolor tropical landscape outside became shadowy shapes and forms.

Where was she now? He felt haunted by the memory of her face and those green eyes resting on him, seeing deep into him in a way no one else ever had.

He called his PA. He would accelerate his flight back. He needed to leave immediately. There were things to do...no, memories to be contained...and they couldn’t be contained here. That done and sorted, Rafael eyed the whisky, reluctantly dismissed the temptation for a top up and instead scooped up his laptop and headed out of the hotel, back to his villa.

Maybe he could leave the thinking behind there. It worked for the length of time it took him to get back to the villa, and only because he had to concentrate on the dark, twisty roads, only sporadically lit, the sort of roads where one small mistake could land his car a little too close to a coconut tree for comfort.

But, the second he was inside his villa—which felt as empty as a wedding venue after all the guests had left and the band had packed up and gone—he sat down in the conservatory and let loose a groan of hurt and despair.

He barely recognised the sound. He leant forward to bury his head in his hands and then, like a swarm of insects released from the safety of a box in which they had been conveniently contained, his thoughts rushed to attack him. He remembered every tender touch, every glance, every smile, every wicked, teasing grin... He could recall how he’d felt when he’d been with her: complete, happy. In no rush to go anywhere, do anything or even think too hard.

She’d reminded him about how they’d talked. He’d responded that talking had meant nothing, that it was just a fact that they’d got along, and getting along wasn’t love.

But he’d done much more than talk to her. He’d opened up. He’d let go of the restraints that had kept him prisoner all his life. He’d confided and shared all those little bits of him he’d become used to keeping to himself and he hadn’t even noticed that he’d been doing it.

How could he not have clued in to the obvious? It all added up now: that lazy urge to hold on to what they had; the cold feeling of desperation when he’d thought of her walking away from him; and then, this evening, this sickening horror at a vision of life slipping between his fingers.

Because a life without her in it was no life at all. He’d been so busy polishing the armour he’d spent a lifetime putting in place to protect his heart that he hadn’t seen what would have been obvious to an idiot: he’d fallen in love with her.

He couldn’t say when or how but he just knew that he had...and now? Now, she’d be busy unravelling what they had built, toughening up and hardening her emotions. She’d be building walls he would never be able to break down, building them with disillusionment and bitterness.

He had to see her. The time between this decision and the flight he had booked, which was just a matter of a handful of hours, felt like a lifetime. If he could have arranged for his private jet to swing by and pick him up like a handy taxi service, he would have, but he still had to pack anyway.

He still had last minute things to do. One of those things was to text her and tell her that he would be coming to see her. He had to know that she would be in, although he would just have gone and waited for as long as it took.

He didn’t say why. He simply said that something urgent had come up and that he would have to see her face to face to discuss it. He’d said he would meet her at her house, or she could come to his office—anywhere that suited.

So he was meeting her at his office, and her reply suggested that as far as she was concerned the office was the place for a business discussion. Reading between the lines of her cool, brief response, he got the impression that she had already shut the doors on him and that only the hint that it might be work-oriented had motivated her to agree to see him.

He’d take that.

He couldn’t relax. The adrenaline was surging through him and it only began to abate when the plane touched down the following day. He’d asked if she could swing by his office at five-thirty. There would still be people around, of course, but that was okay, because he didn’t want her to feel nervous, to feel that there would be just the two of them. If she now hated him, then the last thing he wanted was for her to see an empty office, turn skittish and run away, work talk or no work talk.

Sammy was dabbing her eyes when her mobile pinged and she stared down at Rafael’s name on her phone. She’d barely been back in the country and the last person she’d expected to hear from was him. He’d rejected her. She’d said what she had to say, but there hadn’t even been a second when he’d considered what she’d told him, not a second when he’d given any thought to the possibility that he might have feelings for her. He’d been appalled. Love her? How could she have been foolish enough to think that he might have fallen for her like she’d fallen for him?

The speed of his rejection had said it all.

She’d packed, knowing that he was sitting outside on that veranda with the remains of her specially prepared meal scattered on the table, cruelly lit with the romantic glow of the candles she had taken time to buy and put there. They hadn’t even got round to the chocolate fondant she had made.

When had he disappeared off to the hotel? She didn’t know, because she’d made sure to stick to her room and pack, only emerging when she knew for certain that he would no longer be in the house. She hadn’t cried. The tears had lodged inside her, refusing to come out. They hadn’t been able to get past the pain—the pain of her rejected love and the agony of the emptiness that lay ahead, which she would have to fill somehow.

On the flight over, she’d wondered whether she should go to Yorkshire and see her mum immediately so that she could get the whole sorry situation off her chest. She wasn’t quite sure what she intended to say but she knew that she would just say whatever it took to make sure her mother didn’t get into too much of a state. That would mean plastering a phony, confident smile on her face and launching into some spiel about finding out in the nick of time that she and Rafael weren’t suited.

Since she hadn’t been able to face the phony smile just yet, she had decided to go to London and stay there for a few days. She knew people there. One of the girls who had come through culinary college with her had her own small flat in Notting Hill, so Sammy had arranged to stay with her for a few days.

‘I’ll cook,’ she’d promised, ‘and clean up behind me. I know that’s the bit you always hated!’

So, when she’d got Rafael’s text, she’d felt the breath leave her in a whoosh. She’d just come back from a very speedy supermarket shop and had been about to sit down, relax and deal with her jet lag.

He wanted to see her. It would be about business, of course, and she’d been tempted to tell him just to email whatever he wanted to say, but then she’d thought that a series of emails between them would only prolong the misery and keep him alive in her head. Whereas, if she went to see him, spent fifteen minutes hearing whatever he had to say, it would be like lancing a boil—over and done with, only the healing left to endure.

And besides, a little voice had piped up, you know you want to see him...want to have one last look at that beautiful face and put it in your memory bank so that you can pull it out to gaze at at a later date.

She had squashed that little voice. She wasn’t going to succumb to thinking about him twenty-four-seven even, though she knew that that was exactly what she would probably end up doing. She told herself that, when she saw him, she would make sure to remember the way he had rejected her. She decided that seeing him would give her the sense of closure that she hadn’t had when she’d left him out there on the veranda with the warm, tropical breeze and the harmonious sounds of insects, frogs and toads reminding her that there really was no such thing as paradise.

He’d suggested going to Yorkshire but the last thing she wanted was for him to meet her anywhere private. The thought of him in her house had been way too much. That would have left her way too vulnerable. They could meet in his office, surrounded by phones, desks, computers and people working hard making money, and that would be fine.

Still, as she got dressed the following day with a sickening sensation of déjà vu in the pit of her stomach, she almost wished that she’d gone for the response for him to email anything he had to say because, whatever he said, there was nothing that couldn’t be communicated in writing. Was there?

Rafael could feel the tension building as the time approached to meet her.

Part of him wondered whether she might bail at the last minute, in which case he wasn’t entirely sure what he would do. He could hardly pursue her if she really didn’t want to lay eyes on him.

Then he wasted some time wondering whether he should meet her in the foyer of the building. Finally, he decided against that because, if the only reason she had agreed to meet him at all was that she thought it was to do with work, then being shown up by one of the receptionists would confirm that. He had tactfully dispatched his PA.

Rafael was a man who was impervious to nerves. Something about having spent his life beating the odds had strengthened his inner core, made him utterly resilient when it came to facing down challenges and making the best of whatever life decided to throw at him.

But right now, drumming his fingers on his desk and resisting the urge to prowl through his office to relieve his tension, he was nervous. He felt vulnerable and hesitant, and for some reason that had made him think of his dad, had made him re-evaluate the black and white vision he had had of him as a man who had lacked the strength to give up on the unattainable.

His father had simply been human, and being human was the very thing Rafael had spent his life trying hard not to be. To be human was to be weak, and being weak was something he had made sure he would never be.

But he was here and he felt human for the first time. He hadn’t stopped beating himself up for his stubborn blindness in recognising what had been staring him in the face. And yet, how was he to have known that, just when he wasn’t expecting it, someone would break down all the barriers he had constructed around himself? His wealth, power and status had made him invincible and, in his head, his iron will had cemented his own formidable belief that the only person who could ever control the direction of his life would be himself. How wrong he’d been.

He stilled when the call came through that Sammy had arrived. He waited, seated behind his desk, counting the seconds until she entered his office. It had only been a matter of hours and yet, as he saw her framed in the door that opened into his PA’s office beyond his, Rafael felt as though he was seeing her for the first time.

It felt like being punched in the gut. She was as slight as he remembered, as graceful as a gazelle, and her face was tight and cautious. Her body language screamed discomfort and he rose to his feet and walked towards her.

‘Sammy... I wasn’t sure whether you would come.’

‘You didn’t leave me much choice. I’m here because you said you had something to say to me face to face.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, go ahead and say it.’

‘Come through to my office, please. I can’t...say what I want to say with you standing with your back to the door.’

She’d dressed in a prim navy skirt, some workmanlike shoes and a white jumper with a thick jacket swamping her. It made him think of her in those sexy summer outfits she had worn, braless and so sexy that she’d always managed to blow his self-control straight out of the water.

He raked his fingers through his hair, shifting uncomfortably, and looked down at his shoes, feeling a bit like a school kid summoned to the principal’s office to discuss being caught smoking behind the bike shed. Although, in fairness, he’d faced many a hauling into the principal’s office and had never felt like this in any of them.

‘I don’t intend to stay long, Rafael. Say what you have to say. If I need to sign anything, then I’ll do that and leave.’

‘Nothing to sign.’ He walked back into his office and breathed a sigh of relief when she followed him through to perch on the chair in front of his desk.

‘I...’ he began. ‘I... I see that you got back in one piece.’

‘I haven’t come here for the chit-chat.’

‘I can understand why you’re angry with me.’

‘I also haven’t come here to rake up what’s been said between us. That’s over and done with and I’m moving on.’

They stared at one another in silence. Lost for words, Rafael cleared his throat and thought that he had seen a million sides of her but never this side—this tough, steely side, closed off and shuttered—not even when she had stormed into his office to see him that very first time.

Just bite the bullet.

‘Sammy, I had to see you, had to talk to you. What I have to say could never have been said in an email because I just wouldn’t have known how to put it into words. You’re here and I’ve missed you,’ he said quietly in an all-or-nothing impulse. ‘I’ve been a fool.’

‘What are you trying to say? I don’t understand.’

‘And I don’t blame you because the last conversation we had involved me telling you that there was no way I could... I could...return your feelings.’

‘Rafael, I won’t sit here and listen to you say stuff that isn’t true!’

‘I never lie. Haven’t I told you that already?’

‘You’re also a guy who likes to get what he wants. Do you think that you can say things you believe I want to hear to get me back into bed with you?’

‘Please, Sammy, hear me out. We got into a game that had consequences and that game was my idea. A quid pro quo situation was how I thought of it at the time, a favour that carried mutual benefits for both of us. And then...then...the game got a lot more serious than either of us had planned.

‘It was selfish of me to get you involved with an ex who was hell-bent on revenge. I knew that, if Clement pulled out of the deal, people’s livelihoods would be on the line and I put that ahead of any repercussions that might have happened between us. It never crossed my mind that I couldn’t handle the charade. I presented it to you as a deal that would pay off and would cost us nothing because that’s what I believed.’

‘It’s fair to say that the blame for that stupid charade falls on both our shoulders,’ Sammy muttered gruffly.

‘Then what started as a game became serious. We became lovers.’ He watched as colour surged into her cheeks and she lowered her eyes. ‘And, like an idiot, I continued thinking that I would continue to have complete control over that situation as well. The truth is that I have always had complete control over my emotions...that is, until you came along.’

Sammy looked up and their eyes met. Her heart leapt inside her because she could see the blinding sincerity on his face. Hope began to send shoots through her.

‘I’m listening,’ she said breathlessly.

‘I felt sick when I watched you walk through those patio doors but I was paralysed. I didn’t know what to do. I told myself that the sick feeling would go, told myself that I could never return your love because I was incapable of feeling love. I didn’t know how to handle what you’d said and I had no other responses in my repertoire. I fell back on what I thought was the truth when, in fact, I’d left that truth behind the second you walked into my life. I denied feelings I never even recognised because I’d never had them before.’

‘And suddenly you changed in a matter of hours?’ Sammy tried to sound incredulous, but it was difficult, because she knew that he was being honest, even though she could scarcely believe it.

‘I did. When truth caught up with the lies I’d been telling myself. When the thought of not having you in my life made me want to cry. I love you, Sammy, and, more than that I need you, because there’s no point to my life without you in it. I just hope I’m not too late to have you accept my offer of marriage. Not for show, just for us—me and you for ever.’

Their eyes met and tangled, just as they had many times in the past, but this time what Sammy saw was the heart she’d yearned for in those dark eyes; a heart this beautiful, strong, proud man was handing to her for safekeeping.

She smiled, slowly at first, and then radiantly and widely, because her own heart was bursting with love.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, tiptoeing to kiss the side of his mouth and then brushing her finger where her lips had lingered. ‘Yes, I think marrying you is just the thing I want to do. This is going to be our fairy tale, Rafael Moreno. And, trust me, it’s a fairy tale that’s never going to end.’