Jessica Hart - Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

Rafe was silent. How could he argue with her? The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, and, besides, she was right. They didn’t have anything in common. They wanted different lives. Miranda wanted the fairy tale, and he couldn’t give her that. The sensible thing would be to admit that this had been a mistake and agree not to repeat it.

But it didn’t feel like a mistake when her skin was silky and her hair smelt of flowers and when losing himself in her had left him with an extraordinary sense of peace and a rightness he had never felt before.

A S THEdays passed, though, it began to seem more and more like the mistake Miranda had called it.

Rafe tried to carry on as before, but it was impossible. He couldn’t get the feel of her, the taste of her, out of his mind. Her scent and her softness and her sweetness seemed to be imprinted on every fibre of his being. Now he avoided touching her at all, afraid that if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop at taking her hand or resting his hand on her back to guide her through a crowd, but would end up yanking her into his arms and doing something stupid like begging her not to go.

Because she would go. Miranda was stubborn. Whitestones had been her goal all along, and now that it was in her sights she wouldn’t change her mind.

Rafe told himself that he didn’t want her to. He wanted a clever, sophisticated wife who would be a companion and a partner, who would run his houses for him and entertain and support him as he transformed Knighton’s and proved that he was worthy of the legacy his father had left him, however unwillingly. Miranda had no interest in doing any of that. She wasn’t what he needed.

No, he had to stay focused. He would find someone else, someone perfect, and forget Miranda and the soaring sweetness they had found together.

‘What did you think of Caroline?’ Rafe leant aside to let the waiter deposit a plate in front of him.

It was an evening towards the end of that long week, and they were in an Italian restaurant. Rafe suspected Miranda was no hungrier than he was, but they had both ordered a bowl of pasta. The reception they’d attended had finished by eight o’clock, and neither wanted to go home and endure terrible tension there, where nothing stood between them and the memories of the night they had shared. At least when they were out and surrounded by other people they could preserve the illusion that things were normal. Whatever normal was nowadays. Rafe wasn’t sure he could remember.

Miranda picked up her fork. ‘Caroline? Which one was she?’

‘She’s a solicitor. Blonde, attractive.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Miranda shrugged and took a mouthful of spaghetti. ‘A bit bland.’

‘What about Helen, then?’

‘She’d be very high maintenance.’

‘How on earth did you work that out?’

‘You can tell. You don’t get to be that driven without becoming completely neurotic on the way.’

Rafe blew out an irritated breath. ‘You don’t like any of the women I think might be suitable!’

What did he expect? Miranda wondered crossly. He was always doing this, speculating about the women he might ask out the moment she was gone, wondering which of them would make him the best wife, as if she was supposed to care . He seemed determined to rub her nose in the fact that there would be another woman sleeping with him, loving him, waking up to the warmth and security of his body and to the smile in his eyes.

She should never have asked him to make love to her. What a stupid, stupid thing to do! If she’d thought about it, she could have guessed what a wonderful lover Rafe would be. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known that he had a lot of experience. She understood now why all the beautiful women he had dated and had been photographed with had worn such wide smiles. She must have seemed woefully inexperienced in comparison, she thought miserably. No wonder he was so keen to find someone else now! He clearly couldn’t wait for her to leave.

Still, there was no need for him to go on and on and on about it. Rafe had been like this all week, she thought, exasperated. Everywhere they went, he wanted to know what she thought about the women they had met. He probably thought she had fallen in love with him since they had slept together and was terrified now in case she forgot the terms of their agreement.

He ought to know her better than that. Miranda’s lips thinned. The constant reminder that he was looking forward to a future without her was grating on her nerves, and she was brittle with the effort of not seeming jealous.

‘I don’t have to like any of them,’ she said, unable to keep the tightness from her voice. ‘ I’m not proposing to marry any of them.’

‘You could be a bit more supportive, though,’ said Rafe grouchily.

‘Supportive?’ Miranda’s voice rose as temper frayed the edges of her control and she dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter. ‘I’ve been supportive! I’ve dressed up like a doll every night. I’ve turned up at endless stupid parties and let you paw me in public. How much more supportive do you want?’

‘That’s what I’m paying you for,’ said Rafe, nettled. ‘Quite a considerable sum, in case you’ve forgotten.’

‘Believe me, I’ll have earned every penny!’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t ask for more if it’s been that awful,’ he snapped, still smarting from that pawing comment.

‘If I’d known what it was going to be like, I would have done!’ Miranda glared at him, her eyes a glacial green. ‘What do you think it’s been like, Rafe, having you parade women in front of me all week while you look them over like horses? I’m surprised you didn’t ask them to open their mouths so you could inspect their teeth! Did it ever occur to you to think that I might find that all a bit humiliating ?’

Rafe’s expression hardened. ‘That was the deal.’

‘The deal was that you pretend to be in love with me, not that you ignore me completely. You’ve been in a foul mood all week. You haven’t laid a finger on me, barely addressed a word to me and made sure everyone knew you were bored stiff by me. You did everything but dump me publicly! And you dare accuse me of not being supportive!’

A muscle was jumping in Rafe’s jaw, and his eyes were colder than Miranda had ever seen them. ‘You’re never happy, are you, Miranda? You don’t want to sleep with me again, but you complain when I don’t touch you. You want to run away to Whitestones, but you don’t want me to meet anyone I can be happy with.

‘Or maybe that’s the problem?’ he went on savagely as she sat there, cold with shock and fury. ‘You don’t want anyone to be happy because you don’t know how to be happy. You’re too repressed to let yourself go and have a good time, or, if you do, you immediately run away the moment happiness rears its ugly head.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Isn’t it? Why are you so desperate to go to Whitestones? OK, it’s somewhere you were happy in the past, but I’m betting its real appeal is the fact that there’s no one there who might ask you to be happy now.’ Rafe looked at her contemptuously. ‘You haven’t got the guts to go for what you really want, Miranda.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Miranda, pushing back her chair, picking up her plate, and tipping spaghetti right over his head. ‘That was exactly what I wanted to do,’ she told him.

Rafe leapt to his feet, swearing, and the low hum of conversation in the restaurant stopped abruptly as every head swivelled to stare at him as he stood there, spaghetti dripping from his hair and off his shoulders.