LITMIR.BIZ

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himself a glance at her, standing there looking paler than usual with an oddly fragile look to her slender stance. A frown cut a dark crease across his brow. Why fragile? Was her conscience pricking her? Did she possess one? Had she spent the afternoon comparing her old lover with her new lover?

      Which of them had won the contest?

      A curse rattled its way around his throat and he looked away again, wondering when the hell she had got to him so badly that he even considered that damn question?

      Dio. Rachel was bad for him. She had been bad for him from the moment he’d set eyes on her. Her type, her kind, were poison to a guy like him and maybe it was time that he got himself the cure.

      The owner of the newspaper arrived then, like the perfect answer to his thoughts. Tall, blonde, and beautiful, and dressed in rich, dark purple that moulded her long, slender curves, Francesca de Baggio was the kind of woman who answered most men’s desires.

      Raffaelle went to meet her. They embraced with murmured greetings to each other that showed the intimacy of lovers from eons ago. As his lips brushed her cheeks he smelled her sensuous perfume, felt the smoothness of her skin at her shoulders beneath his palms. As her red lips lingered at the corner of his mouth he waited for the expected tingle to light him up from the inside.

      It did not happen.

      ‘Ciao, mi amore,’ she moved those red lips to whisper softly in his ear. ‘The betrothed does not look happy. Have you beaten her soundly?’

      Almond-shaped eyes that matched the colour of her dress gleamed up at him with a conspiratorial smile. Anger erupted inside him, fresh anger—new anger—leaping on a desire to jump to Rachel’s defence.

      ‘You know better than I do how a photograph can misrepresent the truth.’

      The almond eyes widened and filled with amusement. How was it he had forgotten that Francesca was in the tabloid business because she loved the trouble it allowed her to cause?

      ‘His name is Alonso Leopardi,’ she informed him softly. ‘He sells cars for a living and loves them as much as he loves women. He also rents an apartment above the café they were sitting at being so. cosy. Convenient, hmm?’

      Raffaelle was hooked like a fish and he knew it. It was perhaps fortunate that Gino and Daniella came up to greet Francesca then, because it saved him from making a bloody fool of himself by letting Francesca see that she’d reeled him in.

      Looking round for Rachel, he could see her nowhere. For a tight, thick, blood-curdling second he thought she must have walked out. For a blinding, sickening, sense-drowning moment he actually saw her in his head, making a run for it, grabbing a cab and heading for her heartbreaker in a white-faced urgent adrenalin rush of need.

      A clammy sweat broke out all over him. He took a step away from the group of his friends now gathering around Francesca to welcome her into their fold.

      Common sense was telling him not to be so stupid. Rachel would not just walk out on him—even if the way he had been behaving tonight was enough in itself to justify her walking out.

      He saw her then, right over on the other side of the busy restaurant. She was just stepping into the ladies’ room with her blonde head bowed slightly and a slender white hand pushed up against her mouth.

      She’d looked pale all evening, he remembered. His mind flipped from hating her to worrying about her. How could he have forgotten the baby they could have made, which might be making its presence felt as she made a quick dash into the Ladies'?

      Concern wanted to send his feet in her direction. Only common sense warned him not to make a scene here. Turning back to Francesca, he saw her watching him with an eyebrow arched curiously. Dragging on his social cloak, he forced himself to smile as he walked back to her.

      Rachel was fighting the need to be sick in the toilet. The clammy sweat of nausea had flooded over her the moment she’d seen the way Raffaelle had walked into the arms of the beautiful blonde.

      ‘Ex-lovers,’ Daniella had whispered to her. ‘Don’t they look amazing together? He adored her once but she left him for her now ex-husband. We thought he would never get over it— maybe he didn’t. He spent the afternoon with her,’ she confided with relish. ‘I know because Gino told me Raffaelle cancelled a meeting with him to go to her. Now she’s here. An interesting development, don’t you think?’

      Was it? Rachel discovered that she no longer knew anything. Her head was thumping too thickly to think. A month—a month in which she had lived and slept with him, had trailed around Europe with him as his pretend future bride. But what did she really know about Raffaelle, other than he was a fantastic lover and was willing to go to any lengths to protect himself from getting a negative press?

      By the time she felt able to rejoin the party, everyone was gathered around a long wooden table. Still fighting down nausea, Rachel found herself having to take the only seat left available between Daniella and another male friend of Raffaelle’s, whose name she couldn’t recall right now.

      Raffaelle was sitting at the other end of the table. The beautiful Francesca was next to him. She had arrived here on her own and Rachel supposed that, given the odd number of men to women, the dinner placements had become muddled.

      But it was the first time that Raffaelle was not occupying the seat beside her like a statement of possession.

      Had he even noticed that she was not sitting on his other side?

      Not that Rachel could tell. His attention was too firmly fixed on his new dining partner. And she was not the only one to notice the change in place settings, or the difference in him. Others kept sending her brief telling glances, then looking down the table at him.

      Raffaelle did not notice. He was too busy plying his beautiful companion with wine and food, while Rachel could barely bring herself to swallow a thing. And, to top this whole disaster of an evening, having her handsome fiancé sitting beside her was enough protection to give Daniella’s tongue back its sharpened edge.

      ‘How is Elise?’ she began innocently enough.

      ‘Fine,’ Rachel responded. ‘She’s still in Chicago with her husband and son.’

      ‘And your. half-brother? The one with the camera? Is he still enjoying playing tricks on the rich and famous?’

      How Daniella had managed to discover that Mark was her half-brother Rachel just did not feel like finding out right now. ‘Mark is fine,’ she answered in the same level tone and tried to change the subject. ‘How are your wedding plans coming along?’

      ‘Wonderful.’ Daniella smiled happily. ‘I’m here in Milan for my dress-fitting. Isn’t that dress you’re wearing—?’ She named a top designer. ‘Did Raffaelle buy it for you? How much do you think you have stung him for by now?’

      ‘My dress is not by that particular designer,’ Rachel answered quietly, ‘and I pay for my own clothes.’

      ‘Well, don’t bother buying anything expensive for my wedding, darling, because by the look of it you will not be coming.’ Daniella flicked her eyes down the table. ‘Knowing Raffaelle as well as I do, I think I can positively predict that you are on your way out and Francesca is definitely on her way back in.’

      One short glance down the table was enough for Rachel to confirm why Daniella felt so very sure about that. If it wasn’t enough that he had ignored her all evening, the way he was smiling that oh-so-familiar lazily sensual smile at the beautiful Francesca was the final straw for her.

      ‘You know what, Daniella?’ She turned back to her tormentor. ‘Watching you marry that poor fool sitting next to you is the last thing on earth that I want to do.’ The poor fool heard what she said and turned sharply to look at her. She ignored him. ‘So dance on my grave, if that’s what turns you on, darling,’ she invited. ‘And, while you’re doing it, tell your stepbrother from me that he can have his Francesca with my absolute blessing!’

      Then

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