AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You’d lose; he’d guessed already.’ She felt mean when her mother’s face fell.
‘Oh.’ She rallied. Once having conquered her depression, Paula had been resolute in finding silver linings. ‘But I’ll bet he was pleased.’
‘He was...’ She looked at her parent’s brightly expectant blue eyes and sighed. ‘He was pleased. It’s just—being an only child and not having a very good relationship with his own father, I suppose he’s a bit wary of what it entails.’
‘Well, he strikes me as being a very determined man,’ said Paula. ‘I think that if he wants something badly enough he’ll succeed in achieving it through sheer force of will if necessary.’
Jennifer had ample evidence of that. He had badly wanted her last night and he had certainly achieved that goal, though not, she admitted, purely from force of will. He had succeeded because, in spite of her insistence to herself that she was only interested in sex, Rafe already had a piece of her heart. Attracted as she had always been to him physically, it was the deeply sensitive man that she had glimpsed beneath the mocking cynic who had truly exerted the most powerful appeal. As soon as she had learned that he was the father of her baby she had felt a shocking sense of recognition, of inevitability, of jealousy and possessiveness that had sent her shooting off in the opposite direction. But she hadn’t been able to outrun either Rafe or her own confused feelings. And now that she knew he was also Sariel he had unknowingly established another claim on her emotions—he was someone she liked and respected, and as Lacey Graham she knew her respect was reciprocated.
Respect and liking, however, were the last things she felt when Rafe came downstairs in jeans, white shirt and a shearling-lined corduroy jacket to receive her mother’s lavish congratulations on his impending fatherhood. For he was still carrying her book, tucked visibly in the side pocket of his jacket.
He acknowledged her furtive glare with a grin as he told her mother that, no, he didn’t care if it was a son or daughter, as long it was healthy and had Jennifer’s beautifully expressive brown eyes.
Then he charmingly offered to help with their task.
‘Oh, you don’t have to do that, Rafe. You sit down and relax. You’re on holiday. You deserve some rest after your marathon experience in the jungle. Dot says it’s very physically draining, working in that type of climate.’
‘I do feel rather physically drained after my recent experiences,’ said Rafe, his mocking glance at Jennifer leaving her in no doubt as to the exact experiences he had in mind. ‘But once you acclimatise yourself to a place or activity it’s amazing how quickly you reenergise and find yourself ready for action again. Really, I’d like to help.’
‘Well, you can do the magazines, then, since you’re in the publishing business. Jen, you help Rafe—I’ll do the clothes.’
‘These are all at least ten years old!’ discovered Rafe as he dug down to the bottom of the box.
‘The box has been in the garage for years. Mum probably picked them up second-hand herself,’ said Jennifer, with a sudden qualm. ‘Some of these things are endlessly recycled around the various charity bazaars. Let’s just put them all in—’
‘Hey, I was featured in some of these.’ Rafe’s unshaven face was boyishly eager as he unearthed a few dusty copies of English Vogue and riffled through the pages. He looked ludicrously disappointed when he failed to find what he was looking for, and frowned as he ran his finger up the centre fold.
‘The pages’ve been cut out!’ He sounded as outraged as if someone had removed the frescoes from the Sistine chapel, and with an inner smile Jennifer realised that he had wanted to show off, to display his pride like a peacock to her admiring gaze.
‘We probably used them to line Fergus’s cage,’ she couldn’t resist saying, knowing she was making a noose for her own neck.
Sure enough, her mother punished her for her meanspiritedness. ‘More likely they’re in Jen’s scrapbook. Maybe you didn’t know, but Sebastian used to cany a picture of you from Esquire magazine folded up in his wallet.’
Colour ran up under the tanned skin of Rafe’s face and he looked down at his hands. ‘No, I didn’t know. He was always insulting about my choice of career.’
‘Well, he showed it to us the first time we met him,’ Paula continued gently, ‘and told us that you took after your mother in looks and him in brains. After that, whenever Jen saw a picture of you in any of the old magazines I bought, she’d cut it out and put it in a book to show Sebastian the next time he came.’
Rafe’s flush didn’t fade as he turned to look at Jennifer, an arrested expression in his eyes. ‘You mean I was your pin-up years before you even met me?’ he murmured, the corner of his mouth turning up.
More than he knew!
‘I didn’t pin you up, I taped you down,’ she said tartly.
‘Sounds kinky, darling. Did I like it?’
‘I was young and impressionable,’ she said primly. ‘You were the only famous, glamorous person I knew.’
‘But you didn’t know me.’
‘By proxy I did.’
‘Our relationship obviously started the way it was intended to go on,’ he said drily, and then had to reintroduce the ubiquitous Amazon when Paula wanted to know what he had meant.
Dot came in from dusting her garden and they had a casual lunch of thick vegetable soup and home-baked bread rolls. While they were eating Rafe suggested that an ideal marketing ploy for Beech House might be to take advantage of Paula’s special talents and offer residential cooking classes that would enable them to charge a premium rate for the combined accommodation and lessons. That led to a discussion of other, more fanciful ideas, but when Rafe talked about the potential of the upstairs bedroom being a luxury suite for those guests who didn’t like sharing a bathroom, Jennifer felt constrained to point out that it was already occupied.
‘True, but what if you didn’t live here any more?’
Her eyes flashed a warning at him. What on earth was he trying to do?
