His Bride for the Taking Read online

  “How did she take it?”

  “Let’s just say that, whatever happens, one of our parents is going to be bitterly disappointed.”

  “Let me guess. She demanded that you never see me again.”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “I thought of you, and of how you’d react if someone told you what to do, and I told her that I was old enough to decide for myself who I saw and who I didn’t.”

  “Good for you.”

  “And then I kind of spoiled it by telling her that I’m coming home the day after the christening, anyway. I could go sooner, but it would feel like running away. And Adam and your father have both asked me to stay. I’m not sure why. Something to do with Marconis and Wyndhams never backing down from a challenge, and a strong offence being the best form of defense. And they mentioned dignity, too. They kind of lost me, but I said I would stay.” Rafe was the only one who hadn’t asked her to stay.

  Even now he said nothing. Not that she expected a pleading, heartfelt don’t go, stay with me forever from this man, but a girl was allowed her daydreams. Lexie shook her head. She of all people should have learned her lesson about daydreams and fantasies and fairy tales.

  “You’ve had a miserable time here, haven’t you?”

  “No, it’s—”

  “Have you done anything just for you, just for the sheer enjoyment of it?”

  “That wasn’t the purpose of the trip.”

  Shaking his head he stood and pulled her up with him. “Come on.” He started walking. “What? Where?”

  “If we can’t please both of our families then let’s annoy them both. And really give the press something to talk about.”

  “What do you mean?” He was leading so fast through the labyrinth she was getting dizzy.

  “Do you trust me, Lexie?”

  “No.” She had no idea what he was planning, but was almost certain she wasn’t going to like it. And yet she hurried along beside him, her heart beating faster in exhilaration and anticipation.

  He laughed, turned back and planted a quick hard kiss on her lips. “Wise woman.”

  Forty minutes later, Lexie strapped herself into the seat next to Rafe, their shoulders touching.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “No.” She gripped his hand.

  “Too bad.” Photographers ran toward them, snapping pictures as the roller coaster of San Philippe’s only theme park began to gather speed and then shot them forward. Lexie managed not to scream until they were out of sight.

  The photographers were still there, a hungry pack of them, snapping away as the roller coaster eased to a stop. Lexie’s hair had come free from her hair tie, helped, she suspected, by Rafe, and must surely look a fright.

  Her mother would be appalled.

  Lexie laughed at the prospect, suddenly not caring what people thought. Suddenly appreciating Rafe’s philosophy.

  The photographers followed them, at a distance, almost all day long. Taking pictures of the most mundane of things. Walking, talking, laughing, Rafe winning her a teddy bear in a shooting booth. It was all so clichéd. And all so much fun.

  The only privacy they got was when Rafe managed to get a quiet booth in the riverside café where they stopped for dinner, the proprietor fiercely denying entry to anyone with a camera.

  At the nightclub he took her to they danced till the small hours of the morning.

  By the time Lexie fell into bed—alone—she was exhausted but happy. It was the best day she could remember, well, ever. Even with the repressed pall of sorrow that everything was ending. They’d talked of the present, never the future. Because, she knew, Rafe didn’t do futures.

  Ten

  Amongst a sea of talking and laughing christening guests, Rafe reluctantly took hold of the baby. He was happy to be godfather—Mark and Karen were good friends—but why did people always expect that he’d want to hold their children? Although maybe godfathers ought to want to. Lex would doubtless have an opinion on the subject. Lex, whom he did want to hold, but couldn’t and wouldn’t because she was leaving tomorrow, going back to her old life. It was for the best.

  They’d had yesterday, undoubtedly a mistake given the outcry in the media. But a mistake he couldn’t regret. He’d wanted it to last forever, wanted her smiles and her laughter.

  He looked into the clear blue and strangely alert eyes of the child in his arms, who appeared, much like Rafe, to be wondering why this strange man was holding her. Karen called to someone across the room and walked away, and Rafe had to stop himself from calling her back.

  “If you cry now,” he quietly encouraged the child whose name he’d already managed to forget, “your mother will come back for you.” In Rafe’s experience, that was how this scenario usually played out. Unfortunately, this child didn’t know the drill and merely blinked. He was fairly sure she was a girl, though that long gown she, or he, had worn for the cathedral ceremony wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of femininity.

  Conversation flowed around him, and the baby continued to study him. “I hold you responsible,” he said, and the baby smiled. “If it hadn’t been for this christening, I could have been in Vienna by now. Or maybe even Argentina.” And he wouldn’t have entangled his life and emotions with Lexie. Although he couldn’t bring himself to regret what they’d shared.

  The baby’s stare turned accusing.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “I stayed for her, too. But don’t you dare tell anyone.”

  He heard a bubbling, sexy laugh and followed the sound to Lexie, where she stood talking with Adam and Karen. She wore a silky red wrap dress. He’d been pleased to see her in it. Pleased and turned on, but he ignored the second reaction. She’d at least stopped trying to hide her vibrancy behind fiercely elegant clothes. No point now, he guessed, given that she wasn’t marrying his brother. She was leaving. Her hair was pulled into a twist at the back of her head, its lushness contained. That fact pleased him, too. He admitted to a proprietary attitude to her hair—it featured in so many of his fantasies.

  She caught him watching her. Her gaze dipped to the baby in his arms and her eyes widened in surprise. Yes, Lexie, he thought, I do know how to hold a child, it’s just not something I do voluntarily. And Lexie was exactly the sort of woman who’d want children, who’d be a natural, loving mother. Which was why he had to let her go.

  He looked around for Karen. Surely he’d done his godfatherly duty and could hand the baby back. And leave. “Okay, kid, where’s your mother?” Only now the child had closed its eyes and—he couldn’t believe it—gone to sleep in his arms. It was the strangest feeling. He held the warm bundle a little closer.

  “You’re in trouble now.” He heard a soft, smiling voice at his side.

  “Meaning?” he asked Lexie, wanting only to hand the baby away so he could fill his arms with this woman instead. Yes, he was in trouble all right.

  “I understood you have a policy of never falling asleep with a woman, and I’m figuring that extends to letting them fall asleep in your arms.” She spoke quietly, her words winding sensuously around him.

  “First time for everything.”

  She touched her fingertip gently to the sleeping child’s cheek.

  “You want children?” he asked, even though the answer was obvious in the softness of her smile, in the tenderness and longing that lit her face.

  “Someday. Doesn’t everyone?” The smile widened with secret thoughts and plans.

  “No. Not everyone.”

  “Like Everest?”

  “Exactly.” He smiled back, enthralled, held captive by what felt like an almost physical connection to her. The entire roomful of people could fade away and he wouldn’t notice. She felt it, too. This wasn’t one-sided. Which only made the situation worse.

  “But don’t you? Want children.” She searched his face.

  “It’s not something I’ve thought about.” And he was terrified that looking at her, ch
ildren were something he could want. “Here, do you want to hold her?” He nodded at the soundly sleeping little girl. If Lexie was holding the baby, she’d stop looking at him. And the sight of her holding a baby would stop him thinking thoughts he shouldn’t. He couldn’t possibly lust after a woman holding an infant. It would just be wrong.

  “Emma?”

  That was her name, of course.

  “Yes, please.”

  He passed the sleeping child to Lexie. They had to stand close, almost chest to chest, only Emma between them, hands bumping and sliding.

  “Babies aren’t your thing?” Lexie asked, not looking at him, as she took Emma’s weight, held her to her chest.

  “Not at all.” His standard answer came to him. And yet he’d felt the strangest reluctance to let go of the small bundle. The child who had fallen asleep in his arms.

  “You’ll be a great father. Once you give yourself permission to love,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be scary.”

  Oh, but it was.

  She couldn’t leave soon enough. It was torture seeing her. Seeing her hope, her optimism.

  As Karen approached, Rafe took a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. He saw one of his few remaining bachelor friends and headed to talk to him. Preferably about polo or something equally safe, equally shallow.

  Lexie rested her hands on the rough stone of the windowsill and looked out through the tall, narrow window. The day room was at the top of the castle’s southernmost turret. Rafe had mentioned it once, mentioned its forever views and its isolation. After navigating corridors and climbing endless winding stone stairs, Lexie could see why it was so was so seldom used. But the views over the manicured palace grounds and the rolling countryside beyond were worth the effort. The sky was a clear, bright blue, taunting her. It should be dreary and miserable to match her mood.

  The room was just as she’d imagined. A contrast of textures and centuries. Leather couches, shaped to fit the circular space, lined the small room. A plush rug lay in the center of the floor.

  She’d escaped the christening, escaped the sound of Rafe’s laughter with his friend, to come here. She’d lost track of how long she’d been standing, looking out and trying not to think, when the heavy door opened behind her. She turned as the man she’d been trying not to think about stepped into the room. He paused, clearly not expecting to see her here. “Is the party over?” she asked.

  “Still going.” He gave a half smile. “I bailed. Thought I’d come up here for a little time-out.”

  Lexie took a single step away from the window. “You stay,” she said. “I was just going.”

  But as he crossed to her she didn’t seem able to move any farther.

  “It’s so beautiful up here,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face. He stopped in front of her and brushed a thumb across her cheek. Did that mean he’d seen the telltale tracks of her tears?

  “I’m leaving.” She didn’t know whether she spoke the words for his benefit or for hers. The only thing she did know was that the prospect of her departure was a dark, yawning chasm. The thought of leaving San Philippe forever. The thought of leaving Rafe. Forever. It weighed almost unbearably on her.

  “I know.” He lowered his head and placed the gentlest of kisses on each of her cheekbones. And then he pulled her into his arms and she went willingly. He held her tightly to him and she absorbed the sensation of being pressed against him, tried to commit it to memory, tried to detail each part of her that touched him and where and how, the feel of his cheek resting on her head, his arms around her.

  She tilted her head up to look at him, to study his face. He returned her scrutiny for the longest time. And then he kissed her. Soft and gentle, the knowledge of her leaving in his kiss. She tasted the faint trace of champagne on his lips.

  What started out soft and gentle grew heated and hungry. Breathing hard, Rafe lifted his head. “We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.”

  She pulled his head back down. “We should.” She smiled against his lips, heedless. “I’m leaving anyway. What can it hurt now?”

  “It can hurt you. You deserve better. Someone needs to look out for you, and if you won’t protect yourself from me then I have to do it.”

  “I deserve this. After all you’ve put me through, I deserve this.”

  But still he backed away.

  Lexie pulled the silk ribbon that held the front of her dress in place and the dress fell open. “Don’t go.”

  “That’s a low trick, Lex.” Rafe stopped dead. “It wouldn’t be humanly possible now.” He walked slowly back to her. “Have I told you red is my favorite color?” He looked into her eyes as he pushed her dress from her shoulders, smiled as it pooled at her feet, then trailed his fingers in its wake to touch the red of her bra, and then her panties. “Do you know what you do to me?”

  “I’m hoping it’s something like what you do to me.”

  As he slid his hands to her waist, and slowly up and round, she trembled beneath his touch. His fingers found the clasp they sought, and her bra whispered to the floor.

  She gasped as he knelt before her and pressed a kiss to the center of her panties. And then he drew the fine lace from her hips, over her thighs.

  One more kiss, and another gasp. He trailed more kisses upward, another to her belly, between her breasts, her neck. With her eyes on him he undid his buttons. He discarded his shirt, his pants, his boxers. No pretence, no barriers. Till he stood before her, bathed in golden sunlight, strong and proud and hers.

  For now.

  Him. Her. Nothing else.

  He reached for her hair, ran his fingers through its sun-warmed length, ran his hands over the curve of her shoulders, down her arms till his hands founds hers.

  Holding her gaze, he lifted her hands and pressed a kiss to the back of each. Then, lowering his hands, he slid his fingers between hers, stretching them apart. Palms touched, breath mingled.

  And then he touched his lips to hers, with a gentleness born of constraint.

  She moved. Closed the gap between them till her breasts pressed against his chest and her belly pressed against his erection.

  He pulled her closer still, hard against him, deepening the kiss at the same time, and they moved together, legs twining, hands searching, all the while each drinking in the taste of the other.

  Kissing, they made it as far as the center of the room and then no farther. Dropping to their knees on the rug, hands and lips had free rein.

  Lexie pushed him back and he pulled her with him. She straddled him and then sheathed herself on him, loving the feel of him in her, under her. Loving him.

  He was hers.

  For now.

  He lifted his hands to her breasts, caressed and kneaded. He pulled her forward so he could take a nipple in his mouth. His hands shifted to her waist, her hips, and he was pushing into her deeper, pulling her onto him harder.

  She rode his thrusts, and he drove her higher, further, into darkness and light. And then she was gasping, whimpering. Her eyes flew open, locked on his, all beauty and blind passion, and together they cried out.

  Lexie fell forward onto him, her hair curtaining his face, her body pulsing around his.

  And he held her tight to him.

  In the darkness, Lexie clung to Rafe’s hand, keeping close as he led her through the castle’s dimly lit halls. They’d made love again and again in the turret room. And then slept. And now, in the small hours, they found their way, stumbling and laughing, through corridors and downstairs.

  He stopped outside a door, pushed it open and led her into a room. Lit only by the light of the moon, Lexie could still see it was a bedroom. Rafe’s bedroom.

  Not releasing her hand, he crossed with her to the massive sleigh bed. He lifted his hands to her hair. “We should sleep.”

  “Yes.” They should. She had no idea what time it was, knew only that it was late or very early. But she slipped her hands around his waist, pressed her l
ips to his. She had this one stolen night with him. She wouldn’t waste it. She pulled him unresisting down with her onto the bed, reveled in the weight of him on her and over her.

  And after the rug and the couch of the turret room, his broad bed was a novelty. Room to roll and tangle and laugh and touch.

  Lexie woke with sunlight warming one side of her face and Rafe’s chest warming the other side. His heart beat strong and steady beneath her cheek. His arms rested loosely around her. As she woke fully, she basked in the magic, the beauty, of being with him.

  She tilted her face up to see him watching her and then pulled away to see him better.

  He let her go, his hands trailing from her.

  Instantly, she regretted pulling away. When she’d been lying close, touching, eyes closed, anything had been possible. There had at least been a fragile hope of a glittering future. That they—she and Rafe—might be possible.

  Now, lying on her side, she studied him. Rumpled hair, beard-shadowed jaw and a slow, sexy smile, but it was the wariness in his dark eyes that pierced the fragile magic of the morning, that sucked away her happiness.

  And she knew in that moment that she should never have come to his room, should never have fallen asleep with him so that they then had to navigate waking up together. The memories of their night together would now forever end with this.

  She’d given up her dreams because of him. But not for him. She knew not to allow herself to be that stupid. But she hadn’t been able to love his brother when her every thought had been of Rafe. When she had felt things for Rafe and wanted things from Rafe that she would never feel or want from Adam.

  She was leaving today. And she knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t, offer her a future. And yet here she lay, wanting precisely that. A future. With Rafe.

  Not the man of her dreams, but the man of her realities. The man who understood her and made her laugh and made her want him.

  The wariness in his eyes now froze her hopes, her heart. She could almost see the regrets and his questions and fears. Would she want to marry him now, want to have his babies, want to trap him? Already he was formulating words to soften his rejection.