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couldn’t you be friendless?’ she tossed out helplessly.

      He just grinned. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, cara, but I am certainly not friendless.’

      ‘But your stepsister of all people. She knows we are fakes!’

      His mood changed in a flicker. ‘Stop playing the scared innocent, Rachel, when we both know you are far from it,’ he clipped out. ‘This is what you signed up for to save your sister’s marriage. And lovers who fall on one other as often as we do are certainly not faking it!’

      She pushed her hands through her hair. ‘You know what I meant.’

      ‘And you know what I mean when I say—get your act together,’ he instructed, ‘because we are going out in public tonight and I want the besotted lover by my side, not the farmer with a chip on her shoulder a mile wide!’

      Rachel stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to imply?’

      He threw out an impatient hand. ‘You compare yourself badly to your more glamorous sister,’ he provided. ‘You compare me with your ex-lover and hate the fact that I am Italian like him.’

      ‘I do not!’ she denied.

      ‘Was he good-looking?’ he demanded.

      ‘What has that got to do with anything?’ Her eyes went wide in bewilderment.

      ‘Was he—?’ he persisted.

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘How old?’

      ‘My age—’

      ‘And what kind of car did he drive?’

      She sucked in an angry breath. ‘A red Ferrari,’ she answered. ‘But that wasn’t—’

      ‘Great,’ he gritted. ‘Mine is silver. Is that a bad mark against me or one against him for being too flashy?’

      ‘You’re crazy,’ she breathed.

      Maybe he was. At this precise moment Raffaelle did not know why he was so fired up about a man he probably would not give a second thought to in other circumstances.

      ‘Just go and get ready.’ He turned his back on her and strode into his study, wanting to toss his drink to the back of his angry throat but refusing to allow himself the gut soothing pleasure while she was standing there staring at him. ‘And I don’t like flashy, so don’t come out dressed in red!’ he could not stop himself from adding.

      Then he shut the door—slammed the damn door!

      Rachel shook all the way into the bedroom. She shook as she removed her coat and laid it aside. She had absolutely no idea what all of that had been about and she didn’t think that she wanted to know.

      Did he hate her—was that it? she immediately questioned. Did he resent her being here so badly that he needed to take chunks out of her to get his own back on her for putting him in this situation in the first place?

      Was he locked in his silly study praying that she wasn’t pregnant with his child?

      And he did not want to see the farmer dressed in flashy red when she came out. Her lips gave a quiver. He preferred to see the sleek Elise look-alike because at least he could relate to her and pretend she was his type!

      Rachel stripped off her clothes and walked into the bathroom, not sure if she wanted to throw things or cry her eyes out.

      The tears almost won the moment she stepped beneath the shower spray and she would have let them if he had not chosen that moment to push open the bathroom door and stride fully naked into the shower.

      ‘No, don’t stiffen up,’ he said as she did exactly that. ‘I am here to make you feel better, not worse.’

      He drew her back against him, angling both of them so the shower sprayed down her front, then dropped his lips to her ear. ‘I came to apologise for being bad-tempered out there.’

      ‘You mean it’s just hit you that you have to trail me in front of your friends having ripped my head off,’ Rachel said.

      ‘I had a bad day.’

      He was tasting her earlobe now. Rachel jerked it away.

      ‘Accepting invitations you had no desire to accept.’

      ‘While thinking of you and that bed I had walked away from.’ He chased the earlobe again. ‘So I was bad tempered all day and came home more than ready to find you waiting for me. But you were not here; you were out enjoying yourself.’

      ‘Playing the farmer to my heart’s content.’

      ‘I like the farmer,’ he murmured lustily. ‘She is toned and sleek and very sexy. I am also jealous of the ex-lover …’

      That shocking confession finally stopped her from trying to pull away from him.

      ‘Impressed by that?’ he mocked.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered honestly.

      ‘I thought you might be.’ His mouth bit gently into the sensitive crook between her shoulder and neck.

      Rachel’s breathing feathered and she closed her eyes, giving herself up to this when she knew that she shouldn’t. Wanting him to want her for herself and not just because she was here for the taking.

      He found the soap and used it to paint every inch of her he could reach. Soon she was lost in a scented steam-filled world that shut out everything else.

      Afterwards she felt lazy and languid and much too aware of him as her irresistible lover as the two of them moved around between the bathroom, bedroom and dressing room, preparing to go out.

      Which had been the object of the exercise in the shower, she reminded herself. Several times he stopped her passing him by just fusing his mouth to hers in a slow clinging kiss and the lazily hooded way in which he watched her shyly lower her eyes and move away quickly only heightened an intimacy that was threatening to take her over completely if she didn’t watch out.

      She was relieved when he finally left her alone so she could finish getting ready without having him around as such a breathtaking distraction. By the time she joined him in the living room Rachel truly believed she had managed to get herself together—until he looked up from the broadsheet newspaper he was reading while lounging on a sofa and the whole whirlwind of awareness whipped into action again.

      She’d chosen to wear a sleek short V-neck dress in dramatic matt black. Elise had donated the dress, claiming that it did not suit her because she didn’t have the curves to fill it out.

      Well, Rachel had the curves and, the way that Raffaelle was looking at her, he had not missed a single one. Her hair was loose, its curls carefully ironed out so the style was smooth and sleek. As he rose to his feet her blue eyes followed him, defiant yet anxious—just in case she did not look as good as she hoped she did.

      But the look reassured her as he came towards her wearing the kind of black lounge suit that yelled couture homme. When an Italian male dressed he never ever dressed badly, was Rachel’s single dry-mouthed heart pummelling observation.

      ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured as he reached her, sending pleasurable shivers chasing up her spine as he bent to brush a caress on her cheek. ‘But I prefer the curls.’

      ‘Different woman,’ she answered with a small shrug.

      His eyes narrowed, all the sensuality hardened out of his mouth. He said nothing for several long seconds and Rachel knew she had just managed to remind him of the real reason why they were together.

      Maybe that was a good thing, she decided, as he helped her into the little black satin evening jacket she had brought into the room with her, still without saying anything else. They left the apartment and travelled in the lift down to where Dino waited by the car with the rear passenger door open.

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