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He nipped suddenly at her ear and laughed softly as she gave a little squeak, furious with herself for being momentarily seduced by his evocative words into forgetting who and what he was. She, of all people, should know better than to get carried away by his technical mastery of a few seductive phrases. Taken individually, they weren’t even particularly clever ones...
Jennifer wriggled out of his grasp and found her mother and Dot exchanging silently satisfied looks. She hoped they hadn’t caught the substance of Rafe’s words, although they had undoubtedly understood the context.
‘I’d better clean these up so the kitchen’s clear for you to think about dinner, Mum,’ she muttered, bending for the tray.
‘Here, let me help you with that; you don’t seem to be having much luck with crockery today.’ Rafe hefted the tray and swivelled it on one flat palm, high above Jennifer’s safe reach. ‘I was a waiter, too, during my misspent youth,’ he told the two older women with a grin. ‘Anything to thwart my father’s attempts to send me to med school. So, if you need a silver service while I’m here, I’d be delighted to go through my paces.’
Out in the kitchen, Jennifer wrenched on the hot tap and bundled the cups from the tray into the sink with some liquid detergent. ‘Did you have to play up to them like that?’ she sizzled, under cover of the running water.
‘Would you rather I bit and snarled and knocked you around so they’d pity you for the brute you married?’
‘Yes!’
‘Liar. That would horribly upset your mother and that’s the last thing you want. This whole charade is to stop her worrying about you. She has absolutely no idea what you’re really like, has she?’
Jennifer ignored the comment. It was far too apt, in more ways than he would ever know. She concentrated angrily on the dishes, damning him for being so perceptive. For good or bad they were now co-conspirators, and she would be cutting her own throat if she was too antagonistic.
‘How did you find me?’ She and Sebastian had deliberately avoided mentioning exactly where they had met, and when asked where she was from Jennifer had merely said she was born in Auckland. She had wanted a permanent barrier between her New Zealand and English lives.
‘My father’s credit card receipts. I found one from Beech House amongst his things a few weeks ago, and recognised your signature from the register office,’ he said, revealing he had not only sharp eyes but an excellent visual memory. ‘Why did you tell Paula it was me you’d married?’
‘Believe me, I wish I hadn’t,’ she said fervently as she rapped a foamy cup upside down onto the tiled bench.
‘Careful, you’ll chip them if you throw them around like that,’ said Rafe, whipping a teatowel off the wall-hook beside the oven and beginning to dry with the comfortable ease of a man used to doing his own domestic chores.
There was a strained silence for a few moments, and just as it began to get on Jennifer’s overstretched nerves he chuckled.
“The Amazon? Couldn’t you think of anywhere more remote and inaccessible to send me?’ His amused sarcasm drifted into teasing provocation. ‘I suppose your ultimate aim was to have me eaten by piranhas during my morning swim in the river.’
‘Actually, we were just going to slowly drift out of love under the pressure of the long separation,’ she gritted. ‘But I must admit that the thought of having you swallowed alive by a giant anaconda had a certain tempting appeal!’
This time his laugh was full-throated. ‘Well, you’d better tell me what I was supposed to be doing on this famous expedition, just in case anyone starts asking me for details.’
‘You won’t be here long enough for them to ask,’ she argued.
‘Well, I’m certainly not going anywhere while this lasts.’ He nodded out of the window at the gritty fog which was continuing to darken the afternoon. His parked car was already coated with a thickly stippled layer of grey-brown volcanic dust. ‘I know you’d prefer me permanently out of the way, but even you can’t expect me to ignore traffic warnings and risk real death for the sake of your personal convenience.’
Reluctantly Jennifer described the fictitious trip she had created, and the function that her ‘husband’ was supposed to fulfil.
‘Photographer! I don’t know a thing about cameras!’
‘You modelled—you ran a magazine—’
‘Neither of which actually involved me getting behind the camera and taking the shots!’
She was irritated by his condescending amusement. ‘Well, I know you run several companies now, but I don’t think Sebastian ever said what it is you actually do every day.’ Only that it was very profitable. And Jennifer had resolutely avoided showing any curiosity in th
at direction. ‘So I just drew on your background—I said freelance photography was a sideline of yours.’
‘I see. I’m the artistic type. Currently respectable...but with plenty of potential to turn out to be a selfish, self-absorbed swine, constantly pursuing my own goals at the expense of yours,’ he guessed shrewdly. ‘What else did you make up about me that I should be warned about?’
‘Nothing,’ she said sullenly. ‘I knew the less I said the better.’
She finished the last teaspoon and pulled the plug out of the sink.
‘Do Paula and Dot know you’re pregnant?’
She angled her stubborn chin at him. ‘Of course they do.’
