Concern wanted to send his feet in her direction. Only common sense warned him not to make a scene here. Turning back to Francesca, he saw her watching him with an eyebrow arched curiously. Dragging on his social cloak, he forced himself to smile as he walked back to her.
Rachel was fighting the need to be sick in the toilet. The clammy sweat of nausea had flooded over her the moment she'd seen the way Raffaelle had walked into the arms of the beautiful blonde.
'Ex-lovers,' Daniella had whispered to her. 'Don't they look amazing together? He adored her once but she left him for her now ex-husband. We thought he would never get over it-maybe he didn't. He spent the afternoon with her,' she confided with relish. 'I know because Gino told me Raffaelle cancelled a meeting with him to go to her. Now she's here. An interesting development, don't you think?'
Was it? Rachel discovered that she no longer knew anything. Her head was thumping too thickly to think. A month-a month in which she had lived and slept with him, had trailed around Europe with him as his pretend future bride. But what did she really know about Raffaelle, other than he was a fantastic lover and was willing to go to any lengths to protect himself from getting a negative press?
By the time she felt able to rejoin the party, everyone was gathered around a long wooden table. Still fighting down nausea, Rachel found herself having to take the only seat left available between Daniella and another male friend of Raffaelle's, whose name she couldn't recall right now.
Raffaelle was sitting at the other end of the table. The beautiful Francesca was next to him. She had arrived here on her own and Rachel supposed that, given the odd number of men to women, the dinner placements had become muddled.
But it was the first time that Raffaelle was not occupying the seat beside her like a statement of possession.
Had he even noticed that she was not sitting on his other side?
Not that Rachel could tell. His attention was too firmly fixed on his new dining partner. And she was not the only one to notice the change in place settings, or the difference in him. Others kept sending her brief telling glances, then looking down the table at him.
Raffaelle did not notice. He was too busy plying his beautiful companion with wine and food, while Rachel could barely bring herself to swallow a thing. And, to top this whole disaster of an evening, having her handsome fiancé sitting beside her was enough protection to give Daniella's tongue back its sharpened edge.
'How is Elise?' she began innocently enough.
'Fine,' Rachel responded. 'She's still in Chicago with her husband and son.'
'And your … half-brother? The one with the camera? Is he still enjoying playing tricks on the rich and famous?'
How Daniella had managed to discover that Mark was her half-brother Rachel just did not feel like finding out right now. 'Mark is fine,' she answered in the same level tone and tried to change the subject. 'How are your wedding plans coming along?'
'Wonderful.' Daniella smiled happily. 'I'm here in Milan for my dress-fitting. Isn't that dress you're wearing-?' She named a top designer. 'Did Raffaelle buy it for you? How much do you think you have stung him for by now?'
'My dress is not by that particular designer,' Rachel answered quietly, 'and I pay for my own clothes.'
'Well, don't bother buying anything expensive for my wedding, darling, because by the look of it you will not be coming.' Daniella flicked her eyes down the table. 'Knowing Raffaelle as well as I do, I think I can positively predict that you are on your way out and Francesca is definitely on her way back in.'
One short glance down the table was enough for Rachel to confirm why Daniella felt so very sure about that. If it wasn't enough that he had ignored her all evening, the way he was smiling that oh-so-familiar lazily sensual smile at the beautiful Francesca was the final straw for her.
'You know what, Daniella?' She turned back to her tormentor. 'Watching you marry that poor fool sitting next to you is the last thing on earth that I want to do.' The poor fool heard what she said and turned sharply to look at her. She ignored him. 'So dance on my grave, if that's what turns you on,darling ,' she invited. 'And, while you're doing it, tell your stepbrother from me that he can have his Francesca with my absolute blessing!'
Then she stood up. The nausea instantly hit her again. She pushed her chair back and walked away. Silence had fallen around the table. How many of them had heard her exit line she did not know and she did not care.
Raffaelle tuned in too late to catch anything but the sight of Rachel's taut back retreating and the uncomfortable silence that followed. Gino was frowning angrily at Daniella. His stepsister had gone very pale. Someone else muttered a soft, 'Dio.'
And the whole table watched as he came to his feet. Someone touched his hand. It might have been Francesca. He neither knew nor cared.
He strode after Rachel. 'Where the hell do you think you are going?' he raked out, catching hold of her wrist to bring her to a standstill between two tables.
It came out of nowhere, the rise in anger, the sudden swing round. Next thing she knew, she had slapped him full in the face.
A camera flashed.
His eyes lit up bright silver. 'That's tomorrow's trash out of the way,' he gritted, then hauled her up against him and kissed her hard.
The flashes kept on coming. The whole restaurant had fallen into complete silence to witness Raffaelle Villani fight with his future bride. By the time he set her mouth free her lips were burning and her heart was thumping and tears were hot in her eyes.
'I wish I'd never met you,' she hissed up at him, then wrenched free of him and walked away.
Outside the air was cool and she shivered. Dino stood leaning against the car in the car park but he straightened the moment he saw Raffaelle appear.
'Rachel-'
'Stay away from me.' She started walking away from both the driver and Raffaelle, her spindly heels clicking on the hard pathway's surface. Inside she was a mass of muddled feelings, nausea and the pumping, pounding need to just get right away from everything.
She managed about ten metres before the car drew up beside her, at the same time as a figure leapt out of it and a hard hand arrived around her waist.
She tried to pull free; the hand tightened. 'You know how this works,' Raffaelle said grimly. 'You decide which way we do it.'
A camera flashed. They both blinked as it happened. Raffaelle muttered something nasty as his free hand pulled open the car door. Shivering, Rachel stiffened away from him and entered the car under her own steam.
The door closed her in. He walked round the car to get in beside her. With no glass partition in here to give them privacy, they were forced to hold their tongues, so the silence pulsed like a third heartbeat between them.
Anger, hostility, a tight sizzlinghatred that ran dangerously close to its unrequited flipside flicked at the muscles in Raffaelle's face and held Rachel's frozen in her own private hell.
If he had not drunk so much wine, keeping up with Francesca in his attempt to divert her curious attention away from Rachel, Raffaelle knew he would have kicked Dino out of the car and taken his place, just to give himself something to do and stop himself from wanting to reach out and kill her for making him feel like this.
And-yes, he freely admitted it-he had been happy to give this woman sitting beside him something useful to think about! Did she think she was the only one of them who could play this game of falseness?
Game, falseness; the two words ricocheted around his head as a brutal reminder as to what this relationship was really about.
Rachel sat beside him with her face averted, fingering the ring on her finger and only realising as she felt its duller contours that she was still wearing the daytime fake.
Looking down, she could see that she had forgotten to swap the ring for the real one. So what was that little error trying to tell her?
You can't live a lie and expect it to spin itself into the truth?
They arrived at his apartment still steeped in thick silence. The journey up in the lift was just as cold and reined in. They entered the apartment. Rachel tossed aside her purse and just kept walking. He followed her into the bedroom and shut the door.
She could feel his anger beating into her. She refused to turn and look at him. 'If you want a row, then you're going to have to save it until tomorrow,' she tossed out coldly. 'I'm not-feeling too well, so I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going to bed and I would prefer it if you found somewhere else to sleep.'
Kicking off her shoes, she headed for the bathroom.
'Pleading a headache,cara ?'
The drawling tone made her wince. 'Yes, actually,' she answered.