Meredith Webber – Royals: His Hidden Secret: Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy / Date with a Surgeon Prince / The Secret King (страница 3)

Long minutes later, Simone emerged from the steamy shower cubicle and reached for a fluffy white towel. She’d barely finished drying her hair before a hammering noise started up at the door to her suite.

Cellar staff, Sarah had said. Impatient cellar staff.

‘Wait,’ she muttered, tucking the towel around her body and heading for the door, making sure she stood well behind it before opening it a fraction and peering out.

Not cellar staff, though he looked the part in his battered boots and well-worn work trousers. His grey T-shirt had seen better days too and could have been shapeless if not for the aid of the superbly muscled chest beneath it. His face was one she saw in her dreams, a strong and impossibly handsome face. Beloved once. Beautiful still. In her dreams those vivid blue eyes were always laughing, inviting her to share the joke and the moment with him. They weren’t laughing now.

‘Your receipt,’ he said quietly, and held it up between long strong fingers. ‘I was delivering the red wine for the wedding when the champagne came in.’

She opened the door a fraction wider and took the slip of paper from him. Their fingers did not touch. Rafael’s eyes did not warm. Not a dream then, but awkward, uncomfortable reality. ‘Merci.’

‘You’re early,’ he said next.

‘Yes.’ What could she say? That she’d arrived a day early so as to avoid having Gabrielle—or him—meet her at the airport? That she’d taken that extra time deliberately in order to armour herself against seeing him again? ‘Yes. A little early.’

Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he searched her face. ‘May I come in?’

‘No!’ Too breathless. Far too hasty. ‘No,’ she said again, trying for more composure. ‘Now’s not a good time.’

His eyed hardened. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you had company.’

Company? Company? As if she would attend this particular wedding with a lover in tow. Cursing herself for a fool, she moved out from behind the door and swung it wide open so that he could see for himself the kind of company she kept. Rafe’s hard gaze swept the room before returning to clash with hers.

Day, the household staff had named him back when they were children and Rafe had called Caverness home. Day, because of the sunshine in his nature and the brightness of his smile, never mind that he’d been the housekeeper’s unloved and unwanted son. And Lucien—her brother and Rafe’s partner in crime—Lucien with his watchful ways and inky-black hair had been Night. Somehow, it seemed as if their roles had been reversed.

‘I’m a little underdressed at the moment.’ Meeting him bereft of make-up and clad only in a towel had not been part of her master plan. ‘So if you would be so good as to leave…’

‘Being good isn’t something I excel at,’ he murmured silkily and leaned against the doorway, all raw and powerful male. His eyes made a leisurely study of her person. ‘Nice towel.’

He was fabulous when he was bad. She hadn’t forgotten. ‘Still out to defy the world, I see? How…predictable.’

‘No, I’ve given up defying the world. The reasoning was flawed.’ He sent her a devil’s smile. ‘Now I just want to rule it.’

‘Mmm.’ She sent him as cool a stare as she could manage for a woman dressed in a towel. ‘Wouldn’t a psychiatrist have fun with you.’

‘Well, she could,’ he murmured. ‘But only if she were naked and willing to be a very bad girl.’

Simone’s breath hitched in her throat and she could have sworn a flush started in the vicinity of her toes and shot straight to her scalp.

‘She could analyse herself afterwards,’ he continued in that dark, delicious rumble. ‘Give her something to do with her time because there certainly wouldn’t be any challenge in analysing me. I’m a simple soul, really.’

Not from where she was standing. Simone could feel herself being drawn towards him, moth to flame and perfectly willing to burn for just one more taste of all that barely contained heat.

Her luggage and car keys stood just inside the door. Simone reached for the suitcase handle, determined to stay calm. ‘I only arrived a few minutes ago. It’ll be ten more before I’m ready to see you,’ she murmured, and wished that her voice sounded steadier. She headed for the bathroom fast, grateful that the suitcase she towed behind her had wheels. ‘Close the door behind you if you decide not to wait,’ she added over her shoulder.

‘I’m not your servant, princess.’ There was no ignoring the bite in his words. ‘And you’ve never been ready for me.’

Finally, she thought with grim satisfaction. Finally, an honest reaction from him. ‘Yes, well…’ She reached down deep and called for calm in the face of his simmering, seething resentment. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’

She shut herself in the bathroom, sinking back against the wall as reaction set in. She held her hands out in front of her, palms down to the floor. Shaking hands and a heavy heart at what he could still make her feel, even after all these years. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing strength to her limbs and resolve to her trembling heart.

Time to get dressed. Time to find clothes in her suitcase that lent confidence and poise. Clothes that armed a woman against a man such as Rafael.

Beige trousers and her favourite sleeveless shirt in rich plum colours. Add a pair of vertiginous strappy leather sandals, a Cartier watch and a gauzy rainforest-green silk scarf; run a brush through her hair, emphasise her lips and eyes with a touch of make-up and maybe, just maybe, this time she’d be ready for him.

Not that she ever had been before.

Rafael brooded in silence as he made his way from the guest room into the tiny private courtyard attached to it. Simone Duvalier wasn’t meant to be here. Not today. Not ever, if Rafael had any say in the matter. Not that he seemed to have much say in anything of late. His sister’s upcoming wedding to Luc Duvalier had seen to that. Why they weren’t getting married in France where there was a perfectly serviceable seventeenth-century chateau at their disposal was anyone’s guess, but no, Gabrielle had insisted on holding the ceremony in Australia. Which meant that the wedding party entourage—which, granted, consisted only of Luc and Simone—were coming here.

He didn’t want them here.

Not Luc, for all that they had retained some semblance of friendship over the years.

Not Simone, looking flustered and fetching and far too vulnerable for his liking.

Rafe scowled at the jasmine climbing its way up the stone courtyard wall. Hadn’t he taught her never to appear weak in the face of one’s enemies? Hadn’t she remembered any of the lessons growing up at Caverness had taught them?

Never show fear, especially when your hands were slick with it.

Never let on how much something means to you lest someone take it away.

Never back down. Never give in.

Never look back.

Simone hadn’t had to learn that last lesson, only Rafael, but he’d never forgotten it. Indeed, he’d got royally drunk on one of his first nights in Australia and had those exact three words cut into his back. Not that he’d ever seen the tattoo, mind, although more than one woman had professed herself captivated by its beauty. Not once, in all the years it had graced his skin, had he ever sought its image.

He never looked back.

What the hell was taking her so long?

He had a million things to do today. Laying down the law on exactly how Simone Duvalier would conduct herself during her stay here hadn’t been one of them. That task had been on his list of things to do tomorrow.

Not that that bothered him. Rafael was an opportunist in the purest sense of the word. Today would do just as well. ‘Here’s how it’s going to be,’ he would say. ‘You’re going to stay out of my way. I’m going to stay out of yours. And you will not set foot in my house or on my land during your time here because I don’t want you there. Ever. Clear?’ And she would say, ‘Yes, crystal clear,’ with her eyes downcast, at which point he would get the hell out of there before he changed his mind.

Rafe paced the courtyard—he figured this took all of three seconds. He considered he might just probably be climbing the courtyard walls by the time Simone deigned to put in an appearance. How could it possibly take her ten minutes to throw on some clothes and run a comb through her hair?

Exactly ten minutes later Simone emerged from the bathroom, a vision of elegant sophistication and poise. She didn’t look towards the still open door, no, she turned her head towards the courtyard and looked straight at him, as if she’d known all along that he would be waiting for her there. He felt the impact of that quiet assessing gaze hit him like a silken fist.

She stepped out into the courtyard, one elegantly sandal-clad and perfectly pedicured foot in front of the other. ‘I thought we might perhaps manage a greeting this time round, but I can see you’re not in the mood,’ she said quietly.

He wasn’t. And it rankled him mightily that she knew it.

‘Would you care for a drink?’ she said next. ‘I was about to call for some coffee.’

‘No.’

‘Or, there’s probably juice or cola in the fridge if you’d prefer something cold. Come to think of it, I’d prefer something cold. Are you sure I can’t get you something?’