Jessica Hart - Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

That was his fault too, Rafe knew. He had insisted that Miranda moved in. He had insisted on all of it.

He was a fool.

He couldn’t even blame any of it on Miranda, who was behaving perfectly, and that just made it worse. Why couldn’t she go back to being difficult? Instead, she went quietly off to work every day in one of her old suits, as cool and crisp and capable as ever. When she came back at night, she would change into one of the outfits Octavia had chosen so cleverly, and together they would go out, to drinks, to a reception, to dinner, to a party, so that, having missed her all day, he had to share her with everyone else at night.

She never complained, although Rafe knew that she must be bored and dreaming of Whitestones. She was keeping to her part of the bargain absolutely. No one watching her would ever guess that she wasn’t wildly in love with him, and there was no doubt that people were starting to look at him differently too, now they could see that he had settled down and chosen to marry someone so obviously not just a party girl.

He ought to be pleased, Rafe knew that too. He ought to be delighted , but the truth was that he didn’t like the fact that Miranda was just acting when she took hold of his arm, or leant against his shoulder, or smiled as she twined her fingers round his. She showed off her ring with just the right amount of bashful pride, as if she couldn’t quite believe her luck.

How was he supposed to concentrate on meeting a suitable bride when she was touching him like that, looking like that?

Pretending like that.

Because, of course, that was all she was doing. Pretending.

Ridiculously, he found himself making excuses to go home early so that he could spend some time with her before they went out. One day, she was just going up the steps to the front door when he met her. It was still warm, and she was wearing a plain short-sleeved blouse with a neat grey skirt and serviceable shoes, and still his throat closed with desire.

‘You’re late back today,’ he said.

‘They asked me if I would stay on and finish something for a big meeting tomorrow.’

Rafe could feel a muscle in his jaw beginning to twitch. It was childish, and he despised himself for it, but he hated the fact that Miranda spent her day with strangers, and was prepared to put in extra effort for them, exactly as she had done for him. He hated not being able to think of a single good reason why she shouldn’t.

‘You look tired,’ he said roughly. ‘Why don’t we just stay in tonight?’

Her eyes flickered. ‘But it’s the reception at the human rights centre.’

‘We don’t have to go,’ said Rafe as he unlocked the door. ‘We can stay in, get a takeaway, watch television…be normal.’

‘I’m not here to be normal,’ she said, looking at him with those clear eyes that seemed to see right through him. ‘I’m here to change your image, so that you can meet the kind of woman you really want to marry.’

The kind of women she insisted on finding wherever they went. She made a point of introducing them to him, and then leaving to talk to someone else, like a cat depositing a mouse at his feet.

Rafe hated that, too.

‘And to earn twenty-five thousand pounds,’ he said savagely. ‘Let’s not forget that!’

‘I don’t,’ said Miranda, infuriatingly composed. ‘Why do you think I get dressed up every night?’

It wasn’t for him.

‘There will be lots of interesting women there tonight,’ she went on after a moment. ‘I think we should go.’

Clearly she didn’t want to stay in with him, anyway. Rafe scowled as he held the door open for her. ‘It’s up to you.’

‘Don’t you want to go?’

How could he tell her now that he didn’t? That he wanted to stay here with her, to lie on the sofa with his head on her lap and tell her about his day? To listen to her crisp comments about the people she worked with, and make her laugh? To breathe in the fresh, clean fragrance of her and forget everything else?

He couldn’t tell her that she was the only woman he could think about. Miranda didn’t want him. She wanted Whitestones and a dog and the sea.

And he didn’t want her either, Rafe told himself. At least, he added fairly, he didn’t want to want her. What was the point of wanting someone determined to run away and live alone by the sea? He needed someone to share his life in London, to support him in making Knighton’s his own. He couldn’t do that in a tumbledown cottage that didn’t even have a phone line.

Rafe could see the door to his father’s old study as he followed Miranda into the hall. He remembered his father sitting behind his desk and glowering at him.

‘The trouble with you, boy, is that you never stick at anything,’ he would despair.

His father had been right, Rafe realised.

Well, now he had changed. He was going to prove his father wrong. He had got over infatuations before, and he would get over Miranda. Maybe tonight was the night he would meet a gorgeous, intelligent, funny woman who would marry him and have his children and be there for him long after Miranda had gone.

No, he had made a plan, and he would stick with it. He had made a deal with Miranda, and he would stick with that, too.

‘Of course I want to go,’ he said.

Miranda opened the wardrobe and contemplated the array of dresses without enthusiasm. Her heart had leapt when Rafe had suggested that they stay at home, but she hadn’t dared accept. She didn’t trust herself.

Funny, she had always thought those weeks when Fairchild’s finally collapsed would be the most difficult she ever had to face, but in some ways the last fortnight had been harder. Miranda had given up trying to convince herself that she wasn’t in love with Rafe, but the more she agonised over it, the more hopeless it seemed. Rafe had made it very clear what he wanted. He didn’t believe in the fairy tale. He wasn’t going to fall in love, and, even if he did, it wouldn’t be with someone like her, now would it?

Get real, Miranda would tell herself dolefully. She could dress up in a few fancy dresses, but they didn’t change the person she was underneath. She was still plain Miranda Fairchild, and she still hankered for the tranquillity of Whitestones, where she had felt loved and accepted for herself.

Where she had been happy.

Where she longed to be happy again.

There was no point in dreaming that Rafe would give up his billion-dollar inheritance for a tumbledown cottage by the sea. He had things to prove to himself, and to the father who had died before he could appreciate the man his son had become. Besides, there were lots of women out there who would be happy to stay in London and make him the perfect wife. Miranda knew only too well that she wasn’t what Rafe needed, and that if she let herself imagine for one minute that she was, she would only get hurt.

She didn’t want to be hurt. She wanted to be happy, and she would be once she got to Whitestones.

In the meantime, Miranda could only protect her heart the best she could, but it was agony being with Rafe, but not really being with him, touching him but not really touching him, kissing him, but not the way she wanted to.

Not the way they had kissed outside Rosie’s flat. Not the way she had fantasised about kissing him at the jeweller’s. The taste of his mouth and the feel of his lean, hard body was lodged in her brain, in the very fibre of her, in every cell beneath her skin, where the memory simmered constantly, flaring the instant Rafe walked into the room or took her hand or smiled.

Which he did a lot. They were supposed to be engaged, after all, and Rafe was doing a very good impression of being in love with her. Look at the way he had kissed her in that bar, as if she were the only person in the world for him. Miranda’s heart cracked whenever she remembered the piercing sweetness of that kiss. It had felt so real .