Линн Грэхем – Millionaires: Rafaello's Mistress / Damiano's Return / Contract Baby (страница 19)

‘If I’ve got you pregnant I’ll marry you,’ Rafaello asserted harshly.

Glory was stunned. She could feel her heart racing but almost as quickly it slowed and sank again. He wasn’t serious, he could not be serious. Rafaello Grazzini marry the gardener’s daughter just because he had got her in the family way? He sounded like a male being roasted on a fire to breaking point, and his tone spoke volumes for his true feelings. It was a reluctant proposal, powered by guilt. In terms of class, she was hardly his equal. He had to be cringing at the mere thought of having to take a wife from a background as humble as hers was. ‘You can forget that option. I would never be that desperate,’ Glory responded flatly, striving to sound wholly unimpressed by an offer that had momentarily made her foolish heart leap with joy. She played fair. He didn’t love her. She knew better than to snatch at an impulsive proposal made for all the wrong reasons.

‘I made the mistake. I take full responsibility for it. I’m sorry,’ Rafaello ground out half under his breath.

‘Sorry enough to let me go home tomorrow?’ Glory whispered tightly, not looking at him, sick with disappointment that his last words should have totally confirmed what had prompted that surprising offer of a wedding ring.

The silence simmered.

‘No … not that sorry,’ Rafaello qualified in the most ludicrous tone of apology.

She hunched her shoulders. ‘What are you getting out of this?’

‘You.’

She rested back against the padded pillow surround and let the water jets buffet her weary body with warmth and relaxation. She had never felt so tired in her life. When she surfaced from her inexorable drift into sleep she was out of the bath, propped up against Rafaello, and he was stripping off the wet shirt. Before she could object he had folded her into a giant, soft towel.

‘You can’t see it now but we’re going to be great together, bella mia,’ Rafaello told her with stubborn conviction. ‘When you wake up tomorrow the sun will be shining and you’ll feel different.’

Unresponsive in her exhaustion, Glory sank into the wonderful comfort of the bed.

‘You need to eat,’ Rafaello told her.

‘I couldn’t.’ She did not think she had the strength to lift a knife and fork. Her drowsy gaze flickered over the exquisite miniature portraits set into the headboard of the bed. ‘Who are they?’

‘Saints. Those are icons.’

Glory dealt him a shaken look. ‘What are you doing with a bed with saints watching over it?’

‘It’s a Corfiot marriage bed. It belonged to my mother’s family.’

Glory had forgotten that his late mother had been an Italian raised in Corfu. ‘A marriage bed?’ So dismayed was she by the thought of how inappropriate that choice of venue had been for an unwed couple that her superstitious nature came to the fore. ‘We should never have been in it!’

‘It’s just a bed, Glory.’ Viewing her with wondering dark eyes, Rafaello slowly shook his head at that comment.

Throwing him an exasperated glance that implied that he was downright stupid not to appreciate the natural order of things, Glory closed her eyes and went to sleep, but not before she had said her prayers.

Just as Rafaello had promised, Glory woke to sunshine. She was alone in the bed and there was no telling dent in the pillow beside her own. She headed straight into the shower to wash out the sand still clinging to her hair. Wrapped in a towel, she emerged again to find that a maid was unpacking her case. Choosing a blue skirt and a white sun-top, she went back into the bathroom to get dressed.

The door she had left ajar was slowly pushed wider.

‘Breakfast?’ Rafaello stood on the threshold, heartbreakingly handsome in a black T-shirt and well-cut chinos.

‘I could eat a horse,’ Glory admitted, colour rising in her cheeks, her eyes not quite meeting his.

The table on the balcony beyond the bedroom was laid with an extravagant choice of breakfast dishes. Glory took a cushioned seat and reached for the jug of orange juice. In silence she then worked her way through a bowl of cereal.

Rafaello studied her with brilliant dark eyes that probed her evasive gaze. ‘We start fresh today.’

‘Do we?’ Honey-blonde head downbent, Glory sampled two of the cooked dishes on offer and the toast. Fresh? As though last night had never happened? Was he joking? An intimate ache new to her experience was sufficient reminder of the intimacy they had shared. However, she was infinitely more worried about the risk of pregnancy. While she had been in the shower, counting and recounting the days of her cycle had given her no comfort. Rafaello had made love to her at what was supposed to be the optimum time for a woman to conceive. An even greater concern was her own inexplicable, bone-deep conviction that what she most feared had already happened and that right now deep down inside her tiny cells of human life were engaged in frantic baby-making activity.

‘Glory …’ Rafaello reached out and ensnared her fingers before she could reach for another slice of toast. ‘Did you fast before you arrived? Or are you now eating for two?’

Slowly Glory raised her head, bright blue eyes stricken in her pale oval face. ‘Is that really your idea of a joke?’

Rafaello sighed. ‘I know the way your mind works, bella mia. You took one look at those icons on the bed last night and primitive superstition felled you right before my eyes—’

‘I do not have primitive superstitions!’ Glory snapped.

‘No? If there had been a church within walking distance you’d have been in it all night on your knees,’ Rafaello groaned in rueful amusement. ‘Are you listening to me? We did nothing wrong …’

Compressing her lips, Glory dropped her head.

‘And no dire punishment is about to come your way,’ Rafaello continued with unshakable conviction. ‘I doubt that there will be repercussions from a single encounter.’

‘Got a hotline to mother nature too, have you?’ Glory could not resist saying.

Thrusting back his chair, Rafaello reached for her hands and hauled her up into the circle of his arms. ‘You’re the most appalling pessimist. Do you remember that picnic we had years ago? You kept on saying that it was such a gorgeous day that it was sure to rain. I couldn’t quite grasp that connection—’

‘It did rain,’ Glory reminded him, recalling that midsummer afternoon five years before when everything between them had seemed almost frighteningly perfect. Within forty-eight hours they had parted. ‘It rained when we were on the way back to the car.’

‘So you took the edge off the whole occasion, fretting about something you couldn’t control?’ Rafaello pushed up her chin and stared down at her mutinous face with dark golden eyes that sought and held hers. ‘That’s a waste of time and energy. Whatever happens, I’ll look after you.’

In receipt of those particular words, Glory shivered. So she was superstitious, so she believed in ESP. She noticed that he was no longer assuring her that he would marry her, had naturally thought better of that rash statement. No doubt he was already grateful that she had not accepted his proposal. She was tempted to ask what ‘looking after’ would entail but suspected that she already knew the answer. When a guy also used terms like ‘repercussions’ and ‘dire punishment’ as euphemisms for pregnancy he was telling her far more about his own attitude than he realised. Very probably he would suggest that a termination would be the wisest solution. No way, not her baby, Glory thought fiercely.

But there was no denying that she did suffer from that innate belief that every wrong action was followed by a kind of retributive balancing act. Even so, it was plain crazy for her to be imagining that she might be pregnant within hours of making love, wasn’t it? Once again, Rafaello was right. Conception was not an event she could influence. What was the point of worrying herself to death at this stage?

‘Finish your breakfast,’ Rafaello advised. ‘It’s a treat to be with a woman who has a healthy appetite.’

An involuntary laugh tumbled from her. ‘I couldn’t manage another bite …’

‘Nor could I—’

‘You haven’t eaten,’ she protested.

‘I breakfasted while you were still asleep.’ The dark timbre of his voice had taken on a husky edge.

A lean hand splayed across her hipbone. She collided with his amazing eyes. Hot, sizzling gold. The wild flare of sensual awareness made her tense. Her mouth running dry, it was she who moved closer, charged by her own shameless yearning. She stared up into that lean, strong face, reacting to the explosive tension and the weakening surge of heat awakening deep in her pelvis.

A shimmering smile of satisfaction slashed his beautiful mouth and she trembled. Her face burned as he let his hands slowly mesh into the fall of her hair, tipping back her head, letting his thumbs caress her earlobes, making her shiver. ‘I could not have trusted myself in that bed with you last night,’ he confided.

‘No?’ Glory snatched in an audible breath, so entirely in thrall to the magnetic spell of his sensual power that she was lost.

‘You deserved a night of undisturbed rest, so I slept next door and I tossed and I turned and I had a cold shower around dawn.’