Jane Porter - Mediterranean Mavericks

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she was sitting in the bed belonging to a man she had only met for the first time tonight, wearing his shirt and his scents and his touch on her skin—she now had to endure the kind of conversation that belonged in a brothel!

Next he would be asking how much he owed her for her services. Give him half a chance and she knew he would love to denounce her out loud as a whore.

Well, what did that make him? Rachel wanted to know.

‘I am a clean-living, careful, healthy person,’ she snapped out indignantly.

‘I am relieved to hear it.’

He didn’t look it. ‘I don’t sleep around! And if you hit me with one more rotten insult, Mr Villani,’ she warned furiously. ‘I think I am going to physically attack you!’

‘My apologies if it sounded as if I was trying to insult you—’

‘You did insult me.’ She went to slide back down the bed.

‘But we don’t know each other.’

‘You can say that again,’ Rachel muttered.

‘And it is an issue we need to address.’

‘Well, you addressed it very eloquently,’ she told him and tugged up the duvet with a now go away kind of shrug.

If he read it he ignored it. ‘We have not finished with this.’

‘Yes, we have.’

‘No, Rachel, we have not…’

It was the alteration in his voice from stiff to weary that forced her to take notice. ‘We still have the issue of another kind of protection to discuss.’

Another kind…Rachel froze for a second, then slid back up the pillows again, only this time more slowly as she finally began to catch on.

He put it in simple words for her. ‘I did not protect us against—conception. I need to know if you did.’

It was like being hit with one hard knock too many; she felt all the colour drain from her face. ‘I don’t believe this is happening to me,’ she whispered.

Taut muscles stretched as he pulled himself in like a man trying to field his own hard knock. ‘I presume from your response that it is a problem.’

‘I’ve told you once—I don’t sleep around!’ she cried out.

A nerve flicked at the corner of his hard mouth. ‘You don’t need to sleep around to take oral contraception.’

‘Well, thank you for that reassuring piece of information,’ she said hotly. ‘But, in my case, and because I don’t sleep around, I—don’t take oral contraception either…’The heat in her voice trailed into a stifled choke.

He cursed.

Rachel covered her face with her hands.

She had just indulged in uninhibited sex with a stranger without any protection; now his millions of sperm were chasing through her body in a race towards their ultimate goal!

Fertilisation. A baby—dear God…

Suddenly she was diving out of the bed and heading at a run for the bathroom. She thought she was going to be sick but then found that she couldn’t. She wanted to wash herself clean inside and out!

Instead she just stood there with her arms wrapped around her middle and shook.

She heard him arrive in the door opening. ‘I h-hate you,’ she whispered. ‘I wish I’d never heard your stupid name.’

Raffaelle shifted his tense stance, relaxing it wearily so he was leaning against the doorframe. He wanted to echo her sentiments but he did not think she was up to hearing him say it while she stood there resembling a skittish pale ghost.

‘It happened, cara. Too late now to trade insults,’ he murmured flatly instead.

She swung round to stare at him, blue eyes bright with anger and the close threat of tears. ‘You think that kind of remark helps the situation?’

Pushing his hands into his trouser pockets, Raffaelle raised a black silk eyebrow. ‘You think that your previous remark helped it?’

No, she supposed that it didn’t.

Losing the will to stand upright any longer she sank down on to the closed toilet seat. ‘I’m so horrified by what we’ve done.’

‘I can see that.’

‘I don’t w-want a baby,’ she whispered starkly.

‘Any man’s or just mine?’

Rachel looked at the way he was standing there in the doorway—lounging there half-undressed. A tall, lean, tightly muscled supremo, the image of everything you would want to grab from the human male gene pool.

Feeling something disturbingly elemental shift in her womb, she went on the attack. ‘Being flippant about it doesn’t help.’

‘Neither does flaying yourself.’

She stared at him. ‘Where the heck are you actually coming from?’ she gasped out. ‘You don’t know me, yet you stand there looking as if you couldn’t care less about what we’ve done!’

‘I am a fatalist.’

‘Lucky you,’ Rachael muttered, pushing her hair back from her brow. ‘Whereas I am wishing that yesterday never began.’

‘Too late to wish on rainbows, cara.’

‘Now you are just annoying.’

‘I apologise,’ he drawled. ‘However, since we could well be in this for the long haul, I suggest you get used to my—annoying ways.’

‘Long haul—?’Her chin shot up. What was he talking about now?

‘Marriage comes before babies in my family,’ he enlightened.

Marriage—? ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ It made her feel sick to her stomach to say it, but—‘I’ll take one of those m-morning after pills that—’

‘No, you will not,’ he cut in.

She stood up. ‘That is not your decision.’

His silver eyes speared her. ‘So you are happy to see off a fragile life before it has been given the chance to exist?’

‘God, no.’ She even shuddered. ‘But I think it would be—’

‘Well, don’t think,’ he said coldly. ‘We will not add to our sins if you please. This is our fault not the fault, of the innocent child which may result. Therefore we will deal with it the honourable way—if or when it comes to it.’

‘With marriage,’ she mocked.

‘You must know I am considered to be quite a good catch, cara.’

Softly said, smooth as silk. A sharp silence followed while Rachel took on board what he was actually implying. Then she heaved in a taut breath. ‘I suppose I should have expected that one,’ she said as she breathed out again.

‘I don’t follow.’ He frowned.

‘The—you set me up for this accusation.’ She spelled it out for him. ‘The—you got me into bed deliberately so you could position yourself as the great millionaire catch!’

‘I did not say that.’ He sighed impatiently.

Oh, yes, he damn did! Inside she was quivering. Inside she was feeling as if she’d stepped into an ice cold alien place.

‘I’ll take the other option,’ she retaliated and went to push past him. The hand snaking out of his pocket grabbed her by the arm as the other hand arrived, holding a mobile telephone.

‘Let go of me.’

He ignored her and there was nothing relaxed about him now, Rachel saw as he hit quick-dial, then put the phone to his ear.

‘Are we still under siege from the press?’ he demanded.

He had to be talking to the security man in the foyer, Rachel realised. A new kind of tension sizzled all around them while he listened to the answer and she waited to find out where he was going with this.

The hard line of his mouth gave a twist as he cut the connection. Sliding the phone back into his pocket, he speared her with a hard look.

‘The paparazzi is still out there,’ he stated grimly. ‘I do not expect them to leave us alone any time in the near future—understand?’

Rachel just stared at him, all eyes and weighty heart and pummelled feelings.

‘Wherever you or I go from now on, I can almost guarantee that they mean to follow.’ He made his point brutally clear. ‘So think about it, cara,’ he urged grimly. ‘Do you want to take a walk out to the local all-night pharmacy and turn this thing into a tabloid sensation as the pack follow to witness you purchasing your morning-after medication—?’