The Italian's Future Bride(17)

       
           



       



She eased out a sigh of her own and tried to ignore what was happening  to her. 'I'm really sorry I got us both embroiled in this mess,' she  whispered in genuine regret.



'But you did do it,' he pointed out with devastating simplicity. 'Now we  have to deal with what we have.' He came to lean over her, suddenly  deadly serious. 'And what we have is one story, one betrothal, one bed,'  he listed. 'You will not, during the time we are together, give cause  for anyone to question our honesty.'



'Our lies, you mean.'



He shook his dark head. 'Start believing in this,cara ,' he advised.  'The fate of your sister's marriage rests on your ability to live,  breathe andsleep the role you have chosen to play in my life.'



His life. Those two words said it all to Rachel. This washis life he was protecting. His reputation. His pride.



And why not-? she thought painfully. Her mouth quivered. The tip of his tongue arrived to taste her soft upper lip.



Rachel saw that grimness had been replaced with slumberous desire and knew what was going to happen next.



'No,' she jerked out.



But his tongue dipped deeper. 'Yes,' he contradicted in soft silken English.



'But I don't-'



'You do,cara ,' and he showed her how much she did by trailing his fingers inside the shirt.



Her breast received his touch with livewire tingles. Don't respond! she  told herself, but she did. Her mouth opened wider to turn the gentle  contact into a proper kiss and the globe of her breast peaked  pleasurably against his palm. It was terrible; she could not seem to  control herself.



On a husky murmur he took the kiss back from her and from there it all began to build again.



It should have been a huge let-down after what they'd just been fighting  about-but it wasn't. What it was, was a slow, slow attack on every  sensual front he could discover by using his lips and his tongue and the  light-light tantalising brush of fingers. There was not a single  millimetre of her flesh that was not gently coaxed into yielding its  secrets-its every weakness exposed and explored until she felt like a  slave to her own sensuality and an even bigger slave to his.



By the time he prepared to come into her, she was so lost in a hazy  world made up entirely of him that she just lay there, watching while he  produced the protection they'd both forgotten about the last time and  expertly rolled it down his powerful length.



His eyes burned hers as he came over her. When he pushed inside, her  groan brought his lips down to capture the sound. They moved together in  a slow, deep, serious, dark journey, which left both of them totally  wiped out by its end.



And, as sleep finally swept her into boneless oblivion, Rachel knew she had been totally taken over, ravished, possessed.



I wish, was the last conscious thought she remembered having and fell  asleep wondering what it was she had been about to wish for.



She awoke cocooned in a nest of warm duvet and to the sound of a  telephone ringing again. Only it did not sound loud, as if it was being  muffled by the thickness of walls and doors. But the persistent sound  pierced through her sleep like a sluggish pulse taking place inside her  head.



She didn't open her eyes-didn't want to. Too many bad memories were  already rushing back, the worst of them being the knowledge that she'd  fallen into bed with a man she'd only met the night before, had hot,  unprotected sex with him and now his physical imprint was so deeply  stamped on her that she could still see him, hear him, feel him and  smell him with every sensory cell she had.



The ringing stopped. Rachel let her eyes open. Daylight was shrouded by  the drawn curtains but she could see just enough to know that the place  beside her in the bed was empty and she breathed a sigh of relief.



At least she would have some time to get herself back together before she had to face him again.



Easing out of the bed, she rose to stand up with just about every muscle  feeling the extra stretch as she looked around her for something to put  on.



Her clothes had gone. So had the shirt she had been coveting last night  like a last line of defence. What now? she asked herself. Were her  missing clothes supposed to be sending her a message about where she  fitted into his life?



Suddenly spying the cashmere throw he had used to cover her with the  night before draped over a chair, she leapt on it and wrapped herself in  it. The throw covered her from throat to ankle but she still felt like  the wretched man's concubine, imprisoned for his exclusive use.



And he knew how to use her, she was forced to admit when her senses gave a tight little flutter in response to the thought.                       
       
           



       



Someone knocked on the door. She almost tripped over as she spun round to stare at it.



'Y-Yes?' she called out, puzzled as to why the heck he was bothering to  knock when privacy had been something he had taken no heed of last  night.



'Your things have arrived, Miss Carmichael,' a totally strange female  voice announced. 'Shall I leave the suitcase here outside the door?'



'Oh-y-yes-thank you,' she answered, frowning because she didn't know what the woman was talking about.



She waited a few seconds before going to pull the door open a small  crack to make sure the woman had gone before she looked down to discover  the suitcase she'd hastily packed before leaving Devon was now standing  on the floor. Clinging to the black throw with one hand and still  frowning, she used her other hand to lift the case inside the bedroom  and shut the door again.



Last time she'd seen this, it had been lying open and spilling its  contents on to the spare bed in Mark's flat. So how had it ended up here  instead?



Had Mark delivered it? Had he come here, then left again without bothering to see or speak to her to find out if she was okay?



Hurt thickened her throat as she heaved the case on to the rumpled bed  and unzipped it. Inside it was everything she had brought up to London  with her, plus all the extras that Elise had provided to help turn her  into her look-alike.



There was also a piece of paper lying on the top of everything. Picking  it up, she unfolded it to find it was a hastily scribbled note from  Mark.



Did you have to send the chauffeur round to knock me up for your stuff  at 6 o' clock in the morning? I'd only just crawled into bed!



Elise called you last night after I told her the good news, but your  phone was dead. She and Leo wanted to congratulate you on your coming  nuptials, if you get my drift. Call her later today so she can play the  ecstatic sister for Leo's benefit.



I'm off to LA this afternoon for a few weeks. See you when I get back. Love M.



Mission accomplished, in other words, so it was back to normal life-for  Mark anyway. No words of concern for how she was feeling. No sign of a  rescue plan for her any time soon.



Rachel stared out at nothing for a moment or two. Then, as a rueful  grimace played its rather wobbly way across her mouth, she let the note  fall on to the bed and turned her attention to selecting fresh clothes  from the suitcase. At least she was now overloaded with expensive hair  products and cosmetics, she consoled herself.



Dressed in a short bathrobe and fresh from his shower in one of the  guest rooms, Raffaelle opened the bedroom door as the bathroom door shut  with a quiet click.



He stood for a moment, viewing the evidence of her occupation, then  walked over to the bed and picked up the note. His expression hardened  as he read it. His eyes then drifted to the open suitcase, where it  looked as if everything had been dumped in there at haste.



Did she feel deserted? She had to feel deserted because it was exactly what had happened to her.



Replacing the note where he'd found it, he turned then and strode across  the bedroom to open the door which led into his dressing room. Ten  minutes later he was dressed and letting himself out of the bedroom as  quietly as he had come in while the running shower still sounded from  the other side of the closed bathroom door.



CHAPTER SIX



IT TOOKnerve for Rachel to open the bedroom door and step into the  hallway. She would rather be doing anything than facing Raffaelle  Villani in the cold, harsh light of day.



Rubbing her hands up and down her arms in a nervous gesture as she  walked, at least she looked more like herself, she tried to console  herself. With Elise's image stripped away and her hair shampooed and  quickly blow-dried, she'd seen the real Rachel staring back at her from  the mirror-the one who wore jeans and a long-sleeved black knit top. Her  make-up was minimal and her hair had reverted to its natural style.



All she needed to do now was to convince herself that she was the real  Rachel, because she certainly did not feel like her inside.



She intended to go and hunt down her bag and her cellphone before she  did anything else, but she never got that far. The door next to the  kitchen stood open and, having glanced through it, she then pulled to a  heart-sinking halt.