Читать книгу A Convenient Husband - Ким Лоренс, KIM LAWRENCE - Страница 7

‘TOMORROW…? So soon…?’

Tess Trelawny closed her eyes tight in denial and willed herself to wake up from this nightmare. Minor—no, major flaw in this plan: she already was awake, awake and shaking as if she had a fever. Along with the deluge of adrenalin, blind, gut-twisting panic raced through her body. The leaden hand she lifted to her throbbing head was trembling and icily cold.

Chloe chose not to respond to the pulsating note of entreaty in her aunt’s voice. She often ignored things which made her feel uncomfortable; besides, there was no reason for her to feel guilty. If Tess got awkward, Ian would back her up. Tess would listen to him; everyone did. He was the smartest person she’d ever met…and he was hers…A dreamily content smile curved her collagen-enhanced, red-painted lips…

‘Ian is just dying to meet dear little Benjy.’ Her lips tightened in exasperation as the pedicurist began to paint her toenails. ‘Hold on a sec, Aunty Tess…’

The prefix invariably made Tess feel as if a generation separated her from her elder sister’s only child, not a mere seven years. Now was no exception.

‘This stupid girl is using the wrong colour.’

Tess could hear the muffled sounds over the phone as Chloe paused long enough to sharply inform the unfortunate young woman attending her that she had no intention of being seen with a shade that was so sadly dated.

‘I was wondering,’ Chloe continued once she’d satisfied herself the right shade was being applied to her toes. ‘Has he got more hair these days?’

The question bewildered Tess. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, you keep saying it’s going to grow!’ Chloe responded in an ill-used tone that implied Tess had been heartlessly leading her on. ‘I mean, those little wispy bits are not very attractive, are they?’ she elaborated sulkily. ‘And they look gingery.’ Her worried tone implied there were few things in life worse than a red-headed child.

Tess closed her eyes and took a deep breath…sometimes she felt the unworthy desire to shake her beautiful niece until her white even teeth rattled.

‘Yes, Chloe,’ she replied woodenly. ‘Ben does have some hair now, and you’ll be pleased to hear it’s a gorgeous strawberry blonde.’

‘You mean sandy…?’

‘No, I mean strawberry blonde.’

‘That’s excellent,’ came the relieved reply. ‘And, Aunty Tess, for God’s sake dress him in something half decent. How about that nice little outfit I sent from Milan…?’

Chloe’s fleeting visits had always been infrequent, but during the last few months her acting career had taken off with several small but well received film roles, and the visits had become almost non-existent.

Tess was guiltily aware that she should have remonstrated with the younger girl, but the truth was life was easier without the stress and disruption of Chloe’s visits. The problem was her niece resented not being the centre of attention and she didn’t like to share that attention with anyone—not even a baby.

‘He grew out of it.’

‘Oh, pity…at least make sure he’s not covered in jam or anything!’ Chloe found it hard to accept that spotless, freshly scrubbed and sweet smelling wasn’t the normal state of babies. ‘I want him to make a good impression on Ian.’

If she were here right now, so help me, I’d strangle her! Tess’s voice shook with suppressed outrage as she responded. ‘This isn’t an audition, Chloe.’

‘No, this is the start of the rest of my life!’ came back the dramatic, throbbing response. To Tess’s uncharitable ears it sounded as though she were practising a line from her latest part. Abruptly Chloe’s tone changed. ‘Must dash, Aunty Tess…I’ve got a yoga class in half an hour, and I really can’t miss it. You should try it yourself—I’ve really attained an inner harmony you wouldn’t believe. See you soon!’ The phone line went dead.

Tess didn’t think she’d ever feel harmony, inner or otherwise, again as she responded urgently to the stomach-churning nausea and dashed up the narrow flight of stairs two at a time to reach the bathroom. When her stomach was quite empty she splashed her face with cold water. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was waxily pale, dominated by a pair of wide green eyes. The desperation and panic she felt was clearly reflected in those haunted emerald depths, and, even though speaking to Chloe always made her feel middle-aged, the person staring back at her looked a lot younger than her nearly thirty years.

Her feet automatically took her to the half-open door of the smaller of the two bedrooms in the cottage. Quietly she went inside. The curtains were drawn against the afternoon sunlight. She went to stand silently by the cot in which a small figure was taking his afternoon nap. He was dressed in dungarees—he was sound asleep.

The figure’s ruffled blonde hair lay in spiky tufts over his little head. His face was rosily tinged and his long eyelashes lay dark against the full curve of his infant cheek.

Tess closed her eyes and a single tear slid down her cheek. Not so very long ago if anyone had told the dedicated career girl she had been that it was possible to love anyone so much it hurt—with the possible exception of George Clooney—she’d have laughed. But she did; she loved this little boy with all her heart and soul. Part of her wanted to bundle him up and run away somewhere safe, somewhere Chloe would never find them.

The sleeping figure opened his eyes, saw Tess and, with a sleepy smile, closed them again. Tess held the noisy sobs in check until she had stumbled out of the room.

The village was in total darkness as Rafe Farrar drove towards the stone manor house tucked behind its high walls on the outskirts of this picturesque little hamlet. A hamlet that was just far enough away from the popular stretch of coast to avoid exploitation and remain relatively unspoilt and sleepy.

He’d spent what most people would consider his idyllic childhood here. Since the death of his elder brother, Alec, and their father’s enforced retreat to the Riviera, the only permanent occupant of the Farrar family home was his grandfather, an elderly but far from frail individual who was not adapting well to his belated retirement from the world of international banking. His relationship with his grandfather being what it was, Rafe could be sure of a tepid welcome from the old man, who didn’t consider the black sheep of the family warranted breaking out the fatted calf for.

When he’d made the arrangements for this duty visit he hadn’t planned on making the journey alone; a third party to act as buffer zone was always helpful when he and the old man came face to face. In this instance he’d been hoping to introduce the third party as his future wife. This had always been a situation with explosive possibilities, especially when his grandparent had learnt this future bride would have to rid herself of a husband before she made her second trip to the altar. At least he didn’t have that problem now.

Thinking about the reason for his solitary state—for an individual not given to brooding or self-pity, he was catching on fast—kept the mobile curve of Rafe’s sensual lips in a firm thin line. He was normally a scrupulously careful driver, but his dark embittered gaze did not on this occasion flicker towards the speedometer as his big powerful motor sped grimly through the narrow silent main street.

‘Hell!’ His language went rapidly downhill from this point as, with a display of reflexes that bordered on the supernatural, he only hit the dog that had darted out in front of him a glancing blow.

Still cursing, he leapt from the car, performing this simple task with the athletic fluidity that typified all his movements. He noticed immediately that his front headlight had not escaped as lightly as the animal. He kicked aside the broken glass that surrounded the tree he’d collided with. His unbroken headlight picked up the mongrel that lay trembling on the grass verge.

‘All right, boy,’ he crooned in a firm but soothing voice. With the careless confidence of someone who had never experienced a moment’s nervousness with any animal—and this one was big and powerful—Rafe’s capable hands moved gently over the animal’s spare frame. The dog endured his examination passively. Rafe was no expert but it seemed likely to him that the animal was suffering from shock rather than anything more immediately life-threatening.

‘Looks like this was your lucky night, mate.’ Rafe scratched the dog, who gazed up at him with slavish adoration, beneath one ear. ‘That makes one of us,’ he added bitterly. He didn’t need to look at the tag on the mutt’s collar to work out where this jaywalker originated from.

This wasn’t the sort of animal most people would consider worth a broken headlight. This was the sort of animal that looked mean, the sort of animal that was left behind at the animal shelter when all the more appealing ones had been selected. His off-white tatty coat didn’t gleam, it was covered in an interlaced network of old scars; then there was the mega-bad case of canine halitosis. Given all this, there was only one person this animal could belong to. Even when they’d been kids she’d always managed to pick up every waif and stray within a ten-mile radius!

Trying not to think about what was happening to his pale leather upholstery, Rafe laid the old dog out on the back seat. Climbing back into the car, he headed in the direction of the picture-postcard cottage Tess Trelawny had inherited from her grandmother, old Agnes Trelawny, four years back.

Even if the lights hadn’t been unexpectedly on in the cottage Rafe would have had no qualms about waking Tess up. Actually he welcomed the fact he had a legitimate reason to yell at someone—tonight he really wanted to yell! And with Tess he didn’t have to fret about delicate female sensitivities; she was as tough as old boots and well able to give as good as she got. The more he thought about it, the happier he felt about his enforced detour.

Arms full of damp, smelly dog, he gave the kitchen door a belligerent kick. It opened of its own accord with a horror-movie series of loud creaks.

‘Your door needs oiling,’ he announced, stepping over the well-lit threshold.

It wasn’t just the bright light that made him blink and recoil in shock, it was the disordered state of the room. For some reason the entire contents of the kitchen cupboards seemed to be stacked in haphazard piles all around the room.

‘My God!’ he ejaculated. ‘Has there been a break-in?’ He voiced the first most likely possibility that came to mind.

The shortish, slim figure, dressed incongruously in a cotton jersey nightshirt and yellow rubber gloves—a fashion statement this ensemble was not—ignored this question completely.

Tess rose in some agitation from her crouched position in front of one of the empty kitchen cupboards and rushed forward.

‘Baggins!’ she shrieked huskily. ‘What have you done to him?’ she demanded indignantly of Rafe.

‘Why didn’t you lock the door?’ he enquired with a censorious frown. ‘I could have been anyone!’

Tess spared her caller a brief unfriendly glare before her attention returned to the dog. ‘But you turned out to be you. Aren’t I the lucky one?’ she drawled.

‘Quit that!’ he rapped out sternly as she tried to forcibly transfer the animal from his arms to her skinny ones. ‘He’s too heavy for you. Besides, the miserable, misbegotten hound is quite capable of walking under his own steam.’

To demonstrate this he placed the animal on the floor. ‘I just didn’t want to risk him sloping off again and killing some poor unsuspecting motorist.’ He pointedly snapped shut the door behind him.

‘Oh!’ Tess’s anxiety retreated slightly as Baggins began to behave like the puppy he no longer was. ‘I fixed the fence, only he’s started burrowing under it. You hit him with that flashy car of yours, I suppose?’ Her full lips pursed in disapproval.

‘Barely.’ He noticed that Tess’s narrow feet were bare too. Like the rest of her they were small, and though she was skinny it wasn’t a matchstick, angular sort of skinniness, more a pleasing, rounded, supple svelteness…all over.

Rafe was unprepared for the mental postscript, only once the thought was out there it seemed natural to speculate on what was underneath the skimpy shirt thing. He cleared his throat and managed to drag his wayward thoughts to a slightly less tacky level—it wasn’t thinking about sex that bothered him, it was thinking about sex and Tess simultaneously!

‘Spare me chapter and verse on your lightning reflexes…please.’

Rafe, who was working up a cold sweat getting other reflexes under control, smiled grimly, displaying a set of perfect white teeth. ‘Your gratitude for my sacrifice is duly noted.’

‘What sacrifice?’

‘One smashed headlight, and, yes, thanks for your concern, I did escape uninjured.’ Testosterone surge firmly in check, Rafe found to his intense relief he could look her in the eye and see Tess, his friend, not Tess, a woman. It was a well-known fact that rejection could make a man act and think weird.

‘I can see that for myself.’

‘Why am I getting the distinct impression you’d have preferred it if I was sporting the odd broken bone or three?’ he mused wryly. ‘If this is the sort of welcome your guests usually receive, I’m surprised you get any.’

‘I might be happier if I didn’t,’ she snarled.

‘Thinking of becoming a recluse, are we?’

‘You may be lord of the manor and the product of generations of in-breeding, but isn’t the royal we a bit over the top, even for you?’

‘I wasn’t actually referring to myself.’ He flexed his shoulders and rotated his head slowly to ease the tension in his neck. ‘But what’s a bit of poetic licence between friends?’ Another shrug. ‘And that was a great line.’

This drew a rueful laugh from Tess. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’

‘Before you fling any more stones, try and remember, angel, that beneath this strong, manly inbred exterior there lurks a sensitive soul.’ He took Tess’s hand and planted it with a slap against his chest. ‘See, I’m flesh and blood.’

Tess couldn’t feel any evidence of a soul, but she could feel his body heat and the slow, steady beat of his heart. She stared at her own fingers splayed out against his shirt for what seemed like a long time; it was a strangely enervating experience to stand there like that. The distant buzzing in her head got closer. Feeling slightly dizzy, even a little confused, she lifted her eyes to his face…it swam dizzily out of focus.

Rafe looked down into her wide-spaced jewel-bright eyes and he hastily removed his fingers from around her wrist. Her hand fell bonelessly to her side.

He cleared his throat. ‘And, incidentally, you may not be aware of the difference, but there is a big one between class and flash.’

‘Toys for boys.’ I really should have eaten something, she decided, lifting a worried hand to her gently spinning head.

‘Insult my car, insult me.’

She gave a relieved sigh and grinned; she was no longer seeing him through soft focus. ‘I’d prefer to insult you.’

‘I thought you were.’

Tess gave a concessionary shrug—he was actually taking her nastiness pretty well, which made her feel even more guilty than she already did. She knew perfectly well that it was Chloe she wanted to yell at…only she wasn’t here and Rafe was…Just as well he had a broad back—very broad, as it happened, she mused, her eyes sliding briefly to the impressive muscular solidity of his powerful shoulders. Her empty stomach squirmed uncomfortably.

‘Well, Baggins doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge,’ she admitted. The undiscriminating animal’s juvenile performance was obviously for Rafe’s benefit, not her own. ‘You naughty, naughty boy,’ she clucked lovingly.

Rafe didn’t make the mistake of thinking her affectionate scolding was meant for him. ‘You always did have a novel approach to discipline, Tess,’ he observed drily.

Tess sniffed. ‘I’m glad I’m not a blustering bully,’ she retaliated. ‘I saw you being incredibly horrid to that poor man last night.’

‘I thought you didn’t have a telly. Not in keeping with your green, eco-friendly, lentil-eating, brown-rice lifestyle…?’

His amused scorn really got under her skin. How dared he look down his autocratic nose at her? It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that she might actually miss the odd trip to a concert or the theatre that had once been an important part of her life.

‘Gran didn’t have a telly, I have a small portable, and just because I grow vegetables I resent the implication I’ve turned into one,’ she told him tartly. ‘Besides, you’ve room to talk. At least when I do things it’s out of personal conviction.’ Or in this case a desire to cut down on the grocery bill—fresh organic vegetables cost the earth to buy!

‘Meaning I don’t…?’

‘Well, you didn’t show much interest in saving the planet before Nicola.’ Nicola, the environmental activist, had been one of Rafe’s first serious girlfriends. Along with strong convictions Nicola had possessed—in common with all the girlfriends who had followed her—endless legs, a great body and long, flowing blonde hair. ‘You haven’t forgotten her, have you?’

Nicola had been a long time ago and in point of fact his recall was a little hazy.

‘A man doesn’t forget a girl like Nicola.’ He gave a lecherous grin just in case she’d missed the point—Tess hadn’t.

‘That girl had boundless enthusiasm.’

Not to mention a D cup had she chosen to wear a bra, Tess recalled cynically. ‘Some might call it fanaticism.’

She was distracted from her theme when at that moment Baggins’ tail caught a pile of plates and sent the top one spinning towards the floor. Rafe neatly caught it just before impact.

‘This dog’s a liability,’ he grunted.

‘Insult me, insult my dog,’ she responded, mimicking his earlier retort. ‘Perhaps,’ she fretted anxiously, ‘I should call the vet just to be absolutely sure…?’ She ran an exploratory hand over the dog’s back.

‘If he was a horse he’d be dog meat.’

‘Not if he was my horse.’

‘You sentimental old thing, you.’

‘That’s rich coming from someone who has his first childhood pony munching happily away in the lap of luxury.’

‘Reasonable comfort,’ he modified. There was a twinkle in Rafe’s eyes as he acknowledged her pot-shot with a rueful grin. ‘If you’re really worried about the mutt, I’m sure the worthy Andrew would be happy to make a house call.’

Rafe wasn’t up to speed with the status of their romance, but it was well known locally that the middle-aged veterinarian had been sniffing after Tess since he’d bought into the local practice. Even though his acquaintance with that individual had been brief, Rafe didn’t doubt that his estimation of the man as dull, pompous and self-righteous was essentially correct.

Tess flushed at the snide comment and her spine grew defensively rigid. ‘Didn’t you know, Andrew sold the practice? He’s moved up north.’ She knew what Rafe, like everyone else, thought. If he dared offer her any false sympathy…

Why did everyone automatically assume that because she was single, female and just about on the right side of thirty she had to be gagging for the romantic attentions of any half-decent male in the vicinity? Admittedly, half-decent males were thin on the ground, and Andrew had been pleasant company, but even though the only thing they’d shared had been the odd meal the entire neighbourhood, if sly comments and knowing looks were anything to go by, had assumed Tess had been sharing a lot more with him.

Rafe’s upper lip curled. ‘I always thought he was slimy,’ he drawled insultingly.

‘If it’s any comfort, he didn’t like you much either.’

Rafe patted the fawning animal. ‘He’s new…?’

‘So are most things since you last honoured us with your presence.’

‘You’re still the same.’

Tess wasn’t flattered; she didn’t think she was meant to be. ‘He’s pretty second-hand, actually. He was Mr Pettifer’s dog—you remember him…?’

Rafe nodded, dimly recalling a frail octogenarian.

‘Nobody wanted him.’

‘What a surprise!’ He couldn’t imagine there were many households that would be likely to welcome this ugly brute.

Exasperated, Tess pushed the heavy fringe of chestnut hair, which was overdue a trim, impatiently from her eyes and focused on Rafe’s sternly handsome face.

‘He’s got a lovely nature.’

‘And bad breath.’

‘Well, Ben loves him.’ From the way she said it he could tell that, as far as she was concerned, there was no greater recommendation.

She might be wrong—she didn’t see Rafe much these days—but there seemed to be something a bit different about him tonight. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it…

‘Have you been drinking?’ she speculated out loud.

‘Not yet,’ he told her with a jarring, reckless kind of laugh. ‘Just the thing!’ he announced, swooping on a dusty bottle from the wine rack. His dark eyes scanned the label.

‘Elderberry, my favourite. Corkscrew…?’ he added imperiously, holding out his hand expectantly.

Gran’s elderberry! She now knew for sure that something was up! In other circumstances it might have nagged him to tell her what it was. Only at that moment she didn’t much care what was bothering him, she just wanted him out of her hair so she could think…not that that had got her anywhere so far, she was reluctantly forced to acknowledge.

‘You’re not proposing to expose your discerning taste buds to gran’s home-made wine?’ she mocked.

‘Not alone.’

‘A tempting invitation, but it’s three o’clock in the morning,’ she reminded him, automatically consulting her bare wrist to confirm this statement and realising she wasn’t wearing her wrist-watch. Come to think of it, she wasn’t wearing much, she acknowledged uncomfortably, pulling fretfully at the hem of her washed-out cotton nightshirt.

She had a distinct recollection of waving her arms around wildly, revealing in the process God knew what! Still, it was only Rafe and it wasn’t likely he’d turn a hair if he’d walked in to find her stark naked!

Three a.m. or not, Rafe, of course, was looking as tiresomely perfect as ever. It went without saying that his outfit was tasteful and expensive. It consisted of dark olive trousers and a lightweight knitted polo shirt—not that the details really mattered, not when you were at least six feet four, possessed an athletic, broad-shouldered, skinny-hipped, long-legged body, and went around projecting the sort of brooding sensuality that made females more than willing to overlook the fact you had a face that wasn’t strictly pretty. Strong, attractive and interesting, yes…pretty…no.

‘I know what time it is, I was kind of wondering about you…’ His gaze moved rather pointedly over the disarray in the room. ‘Do you often get the urge to spring-clean in the wee small hours, Tess?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she explained defensively, peeling off the yellow rubber gloves and throwing them on the draining-board.

She didn’t much care if Rafe thought her eccentric, bordering on loopy; she didn’t much care what Rafe thought at all these days. In her opinion success had not changed Rafe for the better. He’d been a nice, if irritating kid when he’d been two years younger than her.

She supposed he still must be two years younger, time being what it was, only the intervening years seemed to have swallowed up the two-year gap and had deprived her of the comfortable feeling of superiority that a few extra months gave you as a child.

Superiority wasn’t something people around Rafe were likely to feel, she mused. He was one of those rare people folk automatically turned to for leadership—not that she classed herself as one of those mesmerised sheep who hung on his every word.

Still, although she often teased him about his old family name, he wasn’t like the rest of the Farrars who were a snooty lot, firmly rooted in the dark ages. Traditionally—they were big on tradition—the younger son entered the military and the elder worked his way up through the echelons of the merchant bank which had been founded by some long-dead Farrar.

His elder brother Alec had obligingly entered the bank, even though as far as Tess could see the only interest he’d had in money had been spending it. She didn’t suppose that his family had been particularly surprised when Rafe hadn’t meekly co-operated with their plans for him. Since he’d been expelled from the prestigious boarding-school that generations of Farrars had attended they’d expected the worst of him and he’d usually fulfilled their expectations.

He hadn’t even obliged them and turned into a worthless bum as had been confidently predicted. He’d worked his way up, quite rapidly as it happened, on the payroll of a national daily. He’d made a favourable impression there, but it was working as the anchor of a prestigious current affairs programme that had really made his name.

The job was tailor-made for Rafe. He wasn’t aggressive or hostile; he didn’t need to be. Rafe had the rare ability of being able to charm honest answers from the wiliest of politicians. He made it look so easy that not everyone appreciated the skill of his technique, or realised how much grinding background research he did to back up those deceptively casual questions.

Such was his reputation that people in public life were virtually queuing up to be interviewed by him, all no doubt convinced that they were too sharp to be lulled into a false sense of security. Without decrying his undoubted abilities, Tess cynically suspected that being incredibly photogenic had something to do with him achieving an almost cult-like status overnight.

‘I think better when I keep busy,’ she explained glibly. Tonight, it would seem, was the exception to that rule. Fresh panic clawed deep in her belly as she realised afresh that there was no magical solution to her dilemma.

Rafe’s narrowed gaze objectively noted the blotchy puffiness under her wide-spaced green eyes. She had that pale, almost translucent type of skin that tended to reflect her every mood, not to mention every tear! He recalled how impossibly fragile her wrist had felt when he’d caught hold of her hand.

‘I promise I won’t tell you things will get better—they probably won’t.’

Tell me something I didn’t already know! ‘You always were a little ray of sunshine, but the depressive traits are new.’

‘I’m a realist, angel. Life sucks…’ He pulled the cork on the bottle and glugged an ample amount into a stray mug.

‘I’m so glad you stopped by, I feel better already.’ Absent-mindedly she accepted the mug he handed her. ‘This is actually rather nice,’ she announced with some surprise, before taking another, less tentative sip of her grandmother’s famous wine—famous at least within the narrow precincts of this parish and then for its potency rather than its delicate bouquet.

Rafe shuddered as he followed suit and decided not to disillusion her. ‘What’s happened to you that’s so bad?’ he enquired carelessly, refilling his mug.

‘Still the same!’ It gave her a feeling of perverse pleasure to see her sharp, sarcastic tone ignite a spark of irritation in his dark eyes. ‘You always did have to go one better than everyone else, didn’t you? You even have to be miserable on a grand scale!’ There was a warm glow in the pit of Tess’s empty stomach; she hadn’t been able to eat a thing since that awful phone call from Chloe.

‘Meaning…?’

‘Meaning my simple life can’t possibly be expected to reach the supreme highs and hopeless depths of yours.’

Rafe’s dark brows rose to his equally dark hairline. ‘You got all that from a simple, what’s up?’

‘You asked, but you weren’t really interested!’ she accused, waving her mug in front of him for a refill. ‘But then why should you be?’

‘I thought we were friends, Tess.’

‘We were friends when we were ten and eight respectively,’ she corrected, injecting sharp scorn into her observation. ‘Actually, I didn’t think you went in much for slumming these days, Rafe.’

There was just enough truth in her words to make him feel uncomfortable and just enough unfairness to make him feel resentful. Before she’d had the baby and left behind her city lifestyle they’d got together pretty frequently. Things being the way they were, he wasn’t likely to visit home often and after the first few refusals he’d stopped inviting Tess up to town.

‘You moved away too,’ he reminded her.

‘I came back.’ And that was the crux of the matter. When she’d been a driven, goal-orientated career woman they’d still had common ground, but that common ground had vanished when her life had become baby-orientated. She felt her life was pretty fulfilling, but she wasn’t so naive as to expect others, including Rafe, to share her interest in Ben’s teething problems!

It was on the tip of Rafe’s tongue to ungallantly remind her that decision hadn’t been initiated entirely by a nostalgia for the rural idyll of their childhood. He restrained himself and instead poked a finger against his own substantial chest.

‘What do you call this, a hologram?’

‘I call it visiting royalty.’ She performed a low mocking bow, blissfully unaware that the gaping neck of her loose nightshirt gave him an excellent view of her cleavage and more than a hint of rosy nipples.

‘Got the latest girlfriend in tow again? Going to impress her with the family crypt or maybe the family ghost?’

Her soft, teasing chuckle suddenly emerged as she misread the reason for the dark tell-tale stain across the angle of his high cheekbones.

‘Or is that the problem—she isn’t here? A frustrated libido would explain why you stalked in here with a chip a mile wide on your shoulder. Smouldering like something out of a Greek tragedy…I’m right, aren’t I? The girlfriend couldn’t or wouldn’t come…?’ she speculated shrewdly.

At least theorising insensitively about someone else’s problems stopped her thinking—if only in the short term—about her own!

Now he had a pretty good idea what was under the shirt thing it was even less easy to stop thinking about it. ‘Is it that obvious I’ve been flung aside?’ he bit back.

‘Like an old sock?’ she chipped in helpfully.

There didn’t seem much point indulging Rafe’s inclinations towards drama; she’d had enough of that with Chloe. He thought his life was a mess, he should try wearing her shoes—not that they’d fit, she conceded, comparing his large, expensively shod feet with her own size fours.

It was hard to feel sympathetic when the worst thing likely to happen to Rafe Farrar was a bad haircut! She gave his thick, healthily shining dark hair an extra-resentful glare.

‘It didn’t take a psychic to see you came here spoiling for a fight!’

Despite his growing anger, Rafe couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of her accusation. ‘I knocked on the right door, then, didn’t I?’

‘You didn’t knock, you just barged in…’ Quite as abruptly as it had arisen, the aggression drained from Tess. Feeling weak, she gave a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘Maybe I just got tired of being patronised…? Has someone really given you the push?’ Her wondering smile was wry. It hardly seemed credible.

‘You find that possibility amusing?’

She found the possibility incredible. ‘You must admit that it does have a certain novelty value. Look on the bright side…’

‘I can’t guarantee I won’t throttle you if you go into a Pollyanna routine,’ he warned darkly.

‘I’m trembling.’

Rafe’s jaw tightened as he encountered the sparkling mockery in her eyes. He found himself grimly contemplating how hard it would be to make her tremble for real…and he wasn’t thinking of scare tactics! What he was thinking of scared him a little, though. If he was going to vent his frustration on anyone, it couldn’t be Tess!

‘It might actually do you some good,’ she mused thoughtfully. ‘You’re way overdue a dose of humility,’ she explained frankly.

Looking at him properly for the first time, Tess saw that he actually did look pretty haggard in a handsome, vital sort of way. She couldn’t recall ever seeing that hard light in his eyes before. The price of partying at all the right night spots?

‘Then I’ll give you a real laugh, shall I?’ he flung the words angrily at her. ‘The woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—have children with—has decided not to leave her husband!’

Tess’s startled gasp was audible in the short, tense silence that followed his words.

‘Does that have the required degree of character-enhancing humility to suit you?’