The Italian's Future Bride(32)

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.