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 out of sight. The moment he turned them to face the house Rachel tried to break free from him but his grip only tightened as he walked them across the cobbles.
The front door opened directly into the farmhouse-style kitchen, heated by the old Aga against the wall. Coming in here should have felt comfortingly familiar to Rachel but it didn't. The door closed. The arm dropped from her shoulders. Moving like a skittish kitten, she took a few steps away from him then spun around.
'I … '
'If you are about to utter yet another lie to me-'he cut right across her '-then let me advise you to keep silent!'
CHAPTER SEVEN
HERheart gave a thick little thump against her ribcage. It was like looking at a complete stranger again-a tall, dark, coldly angry stranger.
'I was actually about to apologise for the … misunderstanding with Jack out there.'
'You set me up.'
'It w-wasn't like that,' she denied. 'Y-you were fishing for information and I stupidly decided to tease you about my relationship with Jack.'
'I am not referring to your desire to pull my strings by intimating there was another man in your life,' he said. 'Though using your uncle like that is unforgivable enough.'
'Then what-?' she demanded.
'Alonso,' he supplied. 'The Italian heartbreaker I have been set up to play substitute for in your desire for payback!'
'That's not true!' Rachel protested.
His angry eyes crashed into her like a pair of ice picks. 'Not only is it true but you are the most devious witch it has ever been my misfortune to come into contact with!' he incised. 'This was never just about saving your half-sister's marriage! You always had this hidden agenda in which I paid for the sins you believe your other Italian lover committed!'
'No!' she cried. 'I'mnot that petty! Elise's problems are serious enough without you adding such a crazy accusation into the mix! And anyway,' she said stiffly, 'you are nothing like Alonso. In fact I couldn't compare the two of you in any way if I tried!'
'In bed, perhaps?' he grimly suggested. 'Did you close your eyes and imagine it was him you were driving out of his head with your thrust-and-grind gyrations and those exquisite little muscle contractions?'
'No!' she said hotly. 'How dare you? That is such a rotten thing to say!'
'Then who did teach you to make love like that?' He took a step towards her. 'How many men,amore, does it take to produce such a well-practised sensualist?'
Blushing hotly, she cried, 'I'm not listening to this-'
She turned towards the door that led through to the rest of the house. The way he moved so fast to slam a hand against the door to keep it shut had her shivering out a shocked gasp.
'Answer the question.' He loomed over her.
Rachel folded her arms. 'You so love to throw your weight around, don't you?'
'Just answer.'
Anger flicked her eyes up to meet his. 'Why don't you tell me first-how many women have slipped in and out of your bed to make you such afabulous lover?' she hit back. 'What was that,' she mocked when he clenched his expression. 'Do you want to tell me it's none of my business?'
'I am thirty-three years old, you are twenty-three.'
'Meaning the ten year difference justifies the numbers you clearly don't want to give?'
His shoulders shifted. 'I do not break hearts.'
Rachel released a thick laugh. 'You wouldn't know if you broke hearts! Men like you don't go into sexual relationships with the care of tender hearts in mind,Signor . They go into them for the sex!'
'In your experience.'
She tried to push past him, but the muscles in his arm bunched to form an iron bar she could not pass. 'Yes,' she hissed out.
'Gained mostly from this Alonso guy who took only what he wanted from you and trampled on the rest?'
'Yes!' she said again. 'Happy now?' she demanded. 'Have you got the required information nicely fixed in your head? I've hadtwo lovers. Both Italian.Both with their brains lodged in their pants!'
For some reason she hit out at him, though she didn't understand why she had. The feeble blow barely glanced off his rock-solid bicep. And she was beginning to tremble now and didn't like it-beginning to bubble and fizz with anger and resentment and the most horrible feeling of all-humiliation at the way Alonso had treated her!
So maybe Raffaelle was right: when she'd agreed to hit on him to save Elise's marriage some subconscious part of her had wanted to pay back Alonso.
'So I am playing the fall guy.'
He was reading her thoughts. She swallowed tensely.
He turned to push his shoulders and head back against the door. 'Dio, I cannot believe I fell into this trap.'
Rachel struggled to believe that she had fallen into it all too. 'I vowed I would never go near another Italian.'
'Grazie,' he clipped. 'I wish you had kept to your vow.'
Rachel turned away and walked over to the Aga and put the kettle on to boil. Why she did it she hadn't a single clue because she knew she could not swallow even a sip of anything right now.
But at least the move put distance between them. Silence hummed behind her while she removed her coat and laid it over the back of a kitchen chair. Outside a weak sun was trying its best to filter into the room through the window on to scrubbed pine surfaces that had been here for as long as she could remember, yet she still felt as if she were standing in an alien place.
'Where did you meet him?'
The brusque question startled her into glancing at him. 'Who-?' she bit out.
His shoulders almost filled the doorway, his dark head almost level with the top of the frame. His face was still angry, the clenched jawline, the flat mouth, the glinting hard eyes, yet its harsher beauty still riveted her to the spot and claimed her breath and sent the hot stings of attraction streaking through her veins.