Right. Well, you’ll excuse me if I get on.’ She clattered a pile of plates together and carried them out to the kitchen.
Rafe stretched his arms above his head and knew he ought to move. To go to bed and sleep and figure out how the hell he was going to get through Oliver’s christening, especially now that Sharla’s presence had been confirmed. The trouble was he didn’t want to go anywhere. Not when it was so comfortable sitting here, watching Sophie clear away the dishes. Watching as she busied herself around the table and studiously tried to avoid his gaze. The only trouble was that meant he could stare at her without censure. His eyes lingered on the gleam of her shapely calves and the way the blue cotton dress swished about her bottom as she moved. He found himself thinking longingly about sex and how it might blot out the darkness of his thoughts—and the idea of having sex with Sophie was becoming something of an obsession.
Yet these days he avoided one-night stands—even if he hadn’t always made it a rule never to get intimate with employees. Women were tricky enough as lovers without the added complication of them being on the payroll. He’d seen friends and peers get their fingers burned by over-familiarity with staff. Seen how a formerly cool colleague could morph into a bunny-boiling maniac once she’d slipped between the sheets and discovered there wasn’t going to be a big rock on her finger as a result. Even if you were honest with a woman from the start and told her you just wanted a no-strings fling, they never believed you. They always thought they’d be the one to change your mind. And how could you escape a rejected lover’s wrath if you had to stare at her vengeful face across the other side of the boardroom, or when her manicured fingers were flying across the keyboard?
Or when she was leaning across the table to grab an unused serving spoon and you could smell a trace of her perfume?
Nope. That was an area he had always steered clear of.
So stop looking at her breasts. Stop imagining what it would be like to part those delicious thighs and slip your fingers inside her panties and see how long it would take to make her wet.
‘Would you like some coffee, Rafe?’
Her unfathomable accent punctured his thoughts and Rafe met the question in her eyes as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘No,’ he said, more curtly than he’d intended. ‘I don’t want any more to drink. Come and sit down. You’ve been working all evening. Have you eaten anything?’
‘Honestly—I’m fine. I had something before I started serving.’
‘Have some chocolate, then. Surely there isn’t a woman alive who can resist chocolate?’
‘I’ve still got some clearing up to do.’
‘You’ve done most of it. Leave the rest for now. And that’s an order. For heaven’s sake, relax, Sophie—or is that such an outrageous suggestion?’
Sophie edged towards the chair he was indicating, her heart crashing against her ribcage. Relax? He had to be joking. She felt about as relaxed as a mouse which had just glanced up to see a metal trap hovering overhead. Which was slightly ironic for someone who’d spent her whole life being introduced to strangers and putting them at their ease. But for once she was the one feeling nervous in the company of a man who was currently pouring her some wine—though she noticed he’d barely touched his own glass all evening.
‘Here,’ he said, pushing it across the table towards her.
She took the drink and sipped it, grateful for the sudden warmth which flooded through her veins. ‘Mmm. This is excellent.’
‘Of course it is. Australia produces some of the best wine in the world.’ His eyes glittered. ‘As well as having the kind of wild beauty which takes the breath away.’
Sophie swirled the wine around and watched it stain the sides of the glass. ‘You sound as if you love it. The country, I mean.’
‘That’s because I do.’ He shrugged. ‘I always have.’
She looked up from the glass to stare directly into his eyes. ‘Was that why you bought a cattle station here, so far away from England?’
Rafe didn’t answer her question straight away because it was a long time since he’d thought about it. What had started out as a bolt-hole from the unbearable had become one of his favourite places. He’d always revelled in the extreme conditions of the Outback and whenever he returned—less and less these days—he settled in right away. He’d come here first for sanctuary, far away from the brutal world he’d left behind. He’d needed the hard work and sweat and toil which had helped heal his shattered heart and broken soul. It had been his first stop in a series of places to lay his head without ever really considering any of them home. But then, he’d never had a real home during his childhood, so why should adulthood be any different? His description of himself as a modern-day gypsy had been truthful, though he knew from experience it was an image which turned women on.
Had it turned Sophie on? he wondered. Was that why she was staring at him now, her blue eyes shadowed in the candlelight and those amazing lips slightly parted, as if she wanted him to kiss her? And wasn’t the desire to do so almost overwhelming? ‘Aren’t I supposed to be interviewing you,’ he said acidly, ‘rather than the other way round?’
‘Is this an interview, then?’ She put her glass down. ‘I thought I’d already got the job.’
‘Yes, you’ve got the job. Yet it’s interesting,’ he mused as he leaned back in his chair, ‘that when I asked Andy about your background, he knew nothing about you. And that after several days in your company, I find myself in exactly the same boat. You’re a bit of a mystery, Sophie.’
‘I thought my role here was to feed the men, not entertain them with my life story?’
‘True.’ Rafe frowned, thinking that her casual tone was failing to disguise her sudden air of defensiveness. ‘Yet apparently, when you arrived, you didn’t know one end of a frying pan from the other.’
‘I soon learned.’
‘Or have a clue how to load the dishwasher.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s an industrial-sized dishwasher.’
‘And you looked at the tin-opener as if it had just landed from outer space.’
‘Gosh,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Just how long did you and Andy spend discussing me?’
‘Long enough.’
‘And did you come to any conclusions?’
‘I did.’
‘Which were?’
He stretched out his legs. ‘I came to the conclusion that you’re someone who’s never had to get her hands dirty before,’ he observed softly. ‘And that maybe you’ve led a very privileged life up until now.’
Sophie stiffened. How perceptive he was, she thought—her unwilling admiration swept away by a sudden whisper of fear. Because wasn’t this what she had dreaded all along—that the cool and clever Englishman would guess she wasn’t what she seemed? That he would blow her cover before she was ready to have it blown, and force her into making decisions she still wasn’t sure about.
So brazen it out. Challenge him—just as he is challenging you.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘But none of the men—or you—have any complaints about my work, do you?’
His eyes glittered. ‘Are my questions bothering you, Sophie?’
‘Not bothering me so much as boring me, if I may be frank.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you tell me when you first arrived that you’d prefer it if I left you alone? That you didn’t want me to engage you in conversation just for the sake of it.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘You know you did,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Yet now you’re doing exactly