her hands to stop them reaching for him and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening while he drove on with a sudden grim concentration that only made everything worse.
She gave directions in short, sharp, breathless little bursts of speech that only helped to increase the tension. He said nothing but just reacted with slick control of the car. They were both sitting forward in their seats. They were both staring fixedly directly ahead. She knew where this was going to end up just as he knew it. And the agony of knowing was as tough as the agony of having to sit here and wait.
At last—finally they turned into the private lane which led to the farm. Winter fields barely waking up to early spring spread out on either side of them, neatly ploughed and ready to sow. The old farmhouse stood in front of them, its rustic brick walls warmed by a weak sun. Flanking either side of it stood the adjoining barns and behind the house they could just see the greenhouse’s glass glinting in the weak sunlight.
In front was the cobbled yard where Rachel’s muddy old Jeep stood tucked in against a barn wall. On the other side stood another car, a Range Rover, making Rachel’s heart sink, though whether that was due to disappointment, because she knew what was buzzing between the two of them was about to be indefinitely postponed, or relief for the same reason, she refused to examine.
Raffaelle brought the car to a stop in the dead centre of the courtyard, killed the engine, then climbed out without uttering a word. Rachel was slower in moving, unsure if her stinging legs would hold her up if she tried to stand on them.
He couldn’t know what was coming and she didn’t know how to tell him. One glance at his face across the top of the car and she was almost bowled over by the strict control he was holding over himself.
His eyes were not under control, though. They looked back at her with a possessive glitter that showered her with sexual promise.
She parted her paper-dry lips. ‘Raffaelle—’ she began anxiously.
‘Let’s go inside and find a bed,’ he said huskily.
She quivered and swallowed, then heaved in a tense breath in preparation to speak again. The front door to the house suddenly swung inwards, snatching her attention away from him.
He looked where she was looking, shoes scraping on worn cobbles as he turned then went perfectly still.
A man stood in the open doorway—a tall, well-built, swarthy-looking man wearing brown cords and a fleece coat. He was also a man easily in his fifth decade, with eyes like ice that he pinned on Raffaelle.
‘Jack,’ Rachel murmured, feeling trouble brewing even before she saw Raffaelle tense up when she said Jack’s name.
Damn, why hadn’t she thought about this before she’d teased Raffaelle about her relationship to Jack?
And, oh dear, but Jack did not look pleased at all.
She hurried forward. Raffaelle stood frozen as he watched her walk straight into the other man’s arms. He was trying to decide whether to go over there and punch the bastard for taking advantage of a vulnerable young woman left alone here to cope on her own. Or to reclaim what now belonged to him, then tell him to get the hell out.
In the end it was the other man who took the initiative.
‘Jack …’ Rachel burst into nervous speech as she reached him. ‘This is …’
‘I read the paper this morning, Rachel,’ he cut in, looking across the cobbles with a set of grey eyes that were as cold as Raffaelle’s own eyes.
He put her to one side so he could walk forwards. Rachel could feel the suspicion coming off him in waves. Jack knew her better than most people, so if anyone was going to smell a rat about her surprise engagement then it would be him.
‘I n-need to explain.’ She dashed after him.
‘Mr Villani,’ Jack greeted coolly.
Nerves jumping all over her now, Rachel rushed into speech yet again. ‘Raffaelle, this is Jack Fellows.’ Her anxious blue eyes pleaded with him to understand. ‘He’s my—’
‘Guardian,’ Jack himself put in. ‘Until she is twenty-five, that is.’
‘Well, that is a new name for it,’ Raffaelle drawled.
‘Jack is also my uncle,’ she said heavily. ‘M-my mother’s brother …’
‘And the one who looks out for her interests,’ Jack coldly put in. ‘So, if you are the same Italian who broke Rachel’s heart last year, then you had better come up with a good reason for doing it or Rachel will not receive my blessing for this engagement.’
Oh, dear God. Rachel wished the ground would open up and swallow her. It just had not occurred to her that Jack would make such a mistake!
Now Raffaelle was looking at her as if she was one of the devil’s children and she couldn’t blame him. It had to feel as if each time he turned around he was being forced to answer new charges that someone in her family planted at his feet!
‘Raffaelle is not Alonso,’ she muttered to Jack in a driven undertone.
‘Was that his name?’ Her uncle looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t recall you actually ever mentioning it.’
That was because she hadn’t. She’d just come back here from her trip to Italy looking and behaving like a woman with a broken heart.
Her uncle turned back to Raffaelle. ‘My sincere apologies for the mistake, Mr Villani,’ he said and offered him his hand.
But it was too late for Rachel as far as Raffaelle was concerned. She sensed his anger hiding beneath the surface of his smile as he took Jack’s proffered hand.
Then he switched the charm on. By the time he had finished explaining who he was and what he was, and trawled out the same story about how and where he’d met Rachel, he had her uncle eating out of his hand. It was like watching an action reply of the way he had handled the press the night before. And all Rachel could do was smile benignly once more and be impressed by his performance, while knowing retribution was close at hand.
He coolly assured Jack that he was no fortune hunter out to marry his niece for her share in the family pile. He assured him dryly that no, not all Italian men were so cavalier with the vulnerable female heart.
And of course he was madly in love with Rachel—what man would not be? His arm snaked out to hook her around her shoulders so he could draw her in close to his side.
I’m going to kill you the minute I get you alone, that heavy arm promised. And Rachel believed it—totally.
Then he apologised to Jack that the news of their betrothal had broken in the papers before he’d had a chance to come here and officially request Jack’s blessing.
It was his finest moment, Rachel acknowledged from her subservient place at his side. Jack was old-fashioned, with traditional values. She could see from her uncle’s expression that in Raffaelle he thought he was meeting a man after his own heart.
Jack had to rush off then but he offered them dinner to celebrate.
Smooth as silk, Raffaelle thanked him but regrettably had to decline. Apparently he had to be back in London this evening—to attend an irritating business dinner.
Whether there was a business dinner, Rachel did not know. But, of course, her uncle understood. Busy men and all that.
And Raffaelle’s ultimate coup was to gain Jack’s instant agreement that everything here would be taken care of while Rachel was away, because of course Raffaelle wanted her with him.
‘Just be happy, darling,’ Jack said to her, then he kissed her cheek, shook Raffaelle by the hand and left them, driving away while they stood and watched him—with Raffaelle’s arm still exhibiting its possession across her shoulders in a grip like a vice.
Happy was the last thing she was feeling by the time her uncle’s car disappeared